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James BLISS (1788/9–1856)
His third wife Mrs Elizabeth BLISS, née Foster (1818–1861)
and his wife’s niece Miss Sarah BEECHEY (1837–1917)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 16a, Grave D53

See the adjoining grave
(D52, also in Row 16a) for:

Mrs Sarah Foster
(Mrs Elizabeth Bliss’s mother)

Mrs Mary Barrett
(Mrs Elizabeth Bliss’s niece)
and her niece’s husband
Robert Augustine Barrett

 

James Bliss was born in London in 1788/9 (and may be the James Thomas Hugh Bliss, son of James and Eleanor Bliss, who was baptised at St John’s Church, Hackney on 15 November 1788).

It is likely that James came with his parents to Oxford when a young boy, as a James Bliss, who is probably his father, is listed in the Universal Directory of Britain in 1794 as a painter in Oxford. James became a painter like his father.

On 7 October 1812 at St Mary Magdalen Church, James Bliss married his first wife, Elizabeth Walklett (born c.1785), and both were described as being of that parish). The following year, on 19 December 1813, Elizabeth Bliss died in St Giles’s parish at the age of 28 and was buried in St Mary Magdalen churchyard on 22 December. Her death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 24 December 1813 read simply: “On Monday died Mrs. Bliss, wife of Mr. James Bliss, painter, of this city.”

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On 18 September 1815 at St Peter-le-Bailey Church, James Bliss married his second wife Sarah Walklett (born c.1791 and likely to be a relation of his first wife). They had eleven children, of whom seven died in infancy:

• Joseph Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1816 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 5 May);
  died aged 3 years 6 months and buried in its churchyard on 3 August 1819
• James George Bliss (born at Bliss Court, Broad Street in 1818 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 11 January); died aged about one and buried in its churchyard on 11 December 1818
• Elizabeth Walklett Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1819 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 11 April)
• Sarah Jane Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1820 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 8 December)
• Emma Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1822 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 16 June);
  died aged three and buried in its churchyard on 13 March 1825
• Ellen Harriet Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1823 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 9 October);
  died aged five weeks and buried in its churchyard on 17 October 1823
• James Henry Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1824 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 24 October);
  died aged five months and buried in its churchyard on 13 March 1825
• Emma Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1826 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 29 January)
• Mary Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1827 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 23 December)
• James Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1829 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 24 May);
  died aged six months and buried in its churchyard on 6 November 1829
• George Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1831 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 9 October;
  died aged 20 months and buried in its churchyard on 27 May 1833.

James Bliss’s painting business was in an alleyway that ran down the middle of the present Blackwell’s bookshop, between Nos. 49 and 50 Broad Street. It was named Bliss Court or Yard after his family, and contained nine houses in all (see photograph of Bliss Court on English Heritage website). His business is named as William Henry & James Bliss painters in Pigot’s Directory for 1830, a name that survived until at least 1881: these may be James’s uncle and father.

It appears that James Bliss’s widowed mother died at the beginning of 1819, as Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported on16 January that year: “Monday last died, suddenly, in a fit of apoplexy, aged 55, Mrs. Bliss, widow of the late Mr Bliss, painter, of this city.”

The eldest daughter of James and Sarah Bliss was married in 1839:

• On 23 December 1839 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Elizabeth Walklett Bliss married William Hosier. (For more on this couple and their children, see separate grave).

At the time of the 1841 census James was a painter, living in Bliss Court, Broad Street with Sarah and their other three surviving children Sarah, Emma, and Mary.

James’s second wife Sarah Bliss died at the age of nearly 60 in 1849 and was buried on 5 January: St Sepulchre’s Cemetery had just opened then, but there is no obvious grave there, and it is possible that she was buried in St Mary Magdalen churchyard with her seven little children.

The second daughter of James and Sarah Bliss was married in 1849:

• On 17 May 1849 at St Giles’s Church, Oxford, Sarah Jane Bliss married Francis Walklett, a painter of St Giles’s parish, the son of the cook Charles Walklett and the brother of John Walklett.

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James Bliss’s third wife Elizabeth Foster, who is buried with him in St Sepulchre’s, was born in Oxford in 1818 and baptised at St Ebbe’s Church on 4 May. She was the daughter of the tailor Thomas Foster and his wife Sarah Hall, who were married at St Mary Magdalen Church on 12 November 1798. Elizabeth’s elder sister Mary Foster was baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church in 1799, and her elder brother George Foster at St Ebbe’s Church in 1811. Her younger brother John Thomas Foster was baptised at St Ebbe’s in 1821.

