Edmund Boggis was born on 28th December 1811 at Upminster, Essex, the third of four sons of Isaac Rolfe Boggis and his wife, Elizabeth Mayor (née Stubbs). The family home was at Fox Hall, Upminster, and then Langham Hall near Colchester. According to the entry in Cambridge University Alumni, the Boggis family trace their descent from the Boges, who were living at Bordeaux in the 12th century; some members of the family came to England in the 13th century and settled in London and East Anglia.
Edmund’s father, Isaac, gave up a military career in order to pursue a career in the church and was ordained a priest in 1816. Isaac Rolfe left England with his family in 1825, intending to settle in the south of France, but he died at Calais on 6th July 1825 and was buried there; his widow and children returned to England.
Edmund was educated at Dedham Grammar School and The Perse School, Cambridge. He was a student at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, from 1834, gaining a BA in 1838. From 1841-1844 he was Assistant Master at Cheltenham College. In December 1847, his eldest brother, James Macdonald Boggis, died owing to heart weakness; he was an artist who exhibited his pictures in London galleries. His youngest brother, Thomas, was Curate at nearby Bourton-on-the-Water in the 1840s.
Edmund was ordained a deacon on 18th June 1848. His first appointment was as Curate of Badsey and Wickhamford. He was the last in the line of nine Curates who ministered to the souls of the two villages in the absence of the absentee Vicar, the Reverend Charles Phillott. He was ordained a priest on 4th March 1849 at Worcester.
The Reverend Phillott died in 1851. Edmund remained living at Badsey Vicarage until the arrival the following year of the Reverend Thomas Hunt who, unlike his predecessor, was not an absentee Vicar.
During his four-year period at Badsey, Reverend Boggis conducted the following number of services between 27th August 1848 and 17th June 1852: baptisms (55 at Badsey, 9 at Wickhamford), marriages (17 at Badsey, 1 at Wickhamford), burials (39 at Badsey, 5 at Wickhamford).
Edmund’s widowed mother, Elizabeth Mayor Boggis, is buried at Badsey. She died on 6th March 1852 at Badsey Vicarage and was buried in the churchyard five days later. The previous year she had been staying with another son, William Rolfe Truston Boggis, who was Curate of St Michael’s, Lewes.
In June 1853, Reverend Boggis’ name was cited in connection with alleged forgery and Thomas Bolland Langley, who had briefly been Master of Badsey Silk Mill. It was said that in 1851, whilst still Curate of Badsey, Reverend Boggis had attested a deed of security, but he swore that this was a forgery. In the end, the judge decided that there was insufficient evidence.
From 1854-1857, Reverend Boggis was Curate of Hewelsfield, Gloucestershire, then Curate of Putsham, Somerset, in 1859. In 1861, he was lodging in Rampton, Northamptonshire, working as a Curate in Laneham.
Edmund inherited money from his cousin, Charlotte Douglass, in 1867, and travelled in the British Isles and on the Continent; he collected polished stones. At the time of the 1871 census he was staying at The Queens Hotel, Hastings, Sussex.
Edmund died on 27th March 1874 in Rome (according to the index of Wills and Administrations) and is buried there in the Protestant Cemetery (a date of death of 26th February 1872 given in Cambridge University Alumni is believed to be wrong). He was described as being late of Tavistock at the time of his death. Probate was granted to his brother, the Reverend William Rolfe Truston Boggis of Elleray, Teddington. He left effects of under £800.
Sources of Information:
Cambridge University Alumni (available to view on Ancestry)