William Archibald Paxton, 1818–1882

 William Archibald Paxton, 1818–1882

William Paxton, vicar of St Lawrence the Martyr Church Otterden was, with his wife Mary, among those who supported the six Vlieland children in 1864, after Frances Elizabeth’s death, but he has a fascinating history in his own right. 

One of 8 children, he was ordained a Deacon in Oxford in 1843 and awarded an MA from Trinity College Oxford the next year; he became rector of St Lawrence’s 7 years later, holding the incumbency until his death in 1882. He was 55 when in 1873 he married Mary Payne, 31 years his junior, whose family had sent her to America for a year in an unsuccessful the hope of getting her to break off the affair and who did not attend her London wedding. They had no children but made a home for at least three of Mary’s nieces. Otterden was a very wealthy parish, with an income twice that of Stalisfield 2 miles away and an annual gift from the London Leathersellers’ Company towards the upkeep of the church and the support of the poor of the parish. William had a Parish Rooms built and an album compiled with photographs of every dwelling in the district. Mary survived William by 38 years, and they are buried in Otterden churchyard under the inscription ‘Love conquers all things’. 

When Charles James and Alice Edith Vlieland moved to Barnfield Road in Exeter, around 1905, they named their new home ‘Otterden’, which shows what the village, William and Mary meant to them.