George Henry Warburton
Mayor of Oxford 1850/1
George Henry Warburton (1794–1861) was the fourth child and eldest son of George and Mary Warburton. His father had a grocer’s shop in St Giles’s parish until the 1820s. His parents baptised eleven children at St Giles’s Church: Mary (1788), Martha (1790), Ann (1791), George Henry himself (5 January 1795), Hannah (1797), Elizabeth (1800), William (1803), Thomas Pledwell (1805), Edward Andrew (1808), John (1811), and Charles (1816).
George became a grocer like his father, and is described as being of St Peter-in-the-East parish when he married Sarah Burgess at Nuneham Courtenay on 20 January 1820. The couple do not appear to have had any children.
The following advertisement appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 13 February 1836 (p. 3c):
To be SOLD or LET, with immediate possession,—A good-sized Dwelling House with excellent FRONT SHOP, situate in the High-street, late in the occupation of Mr George Warburton, and wherein the grocery business has been successfully carried on upwards of half a century. These premises, from their convenient situation, offer a most advantageous opportunity to, and will be found well worth the attention of, any person desirous of commencing business in the principal street of Oxford.
Also to be SOLD, or LET, with immediate possession—A TENEMENT adjoining the Dwelling House, latterly occupied by Charles Souch.
Apply to Mr. Matthews, solicitor, Oxford—Letters to be paid.
This suggests that Warburton only moved into 72 High Street in 1836, and that until that date he had operated from a smaller shop in the parish of St Peter-in-the-East.
Warburton was elected Councillor for the East Ward when the new Corporation was formed in 1835, and was re-elected in 1837, 1840, 1843, and 1846.
At the time of the 1841 census Warburton and his wife were living at 72 High Street with a grocer’s shopman and a female servant.
Warbruton was elected Sheriff of Oxford in 1843, and was made an Alderman on 9 November 1850, the same day that he was elected Mayor.
The 1851 census, taken during his mayoral year, describes Warburton as both as grocer and Mayor: aged 56, he is living over his shop at 72 High Street with his wife, an assistant grocer, two servants, and a lodger.
In 1856 he was re-elected Alderman and made a magistrate.
Warburton was still living at 72 High Street at the time of the 1861 census. Just five months later, he died at the age of 66, and was buried at St Peter-in-the-East Church on 1 October 1861. His widow Sarah went to live in Clapham, where she died at the age of 75: she was buried with her husband on 7 May 1872.
See also:
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 28 September 1861, p. 5c (obituary)
- 1841 Census: Oxford (St Peter-in-the-East), 891/16/6
- 1851 Census: Oxford (St Peter-in-the-East), 1728/15
- 1861 Census: Oxford (St Peter-in-the-East), 893/84