A previous year

Tea on the Towpath, Saturday 19 June from 2.30 pm ­to 5 pm, is the main OIRA event for 2010. We’ll have the gazebos, bunting, tables and chairs along the towpath with teas, coffee and organic juice for children, delicious homemade cakes and biscuits and locally produced fruit, cut flowers, vegetables, plants and preserves for sale. Bob Summers will be demonstrating how to make baskets and his lovely baskets will be on sale too. There will be a stall selling books and old gardening tools, and children are welcome to sell their old toys. Pasting tables are available for hire @ £10 to sell homemade crafts  etc (but no new or old clothes please).
 
Any offers of help to bake cakes, donate preserves and spare fruit, herbs and vegetables from the lottie, run a stall or help set up and take down would be very gratefully received. If you can help, please contact Bianca Elgar on 202977 or Elizabeth Newbery 793360.

National Flood Forum, the charity dedicated to helping flood victims, is launching the country’s first national survey on flood insurance, as well as urging the present government to honour their predecessors’ commitment to hold a cross party flood insurance summit.

To take this opportunity to voice your concerns and make sure you are heard, click here.

We’ll have more news on our summer event, Tea on the Towpath, and our review of OIRA’s constitution, bringing it up to date. We will bring you more news of plans to reduce flooding in West Oxford and we hope to have a member of the Environment Agency as our special guest star. OIRA is your association, so please come along and help to shape the future direction of your community association and join in the debate. And remember to come along and vote!

Meet (initially) on Wednesday evenings at 15 South Street. Call John on (01865) 721223 or 07963 680035.

It is unclear whether the Osney name originates from the combination of Osa (an early Oxford landowner) and ‘ey’ (the Old English word for an island), or from ‘ouse’, the ancient British word for a river.

In the Middle Ages, the area was dominated by the Augustinian Osney Abbey founded in 1129 by Robert d’Oyley, one of William the Conqueror’s henchmen. The nave and transept were located in the open space now occupied by Mill Street cemetery. The Abbey accumulated great wealth from river trade when the Osney Cut was dug in 1227. Several ecclesiastical councils were held there during the 13th century and Parliament met there in 1330.

After the Dissolution, the Abbey fell into disuse and the area reverted to a rural backwater with river channels and quiet meadows. The area was frequently water-logged, earning it the nickname ‘Frog Island’.  Increasing traffic to the west of Oxford created pressure for a bridge over the main river channel, which was built by 1456 and replaced in 1888 by the present cast-iron structure. Ferry Hinksey road was commissioned in 1467, and the forerunner to the Botley Road was built in the 1520s.

Osney Island was developed for housing in 1851 when George P. Hester, the Town Clerk, bought the Island and sold freehold plots. By the mid 1850s most of the small terraces of the Island had been built, serving the train station which moved to its present site in 1852. Railway-workers made up about a third of the Island’s working inhabitants at the time of the 1861 census, when the population was recorded as 780. At this time women predominantly worked as dressmakers, seamstresses and milliners. By 1891 the population had grown to 867 and another 40 dwellings had been added.

St Frideswide’s Church was originally sited at the corner of Bridge St and South St, but the current building opened in 1872. Its construction was frustrated by financial difficulties which prevented the building of a spire. The last hope for this was only finally relinquished in 1985. In the north east end of the nave, stands the Alice Door, carved by Alice Liddell, on whom the story of Alice in Wonderland was based.

A school was first established on the Island in 1854, with the current West Oxford Primary School on Ferry Hinksey Road opening in 1914. Four pubs stood on the Island in the early 20th century along with four general stores, a dairy and a bakery. The Waterman’s Arms opened in 1871 to serve the burgeoning river-trade which used Osney Lock en route from the Midlands to London. The owners of the Hollybush Inn used to incur the wrath of the local turnpike trust as horses were left tied there to avoid paying the Osney Bridge tolls.

Chimney sweeps planting sooty kisses on blushing brides was once considered good luck, but now it is a custom of the past, as both parties are rather rare. No longer are the few remaining sweeps the grimy individuals with cloth cap and overalls but clinically white-coated operatives who vacuum away every smut.

Chimney sweep in Oxford

Before 1864, their predecessors, the Sweep Masters and their journeymen employed climbing boys to shin up flues and brush down the soot. These climbing boys and some girls were taken into so-called apprenticeships upon payment of perhaps 5 guineas to the parents, whereupon the child would become the property of the Sweep Master. An item in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 16th Nov. 1764 shows that John Lay, apprentice to Richard Dormer, had absconded and a reward of half-a-crown (25p in today’s money) was offered for his return. The article gave his full description and forbade anyone to harbour or entertain him.

