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William Morris, Viscount Nuffield (1877–1963)

William Richard Morris, Viscount Nuffield was born in Hallow, Worcestershire on 10 October 1877. His parents were Emily Ann Pether and Frederick Morris, who were married at Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry on 7 November 1876.

William's mother Emily Ann Pether was a Headington girl, the daughter of Richard Pether, who from 1849 leased Wood Farm from Magdalen College and had many disputes with the men of Headington Quarry who believed that they had rights on his land at Magdalen/Brasenose Woods. At the time of the 1851 census, Emily, just six months old, can be seen living at Wood Farm with her parents. As can be seen on this map, the farmhouse stood in the bend of the present Leiden Road.

William's father Frederick Morris originated from Witney in Oxfordshire, but at the time of his marriage was working at Hallow in Worcestershire as a clothier’s assistant, and continued to do so for five years after his marriage.

The future Viscount Nuffield was their first child, and they named him William Richard Morris, presumably after his two grandfathers. The couple had seven children in all, but only William and his two younger sisters Alice and Emily survived infancy.

At the time of the 1881 census, young William was living at Spring Cottage, Corner Gardens, Hallow with his father Frederick (who was now working as a draper’s clerk), his mother Emily, and his two sisters. Later in the 1880s the family of five came back to Headington to seek support from Emily’s father Richard Pether (who was now a widower of 64). He had 370 acres of farmland to look after at Wood Farm and duly made Frederick Morris his farm bailiff.

In the late 1880s Richard Pether also took on the lease of Brasenose Farm from Brasenose College, and ran it jointly with Wood Farm.

William Morris had attended school irregularly, and on 1 October 1890 when he was almost 13 he was placed in Standard III at Cowley National School. At the time of the 1891 census William Morris (13) was still at school and living with his parents and sisters at “Brasenose Lane” in Headington Quarry, presumably in a cottage near Brasenose Farmhouse (below), which was itself listed as uninhabited in that census.

Brasenose Farm

On 30 April 1892 (in a report of people setting fire to furze there) the Open Magdalen was described as being the property of Magdalen College and let to Richard Pether; but later in the article William's father Frederick Morris was described as “the tenant of Wood Farm, Open Magdalen”.

In a report in Jackson's Oxford Journal about the Bullingdon Division's Petty Sessions held at County Hall on 14 May 1892, William's father Frederick Morris (described as “farm bailiff to Mr. Richard Pether, at Headington”) gave evidence in the dismissed case of cruelty to a sheep by a shepherd whom he employed

In about 1891/2 William left school and started an apprenticeship with a cycle-maker in St Giles' Street, and in 1893 started making his own bicycles (presumably from home in Headington) with £4 capital.

On 10 September 1892 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised a forthcoming sale at Wood Farm of all its farming stock (including horses, cattle, pigs, and 183 sheep, farming equipment, hay, corn, and straw, and two acres of potatoes) as Richard Pether was retiring from the farming business and leaving at Michaelmas 1892.

William Morris's father also gave up farming because of asthma, and in about 1894 the family moved to 16 James Street in East Oxford. At the time of the 1901 census William (23), described as a cycle manufacturer and employer, was living at 16 James Street with his father Frederick (53), now described as a cycle agent, his mother Emily (50), and his sisters Alice (22) and Emily (20), who were respectively a milliner and a dressmaker.

On 9 April 1903* at St Giles's Church, William Richard Morris married Lizzie Maud Anstey, who was working as a dressmaker and was the daughter of William Jones Anstey and his wife Elizabeth. They were both aged 25: William was described as a cycle engineer, and Lizzie (who was born at Walton Crescent in 1877 and baptised at St Giles's Church on 2 October that year) was living at 8 Woodstock Road at the time of her wedding, and her father was described as a lecturer, although he had formerly been a farrier. They had no children.

In 1910 William built the Morris Garages in Longwall Street, and at the time of the 1911 census William (34), described as a motor garage proprietor and engineer, and his wife Lizzie were living at 280 Iffley Road, with Lizzie’s two-year-old nephew and one servant. Meanwhile William’s parents were now living at 59 Argyle Street in East Oxford, and his father Frederick was described as an accountant: he died in 1916 and his mother Emily Ann in 1934.

In 1914 production moved to Cowley, and in Kelly's Directory for 1914/15 William Richard Morris is listed twice under Temple Cowley: as a private resident in the Manor House there, and in the commercial section as “W. R. M. Motors Limited (W. R. Morris, Managing director), motor engineers, The Cowley Motor works”.

