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Thomas Alder WYATT (1834/5–1883)
His wife Mrs Sarah Susannah HAWKINS, formerly Mrs Wyatt, née Radford (1843–1932)
Her second husband Thomas Frederick HAWKINS (1840–1927)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 4, Grave C64

Thomas Alder Wyatt was born in St John Street, Oxford in 1834/5 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 22 February 1835. He was the son of the Yorkshire ironmonger George Wyatt and his first wife Hannah Alder.
For more about the background of his parents, see his father’s grave.

His mother died in 1837 when he was only three years old, and at the time of the 1841 census Thomas was six years old, living over the shop in Magdalen Street with his widower father, who was an ironmonger, looked after by his father’s sister Elizabeth.

Thomas was not with his family in 1851 and is hard to find, but In 1861 when he was 26 he was a builder, living with his father and his stepmother Martha and his half-siblings Mary (12), William (7), and Charlotte (1) at 70 St Giles’ Street, Oxford.

Sarah Susannah Radford, also known as Susan, was born in Maugersbury, near Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire in 1843 (reg. second quarter), the daughter of Samuel Radford (born in Buckland, Gloucestershire in 1813/14) and his wife Ann (born in Draycott, Worcestershire in 1819/20. At the time of the 1851 census Sarah was aged 7 and living with her parents at Hull Farm, Over Norton, Oxfordshire, where her father was a farmer of 415 acres; also in the farmhouse were her siblings Georgiana (9), John (5), and Samuel (eleven months), a governess and probable relation called Maria Alder, two housemaids, two agricultural labourers, and a shepherd. By the time of her marriage in 1866 her father was a farmer at Over Norton, near Chipping Norton.

On 24 April 1866 at Chipping Norton, Thomas Alder Wyatt (30), described as a builder of St Giles, Oxford, married Sarah Susannah Radford (22). They had no children.

At the time of the 1871 census Thomas and Susannah Wyatt were living at 74 St Giles’ Street in St Mary Magdalen parish with one servant.

The original No. 74 St Giles’s Street was the northernmost house that was demolished to make way for the first phase of the Taylor Institution, built in the 1840s; but the number was then reallocated to the Wyatt house in their yard, shown left in 1876.

Nos. 68–73 St Giles’s Street were demolished in the 1930s for the extension to the Taylorian.

 

Thomas’s father George Wyatt died on 15 February 1872, and the following announcement appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal just nine days later on 24 February:

The late Mr. George Wyatt’s Business of a Builder and Ironmonger.

THOMAS ALDER WYATT respectfully announces that he succeeds to his late Father’s Business of a BUILDER, and to the Buildings, Builder’s Yard, and Stock-in-Trade at No. 74, Saint Giles’ Street, Oxford; and he trusts, by personal assiduity, and the aid of his Staff of skilful and experienced Workmen, to retain his late Father’s connexion, and to extend it.
  This department of the Business will be conducted, as heretobefore, under the name of "George Wyatt and Son."

AND

MRS. MARTHA WYATT (the Widow of the Deceased) desires to notify that the Business of an IRONMONGER, in all its branches, will be continued by her at the Shop and Warehouses, No. 67 Saint Giles’ Street, Oxford, in co-operation with her Son WILLIAM WEST WYATT.

MRS WYATT & THOMAS ALDER WYATT embrace this opportunity of acknowledging, with gratitude, the kind preference so long accorded to the late Mr. Wyatt by the Magistrates of the County, by the University of Oxford, and various Colleges within it, and by a long Roll of private Land Owners and Gentlemen.

At the time of the 1881 census Thomas and Sarah Wyatt were still living at 74 St Giles’ Street with one servant. Thomas was now described as a builder employing 60 men.

In Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 24 February 1883 it was reported that at a meeting of Convocation on Tuesday 20 February 1883 it was resolved:

that the Curators of the University Chest be authorised to purchase the builder’s yard and premises, No. 74, St Giles’s, Oxford, adjoining the University Galleries and Taylor Institution on the north, from Mr. Thomas Alder Wyatt, for the sum of 7000l. The Dean of Christ Church advocated the purchase, in order to secure control of lights and to diminish the chances of conflagration. Mr. Wyatt had offered the yard in 1874 for 5000l., but then he was to retain it for his business for eight years. This eight years’ occupancy he estimated at 2000l. The price was, of course, an accommodation price, but for that not excessive. Mr. Robinson explained that the money could only be found by borrowing from an appropriated fund, say the Bodleian, and paying off principal and interest in 30 years by an annual sum diminishing gradually from 400l.

Wyatt released his yard to the University and in 1883 took out the first lease on 14 Warnborough Road, where he died just eight months later

† Thomas Alder Wyatt died at 14 Warnborough Road in St Giles’s parish at the age of 48 on 8 November 1883 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 14 November (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

His personal estate came to £8,493 17s. 1d., and his executors were his widow, his brother-in-law John Radford of Croughton, and Thomas Frederick Hawkins, an accountant of 68 St Giles’s Street.

His death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 17 November 1883 read simply: “Nov. 8, at 14, Warnborough-road, Oxford, Thomas Alder Wyatt, eldest son of the late George Wyatt, builder, Oxford, aged 48.” His mother survived him by over ten years.

On 25 June 1885 at St Peter's Church, Wolvercote, his widow Mrs Sarah Susannah Wyatt (42), who was then living at Wolvercote, married her second husband, the bachelor Thomas Frederick Hawkins (42), an accountant of Oxford.

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Thomas Frederick Hawkins

Thomas Frederick Hawkins, Sarah’s second husband, was born in St John Street, Oxford in 1840 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 27 November. He was the son of Thomas Hawkins (born in Faringdon, Berkshire in 1802/3) and his wife Ann (born in Wantage in 1804/5). His father was an accountant, and in 1861 Thomas Frederick (20) and his brother Edward Charles (17) were living with their parents and their sister Emily (21) and were both clerks in their fathers office. The family lived at 68 St Giles’s Street in St Mary Magdalen parish, just a few doors up from Wyatt’s house and yard.

Thomas (40) was still unmarried and living here with his parents and a different sister, Annie (40), in 1881. He may have got to know Susannah when he acted as her first husband's executor in 1883.

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Thomas Frederick Hawkins and Susannah

After their marriage, Thomas Frederick Hawkins moved into Sarah’s house at 14 Warnborough Road. Thomas (50), who was an accountant and house agent, and Sarah (47) were living there with one servant in 1891. They had no children.

By 1901 Thomas had retired, and they were at Mill Street in Eynsham; but in 1911 they were back at 14 Warnborough Road. They were still there in 1915.

By 1927 they had moved to 26 Wellington Square, and Thomas died there that year:

† Thomas Frederick Hawkins died at 26 Wellington Square at the age of 87 on 16 September 1927 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 19 September (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

He does not appear to have left a will.

His wife Susannah, the former wife of Thomas Wyatt, died in 1932:

† Mrs Sarah Susannah Hawkins, formerly Mrs Wyatt, née Radford died at 26 Wellington Square at the age of 87 on 29/30 January 1932 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 2 February (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Her personal effects came to £128 18s. 3d., and her executor was the widow Mrs Ellen Gertrude Palmer.