Arthur Henry Kinchin
Mayor of Oxford 1960/1
Arthur Henry Kinchin (1883–1963) was born at Alvescot in Oxfordshire, but grew up in Clanfield. His parents were Henry Kinchin, a cowman who was born in Clanfield in 1856, and his wife Caroline, who was born in Filkins in the same year.
The 1891 census shows the family living in Bampton Road, Clanfield. Arthur is 7, and his older brother, William, is already working as a ploughboy at 13. He also has two older sisters Blanche (11) and Emily (9), and two younger siblings: Thomas (5) and Beatrice (2).
Arthur left the village school at the age of 12 to become a farm worker himself. By the time of the 1901 census, however, when he was 17, he had become a coal merchant’s carrier; his brother Thomas who was now 15 was a teamster on a farm; and he had three more siblings: Alfred (9), Florence (6), and Marion (1). The family still lived at Clanfield (near the Plough Inn), and Arthur’s father was now a carpenter on a farm.
According to his obituary, Kinchin worked as a miner in Wales between 1908 and 1914. But the Clanfield parish register describes him as a blacksmith when on 30 July 1910, at the age of 26, he married Maude Maria Little, aged 20, the daughter of the coal-trimmer Charles Frederick Little, at Clanfield Church. They first child, Marjorie Frances Amelia, was born just three months later on 2 November 1910, and baptised at Clanfield Church on 4 December 1910.
Kinchin’s obituary states that he returned to Oxfordshire in 1914, becoming a railwayman at Witney. He moved to Oxford itself in 1919.
Kinchin’s mother was buried at Clanfield in 1926, and his father in 1932.
By 1919, Kinchin was living at 1 Church Street, New Hinksey (now Vicarage Road), where he remained until 1952.
In 1946 Kinchin was elected Labour representative for the South Ward, He lost his seat in 1950, but won it back in 1952. In 1955 he was elected Sheriff of Oxford, meeting Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin on their visit to the city.
From 1954 to at least 1958 Kinchin lived at 11 Kineton Road. In 1958 he was elected an Alderman, and in May 1960 Mayor. His golden wedding fell during his mayoralty, and the city flag was flown on the Town Hall and the bells of Carfax Tower were rung.
He had two daughters and one son. For the last few years of his life both he and his wife lived at the home of one of their daughters in Ashlong Road, Marston, where he died on 26 May 1963. His funeral was at Oxford Crematorium.
See also:
- Oxford Times, 31 May 1963, p. 10 (obituary)
- 1891 Census: Oxford (Clanfield), 1175/95
- 1901 Census: Oxford (Clanfield), 1394/89