James Grainge
Mayor of Oxford 1878/9
James Grainge or Grange (1826–1879) was born on 4 June 1826 and baptised at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon on 23 July 1826. He was the son of John Grainge, an upholsterer, and his wife Susannah.
A John Grainge likely to be James’s father was baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church in Oxford on 28 March 1787. (John was in turn the son of George Grainge of that parish who married Alice Roberts of Cassington there on 28 March 1787.)
James’s mother was Susannah Clinkard, who was baptised at Garsington on 26 January 1789.
John and Susannah married in Garsington on 22 April 1813, and their eleven children were as follows:
- John (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 15 January 1815)
- Susannah (born on 1 September 1815 and baptised nineteen days later at St Aldate’s Church, Oxford)
- Fanny (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 8 March 1818, buried there 24 November 1818)
- Alice (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 23 April 1820)
- Sara (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 21 January 1821, buried there 29 October 1821)
- Elizabeth (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 27 July 1823)
- Nathaniel (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 26 December 1824, buried there on 14 March 1826)
- James (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 23 July 1826)
- Edwin (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 27 March 1828)
- William (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 10 December 1830, buried there on 28 July 1832)
- Thomas (baptised at St Helen’s Church, Abingdon on 26 December 1832).
At the time of his marriage Grainge’s father was described as being of St Aldate’s parish in Oxford, but the above baptisms indicate that Grainge’s parents moved to Abingdon from St Aldate’s in Oxford soon afterwards. Pigot’s New Commercial Directory of 1823/4 describes Grainge’s father as a cabinet maker & upholsterer and pawnbroker of Butcher Row in Abingdon. It seems likely that John inherited an established family business there, as in its latter days the firm of Grainge & Co. was to boast a foundation date of 1794.
James’s father John died on 9 February 1836 at the age of 49 and five days later was buried at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon. His mother Susannah continued to run the family business: she describes herself as a broker in the 1841 census, when she was living with five of her children at Boar Street in Abingdon: the family had one servant.
James’s eldest sister Susannah married the Noke farmer James Rogers in Abingdon on 20 November 1845. (James was probably her cousin, as he was the son of a Fanny Grainge who had married William Rogers at Noke in 1817.) Their daughters Fanny and Susannah Rogers were baptised at Noke in 1846 and 1848.
James himself married Mary Couling (the daughter of another farmer, Stephen Couling) at Wootten, Berkshire on 11 September 1849, when she was 25 and he was 23. Rather surprisingly, the register describes James at that time as a chemist of Boar Street, Abingdon.
At the time of the 1851 census James and his wife were still living with James’s mother Susannah in "Boar or Bath Street", Abingdon, with both mother and son described as pawnbrokers. All James’s siblings had now left home, but James’s niece Fanny Rogers (now aged 4) was staying in the house with them.
Grainge’s first child, Rosa Mary, was born in1855/6, but her baptism was delayed until 1856. His mother Susannah died on 1 September 1857 at the age of 69 and was buried at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon nine days later.
Soon after his mother’s death, Grainge and his wife Mary moved to Brewer Street in St Ebbe’s parish, Oxford, where he continued as a pawnbroker.
Their daughter Rosa Mary (now two) and a new baby James Henry were baptised together on 28 March 1858 at St Ebbe’s Church, followed by Albert Edward on 17 August 1859.
The 1861 census shows the family living over the pawn shop at 5 and 6 Brewer Street (left).
Grainge and his wife had three more children at this house, all baptised at St Ebbe’s Church:
- Agnes Elizabeth (2 June 1861)
- Ellen (or Helen) Fanny (21 June 1863)
- Thomas John (15 January 1865).
Grainge was Churchwarden of St Ebbe’s Church from 1863 to 1868.
On 20 March 1866, at the age of 42, Grainge’s wife Mary died, and she was buried at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon. Two months later their son James Henry died at the age of eight and was buried with his mother.
Grainge was elected on to the Council as a representative of the West Ward in 1868, and was re-elected in 1871.
