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James BURNBLUM (1814–1890)
His wife Mrs Mary Ann BURNBLUM, née Hughes (1834–1919)
Their daughter Miss Laura Georgina BURNBLUM (1859–1890)
St Giles [Ss Philip & James] section: Row 18, Grave F35

James (Jakob) Burnblum was born in 1814 in Constantinople (although in one census his birthplace is given as Galicea in Spain). He was a merchant, and is first recorded as arriving in England from Turkey on 2 August 1844; and then as arriving from Belgium on 13 September 1847. By the time of the 1851 census, when he was 37, he had been naturalized as a British citizen. He was then lodging at Albert Terrace, Broughton, Salford, and was described as a colonial merchant of manufactured goods.

Mary Ann Hughes (sometimes named Marian) was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire in 1833/4. At the time of the 1851 census she was aged 17 and living at Garnett Street, Cheetham, Manchester with her widowed mother Sarah Hughes (57), her sister Matilda (30), and her brother Ebenezer (26), who was a draughtsman.

James Burnblum and Mary Ann Hughes were married at Salford in the third quarter of 1852, and had four daughters:

• Clara Maria Burnblum (born at Dover Street, Manchester in 1853 and baptised at 13 October at St Mark, Hulme, Lancashire; died at the age of one in 1854 and buried at Birch in Rusholme, Manchester on 17 October)
• Mary Evelyn Burnblum (born in Hampstead in 1855/6, and known as Evelyn)
• Laura Georgina Burnblum (born in Manchester in 1858/9 and baptised at Hampstead St John on 14 September 1860)
• Ida Kaiya Burnblum (born in Lille, France in 1875/6).

The family evidently began their married life in Hampstead, but by 1855 they must have moved to Manchester, as on 15 January that year James Burnblum’s address was given in the London Gazette as 23 Mount Street, Manchester when a Petition for adjudication of Bankruptcy was filed against him.

At the time of the 1861 census James Burnblum (48), described as a general merchant, was living at Mansfield Villas, Hampstead with his wife Mary Ann (27) and his daughters Evelyn (5) and Laura (2). They had two servants (a cook and a housemaid), and another couple was lodging in a separate part of the house.

In 1867 Burnblum’s business went bankrupt again. On 9 November a notice appeared in the London Gazette relating to the registration of a Trust Deed for the benefit of creditors naming the Debtors:

John Hughes Edwin Townend and James Burnblum, Merchants and Shippers, trading under the style or firm of John Hughes & Co., at No. 6, Kennedy-street, in the city of Manchester, lately of No. 1, Coleman-street Buildings, in the city of London, and also trading under the firm of Townend and Co., at No. 42, Rue Saint George’s, Roubaix, in the Empire of France, and at No. 12, Rue Saint Fiacre, Paris, in the said Empire of France.

At the time of the 1871 census Evelyn Mary Burnblum (15) appears to have been the only family member in England: she was at a small boarding school at 4 College Villas Road, Hampstead. Her parents were probably at Lille in France, where their youngest daughter Ida Kaiya was born in 1875/6.

It appears that James Burnblum retired and moved from Lille to Oxford with his wife and three surviving daughters at some point before his death in 1890:

† James Burnblum died at 19 Southmoor Road, Oxford at the age of 78 on 31 January 1890 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 4 February (burial recorded in the parish register of Ss Philip & James’s Church, with “No service” added).

His death notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal read simply: “Jan 31, at 19, Southmoor-road, James Burnblum, aged 78.”

His daughter Laura outlived him by seven months:

† Miss Laura Burnblum died at Southmoor Road at the age of 29 in August 1890 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 29 August (burial recorded in the parish register of Ss Philip & James’s Church).

On 3 July 1895 James & Mary Ann’s daughter (Mary) Evelyn Burnblum (32) of 19 Southmoor Road married Joseph William Parry (42), a civil engineer of Southampton Row, Bloomsbury at Ss Philip & James Church. The marriage was announced thus in The Times and the Morning Post:

PARRY : BURNBLUM. – On the 3rd inst., at SS. Philip and James, Oxford, by the Rev. B. J. Kidd, M.A., JOSEPH WILLIAM PARRY, late Executive Engineer, Indian State Railways, eldest son of the late J. Chatwin Parry, Esq., of Delhi, to EVELYN, elder daughter of the late James BURNBLUM, Esq., of Lille, France.

Mrs Burnblum was still living at 19 Southmoor Road in 1899.

In 1901 (reg. second quarter) James & Mary Ann’s youngest daughter Ida Kaiya Burnblum married Alfred John Spilsbury in the Hertford registration district.

At the time of the 1911 census Mrs Mary Ann Burnblum, a widow of 77, was back in the London area, living at 5 Red Thorn, Jews Walk, Sydenham with her daughter Ida and her son-in-law Alfred Spilsbury, who was a schoolmaster, and her granddaughters Clytee Mary Le Messurier Spilsbury (5) and Eileen Le Messurier Spilsbury (2). She probably moved with them later to the School House at Wakefield, where she died in 1919:

† Mrs Mary Ann (Marian) Burnblum, née Hughes died at Wakefield at the age of 85 on 11 October 1919 and her body was brought back to Oxford to be buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery with her husband and daughter (burial probably recorded in the parish register of Ss Philip & James’s Church).

The following notice of her death appeared in The Times on 14 October 1919:

DEATHS. BURNBLUM.—On the 11th Oct., at the School House, Wakefield (the residence of her son-in-law), MARIAN, wife of the late JAMES BURNBLUM, of Lille and Oxford, in her 86th year. Interment at St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Oxford.