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Mrs Sarah BIDDLE senior, née Rose (c.1769–1859)
Her son William BIDDLE (c.1799–1869)
Her son’s wife Mrs Sarah BIDDLE junior, née Buckland (c.1800–1867)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 9, Grave D70

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The inscription is all on the top two-thirds of this ledger stone, so the bottom third is not shown

Sarah Rose was born in High Wycombe in 1769, the daughter of Thomas Rose and Honor Tett, who were married at All Saints’ Church there on 19 February 1767. She had five younger siblings: Elizabeth (1770), Ann (1771), John (1773), William (1776), and James (1778).

On 8 September 1792 at High Wycombe she married Andrews [sic] Edward Biddle, who was a banker there, and they had three sons, all born in High Wycombe: Edward (c.1795), William (c.1799), and John (c.1801).

Mrs Biddle senior’s husband, who was 17 years her senior, died on 9 June 1827: the announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “At Wycombe, aged 75, Andrews Edward Biddle, Esq. of the firm of Biddle & Wheeler, bankers, at that place.” His PCC will is available from the National Archives.

Their son William Biddle became a solicitor in Oxford, and he lived at Beaumont Street in St Mary Magdalen parish. He married his first wife Clara Hannah Prince Tubb on 8 September 1825; but because St Mary Magdalen Church was under repair at that time the marriage took place in the next adjoining parish of Holywell. The witnesses were Joseph Biddle and Sarah Buckland: the latter was probably the woman who was later to become William’s second wife.

William and Clara Biddle had just one daughter:

• Clara Biddle (born at Beaumont Street in 1828 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 11 August)

Soon after giving birth, on 30 July 1828, Clara died at the age of 25, so she did not live to see her daughter baptised. She was buried at St Mary Magdalen Church on 4 August, with a brief announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal.

Sarah Buckland was born in Oxford in c.1800, the son of the solicitor Richard Buckland, who was listed as an attorney in Oxford in the Universal British Directory of 1794/5, and was Oxford’s Coroner in 1799. The family was living in Summertown by 1848.

On 20 September 1848 at Summertown Church, William Biddle married his second wife Sarah Buckland. Sarah was then 48, and they had no children.

William Biddle’s mother Sarah, who according to her probate record had previously been living at Edwardes Square in Kensington, came to live with them. At the time of the 1851 census William Biddle (51), a solicitor and attorney, was living at 33 Beaumont Street with his second wife Sarah (49), his daughter by his first marriage Clara (22), and his widowed mother Sarah (82). They had two servants, and an attendant for Mrs Biddle senior.

William Biddle’s mother Sarah died in 1859:

† Mrs Sarah Biddle senior, née Rose died at Beaumont Street at the age of 90 on 25 July 1859 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 29 July (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Her effects came to nearly £1,000. Her son John Biddle of 13 Westbourne Crescent, Middlesex, Gentleman, was the sole executor.

By 1861 William Biddle was in partnership with the Morrell firm of solicitors at 4 St Giles’s Street, and by 1863 the firm comprised Frederick Joseph Morrell, John Biddle, and R. S. Hawkins. It had moved to 1 St Giles’s Street by 1866.

At the time of the 1861 census William Biddle (61) was living at 34 Beaumont Street with his wife Sarah (60) and two servants (a cook and a housemaid).

Mrs Biddle’s wife Sarah died in 1867 (with a brief announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal):

† Mrs Sarah Biddle née Buckland died at Beaumont Street at the age of 67 on 12 March 1867 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 16 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

William Biddle died two years later in 1869:

† William Biddle died at 36 Beaumont Street at the age of 69 on 1 February 1869 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 6 February (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

His death was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal. His effects came to nearly £5,000.

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Only child of William Biddle

• Clara Biddle (born 1828) never married and became a nun. In the censuses from 1871 to 1901 she is listed as a Sister of Charity at Osney House (the St Thomas’s House Sisterhood). She died in 1906 at the age of 77.