Rev. Canon N.W. Gibson
(1802-1882)
28 March 1862
Volume 6, page 125, sitting number 7370.
[An inscription verso in a twentieth-century hand identifies the sitter as ‘Grandma Nichols’s Hebrew master (of Ardwick).’]
Born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 21 June 1802, Nicholas William Gibson was the son of Nicholas Gibson and Susanna née Cowan. He was educated privately at Edinburgh and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Ordained a priest in 1827 he was appointed the Rector of St Thomas’s Church in Ardwick, Manchester, in 1831 and held the living until 1867. He became the Senior Canon Residentiary of Manchester Cathedral in 1861.
On 20 July 1829 in Manchester he married Elizabeth Hodgkinson, a widow.
The couple appear on the 1861 census living with three servants at Ardwick.
The Very Reverend Canon Gibson died, aged 79, on 18 June 1882 at Ardwick, Manchester. He left an estate valued at £15,007.
‘We regret to announce the death of the Rev. Nicholas William Gibson, senior canon residentiary of Manchester Cathedral and sub-dean, which occurred at his residence, the Polygon, Ardwick, a few minutes before ten o’clock on Sunday morning. Canon Gibson, who was in his 80th year, and whose health broke down whilst he was in residence at the Cathedral last February, was the oldest residential clergyman in the city; he was a man of active habit, and until the illness which ended in death was never afflicted by any ailment which interfered with his long and devoted labours. His collegiate life was not without distinction. He was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, a wrangler (27th) in 1824, chaplain to the college, and the first to take a first class as a Tyrwhitt’s Hebrew scholar, the prizes before his time having been divided. In 1825 he was ordained deacon, and in 1827, in which year he took the degree of M.A., he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Chester, of whose diocese Manchester then formed part. He was admitted to the incumbency of St Thomas’s in 1831, and had a wealthy congregation, the neighbourhood of Ardwick Green being in those days one of the fashionable residential parts of the town’ (Manchester Times, 24 June 1882).