Mrs Susanna SECKHAM née Mallett (c.1793–1852)
Her
daughter Miss Jane Mallett SECKHAM (c.1826–1900)
Her grandson Alfred Henry ANDREWS (1855–1932)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 14, Grave D65
IN
MEMORIAM
SUSANNA.
RELICT OF RICHARD SECKHAM.
DIED MAY 12, 1862.
AGED
69 YEARS
JANE MALLETT SECKHAM.
DAUGHTER
DIED NOV. 4. 1900,
AGED 74 YEARS
REV. ALFRED HENRY ANDREWS.
GRANDSON
M.A. QUEENS COLL. CAMB.
OBIIT PALM SUNDAY MARCH 20. 1932.
AGED 76 YEARS.
“GOD IS LOVE.”
TANNER RUGBY
.
This grave is an expensive one made of slate, and the maker’s name (Tanner of Rugby) suggests that it was purchased by Mrs Susanna Seckham’s married daughter, Mrs Susanna Andrews, who lived in Rugby.
(1) Mrs Susanna Seckham, née Mallett
Susanna Mallett was born in Okehampton, Devon in about 1793 (although her age varies in the censuses). She is probably the Susanna Mallett, daughter of John & Sarah Mallett, baptised at Okehampton on 14 April 1793. By 1823 she was living in St Michael's parish, Oxford.
On 24 July 1823 at St Michael's Church, Oxford, Susannah Mallett married the Cornmarket saddler Richard Seckham. He was a widower with five children aged under seven by his first wife Elizabeth, who had all been baptised at St Michael’s Church: Charles (1817), Mary (1818), John (1819), Samuel (1820), and Sarah Cooper Seckham (1821).
Richard and Susanna Seckham appear to have moved to London after their marriage. They had one daughter there:
- Jane Mallet Seckham (born in Westminster in 1827 and baptised at St Clement Danes Church on 11 March).
Richard Seckham died in London on 8 August 1828 “after a lingering illness”, according to Jackson’s Oxford Journal, and Susanna moved back to Oxford, where their second daughter was born eight months after his death.
- Susanna Mallet Seckham (born in Broad Street, Oxford in 1829 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 5 April).
Susanna set up business as a glass and china dealer at 48 Broad Street, where she was to remain until her death in 1852.
Left: 48 Broad Street is on the far right of the four shops that now form Blackwell’s, but was rebuilt together with No. 49 to match the left-hand pair of shops. There was no intention to do this, but the they became dangerous when their thirteen neighbours to the east were demolished to make way for the New Bodleian Library in 1936 and so had to be demolished
Mrs Seckham is listed in Pigot’s 1830 Directory of Oxford as a china and glass dealer. At the time of the 1841 census she was living at 48 Broad Street with her stepson Charles, who was 21, and her daughters Jane (14) and Susanna (12). They had one servant.
In 1851, only Jane (24) was at home with her mother on census night, and her other daughter Susanna (22) was living in the home of Matthew Stone, a farmer of 380 acres in Tubney, where she was the governess of his five children .
On 25 July 1854 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Mrs Seckham’s younger daughter Susanna Mallett Seckham married the dentist Alfred Andrews and they had eight sons, with the last two appropriately named Septimus and Octavius:
- Alfred Henry Andrews (born at Oxford in 1855, reg. second quarter)
- Herbert William Andrews (born at Oxford in 1856, reg. third quarter)
- George Seckham Andrews (born at Islington in 1857/8, reg. first quarter of 1858)
- Edward Arthur Andrews (born at Southsea, Hampshire in 1859, reg. third quarter)
- Ernest Goddard Andrews (born at Rugby in 1861/2, reg. first quarter of 1862 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 20 August)
- Francis Mallett Andrews (born at Rugby in 1863, reg. fourth quarter)
- Septimus G. Andrews (born at Rugby in 1866, reg. third quarter)
- Octavius Charles Andrews (born at Rugby in 1867, reg. fourth quarter).
At the time of the 1861 census Mrs Seckham (65) was still a china dealer at 48 Broad Street, where she lived with her unmarried daughter Jane (30). Her other daughter Mrs Susanna Andrews was living at Pennington Street, Rugby with her dentist husband Alfred (36) and their first four sons.
† Mrs Susanna Seckham née Mallett died at 48 Broad Street at the age of 69 on 12 May 1862 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 17 May (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
(2) Miss Jane Mallett Seckham
Mrs Susanna Seckham’s elder daughter Jane never married, and when the husband of her sister Mrs Susanna Andrews died in 1868 at the age of 45, Jane went to Rugby to live with her.
At the time of the 1871 census, Jane (44), described as an annuitant, was living at Church Street, Rugby with Susanna and her sons Alfred, Herbert, George, Septimus, and Octavius Andrews.
Jane remained with her sister Susanna for the rest of her life, and at the time of the 1881 census was at 42 Pennington Street, Rugby with her and her sons George (who was now a dentist’s assistant), Septimus, and Octavius.
Jane died at her sister’s house in Rugby in 1900, and her body was brought back to Oxford to be buried with her mother:
† Miss Jane Mallett Seckham died at 42 Pennington Street, Rugby at the age of 74 on 4 November 1900 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 7 November (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
(3) Alfred Henry Andrews (“AH”)
Mrs Susanna Andrews’s eldest son (and Mrs Susannah Seckham’s grandson) Alfred Henry Andrews (known as Henry to distinguish him from his father, and more generally as AH), who was born in 1855, was matriculated as a pensioner by Queens’ College, Cambridge in Michaelmas Term 1877.
He was ordained deacon in 1880 and priest (at Lichfield) in 1881. He served as the Curate of Darlaston in Staffordshire from 1880 to 1885, of Worfield, Shropshire from 1885 to 1887, and of Durley, Hampshire from 1887 to 1892. At the time of the 1891 census he was staying at Christ Church Vicarage, Battersea.
From 1892 AH served as Curate of Coseley, Staffordshire. At the time of the 1901 census he and his youngest brother Octavius (33), who was a classical tutor, were staying with their mother, Mrs Susanna Andrews (72) at her home at 21 Pennington Street, Rugby. Their mother died at the age of 76 in 1906, and was presumably buried in Rugby with her husband, and AH, who appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown in the 1890s, remained in the family home with Octavius.
At the time of the 1911 census Alfred (55) and Octavius (43) were living at 21 Pennington Street with a housekeeper. Alfred remained there until his death in 1932. His body was brought to Oxford to be buried with his grandmother and aunt:
† Alfred Henry Andrews died at 21 Pennington Street, Rugby at the age of 76 on 20 March 1932 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 24 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
His brother Octavius died in 1940.
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