Miss Isabella MAGAREY (c.1780–1857)
St Michael section: Row 5a, Grave C51½;
ISABELLA MAGAREY
DEC 8, 1857, AGED 75
MERCY, JESU, MERCY
.
Miss Magarey was from Dublin, and the gravestone appears to be in the form of a Celtic wheel
Isabella Magarey was born in Dublin, Ireland in c.1780. (She was born in 1779 according to the age given in the death register and in the newspapers; in 1782 according to the age given on her tombstone; and in 1786/7 according to the age given in the 1851 census).
At the time of the 1841 census she was running a small school of eight girl pupils aged between 11 and 15 at Kent Terrace, Regent’s Park, Marylebone, aided by a French teacher Julia Alchnam, plus two servants.
By the time of the 1851 census she described herself as a fund-holder, and was paying a visit to Mrs Susan Weale at 19 York Buildings, Marylebone.
Isabella Magarey had recently moved to Oxford from Kent Terrace in 1857, when she died at the home in Turl Street (on the corner of Broad Street) of the bookseller John Henry Parker, whose wife had died at the end of 1854:
† Isabella Magarey died at Turl Street in Oxford at the age of 75 or 78 on 7 December 1857 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 12 December (burial recorded in the parish register of St Michael’s Church).
Her death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal (which gives her the courtesy title of “Mrs”, even though she never married) read: “Dec. 7, at Mr. J. H. Parker’s, Turl-street, in this city, Mrs. Isabella Magarey, formerly of Kent-terrace, Regent’s Park, aged 75.” Similar notices were published in The Times, the Morning Chronicle and the Morning Post.
Her effects came to under £50, and probate was granted to Miss Louisa Magarey of 82 Westbourne Terrace, Hyde Park, who was described as her “Cousin German [full first cousin] and only next of kin”. Louisa, born in Ireland in about 1787, had also been a schoolmistress, and in 1851 was running a school with eight girl pupils at 38 Sussex Gardens, Paddington, helped by her Irish nieces, Miss Louisa Strickland (41) and Miss Caroline Strickland (35), and a French governess.
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