People of Headington: Eric Hebborn
Eric Hebborn (1934–1996), the famous art forger, was a member of the Oxford family that is well-known locally for their fairground rides. The Headington branch of the family was descended from John Hebborn and Elizabeth Snow, who baptised six children at St Andrew’s Church between 1795 and 1810.
Eric was the son of Henry Hebborn (known as Jack) and his wife Rose. In the early 1930s Jack was the grocer at 67 Lime Walk (then numbered No. 39), the house immediately north of All Saints Church. Today it is a private semi-detached house; but then, together with its neighbour, it was a shop. They had twins in this house in 1931 (the fourth and fifth of their eleven children). They were not very successful, and moved over the road to 74 Lime Walk (then numbered 62), where Henry Hebborn took over the post of grocer’s assistant. By 1934, when Eric was born, the family had moved to London.
The Hebborn household was not a happy one: Eric’s obituary in the Daily Telegraph states:
His father was a grocer who drank nine pints a night; his mother sought to quell her numerous progeny with torrents of abuse.” Of his mother Eric wrote, “She was a large woman and carried a good punch. Perhaps it was from her that I inherited my love of boxing….
Eric Hebborn created over a thousand Old Master drawings, of which only some two dozen were definitely exposed as forgeries. The greater the expert, the more Hebborn enjoyed deceiving him, especially “those vulgar, avaricious creatures with good backgrounds, smart accents, fine educations and infinite pretensions, who control the art trade from the top, and for whom a work of art is as good or bad as the amount it fetches”.
Eric Hebborn died mysteriously of head injuries in Rome on 13 January 1996. In 1997 his autobiography was updated and republished with the title Confessions of a Master Forger. He also wrote The Art Forger’s Handbook.
Many of Eric Hebborn’s relations still live in Headington and Cowley, including the branch who run the fairground business. Show above is probably the most dramatic gravestone erected in Headington Cemetery since it opened in 1885. The engraving is of an original Victorian flying-horse roundabout (which has always belonged to the Hebborn family and is now kept under cover at Littlemore).
The gravestone was too heavy for local firms, and was taken to Headington on board a Hebborn lorry, together with a crane which was used to lift it into place.
