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Joseph BATES junior (1817–1903)
His wife Mrs Kezia BATES née Asken (1814–1906)
Her father David ASKEN (c.1786–1872)
Their daughter Mrs Louisa HUNT, née Bates (1849–1929)
St Giles section: Row 2, Grave B32

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All four dates on this gravestone are wrong: they are each the date the burial took place, rather than the date of death.

Joseph Bates was born in High Wycombe on 2 March 1817, the son of Joseph Bates and Mary Durance Butcher. For more information about his early life, see his parents’ grave.

Kezia Asken was born at Paddington in 1814 and baptised at St James’s Church there on 11 December. She was the daughter of David Asken (born in Thrybergh, Yorkshire in c.1786) and his wife Augusta. At the time of the 1841 census, David Asken was a grocer, living in Surrey at Chestry House, Chobham with his wife, and his daughter Kezia (26) was a servant in Acton.

Joseph Bates married Kezia Asken (with her name spelt as Askin on the marriage certificate) in Berkshire on 9 November 1843 (reg. Cookham district). They had the following children:

• Joseph Bates (born in White Waltham, Berkshire in 1844)
• Emma Bates (born in Sundridge, Kent in 1846)
• Louisa Bates (born in Sundridge, Kent in 1849)
• Marian(na) Bates (born in Sundridge, Kent in 1851)
• Agnes Bates (born in Sundridge, Kent in 1853)
• Charles John Bates (born in Sundridge, Kent in 1855).

The couple began their married life in White Waltham in Berkshire, but by 1846 had moved to Sundridge in Kent. At the time of the 1851 census Joseph (35) was working as a gardener and living in Sundridge with his wife Kezia (37) and their daughters Emma (4) and Louisa (1). Kezia’s father David Asken, now a widower of 60, had come to lodge in another house in Sundridge, probably to be near his daughter, and was working as a gardener.

By 1861 Joseph was a coal dealer, still living at Sundridge with his wife Kezia and children Joseph (16), Louisa (11), twins Marianna and Agnes (7), and Charles (6). Kezia’s father David Asken was still working as a gardener at the age of 77, and was still living in Sundridge at Ditgate Farm.

By 1870 the family had moved back to Oxford, bringing Kezia’s father with them. They lived at Blenheim Place at the south end of the Woodstock Road, and Joseph returned to horticulture, starting up the Blenheim Nurseries there. The 1871 census shows Joseph (55) living at Blenheim Place with his wife Kezia (56) and their children Marian (20), Agnes (18), and Charles (16), and Kezia’s father David Asken, a widower of 87, was living with them (87).

Four of Joseph Bates’s children were married in the 1870s and 1880s:

• On 14 November 1870 at Ss Philip & James’s Church Louisa Bates married Thomas John Hunt, a tailor of Lewes. The notice of the wedding which appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal stated that her father was a nurseryman of Blenheim Place, Woodstock Road; but the parish register described him as a gardener;
• In 1879 (reg. first quarter) in the Hereford area, Charles John Bates married Rose Hannah Gouldrick;
• On 25 September 1879 at Ss Philip & James’s Church Agnes Bates married John Johnson, a gardener of Garsington;
• On 20 January 1887 at Ss Philip & James’s Church Emma Bates married the widower John Mattock, the well-known rose grower of Headington who also had stalls in the Covered Market in Oxford.

Joseph Bates’s father-in-law died at his house in 1872:

† David Asken died at Blenheim Place at the age of 86 in June 1872 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 10 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

On 11 October 1876 his son Charles John Bates, then a pupil at Mr Turner’s nursery living at 3 Waterloo Terrace, William Street, Slough, was the victim of highway robbery when he had his watch, money, and other articles by two soldiers.

At the time of the 1881 census Joseph was a nurseryman employing 14 men and one boy. He and Kezia were still living at Blenheim Place (No. 11), with Emma (34) and Marian (29). On 3 September 1884 Joseph Bates of the Blenheim Nurseries won third prize for his fuschias at the Royal Oxfordshire Horticultural Society show at The Queen’s College.

At the time of the 1891 census Joseph Bates (76), described as a florist, was living at 81 Woodstock Road with their daughter Mary Ann (39) and their son Charles John Bates (34), who were also described as florists. Charles was now married to his wife Rose, and she and their children Rose (11), Joseph (10), Charles John (6), and Archibald (4) also lived there.

On 9 November 1893 Joseph & Kezia Bates celebrated their Golden Wedding, reported in Jackson’s Oxford Journal.

From 24 June 1899 the following notice appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal each week, showing that Joseph now had five stalls in the covered market, and was one of the earliest firms in Oxford to have a telephone:

In 1901 Joseph Bates (86) was retired and living at 53 St Giles’s Street with his wife Kezia (87) and their daughter Mary Ann (49), who was working a florist. His son Charles John Bates had taken over the Blenheim Nurseries.

Joseph Bates died in 1903, just two weeks before what would have been his Diamond Wedding:

† Joseph Bates died at 53 St Giles’s Street at the age of 88 in October 1903 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 30 October (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

His wife moved to Headington, almost certainly to live with her daughter Mrs Emma Mattock, and she died there three years after her husband:

† Mrs Kezia Bates née Asken died at Windmill Road, Headington at the age of 91 in August 1906 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 22 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

Their son Charles John Bates took over the Blenheim Nursery. He and his wife Rose were living at 49 St Giles Road (later 27 Woodstock Road) when their children were baptised at St Giles: Rose Margaret (27 Feb 1880), Joseph George (born 6 May, bap 29 May 1881), Charles John Bates junior (2 March 1885), and Archibald Bates (23 November 1886); they had one more daughter. They were still at the nursery in 1901, but in 1911 Charles John Bates (56) was working as a caretaker at the Telegraph College in London.

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Her daughter Mrs Louisa Hunt, née Bates

At the time of the 1871 census Louisa (21) was living in Essex, at Maldon Road, St Mary-at-the-Walls near Colchester, with her husband Thomas John Hunt (25), who was a tailor. They moved to Yorkshire soon after, where they had seven children, including:

• Charles Henry Hunt (born in Bradford in 1874)
• Augusta Emma Hunt (born in Bradford in 1882)
• (Henry) Wilfred Hunt (born in Bradford in 1886)

In 1901 Louisa (49) was living at 41 Burlington Terrace, Bradford. Her husband was away from home, but her children Augusta (18) and Wilfred (15), as well as her Oxford-born nephew Charles Bates (16), were with her.

At the time of the 1911 census Louisa and her husband were living at 39 Burlington Terrace, Bradford with their sons Charles (36) and Wilfred (25), who were both tailors’s assistants. They also had two boarders.

It appears that Louisa moved back to Oxford near the end of her life, probably to live with relations:

† Mrs Louisa HUNT née Bates died at 128 Walton Street at the age of 81 in March 1929 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 16 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).