Past Talks
St Giles Fair
Date: 17th February 2025
Speaker: Tim Healey
St Giles’ Fair dates back to 1624 and has its origin in a parish festival to celebrate the feast of the patron saint of the same name. Taking the form of a parish wake, a vigil would take place on Saturday evening, followed on Sunday by a church service in St Giles Church, which had been built in fields to the north of the city in 1130, and the fair. Rowdiness at the fair meant that subsequent arrangements saw the service taking place separate from the fair. The fair was, and still is, held on the Monday and Tuesday following the first Sunday following St Giles's Day (1st September).
Other fairs existed from as early as the Norman period, for example St Frideswide’s Fair took place on Christchurch Meadow and was a trade fair that attracted wool merchants, booksellers and ironmongers.
Licences to hold such fairs were granted to Banbury (1154), Wallingford (1205), Witney (1243) and Bicester (1252).
By the 19th century, Bicester had seven annual fairs, one of which would have been a mop, or hiring, fair. These were a particular feature of the period after the Black Death in 1348 which had significantly reduced the labour force and workers realised that they could demand higher wages. Fairs in Chipping Norton and Abingdon are still called Mop fairs.
St Giles’ Parish Wake was first recorded during the reign of James I in 1624. St John’s College (founded 1555) was entitled to the tolls from the fair. Not surprisingly for a university city, booksellers were in abundance. In 1625, a lion was exhibited at a fair in Oxford (site unknown) and, thereafter, menageries became a popular feature. Morris dancing was also introduced to early fairs.
By the late 18th century, St Giles’ Fair was one of several major fairs in the country, and up until the 1840s it was still partly a trade fair. As time passed, additional attractions were added, for example, a funfair, including a big wheel; mini dramas; bare-knuckle fighting featuring James Figg from Thame, the boxing champion of England and curiosities (so-called ‘freak shows’).
A venue near to Charlbury was the site of the Wychwood Fair. By 1796 the Methodists had relocated here from Witney, having been shocked by the rowdiness at Witney Wakes. However, drunkenness, pickpockets and grudge fights soon became prevalent at Wychwood Fair, which was attended by upwards of 10,000 people.
Attendees at St Giles’ Fair in 1830 were instrumental in releasing prisoners en route to prison following the Otmoor riots.
On 1st September 1854, the Great Western Railway laid on an excursion from London to St Giles’ Fair and several more followed.
Travelling waxworks were incorporated in 1866, together with a steam-powered roundabout designed by Frederick Savage, an engineer from King’s Lynn.
The Oxford Journal from 1877 reported that gadgets to test strength and weight, and deliver electric shocks were available. Boxing booths and female wrestlers became popular, but there were constant complaints regarding disorderly behaviour, including what was described as ‘instruments of personal annoyance’ deployed among the crowds.
Moving pictures became a popular feature, so much so that by 1910 there were five cinematographic attractions at St Giles’.
On the eve of World War 1, there were calls for the fair to be cancelled, but St John’s College contended that they had already taken fees from the stallholders, so it was not until 1915 that the fair closed due to the fear that the illuminations would attract the enemy. There was no national guidelines, so Banbury Michaelmas Fair went ahead that year.
In the inter-war years, dodgems cars were introduced from America, electricity having been installed in the 1890s.
Fairs were banned in 1939, but reinstated in a limited way in the 1940s, as they were deemed to be a boost to morale during the war years. ‘Blackout Fairs’, in large tents, were part of the solution.
In 1953, sugar rationing came to an end and sweet treats were again available to the 30,000 people who attended St Giles’ Fair each day.
In 2024, the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the opening of the fair saw it as well-attended as in the Victorian and Edwardian period, and its popularity continues.