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William FITCHEW (1818–1866)
His wife Mrs Elizabeth FITCHEW, née Nunney/Taylor (1814–1861)
Their son Thomas Shillito FITCHEW (1847–1853)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 4a, Grave C52

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This grave marker is covered by a pale green alga

 

William Fitchew was born in Bampton in 1818 and baptised there on 15 July. He was the son of Thomas and Dinah Fitchew, who had eight other children baptised there: Elizabeth (1816), Louise (1820, buried 1831), Mary Ann (1823), Rebecca (1825), Hannah Teeling (1826), Thomas Shillito (1828), James (1831), and John Shillito (1833, buried 1835). William’s father was described as a baker in 1816, and thereafter as a labourer. Their address was given as Asthall near Burford in 1830.

In 1841 when he was 20, William was the apprentice of the carpenter William Strong and living in his home in Deddington. By the time of his marriage in 1842 he was living at Bradfield in Berkshire.

Elizabeth Nunney was born in Brize Norton in 1814 and baptised at the church there on 7 October. She was the illegitimate daughter of Letitia Nunney, and her father was acknowledged in the baptism register as Richard Taylor, a labourer. Her parents were married in the same church on the same day as her baptism, and although this would not have legitimized her birth, she henceforth used the surname Taylor. Her brother William was baptised at Brize Norton in early 1817.

By 1842 Elizabeth was living at Ducklington.

On 27 August 1842 at Ducklington, William Fitchew married Elizabeth Taylor, formerly Nunney. They settled in Red Lion Square, Oxford and had the following children:

• William Edmund Fitchew, later known as Edmund William (born at Red Lion Square, Oxford in 1843 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 31 December)
• John Frederick Fitchew (born in Red Lion Square, Oxford in 1845 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 7 September, with surname misrecorded as Fitzhugh)
• Thomas Shillito Fitchew (born in Red Lion Square, Oxford in 1847 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 25 December; died 2 June 1853)
• Frances Rebecca Fitchew (born in Red Lion Square, Oxford in 1851 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 30 March).

At the time of the 1851 census William Fletcher (32), a carpenter, and his wife Elizabeth (36), a schoolmistress, were living at Red Lion Square with their four young children aged between one and seven, and a lodger. Their son son Thomas died in 1853:

† Thomas Shillito Fitchew died at Red Lion Square at the age of 6 on 2 June 1853 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 6 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

By the time of the 1861 census the family was living in New Road, and Thomas was now described as a carpenter and publican. Their son Edmund (17) was also a carpenter; John (15) was working as a servant; and Frances (10) was at school.

Mrs Fitchew died there later in 1861, and was buried with her son:

† Mrs Elizabeth Fitchew née Taylor died at New Road at the age of 47 on 23 November 1861 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 28 November (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Two years later, in Oxford in 1863 (reg. third quarter), William Fitchew married his second wife Dinah Ellen Long.

His son Edmund was married in 1865:

• On 24 December 1865 at St Michael’s Church in Camberley, Edmund William Fitchew, who was working as a carpenter in Farnborough, married Sarah Ann Ellis: they were both aged 21.

William Fitchew died in 1866:

† William Fitchew died at Castle Street at the age of 47 on 14 May 1866 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 18 May (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church, with age wrongly given as 46).

His effects came to under £100.

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Children of William & Elizabeth Fitchew

• Edmund William Fitchew (born 1843) and his wife Sarah Ann had nine children: Emily (c.1867), William (c. 1870), Arthur Henry (1871), Walter Augustus (1873), Frances Elizabeth (1875), Ernest Edmund (1876), Frederick James (1878), Albert Victor (1879), Herbert Percy (1880). At the time of the 1871 census Edmund (27) was a journeyman carpenter in 1871, lodging in Whitchurch, Oxfordshire without his wife Sarah Ann: she was back home at 2 Banks Cottages, Frimley, Surrey with their first three children. Once again in 1881 Edmund was working away from home, and Sarah (37) was at 6 Mabury’s Lane with their eight youngest children. By 1891 it looks as though Edmund had parted from his wife, as she described herself as married but the head of the household at Portesbery Road, Frimley. She was still at that address in 1901 and described herself as a widow: all her children had left home, and she was running a boarding house there. She died at Tooting Bec Asylum at the age of 62 on 8 September 1906.
• John Frederick Fitchew (born 1845) became a bootmaker. He married Caroline Ives in the Farnham district in 1875. He was lodging at Frimley in 1881, and his wife Caroline was staying elsewhere in Frimley with her sister. He was lodging at Clapham in 1891: again he stated that he was married, but again he was without his wife. He died in Wandsworth at the age of 61 in 1907, and his widow remarried in 1909.
• Frances Rebecca Fitchew (born 1851) never married. At the time of the 1881 census she was a nurse in a private household in Guildford; in 1891 she was the maid at the vicarage in Bromley; in 1901 she was a lady’s companion paying a visit to a friend in Hackney; and in 1911 she was the maid to an elderly widower and his daughter in Bournemouth. She died at 38 Madeira Avenue, Bromley on 3 June 1933, and her effects came to £3,350.