James junior died on 12 September 1863 at the age of 53 and was buried at
St Clement's Church, where his funeral was attended by over 2000 people. His
wife Alicia died just five months later, in February 1864, at the age of 42.Headington
Gathorne G'stone & the Morrells
For Gathorne Girdlestone , see his individual page
Headington remembers these three families in Morrell Avenue, Wharton Road, and Tawney Street; but there are also physical reminders of them all still standing in Headington:
These three families are so inextricably linked to the history of Headington and to each other that it is impossible to disentangle them.
The origin of Morrell's Brewery
(Tawneys and Morrells)
The first connection between the Tawneys and the Morrells was purely commercial. In 1743 Richard Tawney the elder, a 60-year-old former boatmaster of Upper Fisher Row, founded what was to become Morrell's Brewery in St Thomas's, Oxford. He had two sons Richard (1721-1791) and Edward (1735-1800), each of whom was three times Mayor of Oxford. Richard Tawney the younger (Sir Richard from the early 1770s) left no male heir, and so the brewery passed to his younger brother Edward. In 1797 Edward Tawney, who had no children, entered into an agreement with Mark and James Morrell, nephews of Oxford's most promising solicitor James Morrell, to take them into partnership while they began to buy out his interest in the brewery.
The first important link between Morrell's Brewery and Headington began not, as might be expected, with Headington Hill Hall but with another house in Headington. Edward Tawney the brewer had built himself a gentleman's farmhouse facing on to the Croft in Old Headington, and on his death in 1800 he bequeathed it to Mrs Ann Wharton for her lifetime, and to her eldest son Theophilus Wharton junior after her death. (Ann, the wife of a High Street apothecary Theophilus Wharton, was the daughter of Edward Tawney's much older half-sister Jane, who had married her first cousin Robert Tawney, a carpenter.)
Theophilus Wharton junior (born in 1778) was granted over 300 acres of Headington land under the Enclosure Award of 1804, and in 1813, together with his brother Brian, he also bought Headington's Wick Farm for the then huge sum of �9,900. It seems likely that Theophilus Wharton junior was responsible in the 1830s for converting Edward Tawney's gentleman's farmhouse into a regency villa, Headington Lodge.
In 1807 the Tawney and Wharton families became linked by marriage to the Morrell family when Theophilus Wharton junior's sister Jane (1790-1814) married James Morrell senior (1773-1855), the joint brewery owner: she was 17 and he was 34. Their son, Mark Theophilus Morrell (1813-1842), inherited Headington Lodge from his Uncle Theophilus. He died in 1842 at the age of 29, and the mansion went to his cousin, Charles Tawney (1780-1853), the son of Henry Tawney (Ann Wharton's brother). Wick Farm stayed with just two female members of the family for nearly a century: Theophilus and Brian Wharton left it to Mrs Emily Stone (1811-1891), the daughter of James Morrell and their sister Jane. She held it from 1839 to 1891, leaving it to her niece Emily Alicia Morrell, who owned it from 1891 to 1938.
James Morrell senior (1773-1855)
On the last day of 1817 the widower James Morrell senior bought some grazing
land near the top of Headington Hill from the Savage family to build himself a
country estate. He was no stranger to Headington: James's uncle, James Morrell
senior, had acted as Steward of the Manor of Heddington from 1781, and James
junior continued in the post until 1812. His late wife Jane Wharton (1790-1814)
had been a Headington girl, brought up in Headington
Lodge, and his brother-in-law still lived there. Jane had died in 1814 at
the age of 24, leaving him with three surviving children: James junior (aged 4),
Emily (aged 3) and Mark Theophilus (aged 1). No doubt James was keen to
move them from the damp unhealthy atmosphere of Fisher Road to the renowned good
air of Headington. The house that he commissioned was not completed until 1824,
and was relatively modest: today it is just a wing of the much larger halll; but
he did continue buying land to increase the size of his estate, so that when he
died it stretched from Pullen's Lane right down to the Marston Road.
