Mark Dugald STARK (1853–1906)
His wife Mrs Mary Helena Henrietta STARK, née Wienholt (1853–1908)
St Michael section: Row 11, Grave C48½
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
MARK DUGALD STARK
WHO DIED MARCH 7TH 1906 AGED 52
ALSO OF
MARY HELENA HENRIETTA,
HIS WIFE
.
With many thanks to Margaret Buchanan, granddaughter of Robert Gordon Stark and great-granddaughter of Dr Mark Dugald Stark, who supplied the family photographs and added useful information
Mark Dugald Stark was born in Dundas, Ontario on 13 March 1853, one of the five children of the Revd Mark Young Stark (Minister of the Presbyterian Church in Dundas) and Agatha Georgiana Street.
He was educated at Dundas and Galt in Ontario, and graduated from Trinity University, Toronto in 1875.
He came to Britain and was appointed a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and of Physicians of Edinburgh.
He then worked as a surgeon on a steamer going from London to Egypt, India and China, and met his future wife Mary Helène Henrietta Wienholt on board ship when she was doing a Grand Tour.
Mary Helène Henrietta Wienholt was born at 10 St James’s Terrace, Paddington on 17 September 1853 and baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Paddington on 18 October.
She was the eldest daughter of the East India merchant Daniel Wienholt and Helène Henriette Mutzenbecher: see separate grave for more about her mother and her siblings.
At the time of the 1861 census Mary (7) was living at 28 Westbourne Park Terrace, Paddington with her father Daniel (38), her mother Helène (29) and her younger siblings John (6), Agnes (5), and Magdalena (1), plus five servants (two governesses, a cook, and two housemaids).
Mary was taken by her parents to Australia, but at the age of 11 was brought back to Europe by her mother following the death of her father Daniel in 1865 at the age of 42.
On 20 March 1880 in Rome, Mark Dugald Stark married Mary Helène Henrietta Wienholt, and they had the following children:
- Helène Agatha Wienholt Stark (born on 22 February 1884 at Wallingford Street, Wantage and baptised there on 1 May)
- Violet Maton Wienholt Stark (born on 13 June 1885 at Wallingford Street, Wantage and baptised there on 30 July)
- John Dugald Wienholt Stark, known as Jack (born on 27 February 1887 at Wallingford Street, Wantage and baptised there on 12 April)
- Robert Gordon Wienholt Stark, known as Gordon (born on 13 July 1891 at 6 Broad Street, Oxford and baptised at St Peter-le-Bailey Church on 7 August)
- Mary Gladys Wienholt Stark (born on 1 August 1894 at 6 Broad Street, Oxford and baptised at St Michael’s Church on 7 September); appears to have been known as Gladys Mary
- Mark Arnold Napier Wienholt Stark (born on 15 January 1897 at 6 Broad Street, Oxford and baptised at St Michael’s Church on 20 March)
The five eldest Stark children, c.1897
At the time of the 1881 census Mark (28) and Mary (27) had been married for about a year and were living at Portway Place, Wantage, where Mark was working as a General Practitioner. They had two servants.
By 1890 Dr Stark had formed a partnership with the surgeon Julius Ottoway Sankey and had moved to 6 Broad Street (right), and he can be seen there at the time of the 1891 census with his wife and first three children, Helène (7), Violet (5), and John (4). Dr Sankey (45) was then living around the corner at 22 Turl Street, but had moved to 26 Broad Street by the next census
Dr Strak was one of the first people in Oxford to get a telephone line installed, and in 1895 they had the simple phone number 57.
By 1901 the Starks had three more children: Robert (9), (Mary) Gladys (6), and Mark (4), and they now had a French governess, and a cook, parlourmaid, and housemaid. John (14) was at a small boarding school in Reading. Robert attended the Oxford Preparatory School (later called the Dragon School).
Mrs Stark’s mother Mrs Helene Henrietta Wienholt, née Mutzenbecher died at their home at 6 Broad Street at the age of 78 in January 1906, and was buried on her own in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery in a plot adjoining this one on 23 January:
see adjacent plot Row 11, Grave C51
Dr Stark died just over two months after his mother-in-law. His home was still 6 Broad Street, but he was staying in Torquay at the time of his death:
† Mark Dugald Stark died at the “Central” Hotel in Torquay at the age of 52 on 7 March 1906, and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 10 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Michael’s Church).
The following report about his funeral appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 17 March 1906:
FUNERAL OF THE LATE DR. STARK.
The funeral of the late Dr. Mark Dugald Stark, whose death occurred at Torquay, on the 7th inst., took place on Saturday afternoon, at St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Walton-street. The remains, which had been brought to deceased’s residence in Broad-street, and were in a coffin of polished oak, were conveyed to the cemetery in an open hearse, followed by four mourning coaches, in which were Mr. J. O. Sankey, Mr. Gordon Stark, Dr. Haldane, Mrs. Haldane, Sir William Herschel, Miss Herschel, Mr. Warren Fisher, Mr. J. Walker, Mr. Drew, Mr. Fairbrother, Mr. A. E. Lynam, Mr. John Kay-Monat, Alderman Buckell, Mr. W. Gill, Dr. Mann, and Councillor Taphouse. There were also present the Rev. T. T. Blockley, Rev. F. Pilcher, Rev. H. M. Fletcher, Alderman Hall, Councillors Bradshaw and Druce, Dr. Brooks, Dr. Collier, Mr. A. Winkfield, Mr. T. H. Rose, Mr. Whitwell, Mr. Robert Davis, Mr. Sotham, and others. The officiating clergyman was the Rev. W. M. Merry, vicar of St. Michael’s. The interment was in a new grave, to the south-east and within a few yards of the chapel, lined with laurels and white flowers, and a brass plate on the coffin bore the following inscription:—
MARK DUGALD STARK, M.D.,
Died 7th March, 1906.
