Polstead Road has 31 houses, some quite large, and at times some have been subdivided into flats (apartments, for some readers). Consequently, since 1889, many people have lived in Polstead Road. This part of the website tells the stories of some of them. If you have or know of any, we would be interested in learning about them. You can contact us here.
Table of Contents
Introduction
A road often forms a small community. In the era of social media and smartphones, WhatsApp groups are common, and in the past, people often had someone or a group who represented them and informed residents about forthcoming events, such as road closures or changes in waste collection. Another example is holding street parties to celebrate the end of a war or a monarch’s coronation.
Polstead Road inevitably attracts people who might be better known, or who have left. At one time, some houses were let to students from the University of Oxford or to other people who wanted to rent somewhere in Oxford. At other times, the houses could be afforded by senior members of the University. And, as a quiet residential road not far from the city centre, people already well-known could choose to live here.
Moreover, events such as murders, thefts, and unexpected deaths occur in the road as they do anywhere, and these occasionally are reported in local or national newspapers.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that some past and current residents are known well beyond the local community, some only within a small community of people with a particular interest, and others more generally.
Sources - how we found people.
The people discussed in this section of the site have been identified in many ways.
One of the first used was to search digitised newspaper archives. They contain a wealth of information and have revealed several interesting stories. Kay Symons undertook searches, and several of the people in this section were found in newspaper stories.
Other people have been identified from publicly available sources, such as the names of residents recorded in decennial census documents, which can be searched. The last released batch was from 1921.
One person now on the site, Joachim Benemann was found and then researched by Philip Lafeber. Philip was reviewing the St John’s Archives. All the houses on Polstead Road were initially sold with 100-year leases, and St John’s College retained the freehold rights. Consequently, they recorded who owned and lived in each house. The freehold rights were eventually sold to the owners between 1960 and 1980.
Once Philip saw his name, a Google search quickly returned a wealth of information, now available on the page Philip and Pascale have written.
As the site develops, people may be added, with their permission, from current or more recent past residents.
Who? Interesting People of Polstead Road.
The criterion is not that they are famous or infamous. The criterion is that they are interesting and shed some light on some aspect of the society they lived in. For example, if someone in the Road recorded a day in their life or an event such as a street party in 1953, it would give great insight to attitudes and concerns at the time.
The table below lists the people, and each entry links directly to the page concerned.
Table of People of Polstead Road
List of people with individual pages, with links to each page
Conclusion
People and their stories are likely to be the most read and memorable pages on this site. Everyone likes a story.
