Our earliest recorded Pether was John (birthdate unknown) and his children John (b. 1681), Mikel (b.1683), Mary (b.1685) and Thomas (b.1688). and as far as is known always resided in Cowley, Oxfordshire, UK.

Many interesting stories and people have emerged from this farming family, especially of two brothers born to John Pether (b.1783) and Ann Russell (b.1781):

William Thomas Pether (b. 1809)

Richard Pether (b. 1815)

William Thomas , wife Elizabeth (Howse) and daughter Sophia arrived in Western Australia on board the "Britomart" on 5 December 1838.  William was under contract to build the first St. George's church and there is a legend that in those days a contractor provided tradesmen with some of the tools used.  During rebuilding of the structure as a cathedral, odd pieces bearing his name were found.

The "Britomart" was chartered by William Tanner (early pioneer to Western Australia) to bring his sick wife home to WA to be with her children.  A cousin of the Tanner's, Doctor Samuel Waterman Viveash records events of the voyage in his diary, which has been transcribed by Pamela Statham in her book "The Tanner Letters". A newspaper article written around 1927 also described this colourful voyage.

It is ironic that the then Governor to Western Australia and founder of the colony, James Stirling, sailed to England on the return voyage of the "Britomart" on 5 December 1838 after resigning his post.

William and Elizabeth settled in the colony and had three more children: Richard William (b. 1839), Eliza (b. 1841, d. 1843) and Henry (b. 1843).  In 1841 he was employed as a carpenter and in March that year contracted to repair Government House.  Unfortunately he died in April 1844 of typhus aged 34.  It is believed Elizabeth then took the 2 boys back to England for their education.

However, both sons subsequently returned to Australia with Richard making his home in Perth, while Henry went to South Australia.

Richard Pether was well known and liked in early Perth society.  A grandson, Jack Hurtle Gratwick, recalls as a lad of about 8 or 9 seeing his grandfather at the front gate of his house when a gentleman wearing a frock coat and a square topped egg boiler hat approached and said "Good Morning Richard" to which grandfather replied "Good Morning John".  After the customary pat bestowed on the small boys by their elders Sir John Forrest and grandfather continued their chat.

Richard married Elizabeth Birch in 1862 and went on to become the first Government Printer in 1871, a position which he held before retiring after 40 years.  Click here to view a comprehensive web page about the history of the Government Printers in WA and see a photo of Richard.  Richard and Elizabeth had 15 children before Richard died in 1912 and Elizabeth in 1926.

The family were also very well known in the colony for their musical talents.  Jack Hurtle Gratwick writes "The inhabitants had amusements other than family raising as they foregathered with their various musical instruments at a pub that used to be on the corner of St. Georges Terrace and William Streets, Perth.  Long before the days of beer gardens the locals sat at tables in front of the pub, quaffed their ale and sang to the accompaniament of music provided by Pethers and like kinds.  Grandfather played stringed and woodwind instruments as well as the organ and piano.  He was the organist for the Freemasons Lodge for which he wrote special music.  As a member of the English constitution of freemasonery he belonged to Lodge St. John which was formed in 1843.  He was the master of the Lodge for the year 1875.  Most of his family played some kind of instrument and in later years when the original Metropolitan Orchestra was founded it comprised so many Pethers that it could not have existed without them.".
 

The Government Printing Office at the time of Richard Pether.	Henry John Pether  - one of Richard's sons.

Richard Pether
(Our research into this family has been greatly helped by Stephanie Jenkins in Oxford, UK.)

Richard was born in 1815 in Cowley, Oxfordshire and married Ann Ursula Wheeler (The Wheelers were a big farming family at Headington).  The Pethers owned Wood Farm, which was sadly demolished in the 1960s, and the land turned into a Headington housing estate.

Stephanie writes:
PETHERS of Wood Farm and Bartlemas Farm

The earliest reference I can find to RICHARD PETHER in Headington is in 1851, when the census lists him as the farmer at Wood Farm.

Wood Farm was south of Old Road and east of the Slade (the road leading from Headington to Cowley). The White family had the farm for many years after the Pethers, but in the 1960s the farmhouse was demolished, and a new estate built on the farmland.

Richard Pether was born in Cowley, as were two of his daughters, Mary and Emily, in 1846/7 and 1850/51 respectively; but the daughter born in between, Sarah Kate, was apparently born in Headington in 1848/9. This suggests that Richard Pether still had ties with Bartlemas Farm off the Cowley Road (see below). Certainly his brother Henry, who remained at Bartlemas until his death, seems to have farmed jointly with Richard: Gardner's Directory of 1852 lists "Pether, Richard and Henry, Wood Farm", despite the fact that Henry seems to have lived and died at Bartlemas; and a handbill of 1857 shows that part of Peat Moor on the edge of Headington
Quarry was let out to "R. & H. Pether". The people of Headington Quarry fought hard to prevent Richard Pether from enclosing the Open Magdalens, a stretch of open common and wood on which Quarry, together with its neighbours, claimed collective rights.

