Place Name
Named for the manor and village of Swaby in Lincolnshire, where Magdalen College, Oxford, held patronage, giving it the right to appoint the rector of the village’s 13thCentury church, St. Nicholas. Swaby is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was recorded as Suabi. The placename is thought to come from the Old Norse personal name Sváfi and word bȳ meaning farmstead village. It remained a small, close-knit farming community for centuries. At least a part of the manor of All Farthing, which this street was once in, was owned by Thomas Sheppard, who was a Doctor of Divinity from Magdalen College. When Thomas died he left his fortune to his wife Sophia Sheppard, who became a generous benefactor to her husband’s former college, leaving them extensive land in Earlsfield. The college began to develop it for housing from the early 1930s, naming it after places and people that were connected with the college. Magdalen is one of the wealthiest colleges in Oxford.
