Mrs Letitia Maria STOCK, née Foot (1851–1880)
St Giles section: Row 38, Grave J31
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
LETITIA MARIA
THE BELOVED WIFE
OF
ST GEORGE STOCK.
BORN FEB. 28, 1851.
DIED MARCH 8, 1880.
HEU!
QUANTO MINUS EST
CUM
RELIQUIS VERSARI
QUAM
TUI MEMINISSE
[Alas! How much less precious
it is to live with those who remain
than to remember you
(William Shenstone)]
Letitia Maria Foot was born at Rathmines, Dublin in 1851 and baptised at St Peter-in-Trinity Church at Rathmines on 18 May 1851, and although her date of birth is given as 28 February on her gravestone, the baptismal register (below) records it as 30 March:
She was the youngest daughter of Simon Foot (a Dublin snuff manufacturer) and Marianne Glascock (the second daughter of Edward Barclay Glascock, Esq), who were married at Hampstead on 30 July 1827 (with their marriage announced in The Times the next day).
Letitia was probably in Dublin at the time of the 1861 and 1871 censuses.
On 12 June 1877 at St Luke’s Church, Paddington, Letitia Mary Foot (26), who had been living at Aldridge Road, Paddington, married St George William Joseph Stock (27). Stock, who had studied at Pembroke College, Oxford, obtaining his MA in 1875, described himself simply as a gentleman on the marriage certificate (below), but in fact he did some tutoring for the University of Oxford. See the grave of his brother Edwin for more about his early life and family.
Their marriage notice in the Standard of 15 June 1877 read:
STOCK—FOOT.—13th [should read 12th], at St. Luke’s Church, Westbourne-park, W., by the Rev. George Stokes, vicar of All SS. Blackrock, co. Dublin, assisted by the Rev. E. D. Wickham, vicar of The Holmwood, Surrey St. George William Joseph Stock to Letitia Maria, youngest daughter of the late Simon Foot, Esq., Blackrock, county Dublin.
They had just one child:
- Mary Letitia Stock (born in Oxford on 17 April 1878, reg. Headington district).
They lived at 8 Museum Villas (now 16 Museum Road). Mrs Letitia Stock died there in early 1880, before her daughter was two years old:
† Mrs Letitia Maria Stock, née Foot died at the present 16 Museum Road at the age of 29 on 8 March 1880 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 11 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).
The death notice inserted in the Pall Mall Gazette read simply: “STOCK, Letitia M., wife of Mr. St. George, at Museum-villas, Oxford, aged 29, March 8.”
Letitia Mary Stock’s husband St George Stock
At the time of the 1881 census St George Stock, a widower of 31, was living at the present 16 Museum Road with his daughter Mary Letitia (2) and his mother’s sister Miss Mary Atkinson (58), who was probably acting as his housekeeper. Also living with him was his step-niece Sarah Gubbins (19), who was a governess, and the family employed a cook and nurse. He also had a boarder: William Seddon (25), the Curate of St Mary Magdalen Church.
St George’s brother, Edwin Henry Douglas Stock, apears to have come to live with them, as he died at his house at the age of 42 near the end of 1887 (see separate grave).
By the time of the 1891 census another of St George's brothers, Reginald A. Stock (40), a retired Royal Navy Commander, was living with St George and his daughter at the present 16 Museum Road.
In June and July 1892 the banns were called at St Giles’s Church for the forthcoming wedding of St George William Joseph Stock and Anne Elizabeth Tennant, a spinster of Donnybrook, Dublin, and he duly married his second wife (probably in Ireland). They had four daughters, all born at Museum Road in Oxford: Dorothy Anne (1894), Margaret Louisa (1897), Amy Geraldine (1902), and Elizabeth Ellen (1904).
At the time of the 1901 census St George still described himself as a University Tutor, and he and his second wife were at 16 Museum Road (then 8 Museum Villas) with their first two daughters and two servants. Mary Letitia (22), the daughter from his first marriage, was also living with them, and working as a governess.
By 1911 St George Stock was the Lecturer in Greek at the University of Birmingham and living at Edgbaston with his wife and four daughters.
St George William Joseph Stock appears to have returned to Ireland, as a man of that name died at Dundalk there at the age of 72 near the beginning of 1922.
Mrs Letitia Mary Stock’s only child
Mary Letitia Stock (born 1878) was still living at 16 Museum Road when on 26 March 1904 at St Giles’s Church, Oxford she married Andrea Angel, the tutor and lecturer in Chemistry at Christ Church and the son of the retired civil servant Thomas Angel.
More on Andrea Angel
From 1905 to 1912 they lived at 17 Banbury Road, a house belonging to the University, and two children were born to them there:
- Marion Muriel Angel (born in Oxford in 1907)
- Heather Grace Angel (born in Oxford in 1908/9).
The family of four can be seen at home there at the time of the 1911 census, looked after by a cook, house parlourmaid, and nursemaid.
In 1912 the family moved next door to 15 Banbury Road, which was also a university house.
Andrea Angel was killed in January 1917 when he was attempting to put out a fire at a munition works in East London, where he had volunteered for war work as the chief chemist, and he was buried in the East End. An Oxfordshire blue plaque was unveiled on his home at 15 Banbury Road on 14 July 2018.
In 1932 Mrs Mary Letitia Angel emigrated to the USA with her daughter Heather, who was an artist, and they lived at Beverly Hills.
Mary evidently returned to England, as she died at Battle in Sussex in 1970 when she was about 92.
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