1861 Census
The Headington Quarry census for 1861 (Schedule No. 17) shows Richard and Ann Pether living at Wood Farm with their six daughters, one son, and four servants:

Richard Pether, Head, 44, Farmer of 207 acres of land, employing 12 men and 11 boys, born Cowley, Oxon
Ann U. Peter, Wife, 41, born Sunningwell, Berks

Mary E. Pether, Daughter, 14, scholar, born Cowley, Oxon
Sarah Kate Pether, Daughter, 12, scholar, born Headington, Oxon
Emily A[nn] Pether, Daughter, 10, scholar, born Cowley, Oxon
Kate Pether, Daughter, 8, scholar, born Headington, Oxon
Richard Pether, Son, 5, scholar, born Headington, Oxon
Ann Pether, Daughter, 3, scholar, born Headington, Oxon
Elizabeth Pether, Daughter, 1 month, born Headington, Oxon

John Pether, father, widower, 78, no occupation, born Cowley, Oxon

Rosanna Heavens, servant, unmarried, 18, Housemaid, born Cowley, Oxon
William Saunders, servant, unmarried, 19, Carter, born Headington, Oxon
Geo. Hine, servant, unmarried, 19, Under Carter, born Headington, Oxon
Henry Moore, Servant, unmarried, 17, Errand Boy, born Horsepath, Oxon

But the register of baptisms at Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry shows that there were more children who must have died before the 1861 census: they are in square brackets in the list below:

1852     20 June        Kate Pether
[1853   14 August       Richard Pether I]
[1854   20 November     Walter Pether]
1856    11 May  Richard Pether II
1857    11 October      Anne Pether
[1859   11 September    Henry Pether]
1861    19 May  Elizabeth Pether

So the total known children of Richard and Ann Pether are six daughters and four sons. Three of the sons had died in infancy; and the complete absence from the 1871 census of the second son to be given the name Richard suggests that Richard Pether senior was left with no sons to carry on the farm.

1871 Census
The Headington Quarry census for 1871 (Schedule No. 119) shows Richard and Ann Pether living at Wood Farm with their five of their daughters (one of them now married with a son), and two servants. Note that the farm has grown bigger in the last ten years:

Richard Pether, Head, 52, Farmer of 295 acres, employing 9 labourers, 5 women, and 5 boys, born Cowley, Oxon
Ann Pether, Wife, 50, born Sunningwell, Berkshire

Mary E. Wheeler, Daughter, married, 24, born Cowley, Oxon
Emily A[nn] Pether, Daughter, unmarried, 20, born Cowley, Oxon
Kate Pether, Daughter, unmarried, 18, born Headington, Oxon
Annie Pether, Daughter, 12, scholar, born Headington, Oxon
Bessie Pether, Daughter, 10, scholar, born Headington, Oxon

Sydney Wheeler, Grandson, 7 months, born Old Compton Street, London

Henry Moore, Servant, unmarried, 27, farm servant, born Horspath, Oxon
Ellen Lovegrove, Servant, unmarried, 19, Domestic Servant, born West
Hendred, Berks

EMILY ANN PETHER, born in Cowley in 1850 and listed in the 1861 census at the age of 10 and in the 1871 census at the age of 20, was soon to meet her destiny. On 7 November 1876 she married FREDERICK MORRIS (of full age, bachelor, a clothier's assistant of Hallow Worcester and son of William Morris, farmer) at Headington Quarry Church. She went to live with him in
his adopted home town of Worcester, where she had her first child, WILLIAM RICHARD MORRIS (later LORD NUFFIELD) on 10 October 1877 in the parish of St John.

The Morrises went on to have another five six children, four of whom died. Frederick Morris did not prosper in Worcester, and in about 1880 the family moved back to live with Emily's parents at Wood Farm. Richard Pether had become blind, and Frederick acted as his bailiff.

1891 Census
The Headington Quarry census for 1891 (Schedule No. 210) shows Richard Pether, now a widower, living at Wood Farm his two youngest daughters and a lodger:

Richard Pether, Head, widower, 75, Farmer & Brickmaker (employer), born Cowley, Oxon
Annie Pether, Daughter, single, 32, born Headington Quarry, Oxon
Elizabeth Pether, Daughter, single, 30, born Headington Quarry, Oxon

Aubrey Trafford, Lodger, single, 29, Farm Labourer, born Horspath, Oxon

Just three away on the schedule, at No. 207 and living at Brasenose Lane, is Richard's daughter Emily with her husband and three surviving children:

Frederick Morris, Head, 42, Farm Bailiff (employed), born Witney, Oxon
Emily Morris, Wife, 40, born Cowley, Oxon

William Morris, Son, 13, Scholar, born Worcester, Comer Garden, Hallow
Alice Morris, Daughter, 12, Scholar, born Worcester, Comer Garden, Hallow
Emily Morris, Daughter, 10, Scholar, born Worcester, Comer Garden, Hallow

Just three away on the schedule again, at No. 204 and living at Bartlemas Farm, is Richard Pether's brother's widow and their family. (This is the first census which includes Bartlemas under Headington: they is sure to be listed elsewhere in earlier censuses too.)