The so-called apprenticeship consisted of a brief period of watching, then being thrust into the flue with an experienced boy behind; any reluctance on the part of the ‘tyro’ would prompt the slapping or pricking of his feet. The discomfort and horrific conditions they experienced resulted in scrapes, burns, sore eyes and constant chest infections. In their later years many suffered from cancers of the lips and scrotum, which was known as the sweeps cancer and rarely seen elsewhere.
Major accidents were commonplace. In March 1813 an eight-year-old boy named Pitt became firmly stuck in a chimney that had only recently been extinguished. After part of the chimney had been demolished, he was found to be dead and his elbows and knees had been burnt to the bone. These incidents were deemed to be accidental deaths. A law was passed in 1864 to end this horrendous practice but not without some opposition in Government. One noble enquired, ‘How would I know that my chimneys were being swept properly?’
In the early 17th century Italians from Piedmont came to England to work as sweeps. Today, in the first week of September each year, hundreds of chimney sweeps meet at Santa Maria Maggiori in Piedmont. A brotherhood of sweeps meet to drink, and generally ‘whoop it up’. A museum to their profession was opened there in 1975 and has become their Mecca. It also serves as a memorial to the many children who endured such suffering.

Oxford Community Centre

Keith Hutchence from the Environment Agency gave an enthusiastic presentation about the flood risk prevention strategy and encouraged Islanders to respond to the consultation on the planned flood relief channel.

Dan Rawstorne from the campaign against the super-probation centre in Mill Street, gave an impassioned speech encouraging residents to join the campaign against the centre.
We welcomed our two Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) Ray and Craig who updated us on the importance of reporting all crime, even so called ‘low level crime’. Craig confirmed that, at present, there are no plans for CCTV for Osney.
The meeting dealt with the usual business, including receiving and approving the usual reports, including those of the Treasurer and for the Open Gardens event. The Officers of the Association, all of whom must submit themselves for re-election each year, were re-elected. Thank you for the vote of confidence.
We also asked the meeting to vote on some amendments that we proposed to make to the constitution and how OIRA operates. Several of these proposals generated much useful debate and we thank those who contributed for their thoughtful and helpful comments. The present OIRA Committee aims to start to bring the OIRA constitution more into line with modern practice. To begin this process, we tabled a couple of amendments to give the OIRA committee specific, rather than implied, power to act in certain areas. To this end, the AGM gave approval to the following amendments to clause 6:

• Vote 1 To allow the committee to effect insurance of all kinds (which may include officers’ liability insurance);
• Vote 2 To establish and / or support any body, and to make donations for any purpose falling within the association’s objects;
• Vote 5 To undertake spending to facilitate the production, design and publication of the associations’ Newsletter, website or other communication methods as determined by the Committee.

Although the meeting was broadly supportive, following a spirited discussion, our proposal to form a company with similar objects to those of the association were withdrawn. We’ll undertake more research, including whether charitable status might be worthwhile, and then look to ask Islanders for approval at an EGM.
Finally, the meeting endorsed the Committee’s aim of developing a code of conduct that we would look to introduce that would govern the relationships that we enter into.
Thank you for making the AGM so successful and thank you for your participation.
Code of conduct

To be introduced with immediate effect:
Osney Island Residents’ Association (OIRA) has no tolerance of any discrimination of any kind, whether on the basis of race, culture, gender, age, disability or economic status. We take pride in the diverse multi-cultural community in which we live. We expect that everyone with whom we come into contact:

• adheres to the principle of not acting in a discriminatory way;
• supports OIRA’s aim of fostering the growth of community spirit throughout Osney.

We expect these standards from all including our contributors in the newsletter, those listed on our website and those with whom OIRA arranges community events, including our annual general meeting and open gardens.

• If you can offer your garden please contact Anna on 245496/ 83 Bridge St.
• If you can bake a cake, biscuits or buns please tell Bianca on 202977/15 East St. Pauline on 250870/Bridge St
• If you can donate plants/seedlings/cuttings please contact Sally on 721596/1 Bridge St or Elizabeth on 793360/ 3 North St.

11 gardens are open:
3 North St; 15 East St; I Bridge St; 11 Bridge St; 58 Bridge St; 85 Bridge St; 80 Bridge St; 1 Swan St; 6 West St, 22 West St and 31 West St.