James Wyatt
Mayor of Oxford 1842/3
James Wyatt (1774–1853) was the son of the Oxford baker Thomas Wyatt. His father had been baptised at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in 1738 and married Anne Clanfield at Hanborough on 11 August 1765. (Although his father sat on the council for many years from 1771, he should not be confused with the Thomas Wyatt who became Mayor in 1830: this was James’s cousin.)
James Wyatt was born on 14 March 1774 and was baptised at the Church of St Mary the Virgin three days later. He had five older siblings: Mary (born 1765), Anne (born 1767 but died in infancy), John (born 1768), Walter William (born 1770), and Thomas (born 1771)
On his fifteenth birthday (14 March 1789) Wyatt was apprenticed to the carver and gilder Robert Archer. The frame of the portrait above depicts instruments and tools used by picture framers.
In 1805 Wyatt set up his own business as a carver and gilder at 115 High Street (left).
By 1811 he had begun to deal in pictures and prints, and by 1823 he is listed in Pigot’s Directory as a printseller. He lived over the shop from 1805 until his death in 1853, latterly with his son (another James) and his family.
The shop was a favourite haunt of the pre-Raphaelites: Sir John Everett Millais (1829–96) once stayed here, and in 1849 painted a well-known picture of James Wyatt with his granddaughter Mary.
On 13 February 1806 Wyatt married Mary Cooke of St Peter-in-the-East at her parish church. They had four children: Ann (b. 7 April 1808), Elizabeth (b. 13 June 1809), James junior (b. 19 November 1810), and Eliza (b. 21 December 1813),
Wyatt was a prominent figure in Oxford’s public life for 38 years. He was elected on to the old Corporation in 1815, and on to the new one in 1837. He was Sheriff of Oxford in 1839; was re-elected on to the council in 1840.
At the time of the 1841 census, when Wyatt was 67, he is described as a gilder, and five of his grown-up children (James, Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Elizabeth) are living at home. They have two female servants. Later that year, Wyatt’s wife Mary died at the age of 78 and was buried at the Church of St Mary the Virgin on 9 September.
Wyatt was made an Alderman in 1841 and served as Mayor in 1842/3. During his mayoralty, a boundary stone inscribed with his name was put up outside King’s Mill House near the Marston Road.
Wyatt had a great interest in the history and antiquities of Oxford, and was curator of pictures at Blenheim Palace.
The 1851 census shows Wyatt as a widower of 77, living at 115 High Street with his spinster daughters Ann and Elizabeth. Also living with him are his son James junior (39) with his wife Eliza (36) and their two young daughters Mary (b. 31 August 1845), and Sarah (b. 17 January 1849).
Wyatt died at 115 High Street at the age of 79 on 23 March 1853.
Left: James Wyatt junior in a portrait by Millais
See also:
- Pictures of (1) James Wyatt by John Bridges and (2) his son James Wyatt junior by Sir John Everett Millais, both in the St Aldate’s Room in the Town Hall
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 15 February 1806: Announcement of Wyatt’s marriage
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 26 March 1853, p. 3cd: Wyatt’s obituary
- Oxford Times, 10 October 1986, p. 4 (article about his portrait, to be centrepiece of a London exhibition)
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entries numbered 1092, 2887
- Thomas Wyatt, Mayor in 1830 (his cousin)
- PCC Will PROB 11/2179 (Will of James Wyatt, Carver and Gilder, Widower of All Saints in the City of Oxford, proved 29 September 1853)
- 1841 Census: Oxford (All Saints), 891/02/8
- 1851 Census: Oxford (All Saints), 1728/80