Author: Slatter, James W.
Biography:
SLATTER, James William (1792-1862: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably the James Slatter born on 10 May 1792 and registered at Oxford New Road dissenting chapel on 22 Aug., son of William Slatter, builder, and his wife Elizabeth Cox, who had married the previous year at South Hinksey. Nothing is known of his education but he was probably apprenticed to a relative, James Slatter, a boot- and shoemaker whose business in the Corn Market he took over in Sept. 1820. He married Mary Welch on 25 Dec. 1824 at St. Peter-le-Bailey, Oxford. They had a daughter Amelia who later continued to live with him. He was well known in Oxford as a poet, shoemaker, and councillor, and a portrait of him was made in 1832. He served on the council throughout the 1830s until his bankruptcy in 1843 forced him to stand down. It is not known when his first wife died, but he married Ann Wake on 5 Jan. 1847 at St. Ebbe, Oxford. In the 1851 Census he was recorded with his second wife and grown-up daughter. In the 1861 Census he was recorded as a retired shoemaker living in the St. Ebbe parish with his daughter, Amelia, a Bolstress (Upholsteress). He was admitted to Littlemore Lunatic Asylum on 5 Nov. 1861 and died there on 22 May 1862, aged 71. His wife survived him and was later recorded in the 1871 Census as a widow and cook in the household of Rev. Henry Linton, Rector of St. Peter le Bailey, Oxford. She may have been the Anne Slatter who died in 1875, aged 69, and was buried at St. Ebbe. His poems are mostly unremarkable but include “The Grave of Bloomfield”--the most famous of the shoemaker poets--and “The Blackberry Gatherers.” (ancestry.co.uk 28 Feb. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 28 Feb. 2022; OJ 16 Sept. 1820, 1 Jan. 1825, 23 Jul. 1842, 15 Jul. 1843, 9 Jan. 1847; Oxford Chronicle 31 May 1862; OFHS) AA
Other Names:
- J. W. S.