William Henry Perkins
Mayor of Oxford 1923/4 and 1926/7
William Henry Perkins (1865–1942) was born in Neath, Glamorgan on 10 December 1865. He joined the Great Western Railway as a stationmaster at Heyford in Oxfordshire in 1891.
It was probably while at Heyford that Perkins met his wife Mary Louise Pavier, the daughter of Frederick George Pavier (a grocer at 49 Wellington Street in the St Thomas district of Oxford) and his wife Elizabeth. They married in Oxford around the end of 1897. Perkins then became a stationmaster in Lincolnshire, and their daughter Gladys (apparently their only child) was born at Long Sutton in September 1898.
After another railway appointment in Norfolk, Perkins returned to Oxford with his family in 1899 and took over a coal merchant’s business. At the time of the 1901 census, Perkins (aged 35 and described as a coal merchant) was living with his wife Mary (24) and their daughter Gladys (2) at 30 Albert Street, St Thomas’s.
In 1902 the Perkins family moved to 75 Walton Street, and in 1907 to 11 Tackley Place. In 1910 they moved to 43 Chalfont Road, where they remained until 1927.
Perkins was elected as a Conservative for the West ward in 1909, remaining a councillor until he was made an Alderman in 1929. In November 1920 he was elected Sheriff of Oxford.
In 1923 he retired from his coal merchant’s business and was elected Mayor for the first time. During his Mayoralty there were three General Elections and he was presented with a silver mallet by the people of Oxford to commemorate this.
Perkins was elected Mayor again in 1926. This being the time of the General Strike, he was also appointed Coal Controller for Oxford.
In 1927 Perkins moved to 7 Portland Road, Summertown, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Perkins was President of the West Oxford Horticultural Society and also a member of the North Oxford Bowls Club, the Clarendon Club, the Conservative Club, and the Management Committee of the Oxford Canal Company.
Alderman Perkins died at 7 Portland Road on 4 August 1942 at the age of 76.
As the plaque (left) on the wall of Oxford Crematorium shows, his wife died seven years later in 1949, and his only daughter in 1979
See also:
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 10 November 1920, p. 12 (picture on his election as Sheriff of Oxford)
- Oxford Times, 7 August 1942, p. 8f (obituary)
- 1901 Census: Oxford (St Barnabas), 1386/152