Leonard Henry Alden (1873–1937)
Mayor of Oxford 1936–7
Leonard Alden in 1936/7 (Picture Oxon 0618233)
Leonard Henry Alden was born at Eastwyke Farm at Grandpont, Oxford in 1873.
He was the son of Robert Rhodes Alden, the butcher at Eastwyke Farm, and Hannah Morriss, who was born in Southampton.
His parents were married at Southampton in 1868 and had eleven children: Grace, Arthur, Leonard, Stanley, Reginald, Harold, Edward, William, Frederick, Eveline, and Winifred.
The five generations of Aldens before Leonard
- William Alden, Leonard Alden’s great-great-great-grandfather, had come from America to settle in Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire in the eighteenth century.
- Thomas Alden (1745–1830) was Leonard Alden's great-great-grandfather.
- Isaac Alden (1770–1832), Leonard Alden's great-grandfather and the son of Thomas Alden, had been a yeoman in the service of Webb Seymour, the 10th Duke of Somerset, and in January 1792 when the Duke's eldest son Edward Adolphus Seymour went up to Christ Church, Oxford Isaac was sent to accompany him. When the 10th Duke died less than two years later in December 1793, Edward succeeded his father as the 11th Duke. On 26 May 1794, presumably just after the young Duke graduated, Isaac Alden (described as being of Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire) married Martha Curtis at North Hinksey Church. Their first son was born in Chipping Sodbury in 1796, but by early 1797 Isaac had taken on the tenancy of Eastwyke Farm in Grandpont under a 200-year lease. He was a Baptist who served as a warden of New Road Baptist Church, so the births of all ten of his children between 1796 and 1809 are recorded in that church's register, and he himself was buried there on 16 September 1832.
It was Isaac Alden who started the family's butcher's business, and he was the head of an Alden dynasty of butchers and printers in Oxford. - Thomas Amos Alden (1807–1874), Leonard Alden's grandfather and the son of Isaac & Martha Alden, was born in All Saints' parish in Oxford. He followed his father Isaac into the business, and founded the Alden’s butcher’s shop in the Covered Market in Oxford. He was a widower when on 12 December 1834 he married Elizabeth Bland of St Giles in St Aldate's Church. They had seven children, all born at Eastwyke Farm.
- Robert Rhodes Alden (1841–1927), Leonard Alden's father and the son of Thomas Amos & Elizabeth Alden, opened more R. R. Alden butcher's shops in Oxford's Covered Market.
Eastwyke Farm, leased by the Aldens from 1794 to 1988, photographed in 2011
Leonard Alden
The 1881 census shows Leonard as a child of 7 living at Eastwyke Farm with his father Robert Rhodes Alden, his mother Hannah, his sister Grace (11), and five of his brothers: Arthur (9), Stanley (5), Reginald (3), Harold (2), and Edward (seven months). There were eventually to be eight Alden sons, of whom five (including Leonard himself) followed their father into the butchery trade.
Leonard Alden was educated privately and then at the Oxford Central School. At the time of the 1881 census he was a schoolboy of 7, living at Eastwyke Farm with his parents and his siblings Grace (11), Arthur (9), Stanley (5), Reginald (3), Harold (2), and Edward (six months), plus their gentleman's servant and nurse.
By the time of the 1891 census Leonard (17) was a butcher’s assistant, living with his parents at Eastwyke Farm. His older brother Arthur (19) was a butcher’s shopman, his younger brother Stanley (15) was an apprentice grocer, while his other siblings Reginald, Harold, Edward, William, Frederick, Eveline, and Winifred were still at school. The family had one servant.
On 20 June 1894 at South Hinksey Church, Leonard Alden (21), described as a butcher of Eastwyke Farm, married Emily Penn (21), who was living at 162 Abingdon Road, New Hinksey, the daughter of the college servant Edward Penn. They appear to have started their married life in Cowley St John, moving to New Hinksey by 1895, and then to Egrove Farm in South Hinksey in about 1900. They had seven children:
- Arthur Rhodes Alden (born in Cowley St John on 22 December 1894)
- Nellie Alden (born in New Hinksey on 28 November 1895)
- Grace Morris Alden (born in New Hinksey on 11 October 1898), later Mrs Wilkes
- Leonard Stanley Alden (born at Egrove Farm in South Hinksey on 28 January 1901)
- Rodney Robert Alden (born at Egrove Farm in South Hinksey on 31 May 1902)
- Kathleen Alden (born at Egrove Farm in South Hinksey on 19 April 1904), later Mrs Clapcott
- Priscilla M. Alden (born in Oxford on 26 June 1911). later Mrs Hawes.
From 1898 to 1908 Alden was Chairman of South Hinksey Parish Council.
