occupation

Wheelwright, carpenter and builder,
subsequently farmer

dates

Born: 9 Oct 1821, Little Milton, Oxon
                (baptised at Great Milton)

Married: Elizabeth Ann COOPER of Crowell
                11 Oct 1841

Died: 28 Aug 1898, Headington, Oxford

residence

Little Milton, Watlington, Headington - all Oxon

submitted by

Bernard STONE (great-great-grandson)

related faces

William Francis Charles STONE
(great-grandson)

relevant website

Francis’s son and daughter-in-law, Edwin and Ellen STONE ran the Royal Standard pub

in Headington and Edwin was also a builder. There is some information about them and a photograph on the Headington web site at www.headington.org.uk/history/pubs/royal_standard.htm

Copyright information

The picture of Francis STONE, from a painting dated 1876, is in the collection of Bernard STONE. It should not be reproduced without permission.

Background information

Francis STONE was the son of Samuel STONE, a miller from Little Milton. He was apprenticed to learn the trade of wheelwright in Kingston Blount and by 1851 was a master builder and wheelwright employing four men in Watlington, where he remained in Shirburn Street until about 1864. At the time he was described as ‘a skilled wheelwright, popular and successful in his business, a good employer, a man of standing in the community, well to do, a stout jovial little gentleman and a generous host’.

He was a member of the Ancient Order of Druids, a popular and expanding fraternal organisation at that time. In about 1864 he moved into farming and had a number of farms in Oxfordshire and surrounding counties. He was badly affected by the agricultural depression in the late 19th century. At this point he moved to Headington, Oxford where his son, Edwin, was a builder and also licensee of the Royal Standard beer house. During this latter period of his life he was a timber dealer.