Mrs Emma WATTS, née Tidmarsh (c.1832–1867)
St Giles section: Row 9, Grave B37
TO
THE MEMORY OF
EMMA THE BELOVED WIFE OF
CHARLES WATTS
WHO DIED FEB. 26TH, 1867
AGED 34 YEARS
FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD
THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN
SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH
IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT
HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE
Emma Tidmarsh was born in c.1832, the daughter of the builder William Tidmarsh. She may be the Emma Tidmarsh, daughter of William & Hannah, who was baptised at Stonesfield on 15 December 1833: but her father was an agricultural labourer, and it is possible that Emma was not born in Oxfordshire.
Her husband Charles Watts was born in Kidlington in 1831 and baptised there on 31 July. He was the son of the labourer Thomas Watts and Ann Moss. Gardner's Directory of 1852 shows that he was then a servant of Exeter College. At the time of the 1861 census he was an unmarried man of 30, boarding with his brother William Watts and his family at 24 Observatory Street.
On 15 January 1863 at Wytham, Emma Tidmarsh (29) married Charles Watts (32) who was described as a college servant: they were both then living in that parish. They do not appear to have had any children.
Emma died in early 1867 at St Giles's Road (the name then given to the south end of both the Woodstock and Banbury Roads):
† Mrs Emma Watts died at St Giles's Road at the age of 34 on 26 February 1867 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 2 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles's Church).
Emma's husband Charles Watts
On 14 September 1869 at St James's Church, Cowley the widower Charles Watts (37) married his second wife Mary Turner (29). She was born in St Giles's parish in 1840, the daughter of the groom John Turner and his wife Martha, but was living in St Thomas's parish at the time of her marriage.
By the time of the 1871 census Charles (39) and Mary (30) were living at 8 Temple Street in east Oxford with their son Alfred (nine months) and Charles's sister Mary Watts (56). They were still there in 1881: Charles was still a college bedmaker, and had three more sons, namely George (9), Ernest (5), and Walter (1). He was at the same address in 1891 and 1901, and died at the age of 75 near the beginning of 1907.
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