No. 46: Former dentist's surgery
No. 46 Broad Street was the second from the left of the thirteen houses dating from the first half of the seventeenth century that were that were demolished to make way for the New Bodleian Library in the late 1930s.
This house belonged to the city from 1569 to the 1930s, and detailed records remain of the early leases of this large building:
- 1637: Timothy Carter, gent. (occupied by Elias Archer and Henry East)
- 1647: Bartholomew Finch, cook
- 1677: Francis and Abraham Finch (occupied by Richard Hedges, cook)
- 1691: Abraham Finch cook (occupied by Elizabeth Hedges)
- 1705: Elizabeth Hedges
- 1717 and 1731: George Major of the University
- 1745 and 1759: Mathew Kerry of Wightham, Berks, carpenter
- 1773: Elizabeth Jones, widow
- 1787, 1801, 1815: Alderman William Fletcher, mercer (Mayor in 1796 and 1809): also owned 47 Broad Street, which he let out
- 1829: Thomas Robinson, banker, and Joseph E. Parker, bookseller (occupied by Thomas Roberts)
- 1843: James Hunt, gent. (an accountant, according to directories)
In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. No. 36 was then in the occupation of a Mrs Jones, and its frontage measured 7 yards 0 feet 3 inches.
At the time of the 1841 census No. 46 was occupied by the accountant James Hunt.
In August 1849 the dental surgeon Edmund Beversr moved into this house. He is listed here in the 1851 census as a 39 year-old widower with three tiny children.His wife must have died very recently, because the baby, Harcourt Bevers, was only six weeks old.
Edmund Bevers must have married again and had three more children, because at the time of the 1881 census the head of the house is Mrs Alice Bevers, a widow. As well as her own children, two of the grown-up children by Edmund’s first marriage (Winifred and Harcourt, the latter now a dental surgeon here himself) are living in the house, as well as Mrs Bevers' elderly sister. The family has two servants.
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Occupants of 46 Broad Street listed in directories |
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1839–1846 |
James Hunt, Accountant |
1852–1921 |
Bevers family, Dentists and Surgeons 1852–1880: Edmund Bevers, Surgeon dentist 1893–1921: Edmund Augustine Bevers, MRS, Physician and Surgeon-dentist |
1921–1927 |
James Benjamin Edgar, Dental Surgeon |
1928–1935 |
Ernest William Cooke, Dental Surgeon |
Demolished with twelve neighbouring
houses in 1937 |
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See the bound typescript in the Bodleian Library entitled "The Demolished Houses of Broad Street and the Freeborn Family" (1943), attributed to Emily Sarah Freeborn, and the webpage by Alan Simpson which reproduces some of the material in it.