Mrs Anne HARRIS, née Whitehead (1856–1891)
St Giles’s section: Row 49, Grave K40
[ANN
wife of FRANK HARRIS
died 1891 aged 34]
.
Bostock recorded the above information in the 1980s, and there may be more text on the grave marker; but it has been laid flat on safety grounds by the city council, with the text facing downwards and hence inaccessible today.
This is a rather fine grave with intact kerbs.
Ann (or Anne) Whitehead was born at St John Street, Oxford in 1856 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 8 October. She was the eldest daughter of Charles Whitehead and his second wife Sarah Stanton.
For more on her parents, see their separate grave.
Her father, who was a servant of Worcester College, died in 1866, and at the time of the 1871 census Ann was living with her mother and two sisters at 2 St John Street.
By 1881 they had moved to 29 Beaumont Street, where Ann’s mother kept a lodging house.
On 28 March 1883 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Anne Whitehead (26), described as a spinster of 29 Beaumont Street, married Frank John Robertshaw Harris (25). He was born at St John Street, Oxford in 1857, the son of the college servant John Harris and his wife Jane Eleanor, and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 29 September. At the time of his marriage he was still living with his parents at 28 St John Street and working as a commercial traveller in clothing.
They had just one child:
- John William Harris (born at 21 Walton Street, Oxford in 1884/5 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 4 January)
Anne Harris died early in 1891 at the north end of St John Street:
† Mrs Anne Harris née Whitehead died at St John Street at the age of 34 in January 1891 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 29 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).
At the time of the 1891 census Anne’s husband Frank (33), who was still a commercial traveller, and their son John (6) were living with his widowed mother Jane Harris (66) at 28 St John Street. Her son-in-law, William Luff junior, also a widower, was living with her.
Anne’s husband Frank John Robertshaw Harris
By 1893 Frank John Robertshaw Harris was living at 55 St John Street. On 22 November that year at St Paul’s Church, at the age of 36, he married his second wife Miss Minnie Amanda Harris (30), who lived at 46 Walton Street. They had no children.
At the time of the 1901 census Frank (43) and Minnie (37) were living at 24 St John Street with Frank’s only child from his first marriage, John William Harris (16), and one servant.
In 1911 Frank and Minnie Harris were living at 71 Banbury Road with one servant.
His second wife Minnie Amanda Harris died in Oxford on 29 May 1935. Her effects came to £1176 17s. 7d., and her executor was her husband, now described as a wholesale clothier.
Anne’s son
John William Harris (born 1884/5) may be the John Harris (27), born in Oxford, who in 1911 was serving in India in the 21st East Yorkshire Regiment as a musician.
John died at 109 Woodstock Road at the age of 50 on 23 October 1935. His effects came to £245 19s. 1d, and his father was his executor.
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