James Stanley Lowe
Mayor of Oxford 1880/1
James Stanley Lowe was born in 1829 in Bristol.
At the time of the 1851 census, Lowe (21) was an assistant to the iron merchant Charles Nichols in St Helen’s parish, Abingdon.
In the June quarter of 1860 Lowe, who was then about 30, married 18-year-old Emma Payne of Banbury and the marriage was registered in the Wallingford district.
The 1861 census shows James (31), described as a leather merchant and ironmger who employed five men and two apprentices, living with Emma (19) in Park Town. Also in the household are Emma’s two little sisters: Katherine (5) and Margaret (2). They have two female servants.
The Post Office Directory of 1864 shows that Lowe’s shop was at 31 Cornmarket Street, where he is listsed as an “ironmonger, gas fitter & bell hanger” at . 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,.
The 1869 directory shows that the Lowes were now living (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.
In 1872 the family moved to Alderley Lodge at 16 Bradmore Road. This house, designed by Frederick Codd and pictured below, was newly built that year, and Lowe must have rented it from the leaseholder, the grocer Charles Underhill, whom Lowe must have known on the council.
In 1880 Lowe was elected Mayor of Oxford (for 1880/1). 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.)
On 12 July 1883 Lowe was elected an Alderman.
Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 12 February 1887 reports how Lowe appeared at the Oxford City Police Court for a minor offence:
James Stanley Lowe, a Justice of the Peace, of 16, Bradmore-road, pleaded guilty, through Supt. Head, to not clearing his footpath on the 15th ult. – P.C. King said that about four feet in width had been cleared out of ten feet. – Fined 1s. and 6s. costs.
Lowe did not retire after selling his shop in 1882, and he ran a business together with another Mayor of Oxford, Jason Saunders, until July 1889. A notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 3 August 1889 announced:
Notice is hereby given that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned JASON SAUNDERS and JAMES STANLEY LOWE carrying on business as Railway Contractors, Carriers, and Furniture Van Proprietors at the Mitre Office, and in St. Thomas’s,. in the City of Oxford, under the style or firm of Saunders and Co., has been Dissolved by mutual consent as and from the 31st day of July, 1889.
In the 1891 census, at the age of 61, Lowe is still 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 (then aged 71) is described as a Justice of the Peace, and his wife Emma ( 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