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Thomas NOON (1795–1863)
His son Thomas William NOON (1830–1851)
His daughter Mrs Betsy MARKHAM, née Noon (1824–1850)
Betsey’s son Thomas James MARKHAM (1847–1916)
Betsey’s daughter-in-law Mrs Emma MARKHAM, née Loosley (1848–1926)
St Paul section: Row 12, Grave A7 (St Paul ref. E9)

Thomas Noon was born at Burton Dassett, Warwickshire in 1795 and baptised there on 20 September. He was the son of Thomas Noon senior, a bailiff and sometime Sergeant in the Militia, and his wife Elizabeth Mills.

On 14 August 1820 at Daventry, Thomas Noon married Mary Flecknoe (the daughter of William and Sarah Flecknoe of Daventry, Northamptonshire). Their children included the following:

• Eliza Noon (born at Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire in c.1821)
• Betsey Noon (born in Daventry, Northamptonshire in 1824 and baptised there on 5 April)
• Thomas William Noon (born in Oxford in 1830 and baptised at St Thomas’s Church on 18 April)
• Emilia Noon, also spelt Amelia (born in Oxford in 1832 and baptised at St Ebbe’s Church on 10 November);
  died in the St Paul's district aged five in November 1837 and buried in St Thomas's churchyard on 12 November.

The Noons may have been in London between 1824 and 1830 (and are likely to have had children there): this is evidenced by a report in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 22 January 1870 relating to the sewage and drainage of Oxford:

The late Mr. Thomas Noon, builder, before he settled at Oxford, had had great experience in London work, and being asked at what distance from a common privy cesspool a well to supply the house with water could safely be dug, he stated that in London the rule was 14 ft., at which distance the water from the well would be considered perfectly sweet and wholesome; but no one at Oxford would now be so advised.

By 1837, the year in which St Paul’s Church opened, the family had moved to the Jericho area of Oxford. This church had no churchyard, and burials continued to take place in St Thomas’s churchyard in west Oxford until St Sepulchre’s Cemetery opened in 1848.

Mrs Mary Noon died before 1841, but there are two possible burials, each equally plausible: Mary Noon who died at the age of 36 in 1832 (buried in St Thomas’s churchyard on 29 November), and Mary Ann Noon, stated to be of Jericho, who died at the age of 39 in 1840 (buried at St Peter-in-the-East churchyard on 3 May).

At the time of the 1841 census two of Thomas Noon’s daughters were at home in their house in Clarendon Street: Eliza (20) and Betsey (15), whose name was wrongly lengthened to Elizabeth. Two young men lived in another part of the same house: the bricklayer Edmund Tooley, and the carrier William Cartwright. Thomas Noon’s young son Thomas William (11) had been sent off to Daventry to stay with his deceased mother’s parents: William Flecknoe (70), who was still working as an agricultural labourer, and his grandmother Sarah Flecknoe (68). Living in part of the house were Sarah Tooley (17) and Eliza Tooley (17), who were doubtless related to the Edmund Tooley who was staying with the Noons in Oxford.

Meanwhile their father Thomas Noon, a widower of about 45, spent census night at Park Street, Leamington Priors with William Wells and his wife Hannah, and their daughter Ann Wells (aged 38 and born in Southam, Warwickshire in 1797 and baptised there on 28 May). Two months later on 7 June 1841 at All Saints Church, Leamington Priors, Thomas Noon took Ann Wells as his second wife.

Two of Thomas Noon’s daughters were married in the early 1840s:

• On 13 January 1842 at St Paul’s Church, Oxford, Eliza Noon (who was still under 21) married William Cartwright, a coal dealer. They had both been living in part of the same house in Clarendon Street, and Eliza was described as being the the daughter of Thomas Noon, publican.
• On 15 August 1844 at St Paul’s Church, Oxford, Betsey Noon married Thomas Markham, a tailor, born in Oxford in c.1820. Both were described as being of Clarendon Street, and their marriage was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal.

Eliza disappears after this census, and may be the Elizabeth Cartwright who died in the Jericho district at the age of 24 and was buried in St Giles’s churchyard on 25 January 1846.

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Betsey Markham, née Noon (1824–1850)

Betsey and her husband Thomas Markham had just one child:

• Thomas James Markham (born in Oxford in 1847, reg. third quarter).

Betsey died in 1850 and was the first to be buried in this grave:

† Mrs Betsey Markham née Noon died at Clarendon Street at the age of 26 in April 1850 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 11 April (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

The sexton's notebook shows that she was buried in the area that St Paul's described as E.9 at a depth of 8 feet, allowing for two more burials.

See below for a continuation of the Markham family history

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Back to Thomas Noon and his son Thomas William Noon

At the time of the 1851 census Thomas Noon (55), described as a builder employing five masons and four labourers, was living at 18 Little Clarendon Street with his wife Ann (also 55) and one servant. One of his employees was his younger brother Elijah Noon.