At the time of the 1901 census Leonard (27), described as a butcher, farmer, and cattle dealer, was living at Egrove Farm in South Hinksey with his wife Emily (28) and their four eldest children Arthur (6), Nellie (5), Grace (2), and Leonard junior (under three months), plus one servant. His parents Robert & Hannah were still living at Eastwyke Farm with Leonard's siblings Reginald (23), Harold (22), Edward (20), William (18), Frederick (16). Eveline (14), and Winifred (13), plus one domestic servant.
By 1911 Alden (39), described as a butcher and farmer, was living at Eastwyke (or Eastwick) Farm on the Abingdon Road with his wife Emily (38) and five of their first six children: Nellie (15), Grace (12), Leonard junior (10), Rodney (8), and Kathleen (6). They also had two domestic servants. Their eldest son Arthur Rhodes Alden (16) was a civil service student living in a boarding house at Shepherd's Bush, and their youngest child, Priscilla, was born later that year. His parents Robert Rhodes Alden and his mother Hannah had moved to 232 Woodstock Road, and their two youngest daughters were still with them.
The 1921 census shows Alden (48), described as a butcher & farmer with a stall in Oxford Market, living on his Abingdon Road farm with five of his grown-up children. Only his son Rodney Robert Alden (19) worked in the farming business.
Alden was Chairman of South Hinksey Parish Council from 1898 to 1908, and a Liberal Oxford City Councillor from 1919 to 1936. While on the council he was Chairman of the Farm Committee (1920-5), Vice-Chairman of the Watch Committee (1922–6) and Chairman of the Highways Committee and the Sewers and Lighting Committee (1931–6). In 1935 he was Chairman of Oxford Liberal Association.
Alden was President of the Master Butchers’ Association, and acted as Cattle Judge in Reading, Northampton, Wellington in Shropshire, and finally at Smithfield (1935–6). His business was described as “probably the biggest butchering business under one roof in England”.
In November 1936 at the age of 63, Leonard Alden was elected Mayor of Oxford (for 1936/7) and during his year of office was made an Alderman. The Coronation of George VI on 12 May 1937 fell during his mayoralty, and he attended the Coronation with his sergeant, as his wife Emily had been ill for a long time, and she died the next month. He died just three weeks after her funeral.
† Leonard Henry Alden died on 21 July 1937 in the Radcliffe Infirmary after he had driven from Eastwyke Farm to visit his son Robert at his farm at Wheatley Bridge and was hit by a car when walking across the road between the farm and its yard.
His funeral service at New Road Baptist Church was attended by the Vice-Chancellor and many other members of the University as well as many members of the corporation. The Minister said at his funeral:
We see the passing of a type for he had lineage and descent … generations under the same roof … farming the same fields, and known and respected in the same city life…. And on that yeoman stock Leonard Alden grafted some new qualities. He did not rise in any pretentious way above it … he loved his flowers and his cattle, and his fields. He was a yeoman of England.
At a luncheon the Vice-Chancellor (Alexander Dunlop Lindsay) said:
I thought more of the Mayor every time I met him. You expect at the head of a great city ability, honesty, and shrewdness, but you will not misunderstand me when I say that you don’t expect to find a saint. I do think our Mayor was, in a most straightforward sense, a saint… I felt that everybody in the city really must respect and love him.
He was buried with his wife at Wolvercote Cemetery (see his grave).
His effects came to £48,062 17s. 11d., and his executors were his three sons (Arthur Rhodes Alden, now a civil servant, Leonard Stanley Alden, now a motor engineer, and Rodney Robert Alden, now a master butcher) and his solicitor.
Isaac Alden's son Robert Rodney Alden took over the family butcher's business, followed in turn by his four sons Rodney, Peter, David, and Richard. Richard Alden's son Matthew Alden took it over in 2003.
Alden’s head office at Eastwyke Farm closed in 1988, and the land reverted to University College. The Four Pillars Hotel was built on the site, and in March 2010 they converted the farmhouse to ten additional hotel rooms. The Alden family business is now at Osney Mead.
Sir Percy Alden
Leonard Henry Alden's great-uncle John Alden, who was another son of Isaac Alden and Martha Curtis, was also a butcher:
see his biography (St Sepulchre's Cemetery).
John Alden's son Isaac Alden junior by his second wife Caroline Cabbell married Harriet Kemp, and their son was Sir Percy Alden.
See also:
- Who’s Who in Oxfordshire, 1936, p. 5
- Oxford Magazine, 1937–8, p. 4 (obituary)
- Oxford Monthly, August 1937, p. 1
- Oxford Times, 23 July 1937, pp. 14c and 15fg (obituary and editorial)
- The Times, 29 July 1937, p. 15 (obituary)
- Clyde Binfield, “The Aldens of New Road: A Baptist continuity” in Rosie Chadwick (ed.), A Protestant Catholic Church of Christ: Essays on the History and Life of New Road Baptist Church, Oxford (Oxford: Alden Group Ltd, 2003), pp. 201–58
- Portrait of Leonard Alden in the Council Chamber Corridor of the Town Hall
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Aldate), RG11: 1501/52
- 1891 Census: Oxford (St Aldate), RG12: 1167/20