William's father Frederick Morris died at the age of 66 near the beginning of 1916 and was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery on 4 January (Plot C4/111).

William Morris was still listed as living in the Manor House at Temple Cowley in 1924, but in 1925 he and his wife moved to Nuffield Place at Huntercombe near Henley, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

In 1929 he was awarded a baronetcy, becoming Sir William Morris. Around this time he gave to the parish of Cowley a site at the Headington end of Hollow Way for St Francis of Assisi Church, and laid the foundation stone. It opened in 1931.

One evening in the summer of 1930 the wife of the orthopaedic surgeon Robert Gathorne Girdlestone opened the door of the Red House in Old Road, Headington to find an unknown gentleman who introduced himself as “Morris of the car factory” and who gave her a cheque for £1,000 to help keep the Wingfield Hospital on the corner of Windmill Road and Old Road in good repair. In 1933 it was rebuilt and renamed the Wingfield-Morris Orthopaedic Hospital in honour of Sir William Morris.

In the New Year Honours of 1934 Sir William Morris was awarded a barony. He was unable to call himself Lord Morris, as that title was already in use, so chose instead the name of his current home, becoming Lord Nuffield of Oxford. (The hospital that had only just taken his former name of Morris, however, did not become the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre until 1955.)

Lord Nuffield's mother Emily Ann Morris died early in 1934 at her home at 59 Argyle Street, East Oxford at the age of 84 and was buried with her husband in Rose Hill Cemetery on 10 January (obituary in the Oxford Times of 12 January 1934).

On 4 April 1934 Magdalen College sold to Lord Nuffield the whole of the estate of Wood Farm, including Open Magdalen, for £26,000, so that he now owned the farm where his grandfather Richard Pether had been tenant farmer for so many years and which he had known as a child. He agreed “at all times hereafter to preserve as a permanent open space or permanent spaces” the present Magdalen Wood”.

In 1936 he gave an endowment of £7,500 to provide a curate for Holy Trinity Church in memory of his mother’s family from Headington:

Board in Quarry Church

The text reads:

BE IT REMEMBERED
THAT IN THE YEAR 1936 THE
RT. HON. BARON NUFFIELD
GAVE £7500 AS AN ENDOWMENT
FOR THE PROVISION OF AN ASSISTANT
CURATE FOR THE PARISH OF HOLY TRINITY
HEADINGTON QUARRY IN MEMORY OF HIS
KINDRED WHO WERE CLOSELY CONNECTED
WITH THE PARISH AND SOME OF WHOM
ARE BURIED IN THE CHURCHYARD

In 1938 he was awarded a viscountcy and became Viscount Nuffield. The 1939 Register shows him living at Nuffield Place with his wife and their two servants.

In the early 1950s Viscount Nuffield sold Wood Farm to the city council and the development of the Wood Farm estate began in 1953, but the earlier agreement to preserve Magdalen Wood was honoured.

Viscount Nuffield’s wife Lizzie died on 20 May 1959 at the age of 81, and he died at Nuffield Place on 22 August 1963 at the age of 85. They were cremated at Oxford Crematorium in Bayswater Road, Headington, and their ashes were buried at Nuffield parish church. There is a memorial plaque to them (below) at the crematorium (with Lizzie Maud wrongly named as Elizabeth Maude):

Nuffield plaque in crematorium
© Trevor Coppock Photography, Auckland, New Zealand

* Many sources give the year of their wedding as 1904, but the St Giles's parish register and the GRO both confirm that it took place in 1903.

Memorials to Lord Nuffield in Oxford

Viscount Nuffield's name is remembered in Headington by Nuffield Road, and in the following medical establishments:

and the healthcare charity that runs the Manor Hospital is called Nuffield Health.

Elsewhere in Oxford, Lord Nuffield is remembered by:

His house near Henley-on-Thames, Nuffield Place, is now owned by the National Trust and is a memorial to him

More on the Pether family

Richard Pether was born in Cowley in 1815 and baptised at St James's Church Cowley on 10 September. He was the son of the carpenter John Pether and his wife Ann.

He and his younger brother Henry farmed at Bartlemas Farm, and Richard was described as a butcher of Temple Cowley; but in about 1850 he split from his brother and took on the lease of Wood Farm, which was owned by Magdalen College, thus bringing his family into the recently established parish of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry.

