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Mrs Magdalen WALLACE, née Sharpe (1804–1880)
St Giles (Ss Philip & James) section: Row 52, Grave F37

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See also the grave of her two sisters-in-law Miss Caroline Wallace (died 1865) and Miss Margaret Christina Wallace (died 1889)

Magdalen Sharpe was born in London on 17 March 1804 and baptised at All Hallows Church, Staining on 1 June. She was the eldest daughter of the Revd Lancelot Sharpe and Jane Mary Harrison, who were married at Thoydon-Garnon, Essex on 11 January 1803. Her father (who was born in London on 7 August 1774, the son of a merchant of the same name) was a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and served as perpetual curate of All Hallows Church in Staining from 1802 to 1851. He was simultaneously the 4th Master of Merchant Taylors’ School from 1807 to 1819, and then the Head Master of St Saviour’s Grammar School, Southwark from 1828 to 1845.

Magdalen had eleven younger siblings: John Sharpe (born 1805), Lancelot Arthur Sharpe (born 1806), Phillip Sharpe (born 1809), Alexander Sharpe (born 1811), Mary Sharpe (born 1813, died the next year), James Sharpe (born 1814), Catherine and Mary Anna Sharpe Sharpe (1816), Thomas Bowdler Sharpe (1817), Richard Sharpe (born 1819) and Marmaduke Lawrence Sharpe (born 1822).

Magdalen’s mother died at the age of 41 on 3 June 1823.

On 5 April 1825 at All Saints Church, Edmonton, her father married his second wife, Mary Tweed. They had four sons, half-brothers to Magdalen: Clement Charles Sharpe (1828), Ernest Sharpe (1829), Clarence Henry Sharpe (1830), and Philip Ruffle Sharpe (1831).

On 1 January 1828 at All Saints' Church, Edmonton, Magdalen Sharpe married the Revd James Lloyd Wallace of Trinity College, Cambridge (who was born in Edmonton, Middlesex in c.1803). They had the following children:

• James Wallace (born at Fore Street, Edmonton in January 1829 and baptised at All Saints Church there on 26 February)
• Mary Jane Wallace (born at Fore Street, Edmonton on 20 April 1830 and baptised at All Saints Church there on 18 May)
• Magdalen Wallace (born at Fore Street Edmonton on 10 May 1834 and baptised at All Saints Church there on 2 July)
• Margaret Caroline Wallace (born at Fore Street, Edmonton on 8 September 1835 and baptised at All Saints Church there the same day); appears to have died
• A stillborn daughter (born at Sevenoaks, Kent on 13 April 1839)
• Rose Wallace (born at Sevenoaks, Kent in 1840 and baptised there on 30 December).

In February 1838 Magdalen’s husband James Lloyd Wallace was appointed Master of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School at Sevenoaks in Kent. At the time of the 1841 census Magdalen was living at the school with her husband and their children James (12), Mary Jane (11), Magdalen (7), and Rose (seven months). Also living with them were two teachers and twenty boys aged between nine and fifteen.

In 1839 Magdalen’s brother Lancelot Arthur Sharpe, a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, was appointed Rector of Tackley.

Magdalen’s husband James Lloyd Wallace died in Sevenoaks at the age of 39 on 3 August 1843 while still serving as Master of the Grammar School, and was buried in his family’s vault at Edmonton. His will stated that the school and house should be sold for the benefit of his wife Magdalen.

On 21 April 1847, Magdalen’s son James Wallace, who had attended King’s School, Canterbury, entered Jesus College, Cambridge.

On 4 May 1850 her eldest daughter Mary Jane Wallace died at St Pancras, London at the age of 20.

At the time of the 1851 census Mrs Magdalen Wallace, a widow of 47, described herself as a teacher of English and was running a small school at 84 Mont Road, Brighton. Living with her was her daughter Magdalen (16), two assistant teachers, four servants, and 13 boy pupils aged between six and ten. Her daughter Rose was boarding at a school in Brighton run by her paternal aunts, the Misses Margaret Christina and Caroline Wallace.

