Esther BLISS (née CLEAVER) (1808-1882)

Esther Bliss (née Cleaver) was the mother of William Bliss who became a good friend of Julius Sladden when the latter went to work in Chipping Norton in the early 1870s.

Esther Cleaver (1808-1882) was born at Newport, Essex, on 6th February 1808.  She married William Bliss, a woollen manufacturer of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, on 18th September 1838 at St Botolph without Aldersgate, London.  After marriage, Esther went with her new husband to Chipping Norton where they lived on New Street, next to the chapel.  They had one son and three daughters:  Anna Maria (1842-1883), William (1844-1925), Esther Elizabeth (1847-1935) and Mary Jane (1850-1916).

Esther died on 10th November 1882 and was buried eight days later.  According to an article in The Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette of 25th November 1882, on the day of her funeral, every shop was closed and at nearly every private house all the blinds were drawn from 2 pm to 4 pm.  Crowds appeared outside the Bliss residence in New Street to see the funeral procession wend its way to the Baptist Chapel.