No. 21: Part of St John's College
The former Black Hall (which Anthony Wood described as “an ancient receptacle for schollers”) was a private house known as Black Hall from the early nineteenth century until the 1940s, when it was taken over by the British Council. Together with No. 20 next door, it became Queen Elizabeth House (a residential centre for Commonwealth Studies) in 1958, and has now been taken over by St John's College . It is a Grade II listed building (Ref. 1485/532), and is shown below in the 1840s.
The present house dates from the early seventeenth-century but was was remodelled in about 1700.
At the time of the 1772 Survey of Oxford, the occupants of the present No. 21 were as follows:
- Mrs Trollope: house & garden (17 yards 1 foot 4 inches)
- Mr Ward: house & yard (20 yards 2 feet)
- Mrs Trollope: coach-house & stable (8 yards)
- Mr Ward: stable (5 yards 1 foot 8 inches)
Gardner's Directory for 1852 states:
Blackhall, in St. Giles'-street, now the residence of Mr. F. Morrell, is mentioned as early as 1361, when J. de Bereford gave certain revenues derived from it to his chantry in All Saints' church. In 1486 it was given by Joan Gille to Rewley abbey, and after the dissolution it was purchased by the society of St. John 's college, to whom it still belongs. It was restored and a north wing added by Mr. Joseph Parker a few years since.
Joseph Parker retired from his bookshop at 26–27 Broad Street in 1832, and it was probably in that year that he moved to Black Hall. At the time of the 1841 census he as 67 and living alone in the house with three servants. His son Dr Charles Lewes Parker died at St Aldate's on 19 December 1848, and it seems likely that his son's widow, Mrs Jane Lewis Parker, moved with their children from the surgery to Black Hall at that point. Joseph Parker himself died on 9 November 1850, and the 1851 census shows his widowed daughter-in-law Mrs Jane Lewes Parker (a “Fundholder” aged 35) living in Black Hall with her five children (aged from 2 to 10) and six servants (a nurse, under-nurse, cook, housemaid, under-housemaid, and butler).
Frederick Joseph Morrell (1811–1882) was a son of Baker Morrell of 1 St Giles. He had married Maria Parker in 1834, and lived initially at 15 St Giles. By 1861 he had moved here to No. 21: he was then 50, and lived here with his wife and children (six of whom were at home on census night), plus their six servants (a footman, cook, housemaid, nurserymaid, under-housemaid, and kitchenmaid). He was a solicitor, who worked first with his father and later with two of his sons, at 1 St Giles.
By 1881 Frederick Joseph Morrell had retired to the Grange at Broughton, Oxfordshire with his wife and daughter Helen. His only son, Frederick Parker Morrell (1837–1908) was now living in Black Hall with his wife Harriette (daughter of the President of St John's) and their three young children, and six servants.
The rubble building to the north of 21 St Giles (above) is attached to No. 22. It dates from the eighteenth century or earlier and is also a Grade II listed building (ref. 1485/832). It must be the stable occupied by Mr Ward in 1772.
| Occupants of 21 St Giles' Street listed in censuses and directories | |
| c1832–1849 | Joseph Parker |
| 1849–1851 | Mrs Jane Lowry Parker (widow of Joseph Parker's son Charles Lewes Parker) |
| 1852–1925 | Frederick Joseph Morrell
(1852–72) Frederick Parker Morrell, Solicitor (1875–1908) Mrs Morrell (1909–25) |
| 1926–30 | Mrs W. Rathbone |
| 1932–9 | Henry S. Souttar, CBE |
| 1949–56 | British Council South Midlands Area Office |
| 1958–2005 | Queen Elizabeth House |
| 2005– | Part of St John's College |