Ernest Edward McCLELLAN (c.1862–1907)
St Giles (Ss Philip & James's) section: Row 30, Grave K45
In
Fond Memory of
MY BELOVED HUSBAND
ERNEST EDGAR McCLELLAN,
WHO DIED SUDDENLY AT OXFORD
ON JANY 21ST, 1907
FOR 15 YEARS ASSISTANT AT THE
RADCLIFFE OBSERVATORY
ETERNITY WILL NOT EFFACE
THOSE RECORDS DEAR
OF TRANSPORT PAST,
THY IMAGE AT OUR LAST EMBRACE,
AH! LITTLE THOUGH WE
’TWAS OUR LAST
ERECTED BY HIS WIDOW
JANE McCLELLAN
.
The trunk of the adjacent tree is growing around this headstone and has cracked it
Ernest Edgar McClellan was born in Scotland in c.1862, the son of the inland revenue officer Augustus William McClellan (born in Deptford in 1827) and Maria Ann Harrison (born in Greenwich), who were married at St Giles's Church in Camberwell on 9 January 1856. His older brother Walter Harry McClellan was born in Winchester near the end of 1857.
By 1866 Ernest had moved with his parents from Scotland to Gravesend in Kent, and his younger sister Annie A. McClellan was born there near the end of that year.
By the time of the 1871 census the family had moved on to Great Stanmore in Middlesex: Ernest (8) was living at Brewery Cottage there with his father Augustus (43), who was an excise officer, his mother Marie (40), and his siblings Walter (13) and Annie (4), plus a servant and a lodger. His sister Mabel Blanche McClellan was born there later in 1871.
By the time of the 1881 census the family had moved to Deptford in Greenwich. Ernest (18) was working at the Royal Observatory there and living at 463 New Cross Road with his parents and his brother Walter (23), who was a clerk in a shipping office, and his sisters Annie (14) and Mabel (9).
The family was living at the same address in the 1891 census, and Ernest (28) was described simply as a clerk. Later that year he was appointed assistant at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford (below).
Near the beginning of 1893 in the Hendon district, Ernest Edgar McClellan married Mary Jane Bickell (born in Tavistock, Devon in 1862). They had no children.
In 1900 the Observatory published its “Catalogue of 1772 stars, chiefly comprised within the zone 85–90 N.P.D., for the epoch 1900, deduced from observations made at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, during the years 1894–1903”. The introduction says of McClellan and his colleagues Walter Wickham and William Henry Robinson: All three are skilled observers, with long experience in this class of work. To this fact is largely due the precision of the results”. (In the table of Personal Equations, McClellan is denoted by the letter C.)
At the time of the 1901 census Ernest (38), described as an astronomical assistant, was living at 17 Plantation Road in Ss Philip & James's parish with his wife Mary (39)
He was still living at that address when he died at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1907:
† Ernest Edgar McClellan died at the Radcliffe Infirmary at the age of 44 on 21 January 1907 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 24 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles's Church; no burial records kept at Ss Philip & James's Church during this period.).
His effects came to £435 16s. 7d., and his wife Mary was his executor.
In 1911 his widow Mary Jane McClellan (48) was a boarding house keeper at 1 Upper North Gardens, Brighton, helped by a 16-year-old servant girl.
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