No. 43: Friends Meeting House
This house is dated “W P 1660” on the front, but has been subsequently altered. The doorway on the right actually belongs to No. 42 next door, and the whole of the first floor has been converted to a Quaker Friends' Meeting House. It is a Grade II listed building (ref. 1485/514)
At the time of the 1772 survey of Oxford, No. 43 was two separate houses. To the south lived Mr Thetcher, with a frontage of 7 yards 1 foot 4 inches; and to the north was Mr Moore, with a frontage of 4 yards 0 feet 2 inches.
The 1841 census shows Mrs Margaret Keen, a widow of c.80, living at No. 43.
At the time of the 1851 census this house was occupied by the Revd William Hunter, Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, and his wife and three servants.
In 1861 George Fox Bridges, aged 54, lived here with his sister and one servant. He is described as a retired grocer, and he had kept the large shop down the road at 56 St Giles' Street from 1830 to 1852. He died in about 1865, and at the time of the 1881 census his sister Mary lived alone here with a servant.
| Occupants of 43 St Giles' Street listed in censuses and directories | |
| 1841–6 | Mrs Margaret Keen |
| 1851–2 | Rev. William Hunter |
| 1861–84 | George Fox Bridges (Miss Bridges 1866–84) |
| 1887 | Mrs Brown |
| 1889–95 | Mrs Melville-Lee |
| 1896 | Mrs Edwyn Vaughan |
| 1900–39 | Frank Grégoire Proudfoot Medical Officer & Public Vaccinator for Oxford Union |
| 1941–5 | St Giles' Services Club & Canteen |
| 1947–present | Society of Friends Meeting House |