Author: Lawford, James
Biography:
LAWFORD, James (1799-1856: ancestry.com)
Only one publication is associated with James Lawford, and that is the collection of poems listed here, Dews of Parental Sorrow (1832), grieving the death of a firstborn child. The only couple for whom the biographical revelations of the text match the public record are James and Augusta Eliza (Wyatt) Lawford, who were married in London on 29 June 1825. He was a Londoner, born on 3 July 1799 and christened at the Fish Street Hill chapel (Independent) on 30 July. His parents were John and Rebecca (Davies) Lawford. James and Augusta attended the New Chapel (Independent) in Hackney, and their first child, James, was baptised at their home on 9 Sept. 1826. He was buried at Stoke Newington on 14 Feb. 1831, aged four years and nine months (i.e. born about May 1826), but the vault was later opened so that he could be reburied at the dissenters’ burial ground of Bunhill Fields, London. In the meantime they had had two daughters, Augusta and Ann, born in 1827 and 1829 respectively, both baptised at the New Chapel. In 1833 another son, Arthur, was likewise born at Hackney. After his birth the family moved to St. Thomas, Exeter, Devon, where three more boys followed: Sydney, James, and Charles, in 1835, 1838, and 1840. Augusta Lawford died at Exeter and was buried at St. Thomas’s on 17 Sept. 1841. All the family except the father is recorded as living, with an “independent” income, at Terrace House, Alphington Rd., in the 1841 census. James, a businessman and railway director who had been away from home at the time of the census visiting his father in Kent, later moved the family to Holmfield Lodge, Heavitree, Devon. He returned to the London area before his death at Peckham, Surrey, on 16 May 1856. GM describes him as “formerly of the Stock Exchange and Exeter, Devon.” (ancestry.com 30 Dec. 2024; findmypast.com 30 Dec. 2024; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 18 Sept. 1841; GM July 1856, 123; Western Times 31 May 1856) HJ