Museum of Oxford Lunchtime Talk: ‘Detroit-on-Thames: How William Morris changed Oxford forever’

Submitted by MuseumofOxford on December 23, 2024 - 13:00

Venue, Timing and Cost

Venue: 
Museum of Oxford
Date(s): 
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Timing: 
1pm-2pm
Cost: 
£5

Born in 1877 at the height of the British Empire, William Morris grew up on the rural fringes of east Oxford. He left school at the age of 14 with no qualifications but it soon became apparent the young Morris was a natural mechanic and instinctive businessman.

He became a teenage entrepreneur, progressing from repairing bicycles in his parents front room, to building his own motor garage in Longwall and developing a protype for the Morris Oxford and Morris Cowley cars. These vehicles would earn him a personal fortune and result in the construction of a giant assembly plant at Cowley.

The new factory employed cutting edge technologies and the meteoric growth of the business in the 1920s would soon exhaust the local labour pool and attract tens of thousands of workers from across the UK. The social and economic changes which followed would transform Oxford into a blue-collar boom town with sprawling housing estates and a fierce reputation for union militancy.

This twentieth century industrialisation challenged the centuries old power balance between gown and town. For a few decades it appeared that the future of Oxford lay in chimney stacks not dreaming spires.

Join local historian Maurice East to discover the amazing story of how cars came to be built at Cowley.

Tickets cost £5 and can be purchased online via Eventbrite (booking fee applies) or at the Museum Shop.

Further Information

Contact Details: 

For more information and booking
https://museumofoxford.org/event/lunchti...

Museum of Oxford, St Aldate's
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 1BX United Kingdom
Phone: 01865 252334
museum@oxford.gov.uk

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