William GARRETT (c.1829–1890)
His wife Mrs Sarah Ann GARRETT, née Nott
(1829–1934)
St Paul (St Barnabas) section: Row 49: Grave M22 [St Paul ref. F47]
In
LOVING MEMORY
OF
WILLIAM GARRETT
WHO DIED MAY 11TH 1890
IN HIS 62ND YEAR
ALSO OF SARAH HIS BELOVED WIFE
WHO DIED MARCH 4TH 1934,
AGED 105 YEARS.
William Garrett was born in Maldon, Essex in c.1829, the son of the labourer Philip Garrett. He served as a Private in the 60th Rifles.
Sarah Ann Nott was born in County Meath, Ireland on 16 February 1829. She was the daughter of William Nott, a Sergeant in the 7th Hussars, and his wife Letitia. (She was the younger sister of Jane Isabella Nott, the first wife of Samuel Arthur Holloway, whose daughter Mrs Mary Margaret Shawyer is also buried at St Sepulchre's Cemetery.) Her first husband was William McAllister, a soldier in the 2nd 60th Royal Rifles, and they had one daughter, Sarah Jane McAllister, who was born in Benares, India in 1860. By the time of the 1861 census Mrs Sarah Ann McAllister was a widow, living in Winchester with her daughter Sarah Jane McAllister (1) and her deceased husband's niece Janet or Jenette McAllister (born in Glasgow in 1851).
On 16 April 1861 at St Thomas's Church, Weston, Southampton, William Garrett (34) married the widow Mrs Sarah Ann McAllister, née Nott (31), and they had the following children:
- William Garrett (born in Winchester in 1861/2, reg. first quarter of 1862)
- (Arthur) Charles Garrett (born at Aldershot in 1864, reg. third quarter)
- Joseph Garrett (born in Curragh, Cork in c.1867)
- Margaret Garrett (born at Gloucester Green Oxford in 1869 and baptised at St George the Martyr's Church in George Street (the chapel of ease for St Mary Magdalen Church) on 12 September)
William Garrett (46) spent the census night of 1871 at the Magdalen College School boarding house at 58 High Street, where he was butler (presumably to the Master, Richard Hill). His wife Sarah (42), who was working as a laundress, was home at 2 Gloucester Green in St Mary Magdalen parish with her children William (9), Charles (6), Joseph (4), and Margaret (1). Once again her first husband's niece Jane McAllister (20), who was a needlewoman, was living with her; but Sarah Jane McAllister (11), her daughter by her first marriage, is hard to find.
By the time of the 1881 census William Garrett, described as a college servant, was at 22A Gloucester Green with his son Joseph (14), who was a paper-boy, his daughter Margaret (12), and his stepdaughter Sarah Jane McAllister (21), who was working as a laundress. His wife Sarah (52), described as a domestic servant, was staying in Ipswich with her niece Grace Hanley and her husband William.
Sarah's daughter by her first husband was married in 1881:
- On 26 July 1881 at St Aloysius's Roman Catholic Church in the Woodstock Road, Oxford, Sarah Jane McAllister (21), with her address given as 23 Gloucester Green, married Arthur Stuart Robinson, a gardener of Park Street, Holywell and the son of the gardener Benjamin Robinson.
William Garrett died of carcinoma of the pylorus (stomach cancer) in 1890:
† William Garrett died at 1 Walton Street at the age of 61 on 11 May 1890 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 15 May (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul's Church).
William Inge, the Provost of Worcester College, conducted his burial service, suggesting that Garrett had been a servant at that college, especially as he was living in a Worcester College house (1 Walton Street) at the time of his death.
At the time of the 1891 census William Garrett's widow Sarah (62) was paying a visit to Charles Launchbury (31), who was a college servant, and his wife Elizabeth (34), who lived at 11 Western Road in south Oxford.
Her daughter Margaret was married in 1894:
- on 7 April 1894 at Oxford Registry Office, Margaret Garrett married James Hardie McLean.
At the time of the 1901 census Sarah (72) was paying a visit to her daughter Mrs Margaret McLean, who lived at at 1 Clarence Villas, Upper Penn, Staffordshire with her husband James H. McLean, an electrical engineer, and their four children.
At the time of the 1911 census Sarah (82) was paying a visit to her daughter Mrs Sarah Robinson (50) who appears to have left her husband, although she still described herself as married, and was acting as the housekeeper of Dr Heinrich Krebs, the Librarian at the Taylor Institution, who lived on the premises.
On 22 February 1928 a photograph of Mrs Sarah Garrett of 16 Canal Street when she was aged 99 appeared in the Oxford Journal Illustrated, asking if she was Oxford's oldest inhabitant. She celebrated her hundredth birthday on 16 February 1929, and the picture below shows her looking at the telegram she received from the King and Queen:
Five years later, the Oxford Times of 23 February 1934 contained an article about Sarah Garrett's 105th birthday, which had taken place a week earlier on 16 February. Part of the article reads:
Five years ago – on her 100th birthday – when she received a congratulatory telegram from the King and Queen. Mrs. Garrett was able to talk very animatedly about her life as a young bride in India. Her first husband. Mr. McAlister, was a soldier 2nd 60th Royal Rifles. She remembered crossing India in a bullock-wagon before the railways were built.
Sarah Garrett died about two weeks after her 105th birthday:
† Mrs Sarah Ann Garrett née Nott died at 16 Canal Street at the age of 105 on 4 March 1934 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 8 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Barnabas's Church).
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