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Trinity Term 2024

Walks in Oxford
by William M. Wade

Summer is coming, and Oxford is beginning to fill up with tourists. But Oxford tourism is by no means a modern phenomenon. According to the Victoria County History, “By the 16th century the city was already regarded as a beautiful place…. By the 18th century, enriched by a wealth of monumental buildings, the city was regarded as ‘the delight and ornament of the kingdom, not to say of the world’ (Sir John Peshall, The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford, 1773). The growth of tourism among the gentry brought more great names to a city well acquainted with famous men.”

Along with tourism came guidebooks, such as The Gentleman and Lady’s Pocket Companion for Oxford. Being a Short Account of what is Most Worthy Observation in the City, and in Each College of the University, first published in 1747, or The New Oxford Guide, or Companion Through the University … (1759), both of which went through many editions over the next half-century. In 1817 there appeared Walks in Oxford; Comprising an Original, Historical, and Descriptive Account of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings of the University: With an Introductory Outline of the Academical History of Oxford. To Which are Added, a Concise History and Description of the City, and Delineations in the Environs of Oxford, in two volumes, by W. M. Wade, who explains in his Preface: “To the Colleges and Halls, and to the several Public Structures of the University, the Stranger is introduced in the course of five “Walks,” supposed to occupy an equal number of days; a space of time certainly not more than sufficient for even a mere tour of inspection through the University.” (Those who do not have the time or the inclination to follow these Walks, he adds in a footnote, will find it equally useful, as they need only consult the Index to find details of particular buildings.) A second edition was published in 1818, and a few years later another edition was produced, in which the number of engraved illustrations was more than trebled to seventy-two.

Somerville, of course, is not included in Wade’s “Walks”; nor is Walton House, which still forms the core of House today, and was built around 1826. But the Radcliffe Observatory, which was completed in 1774, is one of the buildings illustrated in the extra plates added in the 1820s edition, where it is seen probably from the north on the Woodstock Road side, across what looks like a rather scruffy garden or allotment! Wade describes it as “a handsome building, situated very advantageously, on a gently rising ground, at the extremity of the northern suburb.”

William Mettam Wade was born in 1784, and died on 4 December 1845. According to a brief obituary of him in The Gentleman’s Magazine of the following year, “Mr Wade, though labouring under much bodily incapacity, arising from an accident, was a most zealous and indefatigable man…. Though not a member of the university, for some time previous to his ordination he resided in Oxford, to be under the care of the late Mr Grosvenor, and published ‘Walks through Oxford,’ a well known work.” John Grosvenor was among the very first surgeons to be appointed to the newly-opened Radcliffe Infirmary in 1770, and was a pioneer in using massage to treat stiff and diseased joints. Wade was ordained by the Bishop of Edinburgh in 1817, and sent to a small congregation of fewer than twenty Scottish Episcopalians in Paisley, where he was so successful that in 1833 he oversaw the building of a chapel seating four hundred. As well as Walks in Oxford, he wrote a historical description of Glasgow, and published several lectures and a volume of sermons.

This copy, which is of the 1820s edition with additional illustrations, was given to Somerville by the wife of Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College 1861-1884. Both she and her husband were great supporters of the early education of women in Oxford.

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