James Bliss married his third wife Elizabeth Foster in London in 1850 (reg. St Giles district second quarter)

At the time of the 1851 census James (60) was a master painter employing five men. He was living at 9 Bliss Row, Broad Street with Elizabeth (34) and the two unmarried daughters from his first marriage, Emma (24) and Mary (22). His grandson Harry Hosier (8) was also staying with them.

James and his third wife Elizabeth had three children:

• James Bliss junior (born at Broad Street in 1851 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 3 December); died in 1854 aged two and buried on 30 January 1854, probably in the infants’ section of St Sepulchre’s Cemetery
• John Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1854 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 3 February).
• Henry James Bliss (born at Broad Street in 1856 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 20 January)

James Bliss’s daughter by his second wife, Mary Bliss, married John Walklett in the Lambeth district near the beginning of 1856

James Bliss died later in 1856:

† James Bliss died at Bliss Court, Broad Street at the age of 67 on 17 June 1856 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 20 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

At the time of the 1861 census Mrs Elizabeth Bliss (42) was a lodging house keeper, living at 49 Broad Street with her son John (7), her mother Sarah Foster (82), her nieces Mrs Mary Barrett née Beechey and Miss Sarah Beechey, plus one lodger and two servants. Her other son Henry Bliss (5) was a visitor in the home of the retired surgeon John Ladbury in Paddington.

She died later that year:

† Mrs Elizabeth Bliss née Foster died at 49 Broad Street at the age of 43 on 19 December 1861 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 24 December (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Her effects came to under £450, and her niece Mrs Mary Barrett of Maida Hill, Middlesex was her sole executor. Mary appears to have moved to the Oxford area (without her husband) to bring up Elizabeth’s children, as at the time of the 1871 census she was living at 2 Merton Terrace, Cowley St John with her younger sister Miss Sarah Beechey and her orphaned cousin John Bliss (17), who was working as a draper’s clerk. His younger brother Henry James Bliss (15) was then boarding at Bloxham School.

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Sarah Beechey

Sarah Beechey was born at Beef Lane, Oxford in 1837 and privately baptised by St Ebbe’s Church. She was the daughter of Robert Beechey and his second wife Mary Foster (the older sister of James’s third wife Elizabeth Foster) at St Giles’s Church on 31 March 1834. She had a half-sister called Mary Beechey born in Oxford in 1821/2.

At the time of the 1841 census Sarah Beechey (3) was living at Beef Lane, St Ebbe’s with her parents and her siblings James (6) and Edward (1).

In 1851 Sarah Beechey (13) was living at 14 Hanway Street, St Pancras, working as a domestic servant in the home of the laceman Robert Barrett and his wife Mary (her half-sister).

In 1861 Sarah Beechey (23) and her sister Mrs Mary Barrett (39) were living at 49 Broad Street with their widowed aunt Mrs Elizabeth Bliss, and their grandmother Sarah Foster (82).

In 1871 Sarah Beechey (33) (misrecorded in the census as Mary) was living at 2 Merton Terrace, Cowley St John with her older sister Mrs Mary Barrett.

In 1881 Sarah Beechey (43) was living at 30 New Square, Cambridge with her sister Mary Barrett (59), who was back with her Cambridge-born husband Robert Augustine Barrett (59), who was now a retired draper.

By the time of the 1891 census Sarah’s half-sister Mary Barrett and her husband Robert had moved to 17 St Margaret’s Road in Oxford, and Sarah continued to live with them.

Robert Barrett died in 1894 aged 73 and Mary Barrett died in 1900 aged 79.

In 1901 Miss Sarah Beechey (63) was living on her own with two boarders at 17 St Margaret’s Road; and she was still there with a servant in 1911.

Between 1914 and the time of her death in 1917 Miss Sarah Beechey had moved to 82 Kingston Road:

† Miss Sarah Beechey died at 82 Kingston Road at the age of 80 on 29 January 1917 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 31 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Her effects came to £88 6s. 10d., and her executor was the ironmonger Joseph Henry Green.