Harding, James

Singer

Collection date: Mar 1907

Area: Gloucestershire

---

James Harding at Stow-on-the-Wold Workhouse, Glos (1828-1911): age 80, 5 songs (FT1263ff) 28 March 1907: James Harding was baptised at Northleach church (9 miles south of Stow) on 9/11/1828, eldest of 7 children of Charles Harding, mason and his wife Elizabeth (née Palmer). The family was living at Farmington in 1841-71 censuses.

James was an agricultural labourer all his life and was a bachelor in his forties when he married widow Ellen Richardson at Stow church on 7/9/1873. Neither could sign their names in the register. They had moved to Stow by the 1881 census and had no children together but James’s stepdaughter Elizabeth Richardson lived with them with 3 (grand)children. James’s wife Ellen died in 1897 and James was on his own in the 1901 Stow census (ref RG13/2454 f22 p35). At some point he entered the Stow workhouse at Maugersbury and although his age is illegible, he is there in the 1911 census return (RG14/15490 schedule 32 – John Mason is on the previous page). James Harding died October qr 1911 aged 84 (6a 472).