Author: Oxenden, George Chichester
Biography:
OXENDEN, George Chichester (1797-1875: ancestry.com)
The scion of an ancient family that originated in Kent in the reign of Edward III, Oxenden was born 21 Mar. 1797, the second son of Sir Henry Oxenden (1756-1838) of Broome Park, near Canterbury, Kent, and his wife, Mary (1750-1814), daughter of Colonel George Graham of St Lawrence, Kent. He had eleven siblings, including six brothers. His brother Ashton (1808-1892) was bishop of Montreal. His brother Charles (1800-1874) was honorary canon of Canterbury. Educated at Eton under Dr Keate, he kept terms between 1816 and 1819 (losing two) at Christ’s College, Cambridge, but he took no degree. In 1821, he visited Sweden, Lapland, and Norway, including Finnmark, and, in 1842, France and Corfu. In 1864 he narrowly escaped death when, near Dover, by accident or design, a bullet struck his carriage. Oxenden lived a desultory life as an exceptionally wealthy country gentleman cultivating orchards and hunting game. He was a member of the Canterbury Philosophical and Literary Institution and of several paternalist initiatives, including the Laborer’s Friend Society and the Cottage Allotments Tenants Association. In 1830 he was promoted lieutenant in the East Kent Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry. In 1832 he was chairman of Conservative MP John Pemberton Plumptre’s reelection committee. John Brent (1808-1882), FSA, dedicated to him the poem “Sir Robert de Shurland” in the collection Lays and Legends of Kent (1840). In 1862 he published Railway Horace, a “modernizing evocation in Horatian imitation of the railway” (Harrison, 96). He corresponded with Charles Darwin. He died, unmarried, apparently of heart disease, on 22 Sep. 1875 at Broome Park, Barham, Kent. On 28 Sep. he was interred in the family vault. At probate, his estate was valued at £17,575 4s 6d. (ancestry. com 15 June 2023; ACAD 15 June 2023; DCB 15 June 2023; Biographical Register of Christ's College, 1505-1905 [1910], 2:383; S. Harrison, Victorian Horace: Classics and Class [2017]) JC