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Robert Frank RESTALL (born and died 1882)
His sister Dorothy RESTALL (1887–1888)
St Giles section [Ss Philip & James]: Row 49, Grave K44

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There are just two babies buried in this grave, so this page concentrates on the background of their parents.

Frank Restall, the father of the two children buried here, was born in Trotton, West Sussex in 1842/3, the son of Robert Restall, who was a farmer, and his wife Jane. At the time of the 1851 census Frank (8) was living at Trotton with his parents and six of his older siblings: Robert (24), who was a shepherd: James (22), who was a grocer; and Mary (19), Charlotte (17), Emily (15), and Frederick (13). Two carters and a housemaid also lived in the house. By 1861 Frank (18) was an apprentice grocer in Chichester, living at South Street with the family of his employer, the grocer and tea dealer Samuel Merricks.

Mary Jane Shrimpton, the children’s mother, was born at 12 Market Street, Oxford in 1852 and baptised at St Michael’s Church on 2 July. She was the daughter of George Shrimpton and Amy Emma Goodwyn. For more on her parents, see their separate grave, which also has full details of her siblings. Her father was a bookseller and her mother a shoe-seller, and she grew up at 12 Market Street. In 1871 Mary Jane Shrimpton (18) was living at Betterton Farm in Ardington, where she was the governess of Ann Whitfield, the eight-year-old daughter of the farmer there.

On 26 December 1876 at St Michael’s Church, Oxford, Frank Restall, who was then working as a tobacconist in All Saints’ parish, married Mary Jane Shrimpton, and on 30 December their marriage was announced thus in Jackson’s Oxford Journal:
“Dec. 26, at St. Michael’s, in this city, Frank, youngest son of the late Mr. Robert Restall, of Gatehouse Farm, Trotton, Sussex, to Mary Jane, third daughter of George Shrimpton, of 12, Market-street.”

They had six children, including the two buried in this grave:

• Amy Jane Restall (born at 60 Holywell Street, Oxford in 1877 and baptised at Holywell Church on 21 October)
• Mary Margaret Restall TWIN (born at 6 Turl Street, Oxford in 1880 and baptised at Holywell Church on 4 November)
• Charlotte Beatrice Restall TWIN (born at 6 Turl Street, Oxford in 1880 and baptised at Holywell Church on 4 November)
• Robert Frank Restall (born at 6 Turl Street, Oxford on 30 June 1882 and baptised at Holywell Church on 23 July); died at 86 Kingston Road aged nine weeks on 31 August 1882)
• Ruth Restall (born in All Saints’ parish, Oxford in 1883 and baptised at Holywell Church on 17 September)
• Dorothy Restall (born at 86 Kingston Road, Oxford on 7 April 1887, and baptised at Ss Philip & James’s Church on 8 May); died aged seventeen months on 8 December 1888.

Frank Restall began his married life at 60 Holywell Street and was appointed Parish Warden of Holywell in April 1880.

 

 

Towards the end of 1880 the family moved to 6 Turl Street, later Ducker & Son (left).

Although they were now living in All Saints’ parish, they continued to have their children baptised at Holywell Church.

 

At the time of the 1881 census Frank Restall (38), described as a tobacconist’s assistant, was living at 6 Turl Street with his wife Mary Jane (28) and their children Amy (3) and the twins Mary and Charlotte (six months). They had two servant girls.

Soon after this census, Frank Restall and his wife moved with their first three daughters to Kingston Road, which was then in the parish of Ss Philip & James. Their son Robert Frank Restall was born there in June 1882 and died nine weeks later:

† Robert Frank Restall died at Kingston Road at the age of nine weeks in 1882 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 4 September (burial recorded in the parish registers of St Giles’s and Ss Philip & James’s Church).

Their next child Ruth was born in 1883 in All Saints’ parish.

In 1884 Frank Restall became the first leaseholder of 85 and 86 Kingston Road. Their daughter Dorothy was born at 86 Kingston Road on 7 April 1887, but died the next year:

† Dorothy Restall died at 86 Kingston Road at the age of 17 months on 8 December 1888 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 13 December (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s and Ss Philip & James’s Church).

At the time of the 1891 census Frank Restall described himself as a cigar dealer and was living at 86 Kingston Road with the twins Mary and Charlotte (10), and Ruth (7), plus a servant girl. The missing sister Amy (13) was paying a visit to Boars Hill to stay with Mrs Charlotte Hedderley, née Restall (57), a tobacconist and athletic outfitter who was probably her father’s sister. The children’s mother Mrs Mary Jane Restall was paying a visit to her brother Harold and his family in Lewisham.

Frank Restall still kept on rooms in Turl Street after moving to Kingston Road, and on 19 June 1891 he appeared before the Oxford City Police Court for allowing betting to take place there. The case is reported in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 20 June 1891:

Frank Restall, 8A Turl-street, was summoned for that he did on the 27th of May and on divers other days within the past six months, being the occupier of certain rooms at 8A, Turl-street, did use such rooms for the purpose of betting with persons resorting thereto upon certain events and contingencies relating to certain horses, contrary to the form of the Statute in such case made and provided….

