Alfred Emden and Headington
Alfred Brotherston Emden (1888–1979) obtained a Second Class in Modern History at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1911 and then qualified for the bar at the Inner Temple.
Emden ran a hostel in London for disadvantaged boys from 1913 to 1915, and then served in the Royal Navy. In 1919 he accepted a tutorship in Modern History at St Edmund Hall, and became Principal in 1929.
Dunstan Cottage (right) was built in 1935, and Alfred Emden’s mother moved into it immediately, presumably because she wished to live near her elder son.
In 1951 Emden’s health broke down and he resigned the principalship of St Edmund Hall at the age of 63 and came to live with his mother in this house in Headington. He was to remain here for 28 years.
Emden played a large part in community life in Headington. One of his first acts was to get Cemetery Road, where his mother’s now lived, renamed Dunstan Road.
When the row of cottages at 27–33 St Andrew’s Road were condemned in the late 1930s, he and three other local inhabitants put up the money to build the present row of houses.
In 1959, when the Friends of Old Headington came into being, Dr Emden agreed to be its first President. He organized the restoration of the ancient cross in St Andrew’s Churchyard.
Alfred Emden died at Dunstan Cottage on 8 January 1979. He was a bachelor, and left the bulk of his estate to St Edmund Hall. Emden House, the sheltered accommodation in Barton Lane, is named after him.
Note that there is a much fuller entry on Alfred Emden in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography