Charles Parsons (1811 to 1891)

Charles Parsons was an uncle of John Parsons, the Southampton publican who was Sidney Parsons’ father. John Parsons’ father Edward Parsons was Charles’ elder brother.

Charles was his parents’ second child. His father was also called Charles Parsons and his mother’s name was Ann (née Jukes). He was born on the 19^th of April 1811 while his parents were living in the village of Holwell in the Blackmore Vale, about six miles south east of Sherborne. When Charles was born Holwell was a detached part of the county of Somerset but in 1844 it was transferred to Dorset where it remains.

The family did not remain in Holwell for long before moving, first to Nether Compton in Dorset and then to the Stock Gaylard estate which is also in Dorset. By 1823, when Charles would have been about 12 years old, they had settled in their final home: Manor Farm at Marston Magna in Somerset.

Charles’ family lived at manor farm and his father owned a good deal of land and other properties in Marston Magna and surrounding parishes. Charles was one of ten children of whom two died before reaching adulthood. He grew up in Marston Magna and continued to live there after his father died in 1846.

On the 23^rd of October 1850 Charles Parsons married Harriet Perrett at the parish church in Mere. Mere is about fifteen miles from Marston Magna and it is not clear how they met, although Charles’ mother Ann had been born not far from Mere. Charles and Harriet’s marriage was by licence. Harriet’s father George Perrett farmed 250 acres at White Hill near Mere.

Charles and Harriet lived in Marston Magna in a house in Rimpton Street. His mother and several of his brothers and sisters continued to live nearby at Manor Farm. Charles farmed 110 acres with the help of two labourers and he and Harriet lived simply with no servants.

They had nine children in Marston Magna: Martha, Archibald, Harriet, Julia, Louisa, Charles, Jane, Samuel and Elizabeth.

A railway station opened in Marston Magna in 1857. It was a little to the east of the village centre, close to Charles and Harriet’s home, and was on a line which connected Chippenham with Yeovil and Weymouth.

In July 1866 Charles advertised some property for sale in Marston Magna. It included the manor house, a cottage, and 13 pieces of land. Charles owned the freehold.

Late in 1867 there was a disagreement between Charles and his neighbours. The matter came to court and was reported by the Western Gazette as follows.

“William Gibbs and William Shane were summoned for maliciously wounding geese, the property of Charles Parsons. Several of them were much injured and he was compelled to kill one of them. Mr Parsons admitted that the geese very frequently trespassed in Mrs.Gibbs’ field and he had offered to settle the matter for 10 shillings. The defendents were fined 5 shillings.”

By 1869 Charles and his family had moved and he advertised their home and several other properties for sale. As well as the house there was a grocer’s and a butcher’s shop, a slaughter house, stables and piggeries, a good garden and an orchard.

Charles and Harriet’s new home was Hatherleigh Farm, situated between Wincanton and Holton, the village in which Charles’ grandfather William Parsons had spent much of his life, and had owned the inn. Hatherleigh Farm had been Charles’ mother Ann Jukes’ home before she married and Charles’ elder brother Edward had been born there.

In 1867, two years before Charles and Harriet moved there, part of Hatherleigh Farm’s land had been leased to an organization operating under the auspices of the newly formed National Hunt Committee for use as a race course and Britain’s very first National Hunt races were held there, although races were not held on a regular basis until the 1890s. The early meetings sometimes attracted several thousand spectators but meetings ceased in 1914. When the lease on Hatherleigh Farm’s land expired in the 1920s the current Wincanton race course was established, with a grandstand, on a new site on the other side of town.

Charles and his family stayed at Hatherleigh Farm for at least five years and had two more children there: Henry and William.

In 1875 several newspapers reported that Charles had been prosecuted and fined. One report read:

“BREACH OF CATTLE DISEASE ORDER — Charles Parsons, of Hatherleigh Farm, was prosecuted for allowing his cattle which had foot and mouth disease to graze freely over his fields. He was fined £3.”

Charles still owned land in Marston Magna and in 1878 a bean-rick there, situated near the railway station, was destroyed by fire.

