CFHS code : PL492
Parish : St Paul
Inscription : Auf wiedersehen / Tremenheere PASSINGHAM
Monument : Stone cross (base only)
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Monument
This monument, in the parish of St Paul, is located on the right edge of the western path. The inscription on the northwest side can only be read when the sun is at the correct angle.
Inscription
Auf wiedersehen
Guy Tremenheere Passingham
Guy Tremenheere Passingham ( 1866 – 1868)
Guy was born in Oxford and he was baptised in Summertown, Oxford on 22 April 1868. He was the eldest son of Jonathan and Mary Ann Passingham. He died aged 2 years old and was buried on 14 April 1868.
Four more members of the Passingham family are buried in the St Paul’s area of Mill Road Cemetery – their graves have not yet been found
Jonathan Tremenheere Passingham (18 February 1835 – 16 April 1898)
NB It is believed that Jonathan was buried in the same grave as his son Guy
Johnathan was the eldest son of landowner/farmer Jonathan (1804 – 1858) and Ellen (née Passingham) (1801 – 1892). He was born in Heston, near where Hounslow is nowadays in Greater London. and baptised there on 2 April 1835.
He married Mary Anne Talboys (1835-1921) on 15 July 1863 at St. Philip and St. James’ Church, Oxford. The couple had eight children: Gertrude Ethel (1864-1930), Guy, Harry Francis (1868-1899), Rev. Guy (1869-1947), Tremenheere (1872-1925), Millicent Mary (1874-1953), Ida Constance (1874-1875) and Edmund Reginald (1876-1965). Mary’s brother in law Archibald McLaren ran a very successful gym in Oxford, and Jonathan and his brother George Augustus brought the same concept to Cambridge, setting up the ‘Cambridge University Gymnasium’. The business was located ‘in the new passage leading from Market Street to Sidney Street’ and the tender to build was advertised in Cambridge newspapers in March 1866. It is thought that it started trading in 1867 and offered fencing classes, gymnastic classes and childrens classes. But by December 1879 the Passingham brothers had closed the business and the site was offered for sale at auction.
The family lived at 1 Poplar Villas, Station Road (at least 1869-1897) and then 2 Fitzwilliam Terrace, off Brooklands Avenue. Jonathan continued to teach gymnastics, although he was invalided for the last two and a half years of his life. He died under unusual circumstances, when he was found ‘in the area below his bedroom window from which it is conjectured he had fallen’. Mary had last seen him at eleven thirty the evening before when he seemed ‘fairly cheerful and comfortable’. He was found outside at a quarter to seven the next morning and was conscious – he was taken inside and bathed, but died soon after. His doctor told the resulting inquest that ‘for the last six months he had been suffering very severely from neuralgic pains in the legs. These had confined him to his bed almost entirely’. Dr Ingle said he had died ‘due to shock consquent on the injuries’. The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘suicide whilst temporarily insane’.
Mary Talboys (née Wheeler) (1805 – 20 February 1875)
Mary was Mary Passingham’s mother, and is also believed to have been buried in the same graveset.
She was born in London, the daughter of John and Charlotte Wheeler. Mary was baptised on 30 June 1805 at St. Martin in the Fields and married David Alphonso Talboys (1790-1840) on 29 April 1823 when she was 17 years old. David was a successful bookseller/printer who had been twice widowed by the time he married in 1823. The couple lived in Oxford and had at least nine children: Charlotte Wheeler (1825 -1844), Arthur Alfred (1827-1827), William Pickering (1829-1887), Henry Alphonso (1831-1849), Gertrude Isabel Frances (1833-1896), Mary Ann (1835-1921), Edmund P (1837-), Edward Spencer (1837-) and Rev. James Wheeler (1839-1879).
David died in May 1840 and the Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette wrote ‘he bore with great meekness and resignation a long illness…Mr. T. will long live in the affectionate remembrance of not only his own family but of a very numerous circle of friends both in Oxford and at a distance..He had attained his 50th year, and may be truly said to have been a kind and considerate master, an affectionate husband and an excellent father’.
After she was widowed she lived in Oxford, firstly with her children in Summertown, and then with daughter Gertrude, and son in law Archibald (1861). By 1871 she had moved to Cambridge and lived at Station Road with daughter Mary and son in law Jonathan. She died there aged 69 years old and was buried at Mill Road Cemetery on 24 February.
It is believed that Ida and Harry were buried in a grave directly next to that of the above
Ida Constance Passingham (1874 – 10 February 1875)
Ida was the youngest daughter of Jonathan and Mary and was baptised at St. Paul’s Church on 28 December 1874. She died at home aged 6 months old and was buried on 12 February.
Harry Francis Passingham (1868 – 18 September 1899)
Harry was the second son of Jonathan and Mary and was baptised at St. Paul’s Church on 9 July 1868. He trained as a journalist and in 1891 was lodging in Brighton. He died in London aged 31 years old. His death was reported to have been ‘a painful surprise to his numerous friends in Cambridge….In late years he had held an appointment in Colombo, Ceylon, where he contracted malarial fever. He returned home with a view to restoration of health, which had greatly improved until this sudden relapse’. His body was returned to Cambridge and he was buried at Mill Road Cemetery on 20 September.
Jonathan and Mary’s eldest daughter Gertrude Ethel led a fascinating life – she married Count Hirokichi Mutsu and emigrated to Japan.
Sources:
CFHS 1871 Census transcript and Parish records for St Andrew the Less
St Paul’s grave register – Cambs Archives P23/1/32
Free BMD marriage registration.
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
Further information added by Claire Martinsen
[If you have any further information about this family, please contact us at Friendsofmillroadcemetery@gmail.com]