Mr Arkell [from the Town Clerk’s Office] said the defendant had for sometime kept a billiard room in Turl-street, and they had very strong evidence to prove that it had been used and kept as a betting house. He could if necessary show that actual bets had been made there. For instance, on the Derby there were two separate bets of 1l. each. On the Two Thousand Guineas bets of at least 5l. had been made there. He believed he could also prove in the case of one undergraduate bets had been made 500 times.

He was fined £50, including costs, and paid the fine immediately in cash.

On 3 December 1892 it was reported in Jackson’s Oxford Journal that Mary Restall of 86 Kingston Road had dropped a leather purse containing £2 5s. on 22 November in a tram car on the Walton Street line, and it was kept by the tram driver, who was sentenced to six weeks’ hard labour.

In the 1890s Frank Restall became a coal dealer at Hayfield Wharf, which was near his home at 86 Kingston Road. There is a photograph of him and his employees in the coal yard in Malcolm Graham, Oxfordshire at Work, p. 67.

 

Left: advertisement published in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 9 February 1895.

On 6 April that year he advertised: “Furniture removed by Frank Restall, successor to T. Johnson. Taking all risk. Heyfield Wharf, & 10, Turl Street.”

In 1896 Kingston Road was transferred to the new parish of St Margaret.

A photograph at the Oxford History Centre dating from about 1890 shows Frank Restall’s staff moving coal unloaded from barges at Hayfield Wharf on the Oxford Canal. Kelly’s Directory for 1899 has the following listing:

RESTALL FRANK, Coal & coke merchant, 86 Kingston road & Hayfield wharf, Hayfield road

The 1901 census shows Frank Restall, a coal factor of 58, living at 86 Kingston Road with his wife Mary Jane (48) and three of his daughters: Mary Margaret (20), who was a draper’s showroom assistant; her twin Charlotte Beatrice, who was a milliner; and Ruth (17), who was an apprentice milliner. They still had one servant. Their eldest daughter Amy Jane (23) was an assistant school mistress, boarding at 83 Queen’s Road, Tunbridge Wells.

By 1911 Frank Restall (68) was living in Parker Street (which runs parallel to the Iffley Road in east Oxford) with his daughter Amy Jane (33), who was a teacher, and his granddaughter Margaret Ruth Pineo (4), who had been born in Toronto. He described himself as a furniture remover’s agent, and was probably semi-retired. Mrs Restall is hard to find.

By 1915 Kelly’s Directory had the following listing:

Restall & Co. (Jas. F. King, proprietor), coal & coke merchants & factors & furniture removers & storers,
cartage agents & contractors, Heyfield wharf, Hayfield road".

Frank Westall was still listed as living in Parker Street in Kelly’s Directory for 1915, but must have moved to 231 Cowley Road shortly afterwards.

Frank Restall died at 231 Cowley Road at the age of 74 in 1916 and was buried at Ss Mary & John churchyard on 17 June.

His wife Mary Jane Restall died at Cowley Road at the age of 72 in 1925 and was buried with him on 12 March.

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The four surviving sisters of the infants buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery

• Amy Jane Restall (born 1877) never married. By 1911 she had come back to Oxford to live with her parents, who had retired to Parker Street in east Oxford, and was teaching at a church school. She died at her home, 239 Cowley Road, at the age of 78 on 31 October 1955. Her effects came to £151 4s. 8d., and her executor was her niece, Miss Margaret Ruth Pineo.
• Mary Margaret Restall (born 1881) married a man with the surname Pineo, probably in Toronto, and they had at least one child, Margaret Ruth Pineo (born in Toronto in 1906/7) who was staying with her grandparents in Oxford in 1911. The following Bankruptcy Receiving Order appeared in the Edinburgh Gazette of 9 March 1923: “Mary Margaret Pineo (widow), 4 Osborne Road, Doncaster, in the county of York, costumier, and carrying on business at 13 Priory place, Doncaster, aforesaid, as Madam Restall.” The death of a Mary Margaret Pineo was registered in the Swindon district in the first quarter of 1978, which means (unless this is a daughter) that Mary must have lived to the age of 97.
• Charlotte Beatrice Restall (born 1881) was a milliner of 86 Kingston Road when she married Arthur James Chaundy, a cabinet maker of 9 Southmoor Road and the son of the cabinet maker Henry Chaundy, at St Margaret’s Church. In 1911, when she was aged 30, she was living at Grove Cottage, Kidlington with her husband, who was an upholsterer, and their three children: Charlotte Mary Chaundy (8), Margaret Joan Chaundy (4), and Donald Restall Chaundy (2). Mrs Charlotte Beatrice Chaundy died in Oxford at the age of 86 near the beginning of 1966.
• Ruth Restall (born 1883) is hard to find after 1901, when she was living with her parents in Oxford.