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Waters Upton churchyard MIs: TENNANT

IN MEMORY OF
JAMES MOORE TENNANT,
OF LIVERPOOL,
DIED AUGT. 18TH. 1870, AGED [35].

“James More” Tennant (as his name was written in the register) was baptised on 20 September 1835 at Walton on the Hill St Jude, in Liverpool, Lancashire. He was the son of Edward, a merchant, and Mary, née Moore. His younger sister Mary Tennant went on to Mary surgeon John Rider, and it appears that it was John Rider’s connections to Waters Upton that led to James being buried there, following his death at Wellington.

James was enumerated with his parents in 1841 (at Walton on the Hill) and 1851 (at Toxteth Park). I have not however found him on the census of 1861. The reason for this is that James was then in America: on 16 April that year he wed Emily Mary Rachau at Grace Church, on Broadway, New York. He brought Emily back to England, and the couple had five children on the Cheshire side of the Mersey. The last of those children, Amelia May, was born on 14 September 1870, just under a month after James’s death.

Was James already ill, and seeking the medical advice or assistance of his brother-in-law John Rider, when he visited Wellington in August 1870? The image I have just downloaded from the General Register Office website is unfortunately missing the top part of the relevant entry in the register of deaths, but I can see enough to know that James, a merchant of Liverpool, died at Crescent House, the home of John and Mary Rider. The first line of the cause of death is missing, but the remaining lines say “Heart” and “Certified”. The exact nature of that heart problem I will not know unless I obtain a more expensive PDF copy of the death register entry.

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