The Times/1911/Obituary/James Augustus Atkinson

The Rev. James Augustus Atkinson, Honorary Canon of Manchester, died on Saturday at the age of 80, and his elder son, the Rev. Christie Chetwynd Atkinson, D.D., rector of Ashton-on-Mersey, died yesterday at The Whims, Conway, aged 55.

Canon J. A. Atkinson was the third son of James Atkinson, the well-known Persian scholar who in 1832 produced a translation of the "Shâh Nâmeh" of Firdausi. He was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1831, and was educated at Eton and Exeter College, Oxford, taking a first class in Moderations in 1852 and graduating in the following year with a third class in Lit. Hum. He was ordained deacon in 1854 and priest in 1855 by Dr. Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury, who licensed him to the curacy of St. Mary, Dover. For 26 years (1861-1887) he was rector of Longsight, Manchester, being for the last seven years of the time Rural Dean of Ardwick. Bishop Fraser made him Honorary Canon of Manchester in 1884. From 1887 to 1896 he was Vicar and Rural Dean of Bolton, and after being for a time on the nomination of the Crown, Vicar of Gedney, Lincs. he was transferred in 1900 to St. Michael, Coventry, from which he retired in 1907. In 1855 Canon Atkinson married the Hon. Charlotte Chetwynd, the third daughter of the sixth Viscount Chetwynd, by whom he had issue two sons and a daughter.

The Rev. Christie Chetwynd Atkinson, D.D., the elder son, who, as already stated, died yesterday, graduated in 1878 from Keble College, Oxford, with a fourth class in Theological honours and proceeded to a D.D. degree in 1898. Ordained in the diocese of Oxford, he had worked at Ashton-on-Mersey since 1882, and in 1910 was appointed rector of the parish, of which his wife holds the patronage. He was chairman of the Manchester City Refuge and an ardent worker in social causes.