James Banting
Mayor of Oxford 1832/3
James Banting (or Banten) (b.1780) was the son of the tailor James Banting and his wife Rachel Prior. His family were rooted in St Aldate’s: his father had been baptised at St Aldate’s Church in 1755 and had married there on 6 July 1777; his grandparents were James and Mary Banting of St Aldate’s, and his great-grandparents were James and Ann Banting (who were buried at St Aldate’s in 1798 and 1793 respectively).
Banting himself was baptised at St Aldate’s Church on 16 February 1780. He had an older sister, Mary (baptised 5 July 1778), and six younger siblings: Rachel (baptised 2 December 1781, who died of smallpox just before her fifth birthday), Prior (7 September 1783), Ann (2 February 1786), Sarah (18 November 1787), Susanna (30 July 1789), and Joseph (19 April 1791).
Banting’s grandfather (recorded as James Banting Senior) was buried at St Aldate’s on 19 October 1798 and less than a month later his father (recorded as James Banting Tailor) was buried on 24 November. It appears that Banting took over his father’s business, as Pigot’s 1823 directory lists James Banting & Co. as tailors in St Aldate’s. They are not, however, listed in their 1830 directory.
Banting’s mother, Lydia, was buried at St Aldate’s on 3 November 1808.
Banting came on to the Council in 1821, and was elected Junior Chamberlain in 1825, Senior Bailiff in 1828, and Mayor of Oxford in 1832. After the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835, he did not return on to the Council.
It is not clear what happened to Banting after 1835. It is possible he is the James Banting (described as Independent) living with his sister Sarah (both unmarried) at the time of the 1841 and in 1851 censuses. In 1841 they were living at Worton (to the south-east of Yarnton), and in 1851 they had moved into Oxford and were living in Beaumont Mansion with three servants: James is described as a 71-year-old landed proprietor born in Oxford, and Sarah as a 62-year-old annuitant. (There was a James Banting of St Aldate’s who married Ann Elliott at St Aldate’s Church on 16 December 1816, but this could have been a cousin.)
See also:
- 1841 Census: Oxford (Worton), 889/11/2
- 1851 Census: Oxford (St Mary Magdalen), 1728/604