Sarah S. Pether, Head, widow, 45, Farmer (employer), born Holton, Oxon

William R. Lee, Son, single, 21, Butcher, born Wolvercote, Oxon
Mary A. Pether, Stepdaughter, single, 38, born Bartlemas Farm (imbecile)
Henry S. Pether, Son, 11, scholar, born Bartlemas Farm
Sarah L. G. Pether, Daughter, 10, scholar, born Bartlemas Farm
Catherine Bull, Niece, widow, 37, born Wood Farm

Since Henry Pether's daughter Mary was born (to a previous wife) at Bartlemas Farm in 1852/3, this shows that there were Pethers there at this time. (The sixteenth-century farmhouse at Bartlemas, off the Cowley Road just east of Oxford, can still be seen.)

The Catherine Bull living with her Uncle Henry's second wife above, who was born at Wood Farm, must surely be the little Kate Pether, Richard's fourth daughter, listed in the 1861 census.

After 1891

In directories from 1895 onwards, Richard Pether is listed as Private Resident of Old Headington, living in Unity House (a fine house that still bears that name in Larkin's Lane). He must have died there in 1902, at the age of 87, because in 1903 and 1904 directories list just the "Misses Pether" there (presumably the Annie and Elizabeth who kept house for him at Wood Farm at the time of the 1891 census). By 1904, the Pethers seem to have vanished from Headington.

Richard, Ann, one son Richard and the two youngest daughters are buried in the same grave at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Oxford.  Next to this grave are three child-sized graves whose inscriptions are now illegible: they must belong to Richard & Ann's other three boys, who all died before their first birthday. The Holy Trinity Church cemetery is also famous for housing the grave of Britain's most loved writers, C.S. Lewis, which is situated close to the Pether graves. The C.S. Lewis website features a photograph of Holy Trinity Church as well as his grave.

Emily Pether (Mrs Morris) died on 8 January 1934, aged about 84. She thus lived to see her son become Sir William Morris in 1929, but he did not become Lord Nuffield until the year that she died.

The 1997 Oxford telephone directory lists 24 Pether families living in the neighbourhood of Oxford, five of them still in Headington.

William Richard Morris (Lord Nuffield)
(1877-1963).

The first and last Viscount Nuffield, created 1938, motor manufacturer and benefactor, was born
in Worcester, one of seven children. The family moved to Headington, where he attended the
village school. He had hoped to qualify as a surgeon but his father's ill-health made this impossible and at the age of fifteen he started work in a local bicycle shop. When refused a
shilling a week rise, he resigned, and in 1893, on £4 capital, opened his own bicycle shop at the
back of his father's house in James Street, Cowley St John.

From selling bicycles Morris soon progressed to building them - using parts which he often
cycled to Birmingham to buy. In 1904 he married Elizabeth Maud Anstey, and also started
Morris Garage (later Morris Garages), running taxis and selling cars from premises in Longwall
Street, Nos 36 and 37 Queen Street, and behind the Clarendon Hotel. In 1913 he announced
production of the first Morris cars. In the 1921 slump, faced with ruin, he cut prices by up to
£100 a car, and two years later his company's annual turnover was £6 million.

In 1926, surprised to find that so few British businessmen spoke Spanish, Morris gave £10,000
to help fund a chair of Spanish Studies at Oxford. Ten years later he gave £2 million to the
University for establishing a school of medical research. In 1943 he gave £10 million to form the
Nuffield Foundation as a charitable trust, a figt described as 'the largest and most notable in the
history of the nation'. This trust was principally designed to benefit medical research, hospitals
and education. The managing trustees were instructed to have particular regard to: (1) the
advancement of health and the prevention and relief of sickness, especially by medical research;
(2) the advancement of social well-being, particularly by scientific research; (3) the care and
comfort of the aged poor; and (4) the advancement of education. the Foundation is administered
from Nuffield Lodge, Regent's Park, London.

By the time Lord Nuffield was eighty, he had given away £27 million, much of it in medical
benefactions and to found chairs at Oxford. He always remained essentially the same - a modest
man, spare, fit, and a heavy smoker, with a dry sense of humour. 'Giving away is pleasant,' he
said once. 'But the worry, which comes from giving, is very great...'
 

Related Links
Nuffield Place
The home of Lord Nuffield

A Brief History of the Morris Minor

The Morris Minor Page
An interesting look into the development of the Morris Motor Company
and the first Morris Minor.

Oxfordshire Genealogy (GENUKI) -
An excellent place to start Oxfordshire research.

Oxfordshire Surname Interest List

Oxford - One of England's most Ancient Cities