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Mrs Hannah WELLS (c.1769–1858)
Her daughter Mrs Ann NOON, née Wells (1797–1865)
Also Miss Eleanor BOWERMAN (c.1829–1891)
St Giles section: Row 15, Grave B24½

 

It is hard to trace the background of Mrs Hannah Wells, also known as Ann (born c.1769), who hailed from Warwickshire and whose husband was the labourer William Wells. They had at least one daughter:

• Ann Wells (born in Southam, Warwickshire in 1797 and baptised there on 28 May).

At the time of the 1841 census Hannah Wells and her husband William were living at Leamington Priors with their daughter Ann (38). The widower Thomas Noon (45), who had been born in Warwickshire but was now a successful builder in Oxford, was paying a visit. (For more on his background, see his separate grave.)

Just two months later on 7 June 1841 at All Saints Church in Leamington Priors, Ann Wells became the second wife of Thomas Noon, and he brought her back to live in Oxford. They had no children.

At the time of the 1851 census Ann (55) was living at 18 Little Clarendon Street with her husband Thomas Noon (also 55), plus one servant.

Ann’s mother Hannah Wells probably came to Oxford with them, as she died at their house in 1858:

† Mrs Hannah Wells died at Little Clarendon Street at the age of 88 or 89 on 18 March 1858 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 22 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

Her name was given as Annie rather than Hannah Wells when her death was registered.

At the time of the 1861 census her daughter Ann Noon and her husband Thomas were still living in Little Clarendon Street. Thomas Noon died there at the age of 68 on 12 December 1863, and was buried in the grave of three of his children.

Mrs Ann Noon died less than two years after her husband, and was buried with her mother:

† Mrs Ann Noon née Wells died at 35 Little Clarendon Street at the age of 68 on 17 June 1865 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 23 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

Her name at the registration of her death was given as Ann Wells Noon. Her death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “June 17, at 35, Little Clarendon-street, St. Giles’s, Ann, relict of the late Mr. Thomas Noon of this city, in the 69th year of her age.”

---

Miss Eleanor Bowerman (relationship to the Noons unknown)

Eleanor (or Ellen) Bowerman was born at Hailey (near Witney) in 1827 and baptised there on 30 September that year at the same time as her brother Joseph. She was the daughter of James Bowerman, a farmer, and Mary Perrin, who were both living in Hailey when they were married at St Mary’s Church in Witney on 21 December 1811. They had four other children baptised at Hailey: Robert (1814), Mary Ann (1815), Jane Elizabeth (1817), and John (1824).

At the time of the 1841 census Eleanor (14) was the servant of a brazier and his family and living with them in Witney.

In 1851 she was a dressmaker aged 23, and lodging at Little Clarendon Street in Oxford in the home of a laundress.

In 1871 Eleanor (with five years taken off her true age of 43) was still working as a dressmaker and boarding with the family of a college servant at 15 Little Clarendon Street.

In 1881 Eleanor was running a cigar shop at the south end of the Woodstock Road (then also known as St Giles’s Road west) and lived over the shop with a servant girl and a lodger.

Eleanor died early in 1891:

† Miss Eleanor Bowerman died at 6 Woodstock Road at the age of 63 on 11 January 1891 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 14 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

Her death announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read simply: “Jan. 11, at 8, Woodstock-road, Oxford, Miss Eleanor Bowerman, aged 63.” Her personal estate came to £610 18s. 8d., and her executor was Miss Mary Ann Harris of Hailey.