See also
| Name: | James Hickman GLASSCOCK |
| Sex: | Male |
| Father: | John GLASSCOCK (1748- ) |
| Mother: | Sarah HICKMAN (1749-1836) |
| Birth | 1778 | Rochford |
| Baptism | 10 Jun 1778 (age 0) | Rochford [Essex Baptism Index]1 |
| Death | 1846 (age 67-68) | Rochford [12 159] |
| Burial | 2 Jul 1846 | St John Southend |
| Occupation | Tailor, Schoolmaster, Southend; Southend |
James Hickman Glasscock was born in 1778 to John and Sarah Glasscock in Rochford, Essex; by 1786 the family seems to have settled in Prittlewell, and in 1794 James was apprenticed by the Rochford Overseers of the Poor to a Prittlewell tailor, Abraham Temple. There he served 6 years, before crossing the river to Queenborough, Kent, where he worked as a journeyman tailor for about 18 months. In 1803 he married Phoebe at a church in Marylebone and returned with his bride to Prittlewell, where he rented a shop and premises at £7 per annum and another at South End Prittlewell at 5 guineas, according to the South East Essex Settlement Examinations of 1811. By then he had four young children - Phoebe, Sarah, James and Priscilla, a babe in arms, and was presumably in need of poor relief.
James and Phoebe's family lived on Prospect Row just off the Eastern Esplanade on Southend's waterfront, not far from where James's mother had plied her bathing machine business.
A map of Old Southend dated 1880 shows a Flagstaff adjacent to Prospect Row, and William Pollitt tells us in his book "The Rise of Southend" that it was in trimming standards with a bill-hook for a Guy Fawkes festival that James lost a leg. Pollitt describes him as a "Southend schoolmaster and tailor", and ascribes the early education of Douglas Jerrold, the writer and dramatist, to the joint efforts of James Glasscock and a Mr Herbert of Sheerness. Jerrold's father, Samuel, was an actor and theatre manager in both Sheerness and Southend. Princess Caroline herself frequented the Southend theatre when visiting the town, where she occupied two houses on the Royal Terrace. Two of James's daughters were said to have been in service to the Princess of Wales, but his sisters were more likely to have been of an age to attend her.
After Phoebe's death in 1826 at the age of 45, James had to bring up little Sarah Ann with the help of his elder daughters. He died 20 years later in July 1846.
| 1 | "Letter from Joan Nutt, 21 Feb 2004". |