Mrs Eliza BELL, née Burton (1802–1885)
St Giles section: Row 24, Grave F29
ELIZA WIDOW OF
THOMAS BELL
AND DAUGHTER OF
THE REV. ARTHUR FRANCIS
THOMAS BURTON,
DIED MAY 16, 1885,
AGED
84 YEARS
Eliza Burton was born in Caddington near Luton, Bedfordshire in 1802 and baptised there on 6 June. She was the only child of the Revd Arthur Francis Thomas Burton (probably the Arthur Burton who married Mary Cole on 20 February 1801 at St Andrew's Church, Holborn).
She was also the first cousin of the Revd Edward Marshall of Sandford St Martin, whose mother Mary Anne Burton of Duns Tew was the sister of Eliza Burton's father Arthur. (Mary Anne and Arthur were in turn the children of James Burton D.D., Canon of Christ Church.)
Eliza's father Arthur Burton, who was a doctor's son from Reading, was matriculated at the University of Oxford from University College on 12 July 1794 at the age of 17; he transferred to Christ Church and obtained his B.A. in 1799. He was ordained Deacon on 7 April 1805 and appointed Curate of Little Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire the following day. He was ordained Priest on 2 March 1806 and appointed Vicar of Hamstead Norreys in Berkshire on 23 December 1809: he remained in this post until his death on 9 April 1819.
At the time of the 1841 census Eliza Burton was staying at Biddenham in Bedfordshire with John Burton (35), who is likely to be her brother, and his wife and five children.
Eliza Burton is hard to find in the 1851 and 1861 census, but by 1865 she was living in Oxford, where she met the printer compositor Thomas Bell, who was born in 1821 and hence 18 years her junior, the son of the Oxford printer Thomas Page Bell. In 1861 he was boarding at 5 St Bernard's Road (then called St John's Road) with a retired victualler.
On 16 February 1865 at Ss Philip & James's Church, Oxford, Eliza Burton (63), described as a spinster of Norham Manor, married Thomas Bell (45), described as a gentleman of St Bernard's Road.
Eliza and Thomas Bell lived at 5 St Giles's Terrace, St Giles's Road West (the south end of the Woodstock Road), and Thomas Bell died there just three years after their marriage on 18 March 1868, and a death notice inserted in Jackson's Oxford Journal. The St Giles parish register records that his burial was on 23 March, but he does not seem to have been buried in this grave.
Mrs Eliza Bell is hard to find in the 1871 census.
By the time of the 1881 census Mrs Eliza Bell, a widow of 79, was living at 139 Walton Street in St Giles's parish in the home of her husband's unmarried sisters Sarah Bell (59) and Louisa Bell (48), who were respectively a schoolmistress and assistant schoolmistress.
Mrs Bell died in 1885:
† Mrs Eliza Bell née Burton died at 139 Walton Street at the age of 83 or 84 on 16 May 1885 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 22 May (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles's Church).
Her effects came to £140 5s. 7d., and probate was granted to her cousin the Revd Edward Marshall of Sandford St Martin.
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