HIGHAM, James (1813?-1872) Born in Wenhaston in Suffolk, the son of James Higham; married firstly Mary Cole at St. Margaret's Westminster on 15 April 1841, and secondly Mary Ann Armstrong at St. George the Martyr, Southwark, on 25 July 1857.
James Higham became a bookseller late in life. He seems to have had a good start in life as by 1848 he was steward to Sir Richard Sutton at Quorndon in Leicestershire. When he married Mary Cole in April 1841, he was a steward residing in Lincoln. There his daughter Edith was born in 1842 [POd for Derbyshire, ... Rutland, [1848]; Faversham census 1861]. James and Mary Higham then moved to Cottesmore in Rutland in or before 1843 as their second child, Annie, was born there then. After the birth of their fifth child in 1847 the family again moved, to Quorndon, James Higham being steward to Sir Richard Sutton, who was "considered one of the most wealthy men in the country", and who died on 14 November 1855
[Cokayne's The complete baronetage]. James Higham appears to have ceased as steward then, for when he married for the second time on 25 July 1857 to Mary Ann, daughter of a farmer, Robert Armstrong, his marriage certificate gives his occupation quite simply as an auctioneer of Quorndon.
In late 1857 he was in Faversham as a bookseller, having taken over the business of John Sherwood, who had been bankrupted around that time; the earliest Higham advertisement in the Sittingbourne and Sheerness gazette, though, is on 2 January 1858. The reason for James Higham's move to Faversham may be his brother Samuel, a linen draper, formerly of Sandwich, who announced in the Faversham gazette of 21 February 1857 that he had succeeded to the business of George Murton in Faversham. Samuel Higham's presence there may have brought his brother James to Faversham, but it should be noted that other Higham brothers were in Kent more or less at the same time: William Braham Higham, linen draper, at Deptford and Philip Higham, also a linen draper, at Canterbury [POds 1845-1859; Wills of William Braham Higham, 1882, and of Samuel Higham, 1886].
James Higham's son Charles recalled that when he was twelve his father took a bookshop at Faversham [PC. 1 Sept. 1890]. Charles in these early Faversham years worked for his father as did his sisters Edith and Jessie [census 1861], so supporting the Higham enterprise. In July 1864 the family moved to 91 Preston Street, and in August 1865 James Higham announced that his circulating library there contained a thousand volumes [FIMJ: 1864-1865]. Just before his death he contributed a guinea to the Paris booksellers' and booksellers' assistants relief fund in early 1871 [PC: 15 Feb. 1871].
James Higham died on 6 March 1872. His will, proved by both his widow Mary Ann and his brother William Braham Higham, directed that the business was to be offered first to his sons Charles and Henry when they reached their majority, They did not take up the offer.
His printing output included: the Faversham Institute's Monthly Journal from April 1862; the Faversham district national schools' annual reports at various times between 1864 and 1872; The flowers of the alphabet, 1861; Francis F. Giraud's A catalogue of the books preserved in the library of the Free Grammar School, 1865, and Copy translation of the charter of confirmation of the Free Grammar School, 1868. James Higham also printed the Faversham directory from 1862. The manager of his printing department was Richard LANCEFIELD, who had originally worked for Frederick William Monk from 1852 [FIMJ. April 1872].
The executors of James Higham's estate, when Charles and Henry Higham declined to take on their father's business, broke it up. In 1872 the printing side was sold to Richard Lancefield, and the bookbinding business went to Henry Clarke Smith [FIMJ: April and May 1872]. The executors, however, retained the copyright of James Higham's Faversham almanack, and Mary Ann Higham nominally continued the reduced business under James Higham's name at 91 Preston Street [P0ds 1874-1882] until its sale to John Thomas SWINNOCK, together with the library and the copyright to the Faversham almanack, in the autumn of 1887 [FIMJ: Nov. 1887]. During this period Giraud and Donne's A Visitor's guide to Faversham was printed and published by "James Higham" in 1876 and the Rev. James Alcock's Some plain thoughts on the Lord's prayer also published by "J. Higham" in 1884. Mary Ann Higham was the publisher, at least in 1882, of the Faversham and East Kent gazette [Stevens 1882].
Mary Ann Higham died at Great Malvern in Worcestershire on 15 September 1910, leaving her estate to her own four surviving children; it is not known if she had earlier made provision for the eight children of James Higham's first marriage (her will is dated 3 October 1886).
Of these eight children of the first marriage, five assisted James Higham, and Mary Ann when widowed, in the Faversham enterprise: Edith, Jessie, Charles, Rose Sarah and Henry. Edith (1842-1904), Jessie (1844-1930) and Rose Sarah (1849-1916) conducted and managed the Faversham business from 1872 until its sale in 1887 to John Thomas Swinnock [census 1881 and FIMJ: Nov. 1887]. Edith and Rose Sarah then moved to be near their Suffolk Higham relations at Woodbridge until Edith's death in 1904, after which Rose Sarah moved to Forest Hill with Jessie, and died there in 1916. Jessie herself apparently was allowed the run of her step-mother's Great Malvern house after that year and died there in 1930. In her will Jessie made provision in the form of a trust fund for her brother Charles, and left £50 upon trust to keep the Fzaversham grave of her father James in good order. Jessie's sister Annie married James Alfred Bayley in 1868 : their first child was Harold, who became a stationer. (note continued with his son, Charles Higham)