Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Lucy Amelia Hills

1854 –03/08/1906

Married Indian bank official James Hill late in life

Relatives

James John Hills (x269) — husband

• Melanie Hilton

Plot x269 Lucy Amelia Hills (née Archer) (1854-1906)

Lucy was born in 1854 in Wingham Green, Kent, the second daughter, and fifth child, of George and Sarah Mary (née Reynolds) Archer. Her father had been born in London, her mother in Ireland. She was baptised in September that year.

Her father was a surgeon and in 1861 the family, with four servants, were living in London Road, West Gate, Canterbury.

Lucy became a boarder at a girls’ school in Cheltenham and in 1871, aged 16, she was one of twenty one resident girls.

Ten years later Lucy was living with her brother Francis Henry, the vicar of Christchurch, Newport, Monmouthshire. They had a cook and a housemaid.

In 1891 Lucy was with her widowed father George at 71, Pembroke Road, Clifton, Bristol, a street of very handsome villas.

She married aged 42, at St James, Westminster on 25 June 1896 to John James Hills, a fifty one year old Scottish bachelor who had been working in India but was by then of independent means.

The Bristol Mercury reported that the bride was given away by her brother Lieutenant-Colonel Archer. She wore “…a handsome traveling dress of reseda silk (ie dyed yellow) with [a] cream satin vest trimmed with old Honiton lace. Her ornaments were pearls and diamonds and she carried a magnificent bouquet of white flowers, the gift of the bridegroom…at the conclusion of the ceremony…the bridal party drove to the Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue, where Lieut.-Colonel and Mrs Archer held a wedding reception…the bride and bridegroom left for a tour of Scotland. The wedding presents were numerous and costly.”

The marriage was to last only ten years. The couple moved to Little Dean, Kings Road, Berkhamsted where Lucy died aged 52 3 August 1906.

James died 15 April 1914 at 67, Pembroke Road, Clifton, Bristol aged 69 and was brought back to be buried with her here.

James John Hills (x269)

1845 –15/04/1914

Son of an Indigo planter who became an Indian bank official

Relatives

Lucy Amelia Hills — wife

• Melanie Hilton

Plot x269 James John Hills (1845-1914)

James was born in Scotland in 1845. His father James snr. was an indigo planter in India, born in Roxburghsire in Scotland who married Barbara Scott, also from the same country, in Calcutta (Kolkata).

Their first four children – three boys and a girl – were all born in India, but Barbara returned home to Jedburgh for James’s birth in 1845. She then returned to India where another daughter was born.

Little James went to live with his aunt and uncle, Robert and Jackina Barton in Edinburgh. Robert was a teacher of writing. The 1851 census show the Barton’s household did not contain any children of their own, but resident were seven Hills nephews and nieces, four Barton nephews and nieces, Jackina’s brother and his small son, two teenage visitors and three servants to look after this large household. The next year James’s sister Bessie, aged three, died in Edinburgh.

James’s mother was back from India by 1853 when her last child a son was born and registered in Westminster.

In 1861 James was a visitor to a home in Marylebone and was described in the census as “scholar.” The next year his father, sailing home from India, died of dysentery and was buried at sea. His mother returned to India where one of her sons was carrying on the indigo business and died in Bengal in September 1865.

It has not been possible to trace James from 1861 until 1891. However, the 1911 census describes him (in extremely bad handwriting) as a retired “Indian bank [-] official”, so presumably he was living and working in India for all or some of this time.

In 1891 James was a visitor at a boarding house at 7, Victoria Terrace, Aberystwyth. It was clearly a superior lodging – amongst the other residents were a viscount, his wife and son, two gentlemen “living on their own means”, one of which was James, and a woollen merchant.

James remained a bachelor until the age of 51 when he married Miss Lucy Amelia Archer, aged 42, at St James, Westminster on 25 June 1896. On the marriage certificate under occupation he is described as “Esquire” – the implication is that he is a gentleman who does not need to work for his living. The same description is applied to both fathers. He was living at 19, Duke Street, Amelia in Clifton, Bristol.

Lucy died in Berkhamsted just ten years later in 1906. It is not clear how long they had lived in the town, but she died at Little Dean, Kings Road and is buried here.

In 1911 James was recorded in Shrewsbury in the household of Margaret Hills, the second wife and widow of his oldest brother, George, and her daughters. Also there was his brother Archibald who had taken on the indigo business.

James died 15 April 1914 67 Pembroke Road, Clifton, Bristol aged 69.