By 1879 Charles and his family had moved again, to Pillange Farm in the hamlet of Hardway in the parish of South Brewham. Soon after they arrived there their daughter Harriet died at her brother Archibald’s farm; she was 24 years old.

Pillange Farm, shown to the left, was about seven miles north of Wincanton and close to the monument known as King Alfred’s Tower. The tower, which was completed in 1772, stands near the location of ‘Egbert's Stone’ where it was said that King Alfred the Great of Wessex rallied the his troops in May 878 before the Battle of Eddington at which the Danish army, led by Guthrum the Old, was defeated.

The farm formed part of the Redlynch estate owned by the Earl of Ilchester.

In 1881 Charles, who was then 70 years old, was farming 300 acres with the help of two men.

On the 17^th of December 1891 Charles Parsons died. He was 80 years old. He was buried in Marston Magna five days later.

The inscription on his memorial read:

“In Loving Memory of Charles Parsons Born April 19 1811
Died at Pilling Farm December 17 1891

Also of Harriet his Daughter
Born March 12 1855
Died at Walk Farm June 29 1879

Also of Harriet his Wife
Born 5 October 1830
Died 27 March 1904

Also of Harry their Son
Born 21 January 1870
and Died 3 December 1895”

Some years after Charles died Harriet moved about one and a half miles south to Charlton Musgrove, a small hamlet two miles north east of Wincanton where she lived with several of her children. She died in 1904 and was buried with her husband in Marston Magna.

Children of Charles Parsons and his wife Harriet (née Perrett)

Charles and Harriet’s children and their spouses are shown in the chart to the left.

Their first nine children were born in Marston Magna and Henry and William, the two youngest, at Pillange Farm near South Brewham.

• Martha was William and Harriet’s first child. She was baptised in Marston Magna on the 24^th of September 1851. On the 28^th of December 1881, in Pilton in Somerset, she married William Exton Treasure. Pilton is the site of the present day Glastonbury festival. Martha and William settled in Brewham, near to the home of William’s father (whose name was Exton Treasure). At first they lived at Fields Farm (now called Brewhamfield Farm) but after William’s father died in 1892 they moved to Brewham House which is near the village of North Brewham. A contemporary described their house as follows: “The house is a 6 bedroom detached house with views of Alfred's Tower, set within established gardens and grounds including lakes, pasture, parkland and woodland. Bruton is 4 miles away and Wincanton 7 miles.”

William Treasure died in Brewham in October 1921 and Martha died there just over seven years later in January 1929.

They had nine children, two of whom (Samuel and Henry) died at a very young age. Four of them: Charles William Treasure, Mildred Harriet Elizabeth Treasure, Cecil William Treasure and Muriel Parsons Treasure, emigrated to Australia.

• Archibald was baptised on the 3^rd of August 1853 in Marston Magna and his full name was Archibald Theodore Charles Parsons. He became a farmer at Walk Farm in Charlton Musgrove which is between South Brewham and Wincanton. In Wincanton, on the 25^th of February 1879, he married his cousin Sarah Jane Perrett. (Sarah was a daughter of his mother’s brother George Perrett.) At first they lived in Charlton Musgrove but by 1883 they had moved to West Camel (which is close to Marston Magna) and a few years later to Chilton Cantelo (which is even closer). Archibald died in 1893 and was buried in Marston Magna.

Archibald and Sarah had eight children, one of whom, Harry Theodore Parsons, emigrated to the USA where he died in Yakima, Washington State in 1953. Their youngest son, Charles, married his cousin Ida Harriett Warren who was a daughter of Archibald’s sister Juliet.

• Harriet was born on the 12^th of March 1855 in Marston Magna. She died, aged only 24, at her brother Archbald’s home, Walk Farm in South Brewham, and was buried in Marston Magna on the 3^rd of July.