The 1871 census shows Grainge as a widower, looked after by his daughter Rosa Mary (aged 14) and with two of his younger children living with him: Agnes (9) and Helen (8). Albert Edward (11) was a boarder at Cowley School, while Thomas John (5) must have been staying elsewhere. He did not remain a widower for long, and his second wife, Mary Ann, also came from Abingdon.
In 1874 Grainge was narrowly defeated on the council, but regained his seat the following January as a result of a resignation. He was appointed Sheriff of Oxford at the end of the same year. He was a member of the Local Board of Health of the Police Committee.
Grainge became Mayor of Oxford in 1878. During his mayoral year he went to Torquay for the sake of his health, but caught typhoid fever there. Despite the administrations of the Oxford doctors Mr Owen and Mr Tuckwell, Grainge died on 4 April 1879 at the age of 52, leaving "a widow and large family to lament their loss". He had only served five months of his mayoral year.
Grainge’s funeral was St Helen’s Church in Abingdon on 8 April 1879, and he was buried at Abingdon Cemetery. The cortège left his home in Brewer Street, went along St Ebbe’s Street, Queen Street, and St Aldate’s, and was joined at the Town Hall by members of the Corporation in their robes. The Corporation proceeded only as far as the city boundary on Folly Bridge, but the hearse and five mourning coaches continued on to Abingdon. Tradesmen in Oxford partially put up their shutters and drew their blinds, and the flags on Carfax, St Mary Magdalen, and St Michael’s Church were all at half-mast, and bells tolled as the cortège went past. Similarly in Abingdon, nearly all the shops closed, and the flag of the tower of St Nicholas’s Church was at half-mast. The Mayor of Abingdon joined the funeral party, and the service was performed by the Revd C. J. H. Fletcher of the City Church at Carfax and the Revd A. Pearson of St Ebbe’s.
Grainge’s widow Mary carried on her husband’s trade as a pawnbroker in Brewer Street with her stepson Albert. The 1881 census shows her there at the age of 49 with Albert (21) and four of her other stepchildren: Rosa (24), Agnes (20), Helen (18), and Thomas (17). Later that year two of the girls were married: Rosa to the brewer’s manager Frank Howard, and Agnes to the solicitor Henry Frank Galpin (son of another former mayor, John Galpin). Three years later in 1884 her son Albert married Alice Gray.
A stone tablet in Grainge’s memory can be seen on the outside of St Ebbe’s Church in St Ebbe’s Street (below). The text reads:
"Sacred to the memory of James Grainge, Mayor of this ancient city & churchwarden of this parish, from 1863 to 1868, who departed this life April 4, 1879, aged 52 years".
Jackson’s Oxford Journal describes the memorial set up in Abingdon Cemetery a few months after Grainge’s burial:
A handsome Gothic marble memorial stone has been fixed in our cemetery in memory of the late Mayor of Oxford, Mr James Grainge. The inscription is of solid lead, medieval letters, and the work has been well executed by Mrs C. Payman of the memorial works, Ock-street. The inscription runs thus: "Sacred to the memory of James Grainge, Mayor of Oxford. Born June 4, 1826; died April 4, 1879."
Grainge & Co
The family pawnbroking business survived for 70 years after Grainge’s death. By 1900 it occupied 6, 7, 8, and 9 Brewer Street, and from 1925 it included general sales and house furniture. In the late 1930s the shop moved around the corner into Littlegate Street, with the jewellery and clothing section at No. 1 and the original pawnbroking side at No. 1A. Grainge & Co. ceased trading in about 1950.
Above: front and back of a pawn ticket issued by Grainge & Co to G. Smith of Summertown who pawned a gold Albert watch for £10 in 1910. This ticket was found in 2005 under the floorboards of a house in Harpes Road, Sunnymead
Bible presented by James Grainge to William Rogers, son of his sister Susannah, in 1872
Portrait dated 1784 of George Grainge, who appears to have been a relation of the Mayor
See also:
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 12 April 1879, p. 8b (obituary)
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 16 August 1879, p. 7c (memorial in Abingdon cemetery)
- 1851 Census: Oxford (Abingdon): 1688/216
- 1861 Census: Oxford (St Ebbe), 894/121
- 1871 Census: Oxford (St Ebbe): 1439/19
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Ebbe), 104/16