James Morrell junior (1810-1863)
James Morrell junior married Alicia Everett in 1851, and their only child, Emily
Alicia, was born in 1854. James junior inherited his father's house on
Headington Hill in 1855, and immediately set to work to create a new and grander
house, the present Headington
Hill Hall, designed by John Thomas and built by Joseph Castle. At a party
for 250 guests held in 1856 to celebrated the erection of its roof, Jackson's
Oxford Journal for 8 November reports that the local rector
procliaimed that the new mansion "heralded the coming among them of one who
was generous in heart and purse, and most anxious to advance and extend the
welfare and happiness of all around him", and that Castle proposed the
heath of James Morrell, "who, he remarked, was not only a rich man, but,
what was a great deal better, knew how too use his riches in a proper and
prudent manner.... He was not only noted for his liberality to the rich, but for
his consideration for the poor; and he could not show it better than he had by
building a home for himself, where they all sincerely hoped he would live in
happiness for many years, and his family enjoy it for generations to come."
In fact, James and Alicia only had another eight years of life, which they
spent stylishly in the new Headington Hill Hall. They did not forget the local
community, however, and in 1858, Alicia founded an independent free school for
girls in St Clement's to provide an alternative to the overcrowded church
school which had been founded in 1839: she paid for both the schoolmistress's
salary and the running costs. A party to celebrate the opening of the school was
held for the girls at Headington Hill Hall, where they were fed on roast beef
and plum pudding. It was particularly important to her and to her husband that
this school was kept free from the interference of the clergy.
James junior died on 12 September 1863 at the age of 53 and was buried at
St Clement's Church, where his funeral was attended by over 2000 people. His
wife Alicia died just five months later, in February 1864, at the age of 42.
Emily Alicia Morrell (1854-1938) and her husband George Herbert
Morrell (1845-1906)
Emily Morrell, the only child of James Morrell junior, was thus orphaned at the
age of ten. She was a very wealthy heiress, and the Morrell Trustees took over
responsibility for the brewery, for Headington Hill Hall, and for Emily herself
until she came of age. She went to live in Streatley House with Mrs Emily Stone,
the sister of her father James, and the Hall was let out until she reached the
age of 18, when she moved back to the Hall with her aunt. Having just come out,
grand parties were held at the Hall, including one in 1873 attended by the
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the Dean of Christ Church and
his daughters (including Alice Liddell of Wonderland fame, who was just a little
older than herself).
Emily became unofficially engaged to her third cousin, George Herbert Morrell
(always known as Herbert), a graduate of Exeter College, when she was only 14
and he was 23. They were allowed to marry on 4 February 1874, just after
Emily's twentieth birthday, and after the honeymoon they settled in Headington
Hill Hall together. Herbert and Emily embarked immediately on improvements: they
had the interior of the house extensively remodelled and doubled the size of
their estate by purchasing South Park in 1876.
Herbert and Emily Morrell were both very interested in education. Herbert was on
the Committee of Management of Headington
National School by 1877, and was Chairman of the Technical Education
Sub-Committee appointed by Oxfordshire County Council for the area by 1892. Mrs
Emily Morrell looked after poor and orphaned girls: in about 1878 she founded a training
school for servants on Headington Hill. In 1885, when Herbert was High
Sheriff of Oxfordshire, he performed many charitable acts, including a school
treat in the grounds of Headington Hill Hall for 2,500 children, with
merry-go-rounds, swing boats, and races, and a "capital tea" at 4.15 p.m.
In 1895, Herbert became MP for Mid-Oxfordshire.
Herbert
and Emily had two sons: James Herbert (1882-1965) and George Mark (1884-1939).
(It was James Herbert's grandchildren who sold Morrell's Brewery in 1997.)
Emily Stone died in 1891, and the Morrells thenceforth kept up two households,
one at Headington Hill Hall and the other at Streatley Park. Herbert Morrell
died in 1906, and his wife Emily outlived him by 32 years: she would not use
motor-cars, but traveleld everywhre in a carriage drawn by chestnut horses until
her death at the age of 84 in September 1938. A year later the government
requisitioned the Hall for military use, and the house's contents were sold.
The connection between Headington and the Morrells was finally severed when
Emily's elder son, James Morrell III, sold Headington Hill Hall and its
vast grounds to the city council.
James Wright Hayward Morrell (1802-1873 , ID 2573)
born in Oxford on 9th April 1802 , and died in 1873
Father: Baker
Morrell
Mother: Mary
Elizabeth Chapman
