James Stanley Lowe
Mayor of Oxford 1880/1
James Stanley Lowe was born in 1829 in Bristol. He is not listed in the Oxfordshire censuses of 1841 or 1851.
Lowe married Emma Payne of Banbury in 1860: he was about 30 and she was 18. Although they do not appear to be living in Oxfordshire at the time of the 1861 census, they must have moved there shortly after this date, as the Post Office Directory of 1864 lists James Stanley Lowe as an "ironmonger, gas fitter & bell hanger" at 31 Cornmarket Street. This shop at the north-east end of Cornmarket turned around into Broad Street at the back, which probably explains the listing in Mathieson’s Directory of 1867 for James S. Lowe as a "leather seller and grindery warehouse" in Broad Street. Webster’s 1869 directory lists Lowe as a "furnishing and general ironmonger" at 31 Cornmarket Street, and also gives his private address (with two other people) as The Priory in Church Way, Iffley village.
In the 1871 census for Iffley, Lowe is described as an ironmonger employing seven assistants. He was then aged 41, and his wife Emma was 29. With them are Emma’s 20-year-old brother (described as an ironmonger’s assistant) and one servant. The following year they moved to Alderley Lodge at 16 Bradmore Road, where they are listed in Webster’s 1872 directory. This house, designed by Frederick Codd, was newly built that year, and Lowe must have rented it from the leaseholder, the grocer Charles Underhill, whom Lowe would have known on the council.
Lowe was elected Mayor of Oxford in 1880. In the 1881 census, when he was 51, he is described as Mayor of Oxford and an ironmonger employing five men and two boys. Living with him at Alderley Lodge are his wife Emma (39), and two 14-year-old schoolgirls: his niece Florence Lowe and a boarder, Florence Downing. The household had just one servant.
Lowe and his wife do not appear to have had any children of their own.
In 1882 Lowe sold his shop at 31 Cornmarket to Arthur Pearson. It initially kept the name Lowe & Co., but soon took Pearson’s name. (It was rebuilt in 1912 and was eventually to become Boswell’s.)
Lowe did not, however, retire completely. In the 1891 census, at the age of 61, he is described as a "household removal contractor", and a directory for that year describes him as a "furniture van proprietor, contractor for household removals, & for warehousing furniture" in the yard of the Clarendon Hotel on the west side of Cornmarket. His niece (now a teacher) was then still living with Lowe and his wife at Alderley Lodge.
The Lowes remained in their Bradmore Road house until 1893, when they moved away from Oxfordshire, probably to Beckenham in Kent, where they were living at the time of the 1901 census (3 Bromley Road). Lowe (aged 71) is then described as a Justice of the Peace, and his wife Emma (aged 59) as the Principal of a school. It looks as though they may later have moved to Bedford, as in 1911 a James S. Lowe died in that city at the age of 81.
See also:
- 1871 Census: Oxford (Iffley): RG10, 1434/107
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Giles): RG11, 1500/17
- 1891 Census: Oxford (St Giles 4): RG12, 1166/79
- 1901 Census: Beckenham (St George’s): RG13, 687/62