St Nicholas, Bathampton
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Location
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The church, originally Norman, was largely rebuilt in about 1750 by Ralph Allen who had acquired Bathampton Manor. Admiral Arthur Phillip (1738-1814), the first Governor of New South Wales, is buried here, and part of the church is the Australia Chapel. The cemetery surrounds the church and there were over 2,600 burials. In the early 19th century the majority of the burials were for those from outside the parish and only after about 1850 were the burials mainly for parishioners.
Burials per year
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The graves considered worthy of note to visitors are those of Jean Baptiste du Barry (1749-1779), reputedly the last man to be killed in a legal duel in England, Walter Sickert (1860-1942), artist, and William Harbutt (1844-1921), head of Bath Art School and the inventor (in 1897) and manufacturer of ‘Plasticine’. (According to the report in the Bath Chronicle of Thu 1 Apr 1779 p3: “Count Rice, by whom Viscount Du Barré was killed in a duel near this city, was yesterday acquitted. On this occasion, Mr. Baron Hotham addressed him in an elegant and pathetic speech, on the crime of duelling.” The following week’s edition carried a report of the trial.)
Documentation
Transcript of the Registers and Bishop’s Transcripts of St Nicholas, the parish church of Bathampton, E S Jenkins (1977). Baptisms 1600-1840; Marriages 1599-1840; Burials 1599-1840. Typescript and surname indexes. [Bath Local Studies Collection]
Transcript of the Registers and Bishop’s Transcripts of St Nicholas, the parish church of Bathampton 1841-1980, E S Jenkins (1982). Typescript and surname indexes. [Bath Local Studies Collection]
Memorial Inscriptions by Bathampton Local History Society, 2005. Covers period 1654-2005. It includes inscriptions inside the church based on George Crozier Cole’s records from 1914. The typed transcripts of the inscriptions are not accompanied by photographs of the memorials. There are maps for the five areas (A-E) and the Garden of Remembrance [Bath Local Studies Collection]
Burial Register Microfiches: 1765-1885 [Bath Record Office]
National Burial Index 3: 2,249 records (1765-1886)
