▶Date of birth:  8 October 1840       Place of birth: Bungay, Suffolk

▶Father:  Revd. John Blackie     Mother: Martha Dryden

▶Spouse(s):  Priscilla Louisa Hordern      

▶Date(s) of marriage:  27 June 1866     Place(s) of marriage: Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

▶Occupation: Independent minister

▶Lifestory: James was the eldest son of James and Martha Blackie. His father died when he was only months old, and James was educated at the Orphan Working School, Haverstock Hill, north of Camden Town in London. Before attending university he worked for a while in the office of Liberal and Nonconformist businessman Samuel Morley in London. He matriculated at New College, London in 1861, achieving his BA in 1863 and LLB the following year.

In 1865 he was appointed Minister at the Independent Chapel in Spencer Street, Leamington Spa, where he married Priscilla Louisa, eldest daughter of John Hordern Esq., of Leamington, in 1866. In 1873 he moved to become a minister at the Everton Crescent Congregational Chapel in Liverpool, and from 1877 a Congregational minister at Friar Street, Sudbury, Suffolk; each place attests to the forcefulness of his sermons. In 1881 he and his family moved to 9 Clarence Square, Cheltenham, where he was Congregationalist minister of the Highbury Chapel in Winchcombe Street, Cheltenham until his death, aged only forty-nine, in 1889.

▶Moved to Pittville from: Sudbury, Suffolk       Moved from Pittville to: Montpellier Grove, Cheltenham

▶Date of death:  28 December 1889      Place of death: Cheltenham

▶Date of burial:  31 December 1889       Place of burial: Burial Ground, Cheltenham

▶Notes:        ID: 4514

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden