A housebuilding explosion of the past - historic Banbury builder and landlord of the 19th century is the focus of online lecture

Liz Woolley is the speaker at Banbury Historical Society's event which will be live-streamed. Ms Woolley will be talking about Kingerlee, the family and the building firm since 1868.

This company started in Banbury but moved to Oxford in 1883 at a time when the city was expanding rapidly and undergoing enormous social, political and economic upheaval.

Kingerlee was soon to become one of the key figures in those changes, rapidly becoming Oxford’s largest builder and landlord and one of its biggest employers, with several hundred workers at any one time.

Thomas Henry was a leading non-conformist, a Liberal councillor, and twice Mayor of Oxford. This talk will examine how the family and the firm influenced Oxford’s development in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

Banbury Historical Society is continuing to provide a full season of lectures this autumn and winter, despite the current Covid-19 restrictions. The lectures will be given live in the Education Room of Banbury Museum, to an audience of fewer than six.

However, the lectures are streamed via Microsoft Teams so members and others will be able to see both the lecturer and his/her slides on their computers at home. Members need to book with Simon Townsend ([email protected]) to receive the link to the online lecture; non-members can receive one lecture free but will then be invited to pay per screening, or to join the society.

Liz Woolley lives in Oxford and has an MSc in English Local History from the University’s Department for Continuing Education, for which she is now a tutor. She is particularly interested in the history of Oxford’s 'town' - as opposed to 'gown' - and in the lives of ordinary working citizens in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2018 she was commissioned by Kingerlee Ltd to write their history as part of their 150th anniversary celebrations.