Magdalen's son James spent the census night of 1851 at Jesus College, Cambridge. Following his ordination he served as curate of Littlebury in Essex from 1852 to 1854, and then as chaplain in the Crimea from 1854 to 1855.

Magdalen’s father Lancelot Sharpe died at Mark Lane, London on 26 October 1851.

Magdalen’s son James Wallace was Headmaster of Peterborough Cathedral School from 1855 to 1860, and must have married his wife Fanny during that period. In 1860 he was appointed Headmaster of Loughborough Grammar School. At the time of the 1861 census he was living at the school in Leicester Road, Loughborough with Fanny and their daughter Mary Jane (2). Three 13-year-old boys from his school were boarding with them, and they had four servants (a nurse, cook, housemaid, and nursemaid).

On the night of the 1861 census Mrs Magdalen Wallace (57) was retired and staying at Tormoham in Devon with her daughters Magdalen (26) and Rose (20) and her deceased husband’s unmarried sisters Margaret Christina Wallace (62) and Caroline Wallace (53), who were now living with her.

By 1865 Mrs Magdalen Wallace had moved to 14 The Crescent (now 27 Park Town) with her two unmarried daughters and her sisters-in-law Margaret and Caroline. The latter died in her house that year.

Both of Magdalen’s surviving daughters were married in the 1860s:

• On 19 April 1866 at Ss Philip & James’s Church, Oxford, Rose Wallace married the Revd Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, the youngest son of the Revd G. Pickard-Cambridge, Rector of Bloxworth, Dorset;
• On 17 June 1869 at Ss Philip & James’s Church, Oxford, Magdalen Wallace married the Revd William Morrison, Vicar of Midsomer Norton, Somerset.

The 1871 census shows Magdalen (67) living at The Crescent in Park Town with her surviving sister-in-law Miss Margaret Christina Wallace (72) and her widowed cousin Mrs Ann Cagemore (61), plus a cook and housemaid.

Magdalen’s only son James Wallace continued to serve as Head Master at Loughborough Grammar School, and by 1871 had two more children: Percy Wallace (8) and Francis Wallace (6). He died on 17 November 1875 at the age of 46.

Magdalen’s nephew Lancelot Lambert Sharpe, the son of her brother Lancelot Arthur Sharpe, was appointed Vicar of St Giles’s Church, Oxford in 1880.

Magdalen Wallace died near the end of 1880:

† Mrs Magdalen Wallace née Sharpe died at 14 The Crescent (27 Park Town) at the age of 76 on 2 December 1880 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 7 December (burial recorded in the parish registers of both Ss Philip & James’s and St Giles’s Church).

Her death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “Dec. 2, at 14, Park Crescent, Oxford, suddenly, Magdalen, widow of the late Rev. James Lloyd Wallace, of Sevenoaks, Kent, aged 76.”

Her personal estate came to under £12,000, and her executors were William Wallace of 90 York Street, Bryanston Square, Middlesex and her son-in-law the Revd William Morrison of Midsomer Norton, Somerset.

Magdalen’s sister-in-law Miss Margaret Christina Wallace continued to live in her house until her own death nine years later.

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The two surviving daughters of Mrs Magdalen Wallace

• Magdalen Wallace, Mrs William Morrison (born 1834) was living with her husband at the Vicarage in Midsomer Norton, Somerset in 1881 and 1891. They retired to Oxford, and lived at 8 Winchester Road. Her husband died there at the age of 63 in 1895 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 16 November (Row 51, Grave E47½, not yet covered) In 1911 Magdalen was living alone with two servants at 8 Winchester Road. She died at that address at the age of 81 and was buried with her husband in February 1916.
• Rose Wallace, Mrs Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (born 1840) was living at the Rectory in Bloxworth in 1881 with her husband and sons Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge (8), Alfred (4), and William (1), plus four servants. She was still there in 1911 with her husband and their son William (21), who was a student at Oxford. Rose died at Bloxworth Rectory at the age of 69 in August 1919, and her husband on 9 March 1917