Aged 52.A large number of choice wreaths and other floral tributes were placed on the coffin and in and upon the hearse, from — The Family, Mr. and Miss Stark, the Baron and Baroness Bethune, the Earl of Berkeley, Major and the Misses Thornton, Professor and Mrs. Poulton, Professor and Mrs. Firth, Professor and Mrs. Arthur Thomson, Professor and Mrs. Osler, Lady and the Misses Aitchison, the Archdeacon of Oxford and the Misses Archer Houblon, Mr. and Mrs. Sankey, Mr. and Mrs. Doyne, Dr. and Mrs. Collier, Rev. and Mrs Hutchison, Rev. Ernest Smith, Rev. Hereford George, Dr. Hardy, Dr. and Mrs. Proudfoot, Dr. and Mrs. Spencer, Dr. and Mrs. F. Hill, Dr. Sherwood, Alderman Buckell, Mr. Theodore A. Cook, Miss Emma Tate and St. Kentigern’s Hostel, Mr. W. Wright, Mr. and Mrs Claude Ripon, Mr. and Mrs. Townshend, Mr. and Mrs. Hitchings, Miss Winnie Hutchison, Mrs Richter, Miss Longson, Miss Belle Kempley, Miss Mary Burnham, Miss Anderson, M.A.B., Miss Guiney, Mr. Gill and family, Mr. and Mrs. Chalker-Pearse, Mr. and Mrs Ogilvie, Miss Tennyson and Miss Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Emberlin, Mr., Mrs. and the Misses Taphouse, Miss Deane Jackson, Mr. F. Buckell, Mr. and Mrs. Ballard, Mrs. Wiggins, Mr. and Mrs. Greatbatch and family, Mr. and Mrs. Gadney and Gilbert, Mr. and Mrs. Kennett-Hayes, Mr. Brownrigg, Mr. George Wood, Mr. T. J. Bennett, Mr. Harold Williams, Nurse May, and the Servants.
The arrangements were left to the care of Messrs Elliston and Cavell.
His effects came to £1,968 0s. 8d.
Mrs Mary Stark, his widow, moved to Noke after his death. Her daughter Violet was married there in 1908:
- On 19 April 1908 at Noke, Violet Maton Wienholt Stark (born 1885) married John Kenneth MacMeikan, the son of the barrister John MacMeikan and described as being an Oxford graduate.
Mrs Stark died later that year:
† Mrs Mary Helena Henrietta Stark, née Wienholt died at Noke at the age of 56 on 1 October 1908 and was buried with her husband at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 3 October (burial recorded in the parish register of St Michael’s Church).
Her effects came to £3,424 16s. 10d., and her executors were her daughter Helène and George Charles Street.
Children of Mark and Mary Stark
- Helène Agatha Wienholt Stark (born 1884) was an assistant librarian at the time of the 1911 census and paying a visit with her sister Gladys to a family in Wimbledon. On 15 August 1925 at Rotherfield Peppard, when she was 40, she married the widower John Charles Leonard Morgan-Brown: they were both then living in Rotherfield Peppard. She died in Kensington at the age of 53 near the beginning of 1937.
- Violet Maton Wienholt Stark, Mrs MacMeikan (born 1885) became a widow near the start of 1912 when her her first husband John Kenneth MacMeikan died in the Eastry district of Kent at the age of 31, On 30 April 1917 Violet married her second husband Claude Powell at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, and they had one daughter, Katherine Ann Powell, who was born in the Abingdon district in 1918. Violet died at St Mary’s Convent, 86 Hatherley Road, Cheltenham at the age of 76 on 29 November 1961.
- John Dugald Wienholt Stark, known as Jack (born 1887) had no occupation in 1911, when he was boarding at Foxcombe Hill, Wootton with his brother Robert. After the First World War he set up in business with Robert making furniture. Jack married Mabel Horn in 1925 in the Thame district. He died on 13 July 1955 at the age of 68, and was buried at Radnage in Buckinghamshire.
- Robert Gordon Wienholt Stark (born 1891), known as Gordon, was an Oxford undergraduate in 1911, boarding with his brother John at Foxcombe Hill, Wootton, and he later set up a furniture business with him. He married Blanche Dunlop Anderson at Long Crendon, Bucks on 12 April 1926, and they had two children: Patrick (born 1927) and Jean (born 1928). He died at Newport, Pembrokeshire at the age of 59 on 2 August 1950.
- Mary Gladys Wienholt Stark (born 1894) was paying a visit with her sister Helène to a family in Wimbledon at the time of the 1911 census. She married George Veevers Carter in 1922 at Wycombe, and they had one son, Richard Mark Veevers Carter (born 1923).
- Mark Arnold Napier Wienholt Stark (born 1897) died tragically in Kilimani, Kenya in 1932 at the age of 35 when his house caught fire in the night.
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