▶Date of birth:  31 August 1816        Place of birth: Bath, Somerset

▶Father: Robert Bolton      Mother: Anne Jay

▶Spouse(s): (1) Susanna Welch; (2) Margaretta Elizabeth Jones Wilkinson     Date(s) of marriage:  (1) 26 September 1849; (2) 14 August 1855     Place(s) of marriage: (1) St Margaret’s, Lynn, Norfolk; (2) Cambridge

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican), Artist, Manufacturer of stained glass; Author

▶Lifestory: William Jay Bolton began life as an artist and maker of stained glass before going to university and embarking on a career in the Church. He was the second son of the Revd. Robert Bolton, a wealthy merchant from Savannah, Georgia (where the Boltons had become shipping merchants in the eighteenth century), who was ordained later in life and established Christ Church and the Priory, in Pelham, New York, and his wife Anne, eldest daughter of Evangelical minister William Jay, of Bath. Bolton was born in Bath in 1816, and as a young boy would accompany his maternal grandfather on trips, making pencil drawings, often of stained-glass windows. He was educated at Mill Hill School, in Middlesex.

After school he briefly worked at an engineering firm, and he began painting more seriously. In 1821 the family arrived in New York from Liverpool on a visit to Savannah. Later, in 1836, the family moved from England to Pelham, Westchester County, New York, and Bolton there met Washington Irving and Samuel Morse, whose pupil he became at the School of Design. After a sketching trip to Italy and elsewhere in Italy, Bolton returned to Pelham, New York, and set up a workshop in 1842 producing stained glass from his drawings, which is said to be the first stained-glass manufacturing studio in America; in 1845 he moved back to England, and established a stained-glass workshop in Cambridge.

By this time he must have been contemplating following his father into holy orders, and he matriculated at Caius College, Cambridge in 1849 at the age of thirty-two, Exhibitioner 1850, Hulsean prizeman (for an essay entitled “The evidences of Christianity as exhibited in the writings of the Apologists down to Augustine inclusively”) 1852, BA 1853, MA 1856. In 1849 he was also married, to Susanna, second daughter of William Welch Esq., merchant, of Stoke Newington, Middlesex; they had one daughter, but she died in 1850; in 1851 he lived as a widower in Cambridge at 52 Newnham Road, still an undergraduate.

He was ordained Deacon in 1853, and Priest (both Ely) in 1854, and in 1853 he published Evidences of Christianity from the early Fathers. The Illustrated London News noted that he read a paper entitled “On the Painted Glass in King’s College Chapel” to the Archaeological Institute in Cambridge in 1854.

His first clerical appointment was as Curate of Christ Church, Cambridge. In 1855 he married for a second time, to Margaretta Elizabeth Jones, youngest daughter of the Revd. Henry Watts Wilkinson, Vicar of Walton-cum-Felixtowe and Perpetual Vicar of St Peter and St Gregory, Sudbury, Suffolk. The couple moved to Cheltenham, where Bolton was licensed Curate of Holy Trinity later that year, on the nomination of the Revd. Francis Close. The Cheltenham Annuaire records him at 8 Selkirk Parade, Pittville (now 57 Prestbury Road) in 1856, and at 7 Pittville Terrace (now 7 Clarence Road) 1857-8; his name is sometimes spelt “Boulton”, and on one occasion he is referred to as “Rev. W. S. Boulton”.

In the mid to late 1850s he wrote Fireside preaching; or, facts and hints for Visitors of the Poor (1856), and Footsteps of the flock (1860). He preached his farewell sermon at Holy Trinity, Pittville in 1858, and moved to Brighton, where his son was born, at 4 Peel Terrace; in 1860 he was presented to the curacy of St James’s (Episcopalian) Chapel.

After Brighton, he became Curate of the Chapel of Ease at Islington in 1864, where he lived at 159 Offord Road. In 1866 he accepted the curacy of Holy Trinity Church, Cloudesley Square in London. But he was only at Islington for a matter of months before in March 1866 he was presented with the living of St John’s, Stratford, Essex (worth £300 a year), as its vicar 1866-81. After this he moved to become Vicar of St James’s, Bath from 1881 until his death. In 1870 he published The great Anti-Christ.

He died unexpectedly at Pelham, Oldfield Park, Lyncombe, Bath in 1884, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried at St James’s cemetery in the city.

▶Moved to Pittville from:   Cambridge     Moved from Pittville to: Brighton

▶Date of death:  28 May 1884      Place of death: Pelham, Oldfield Park, Lyncombe, Bath

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial: St James’s Cemetery, Bath

▶Notes: See http://www.stjohnse15.co.uk/history/pastclergy/05-bolton.html       ID: 8187

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden