Image Credit: By kind permission of Maurice East

This event is both an in-person and on-line event. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.

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

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

With collaborations with industries in the Midlands and America, the new factory employed cutting edge technologies and offered higher wages to local people. The rapid growth of the business in the 1920s and 30s would attract tens of thousands of migrant workers from across the UK. The social and economic changes which followed transformed 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.

About the Speaker

Maurice East is a local historian who was born and raised in Oxford. He interprets the history of the city through the lens of growing up as a ‘townie’ and shines a spotlight on stories located off the usual tourist trail. His main area of research is the history of car making at Cowley and how the arrival of industry, cars and blue collar workers changed Oxford in the early twentieth century.

Along with public speaking, Maurice devises and leads unique walking tours around the city. He has worked on projects with the Museum of Oxford and the Oxford Preservation Trust.

Maurice is also employed as a consultant at the History Faculty at Oxford University for the Making Cars project – The Cowley Car History Project | Community History.