James was born in 1818, the son of Nathan Atkinson and Hannah (nee Ackroyd) of Bolton. In 1839 he married Elizabeth Hodgson, daughter of James Hodgson of Hodgson Fold, Bolton and after their marriage settled in Hodgson Fold. They raised four children; 2 sons, Nathan and John, and two daughters Ann Elizabeth and Mary Ann (sadly dying at seven years old).
His wider family story is tied to one of the most intricate inheritance journeys I have come across. It all started in 1743, when Samuel Jowett, a wealthy clothes merchant purchased Clock House, Manningham and the surrounding land (later becoming the Headmasters House of Bradford Grammar School). When he died in 1774, his estate passed to his nephew, Nathan Jowett, the son of his late brother Nathan. Nathan (jnr.) had four children, but it was his daughter Sarah who inherited the property on his death in 1816. She died a spinster in 1840 and left Clock House to her cousin, George Baron, who was the son of her father’s sister, another Sarah.
When George died in 1854 with no direct heir, the search for a rightful successor had to reach back to Samuel Jowett and his sister Susannah. Susannah had married John Atkinson in 1725 and it was through their son Nathan that the Atkinson line emerged as the legitimate heirs. Two generations later another Nathan born in 1791, who was still alive in 1854, was the one who inherited Clock House.
In 1855, Queen Victoria issued a royal licence permitting Nathan Atkinson and his descendants to add the surname Jowett after Atkinson, fulfilling a condition of the will of George Baron. From then on, the family became known as Atkinson Jowett, and Nathan Atkinson Jowett of Bolton was the father of James Atkinson Jowett.
In 1861, following the death of his father, James and Elizabeth moved into a newly built mansion, Grove House, situated near to Hodgson Fold. Both the Hodgsons and the Atkinson Jowetts were deeply religious and worshipped at Salem Chapel in Chapel Street and later at the new Congregational Church in Victoria Road, Eccleshill. James was a generous man and when Salem Chapel was renovated in 1859, he gifted a new pipe organ and had it installed. His generosity continued as in 1876, James laid the foundation stone of St. James’s Church in Bolton Road, the building of this, he funded entirely at his own expense.
Over the next decade he prospered, becoming the largest landowner in Bolton and one of the most affluent men in Bradford. James died in 1886 at the age of 68. Although the Hodgson’s and James’s two daughters are buried in Chapel Street cemetery, James and Elizabeth are buried together in Undercliffe Cemetery. Their home, Grove House, was demolished in 1970 to make way for Hanson School.
A white marble mural tablet commemorating the connection through marriage of the Atkinson Jowett and Hodgson families was originally displayed in the vestibule of the United Reformed Church on Victoria Rd. When the Church was demolished in 2022, Thomas Crompton contractors found it and gave it to the Friends of Chapel Street Cemetery to place by the graves of the two families. The inscription records the family members buried in the two neighbouring graves.
Location: Section2 N6 and N7