James Bowling MOZLEY (1813–1878)
and his wife Mrs Amelia MOZLEY, née OGLE (1822–1872)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 12, Grave D69
James Bowling Mozley, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity. Died January 3, 1878
See the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and also Wikipedia for the full career
of Canon Mozley, Theologian and journalist, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford
James Bowling Mozley was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire on 15 September 1813, the fifth son of Henry Mozley, who was a printer/bookseller, and Jane Brambles, who were married at Bridlington, Yorkshire on 25 December 1800.
James had 13 siblings. The eight who were older than he was were also born in Lincolnshire: Henry (1801), Jane (1803), Thomas Brambles (born and died 1804), John (1805), Thomas (1806), Charles (1808), Anne (1809), and Maria (1811). Soon after James's birth the family moved to Derby, where his five younger siblings were born: Rosa (1815, died 1816); Fanny (1816); Arthur (1819), Edith (1820), Elizabeth (1822).
James was matriculated at the University of Oxford from Oriel College on 1 July 1830 and was ordained deacon on 10 June 1838. He then served as Newman’s curate at St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, and in July 1840 became a Fellow of Magdalen. Meanwhile his older brothers John and Charles followed their father into the printing business.
James Mozley's father died at Derby on 8 August 1845.
At the time of the 1851 census James Mozley, still unmarried at the age of 37 and described as a “clerk not having the cure of souls”, was living with his widowed mother Jane (67) and his sisters Ann (41) and Elizabeth (29) at 12 North Parade, Saint James, Somerset.
On 16 April 1856 Mozley accepted the college living of Old Shoreham, Sussex.
Amelia Ogle was born at the High Street, Oxford in 1822, and she and her twin sister Caroline were baptised by the President of Trinity College on 21 September. She was the daughter of the physician James Adey Ogle, later Oxford’s Regius Professor of Medicine, and Sarah Homfray. Amelia grew up at 62 St Giles's Street, and lost her mother in 1835. She and her three unmarried sisters were declared by undergraduates to be the models for the four colossal female figures on top of the older part of the Taylorian building. In 1841 she was at home with her father, but in 1851 she was staying with her married sister Caroline Johnson. For more on her background, see the grave of her parents.
On 10 July 1856 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford, James Bowling Mozley married Amelia Ogle. They had no children.
The 1861 census shows James & Amelia Mozley in the vicarage at Old Shoreham, looked after by three servants.
In 1869 Mozley was made a Canon of Worcester. At the time of the 1871 census he and his wife were still in the Vicarage House at Old Shoreham, looked after by a cook, parlourmaid, lady’s maid, and kitchenmaid.
ON 14 October 1871 Mozley was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church. The benefice of Ewelme was separated from the chair so that Mozley could retain his living at Old Shoreham. William Tuckwell wrote of him, “James Mozley’s shy, cold outside hid a genial nature and a mind of rarest power.”
Mozley's wife died in 1872, the year after they moved back to Oxford:
† Mrs Amelia Mozley, née Ogle died at Christ Church, Oxford at the age of 50 on 29 July 1872. She was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 2 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
The grave is next to that of her parents, who lived in St Mary Magdalen parish, and may have been reserved by her family.
Mozley himself died at the beginning of 1878:
† James Bowling Mozley died at the age of 64 on 3 January 1878 at the vicarage in Shoreham, Sussex, and his body was brought back to Oxford for a funeral service at Christ Church Cathedral on 11 January, after which he was buried with his wife in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
His obituary in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 12 January 1878 reads:
DEATH OF CANON MOZLEY
We regret to announce the death of the Rev. James Bowling Mozley, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University, who died on Friday Jan. 3, at the Vicarage, Old Shoreham, Sussex. Dr. Mozley graduated from Oriel College, obtaining a Third Class in Classics in 1834, a Fellowship at Magdalen College shortly afterwards, and the Chancellor’s English Prize Essay in 1835. He was ordained Deacon in 1838 and Priest in 1844, by the Bishop of Oxford, and was appointed by Magdalen College to the Vicarage of Shoreham in 1856. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1865, and Select Preacher to the University in 1869, and was a Canon Residentiary of Worcester Cathedral from 1869 to 1871. In the latter year he became Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, and was created a D.D.
He was the author of several theological works, including “A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration,” 1856; “Review of the Baptismal Controversy,” 1863; “Miracles” (Bampton Lectures), 1865; “Subscription to the Articles,” 1886, &c.
Dr. Mozley had been in a precarious state of health for some time past, having been ill for more than two years, and his death was not unexpected. He was born in 1813, in Lincolnshire.
[His obituary from the Guardian is then given in full]
Dr. Mozley’s remains were brought from Shoreham and deposited in the late Canon’s residence at Christ Church on Tuesday, and the funeral took place yesterday (Friday). The friends, pall-bearers, and members of the College assembled at the house, and a procession was formed to the west door of the Cathedral, where the canons, precentor, and chaplains, preceded by the choir, met the procession, and accompanied the body up the Church. The body having been placed under the tower, the lesson was read, and the hymn “Light’s abode, Celestial Salem,” was sung. The procession was then reformed to the hearse, and the mourners, pall-bearers, and canons followed in coaches to St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Jericho, where the service was concluded by the Very Rev. the Dean of St. Paul’s. The pall-bearers were the Rev. J. Wordsworth, the Principal of New Inn Hall, Professor Bonamy Price, Professor Edwin Palmer, Rev. J. Rigaud, the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Professor Burrows, and the Very Rev. the Dean of St. Paul’s. The funeral arrangements were entrusted to Mr. Webber Patterson, of Broad-street.
His wealth at death was nearly £12,000.
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