Joseph BOWMAN (c.1825–1896)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 16a, Grave D60½
LET NOT YOUR
HEART
BE TROUBLED
IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
JOSEPH
THE BELOVED HUSBAND OF
ELLEN BOWMAN
WHO DIED APRIL 25, 1896
AGED 69 YEARS
Joseph Bowman was born in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire in c.1825. His age fluctuates in the censuses, however, and he may be the Joseph Bowman who was baptised at Ashby de la Zouch on 19 November 1829, the son of Charles and Sarah Bowman.
He is hard to find in the 1841 and 1851 censuses.
In the second quarter of 1859 in the Portsea district, Joseph Bowman married Ellen Jemima Richman (who was born in Southsea, Hampshire in c.1835). They began their married life in Ellen's home town, where their only child was born:
- Sarah Jane Bowman (born in Southsea in 1863, reg. second quarter).
At the time of the 1871 census Joseph (34) was a police constable, living at Egmanton, Nottinghamshire with his wife Ellen (32) and their daughter Sarah (8).
By the time of the 1881 census Joseph (44) was a bootmaker in Oxfordshire, lodging at Sheep Street, Burford. His daughter Sarah Jane (18), who was a nurse, was paying him a visit on census night. Meanwhile his wife Ellen (41) was working away from home as a professional nurse to a prosperous farmer at Burcot House, Dorchester (then in Berkshire).
The family had moved to Oxford by 1888, when their daughter Ellen was married:
- On 24 October 1888 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Sarah Jane Bowman (25), described as being of that parish and the daughter of the bootmaker Joe Bowman, married George Walter Savage (24). Her husband was a college servant who was born in Herstmonceux, Sussex in 1863, the son of the waiter Arthur John Savage and his wife Elizabeth: for more on his background, see his parents' grave.
At the time of the 1891 census Joseph (64) was still a bootmaker and living in St Giles's parish, Oxford at 3 Alfred Cottages, Pusey Lane (which was then called Alfred Lane) with his wife Ellen (53), who was working as a nurse.
Joseph died in 1896:
† Joseph Bowman died in St Giles's parish at the age of 69 on 25 April 1896 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 30 April (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
The register confirms that he was living in St Giles's parish, but he was buried in the St Mary Magdalen section of the cemetery: it is possible his married daughter, who lived in the latter parish, arranged the burial.
His widow Ellen emigrated to California with her daughter Sarah and her family on 14 January 1899. She died at Fairfield, Solano County, California on 6 March 1923.
Joseph Bowman's only child
- Sarah Jane Bowman, Mrs Savage (born 1863) was living at 13 St John Street in St Mary Magdalen parish, Oxford in 1891 with her husband George, who was still a college servant, and they employed a general servant and a nurse. By the time their daughter Dorothy Alice Bowman Savage was born in 1898, they were living in Reading. On 14 January 1899 they emigrated with Sarah's mother Ellen to California, where they had five more daughters: Helen Janet Bowman Savage (1899, died 1900), Rosamond Margaret Bowman Savage (1901), Neona Gertrude Bowman Savage (1903), Mildred Hope Bowman Savage (1907, died the same year). Her husband died in California in 1918, and she herself died at Oakland, Alameda, California on 25 January 1929.
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