Abram Creswicke RAWLINSON (1838-1910)

Creswicke Rawlinson, a solicitor, was a friend of Julius Sladden when he lived in Chipping Norton in the 1870s and remained his solicitor for the rest of his life.

Abram Creswicke Rawlinson (1838-1910), known as Creswicke (which was his grandmother’s maiden name), was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, in 1838, the youngest of three children of Abraham Lindow Rawlinson, a solicitor, and his wife, Sarah (née Smith).  His older brother died in infancy, so that left just him and an older sister.  He grew up at The Elm, Clay Lane, Chipping Norton, and became a solicitor like his father.

In the 1861 census, Creswicke was listed as a medical student living in Chelsea, but the census enumerator may have got muddled with another person lodging in the same house who was a solicitor. 

On 6th August 1867 at Holy Trinity, Chelsea, Creswicke married Laura Elizabeth Anne Farwell.  They made their home in Chipping Norton where Creswicke had his solicitor’s practice.  They had one son and six daughters, two of whom died in childhood:  Abram Leonard (1868-1909), Maude Susanna (1870-1941), Pauline Marian (1872-1887), Hester Violet (1873-1952), Ruby Elma Creswicke (1876), Ivy Constance Sarah (1878-1916) and Laura Albinia Douglas (1882-1883).  They initially lived at Hill Lodge, Rock Hill, Chipping Norton but, on the death of Abraham Lindow Rawlinson in 1875, they moved into The Elm.  This was the place which Julius Sladden mentioned in a number of his 1877 letters.

After moving to Badsey, Julius Sladden still retained Creswicke Rawlinson as his solicitor and mentioned visiting him in Chipping Norton on a number of occasions.  When Creswicke’s friend, Alfred Hitchman, formed Hitchman & Co Ltd. in the spring of 1890, Creswicke was one of the Directors. 

Laura Rawlinson died at The Elm in May 1886 and Creswicke married again in 1890 to Frances Amelia Barton.  He died at The Elm on 29th January 1910.  A lengthy obituary appeared in The Oxford Times and other newspapers.