John BAKER (1826–1860)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 4a, Grave D68
JOHN BAKER M.A.
CHAPLAIN OF CHRIST CHURCH AND MASTER OF THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL
BORN MARCH 2 1826 DIED MARCH 14 1860
NOW WE KNOW IN PART / BUT THEN SHALL WE KNOW EVEN AS ALSO WE ARE KNOWN
John Baker was born in Easton, Hampshire on 2 March 1826 and baptised there on 26 March. He was the only son of Arthur Octavius Baker (who in 1831 wrote Considerations on the Present State of the Peasantry of England, with suggestions for the improvement of their condition by a Hampshire yeoman) and his wife Lucy.
John was matriculated at the University of Oxford from Christ Church on 31 May 1844 at the age of 18. He was one of the last people to be a Servitor at Oxford, but by the 1840s it does not appear to have involved any duties, as the University Commission of 1852 reported: “Servitors are found, under that name, only at Christchurch, where they used within the last twenty years to bring the first dish into the Hall; but now they differ from other Students of that Society in little, except in academic dues.”
John Baker obtained his B.A. in 1848, and was already Chaplain of Christ Church at the time of the census of 1851 (the year he obtained his M.A.) when he was aged 25. From 1853 to 1858 he was also Master (headmaster) of Christ Church Cathedral School.
His father appears to have died in 1857 (record of his will).
Less than three years later John Baker himself also died. He was then living with his sister Miss Clara Baker at Worcester Buildings in Walton Street.
† John Baker died at Worcester Buildings at the age of 34 on 14 March 1860 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 17 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
The announcement of his death in The Times on 19 March 1860 read: “On the 14th inst., at Oxford, respected and beloved, the Rev. John Baker, M.A., chaplain of Christ Church, and Headmaster of the Cathedral School, aged 34.”
His effects came to nearly £2,000, and his executor was his sister Clara.
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