His son Thomas William Noon was a Private in the Royal Sappers & Miners and in 1851 and based in barracks at Kensington Palace. He died in a railway accident at Bicester on 6 September that year when the first three carriages of the Euston to Oxford excursion train at Bicester station:

† Thomas William Noon died at Bicester station at the age of 21 on 6 September 1851 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 12 September (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported on the five dead and included this on Noon:

Thos. Noon, a corporal of the 7th Company of royal Sappers and Miners, son of Mr. Noon, builder, St. Giles’s, in this city. The deceased, who was a prominent young man, had obtained leave of absence until Thursday to visit his friends.

He was buried in the same grave as his sister, at a depth of 7 feet, allowing for one more burial.

Thomas Noon senior continued to work as a builder, and on the night of Saturday 1 May 1852 he paid his brother Elijah his wages in the pub as usual. Elijah threatened his wife Charlotte Noon with a sword when he got home to Jericho and killed her, apparently accidentally.

At the time of 1861 census Thomas (64) was still living at 18 Little Clarendon Street with his wife Ann.

Thomas Noon was probably responsible for building many houses in Jericho, and on 30 May 1863 Jackson’s Oxford Journal advertised a Mallam’s auction to be held at Jericho House of seven houses he had just built in Jericho Street, describing them thus:

SEVEN FREEHOLD Brick and Blue Slated HOUSES, each containing three rooms on the first floor and two ditto on the ground floor, with wash-house attached; paled garden, &c., at the back. Each House has a frontage of 14 feet, by a depth of 60 feet, and is supplied with a pump of good water, and fitted with furnace, grates, cupboards, shelves, &c. &c. They are well built, having been recently erected by Mr. Thomas Noon.

Shortly afterwards Thomas Noon gave up his business through illness, and on 19 September 1863 the following notice of a forthcoming auction of his builder’s stock-in-trade appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal:

On the premises, St. Giles’s, Oxford, by direction of Mr. Thomas Noon, who from illness is giving up business, on Thursday and Friday the 1st and 2nd days of October 1863, at Eleven o’clock each day; comprising blocks and pieces of Bath and Painswick stone, fire bricks and bars of all sizes, draining pipes, chimney pots, tiles and Bangor slate and slate slabs, seasoned timber, plank, deals, yellow, white, and pine boards in great variety, English oak and elm boards and plank, single and double fir lath, pitch pine boards and plan, iron spouting and sheet lead and pieces of ditto; the contents of carpenter’s shop, including an assortment of ironmongery and brass work, also prepared work in doors, sashes and frames, pannelling [sic], &c., &c.; also the Plant, including a capital crab, iron pulleys, a large quantity of scaffold poles and scaffold plank, putlocks and cords, strong brick cart, useful horse, spring cart, harness, hand cart, wheelbarrow, and various effects.

The full catalogue can be seen in the Oxfordshire History Centre (OXFO/690/NOON).

Thomas Noon died just two months after the sale of his stock:

† Thomas Noon died at 18 Little Clarendon Street at the age of 68 on 12 December 1863 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 17 December (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

His death announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “Dec. 12, aged 68, Mr. Thomas Noon, of Little Clarendon-street, St. Giles’s builder, much respected.” His effects came to under £2,000. He was buried at a depth of six feet.

Thomas Noon’s employee, the mason Edwin Patrick, took over his yard, and announced this in the paper on 3 October 1863.

His second wife Mrs Ann Wells Noon died at Little Clarendon Street at the age of 69 and was buried with her mother, Hannah Wells: see separate grave.

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Continuation of the MARKHAM family history

At the time of the 1851 census Betsey’s husband Thomas Markham and their son Thomas James Markham (3) were lodging at Boxall’s Court in Broad Street with Betsey’s father-in-law Thomas Markham senior (63) who was also a tailor. Thomas’s younger brother James Markham (22), who worked as a servant, was also living there.

In 1861 Thomas, who was still a widower, and his son Thomas James Markham (3) were lodging at 7 Bridewell Square, St Aldate’s.

On 18 March 1869 at St Ebbe’s Church Thomas Markham, who was then living at Abbey Place remarried: his second wife, who was eight years his senior, was the widow Mrs Ann Colbert, née Wilkins of Beef Lane.