Wood FarmWood Farm in 1878. The wooded area to the south-east is Open Magdalen.
This was the subject of many disputes between Richard Pether and the people of Headington
(more information here)

Richard & Anne Ursula Pether had eleven children, but only six survived childhood:

  • Anne Ursula Pether (baptised on 3 January 1846 at Cowley St James Church; died in infancy and buried there on 16 April 1846)
  • Mary Ellen Pether (baptised on 28 March 1847 at Cowley St James Church); married the wine merchant John Wheeler at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 16 February 1869
  • Sarah Kate Pether (baptised on 26 December 1848 at Cowley St James Church); married the grocer William Field Cox at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 19 April 1870)
  • Emily Anne Pether (baptised on 13 October 1850 at Cowley St James Church); married Frederick Morris and was mother of Lord Nuffield; died 1934
  • Kate Pether (baptised on 20 June 1852 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); married the farmer and miller Vincent Ball at the church on 7 November 1876 (on the same day that her sister Emily was married)
  • Richard Pether (baptised on 14 August 1853 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); died aged 6 months, buried at Holy Trinity on 12 December 1853
  • Walter Pether (baptised on 30 November 1854 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); died aged ten months, buried at Holy Trinity on 15 September 1855
  • Richard Pether (baptised on 11 May 1856 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); died aged 11 while boarding at Mr Hurst’s School in Littlemore, buried at Holy Trinity on 17 December 1867
  • Anne Pether (born on 9 September 1857 and baptised 11 October at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry; died unmarried aged 86 and buried there in August 1944)
  • Henry Pether (baptised on 11 September 1859 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); died aged one, and buried at the church on 9 August 1860
  • Elizabeth Pether (born 26 February 1861 and baptised 9 May at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry); died unmarried aged 82 at Littlemore Asylum on 19 September 1943 and buried at that church four days later.

At the time of the 1861 census Richard Pether employed twelve men and eleven boys to look after the 207 acres of Wood Farm; ten years later, his land had increased to 295 acres; and twenty years later to 370 acres, worked by 17 men, three women, and six boys. This growth is probably explained by the fact that Richard, as well as taking on Brasenose Farm in the late 1880s, had, much to the anger of the people of Quarry, encroached on Open Magdalen.

With no surviving son to take over the farm, Richard Pether moved away from Wood Farm in 1895, when he was 80, and went to live at Unity House in Larkins Lane, Old Headington with his two unmarried daughters, Annie and Elizabeth (Bessy). He died at the age of 88 on 30 March 1902 (the year his grandson produced his first motorcycle) and was buried with his wife and son Richard in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry. His effects came to £1,746 1s. 4d.

The Pether family continued to own Unity House, and Mrs Emily Ann Yockney, Lord Nuffield’s sister, lived there with her family until 1912.

Pether grave

The Pether family grave (above) is situated immediately in front of the C. S. Lewis signpost at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry. Here lie Lord Nuffield’s grandfather, Richard Pether (died 30 March 1902, aged 87) and his grandmother Ann Ursula (died 21 December 1871, aged 51). Also buried in the grave are three of their children: their son Richard (died 13 December 1867 aged 11, wrongly inscribed 1857); and their two youngest daughters Anne and Elizabeth, who never married but cared for their father Richard in his old age: Anne died in 1943 and Elizabeth in 1944.

Next to this grave are three child-sized graves whose inscriptions are now illegible: they must belong to Richard and Ann Pether’s other three boys, who all died before their first birthday in the 1850s: Walter, an earlier Richard, and Henry.

Lord Nuffield and his horn of plenty

This cartoon, entitled THE HORN OF PLENTY: “SAY WHEN!”, was published in Punch on 2 December 1936. Underneath is written “With Mr. Punch’s congratulations to Lord Nuffield, who has increased his enormous gift to Oxford University for Medical Research by another £750,000.”

There is a much fuller entry on Lord Nuffield in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ODNB online is available free to many public library users, including those in Oxfordshire:
put your library ticket number in the “Library Card Login” box

Wikipedia: William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield

Irene Lowe in Australia, who is descended from Richard Pether’s older brother William
(one of the first emigrants to Western Australia in 1838) and his wife Irene
has drawn up a Pether family tree

Morris family tree: brief details from The Complete Peerage

© Stephanie Jenkins

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