RANSOME, George
George Ransome was born at Ipswich on 2 December 1811, son of James Ransome (14 December 1782-22 November 1849), ironfounder, and his wife Hannah Hunton (1776-8 December 1826), daughter of Samuel Hunton of Southwold, who married at Beccles, Suffolk on 11 August 1805. George was a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists from 1834, where he was tutored by Henry Davy. He married at Friends' Meeting House, Fordingbridge, Southampton, Hampshire on 5 July 1838, Sophia Neave (13 August 1810-1886), youngest daughter of James Neave of Fordingbridge. In 1851, a 39-year-old chemist & oil merchant, living at Carr Street, Ipswich with his 40-year-old wife Sophia, born Fordingbridge and their 7-year-old daughter Sophia Elizabeth (1843-1909), he also retained two chemist assistants and two servants. First honorary secretary of the Ipswich Museum which was opened to the public in December 1847 and privately commissioned a series of sixty scientific portraits by Thomas Herbert Maguire, in connection with the foundation of the Ipswich Museum. They were executed cumulatively between 1847 and 1852 as the Museum obtained fresh scientific sponsors, but George Ransome resigned his position as founding Secretary of the Museum in 1852 and the cumulative series was then discontinued. By 1861 his wife and daughter were living on the Isle of Man and ten years later, George was a 58-year-old commercial traveller, residing at the Norfolk Hotel, Grey Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. George Ransome died at 19 Lancaster Road, Westbourne Park, Kensington, London on 18 January 1876, aged 64 and his wife died at Marylebone, London in 1886, aged 75.