Later in the same year, on 18 November 1869 at Ambrosden Church, his and Betsey’s son Thomas James Markham, who was working as a tailor in Blackthorn, near Bicester, married Emma Loosley (born in Oxford in c.1848). They had ten children, all baptised at Ss Philip & James’s Church in north Oxford:

• Thomas William Noon Markham (born at 14 Kingston Road, Oxford in 1873 and baptised on 27 March)
• Percy John Markham (born at 33 Kingston Road, Oxford in 1874 and baptised on 10 October):
  died there aged fourteen months in 1875
• Kate Augusta Markham (born at 33 Kingston Road, Oxford in 1876 and baptised on 10 February)
• Henry Charles Lane Markham (born at 33 Kingston Road, Oxford in 1878 and baptised on 25 April);
  died there aged one year ten months in early 1880
• Ada Florence Markham (born at 33 Kingston Road, Oxford on 24 May 1879 and baptised on 27 July)
• Daisy Isabel Markham (born at 33 Kingston Road, Oxford on 16 January 1881 and baptised on 6 March)
• Hilda Marian Markham (born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on 3 March 1884 and baptised on 13 April)
• Agnes Louise Markham (born at Southmoor Road, Oxford on 1 December 1885 and baptised on 11 February 1886)
• Winifred Gladys Markham (born at 63 Southmoor Road, Oxford on 24 October 1887 and baptised on 1 December)
• Roland James Markham (born at 63 Southmoor Road, Oxford on 23 April 1889 and baptised on 4 July).

At the time of the 1871 census Thomas James Markham (23), who was a tailor like his father and grandfather, and his new wife Emma (22) were living in Kingston Road: the number is given as 14 in 1873.

Emma gave her first child Thomas her mother’s maiden name of Noon as one of his middle names. Her second child Percy only lived fifteen months, and was buried on 28 November 1875; and her fourth child Henry also died before his second birthday and was buried on 2 February 1880. Their burials are recorded in the parish of register of Ss Philip & James, which means that they lie in the St Giles’s section of the cemetery, probably in an area reserved for babies and infants.

By 1874 they were living in 33 Kingston Road (but this may be the same house renumbered). The number is given as 33 in the 1881 census, and they were there with their son Thomas William Noon Markham (8) and their first three daughters Kate (5), Ada (2), and Daisy (two months). Emma’s sister Florence Loosley (15) was also staying with them.

In 1887 they became the first tenants of the newly built 63 Southmoor Road, but they were not there for long, and by the time of the 1891 census they were living at 142 Kingston Road. Thomas (44) and Emma (42) were here with their eight surviving children: Thomas (18), who was a clerk in a brewery office; Kate (15), described as a mother’s help, perhaps to her own mother; and Ada (11), Daisy (10), Hilda (7), Agnes (5), Winifred (3), and Roland (1).

In 1899 in the Taunton district their son Thomas William Noon Markham married Elizabeth Ellen Richards. The birth of their first child in 1900 was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal: “MARKHAM.—November 25, at 29 High-street, Bridgwater, Somerset, the wife of Thomas William Noon Markham, of a daughter.”

By the time of the 1901 census, Thomas (53) and Emma (52) had moved down to Hove, and were living at 61 Lansdowne Road there with six of their children: Kate (24), Ada (21), Hilda (17), Agnes (15), Winifred (13), and Roland (11). Daisy (21) was a draper’s assistant, boarding over a large shop in Reading.

By 1911 the family had moved to London and were living at 105 Elgin Crescent, Holland Park. Thomas James Markham (63) spent census night lodging in Brighton, and his wife Emma (62) was staying with her sister Mrs Fanny Barnes in Bournemouth. Five of their unmarried daughters were at home in London: Kate (35), Ada (31), Hilda (26), Agnes (24), and Winifred (22), plus a servant. Daisy (29) was still a draper’s assistant, now boarding in Manchester.

Thomas James Markham died in this house in 1916:

† Thomas James Markham died at 115 Elgin Crescent, London at the age of 69 on 21 December 1916 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 27 December (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

This burial with in the grave of his mother, uncle and grandfather took place 53 years after the last of the original three burials, indicating that after this length of time it was acceptable to reuse a grave that had been deemed full. His effects came to £2,082 15s., and probate was granted to his son Thomas Markham, who was a tobacconist, and his unmarried daughter Daisy.

His wife Emma appears to have moved to Harrogate, where she died nine years later in 1926. Her body was brought to Oxford for burial with her husband:

† Mrs Emma Markham née Loosley died at 18 Spring Mount, Harrogate at the age of 77 in February 1926 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 19 February (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

Footnote on Betsey Markham’s husband

In 1871 Thomas Markham was living at Abbey Place with his new wife Ann, as well as Elizabeth Markham (8), who was born in Oxford and may be Ann’s daughter from her first marriage, and three lodgers. They were still there in 1881, with the address specified as 17 Abbey Place.

By 1891 they had moved with their granddaughter Beatrice Markham (7) to Radcliffe Row, which was to the west of the Woodstock Road in St Giles (beyond Cock's Row which started on the south side of the Oratory) and emerged between 119 and 120 Walton Street. His second wife Ann died there at the age of 81 near the end of 1895.

By 1901 Thomas (79) was an almsman at Little Park Hospital, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died there at the age of 90 near the end of 1911.