Part of the Ingram-Green family tree (Great-great-grandmother)
Family background and early life
Julia Fanny Bockett was born in Rotherfield, Sussex on 21 July 1835. She was the third of nine children born to Revd. Benjamin Bradney Bockett (1807–1898) and his wife, Fanny Skinner née Bramwell (1808–1898). Julia was baptised on 10 October 1835 at the Church of St Denys, Rotherfield by her father, who was then the curate.
After a whirlwind romance (see here for the full story), 22-year old Benjamin Bradney Bockett, then a trainee solicitor, and 21-year old Fanny Skinner Bramwell, from Tunbridge Wells, were married, against her father’s express wishes, at Millbrook, near Southampton on 21 November 1829. The couple’s first child, Benjamin Robert, was born in August 1830.
After abandoning the legal profession, Benjamin Bradney Bockett turned to the church and was ordained in Rochester Cathedral in 1834, after graduating Bachelor of Arts from St John’s College, Oxford the previous year. After various curacies, he was installed as Vicar of Epsom, Surrey in 1839, where he was to remain for 44 years until he retired in 1883.
At the first national census in June 1841, Benjamin (now the vicar of Epsom) and Fanny, with their then four children, including 5-year old Julia, were living at Epsom Vicarage.
Ten years later, 15-year old Julia was still at the vicarage with her parents and four siblings, plus two live-in servants, a cook and a housemaid.
Marriage and children
On 18 August 1857, 22-year old Julia married the newly installed Rector of Cheam, Surrey, Thomas Carteret Maule, aged 38, at her father’s church, St Martin’s, in Epsom.
The couple’s first child, Henry Carteret (Harry) was born at Cheam Rectory twelve months after the wedding, on 26 August 1858, followed by Alfred on 5 February 1860.
At the 1861 census, the family (Thomas and Julia with their two sons) were living at Cheam Rectory, with three servants: a cook, a housemaid and a nursery nurse.
There then followed a third son, Louis Carteret born on 16 July 1861, and two daughters: Alice Elisabeth Fanny, born 18 April 1863, and Lilian Mary, born 9 October 1864.
Thomas Carteret Maule died at Cheam Rectory on 29 March 1867, aged only 48 years, leaving Julia as a 31-year old widow with five children. Julia was obliged to leave the rectory on Thomas’s death and initially lived at Southborough, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where she found a home in a house called Ebbisham, next door to the newly installed vicar of St Thomas’s Church, Henry Julian Bigsby.
Just under nine months after Thomas’s death, Julia gave birth to her sixth child, Carteret, on 19 December 1867, at Tunbridge Wells.
Her son, Louis Carteret died on 27 February 1870, aged 8, and was buried at St Dunstan’s Church on 4 March. The causes of death were recorded as “congestion of the brain, effusion”.
At the 1871 census, 35-year old Julia was visiting her sister, Sarah (married to Miles Stapylton, a civil servant) at Gloucester Road, Kew. Her three youngest children, Alice, Lilian and Carteret were living at “Ebbisham”, adjacent to Southborough Rectory. The family had two live in servants: 31-year old Sarah Cox, a cook, and 19-year old Grace Wood, a nurse. Grace was to remain with the family until her death in 1937, acting as Nanny to successive generations of children.
In 1871, 12-year old Harry was a pupil at Cheam School while 11-year Alfred was a pupil at Christ’s Hospital, then located in Greyfriars, London.
Despite being both the widow of one Anglican priest and the daughter of another, in the 1870s Julia converted to the Roman Catholic Church.
At the 1881 census, Julia (recorded as “Honourable”) and her four oldest surviving children were resident at 73 Warwick Gardens in Kensington, London. Harry was described as B.A. Oxford, 3rd Class and Alfred was a clerk in a coffee broker’s office. Neither 17-year old Alice Elisabeth nor 16-year old Lilian Mary had occupations. Also staying with the family were 13-year old Lilian E.F. Maule described as a “visitor”) and two servants, 29-year old Grace Wood, now a housemaid, and 16-year old Florence Croydon, a general maid . The youngest child, 13-year old Carteret was now a pupil at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit (Roman Catholic) school near Blackburn, Lancashire.
By April 1891, Julia had moved to Hove in Sussex. Now aged 56, she was living at 22 Ventnor Villas with three domestic servants, 50-year old Louisa Bentley, a lady’s maid, and sisters Sarah and Harriet Brown, cook and housemaid.
Julia remained at Ventnor Villas for the rest of her life.
Death
Julia died at the Convent of the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes, southern France on 3 December 1892, aged 57. She appointed her two eldest sons as executors of her estate.
Julia had outlived her husband by over 25 years, but both her parents were still living. Her mother died in Burghfield, Berkshire on 1 March 1898 followed shortly after by her father, who died on 7 June,
Sources
Ancestry.co.uk:
1841 England Census
1851 England Census
1861 England Census
1871 England Census
1881 England Census
1891 England Census
East Sussex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920
East Sussex, England, Electoral Registers, 1705-1963
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995
Surrey, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1937
Epsom & Ewell History Explorer. Children of the Clergy
London Daily Chronicle:
14 December 1892. Deaths
London Evening Standard
4 March 1870. Deaths
Morning Herald:
21 August 1857. Married
Morning Post:
21 August 1857. Marriages
Oxford Journal:
22 August 1857. Clergyman Married
Oxford University & City Herald:
22 August 1857. Married
The Record
4 March 1870. Deaths
Image credits
Portrait: Epsom & Ewell History Explorer. Children of the Clergy