• Julia Elizabeth was Charles and Harriet’s fourth child. She was baptised in Marston Magna on the 10^th of March 1857. In 1883, after her parents had moved to Pillange Farm, Julia married Arthur Samuel Warren in South Brewham. Arthur found employment as a farm bailiff at Chalfield in Wiltshire, near Melksham, and a few months after they married their first child, Ida, was baptised nearby in Atworth. Arthur was not a farm bailiff for long. He became a dairyman and he, Julia and their family moved several times. In 1891 they were living in Pulham in Dorset, in 1901 in North Perrot in Somerset, and in 1911 in Crewkerne in Somerset where Arthur was a farmer. Arhur died in 1913 in Maiden Newton in Dorset at his daughter Ida’s home. Julia died at Maiden Newton Farm on the 4^th of June 1938.

Julia and Arthur had seven children. Their fifth child, Robert William Warren Parsons, emigrated to Australia; he died in New South Wales in 1981.

• Louisa Eliza was born in Marston Magna in the year 1859 and baptised there in April of that year. She lived with her parents until her father died in 1891 and then with her mother in Charlton Musgrove until 1904 when she too died. Louisa and her sister Jane then stayed with their brother Samuel who farmed at Walk Farm, the farm where their sister Harriet had died thirty years before. Louisa never married. She died at the Public Assistance Institution in Wincanton in January 1949. Probate was granted to Clement Stoodley, her sister Julia’s son-in-law.

• Charles was born in Marston Magna in 1860 and lived with his parents there and at Hatherleigh Farm until at least 1871. His whereabouts after then are not known.

• Jane was baptised on the 3^rd of November 1862 in Marston Magna. Like her sister Louisa she lived with her parents until her father died in 1891 and then with her mother in Charlton Musgrove until 1904. Jane and her sister Louisa then stayed with her brother Samuel who farmed at Walk Farm. Jane died in Lydford on Fosse in Somerset in 1939.

• Samuel, baptised Samuel Charles Parsons, was born in Marston Magna in 1864. He lived with his parents at least until his father died in 1891 and then became a farmer in his own right at Walk Farm which had belonged to his brother Archibald. He never married. In 1911 his married brother William, two unmarried sisters, and his nephew Charles Parsons were staying with him. Samuel later moved to Coach Road Farm in South Brewham and he was living there when he died in April 1918.

• Elizabeth was Charles and Harriet’s youngest daughter and their last child to be born in Marston Magna. She was baptised on the 27^th of April 1867. In 1902 she married a farmer from Brewham called Thomas Gregory. (The following year her brother William married Thomas’s sister Harriett Gregory). Thomas and Elizabeth’s first child, Harriett Parsons Gregory, was born the year following their marriage but she died very young. Their son, Charles, was born a year later in Wareham in Dorset, and their second daughter, Hilda, was born in Cleeve in Somerset in 1907. In 1911 the family were living in Draycott in the parish of Rodney Stoke near Cheddar in Somerset. Elizabeth died in 1917.

• Henry (or Harry) was born in the parish of Maperton on the 21^st of January 1870. His full name was Henry George Charles Parsons. He died when he was 26 years old and was buried in Brewham.

• William was Charles and Harriet’s youngest child. He was baptised in Wincanton on the 14^th of January 1875 with the name William Herbert Charles Parsons. He lived with his parents until his father died and then with his mother in Charlton Musgrove. In 1903 he married Harriett Gregory who was a sister of his sister Elizabeth’s husband Thomas Gregory. William and Harriett had a son called William who was born in Chesterblade in Somerset in 1906. At the time of the 1911 census William was with his brother Samuel at Walk Farm while his wife Harriett and their young son were with Harriett’s widowed mother at their home at Four Towers near Brewham. William died at Coach Road Farm in South Brewham in May 1933. He was survived by his wife Harriett.

Ancestors of Charles Parsons

The following chart shows three generations of Charles Parsons’ ancestors.

His earliest known ancestor was Richard Parsons who lived in Kington Magna in Dorset during the period following the Civil War.

Parents
Father — Charles Parsons of Marston Magna
Mother — Ann Jukes who had been born in Gillingham in Dorset

Grandparents
Grandfather — William Parsons a farmer and inn-keeper who lived most of his life in Holton, near Wincanton, in Somerset.
Grandmother — Mary West, William’s wife, who came from Stowell in Somerset

Grandfather — Giles Jukes from Silton and Bourton near Gillingham in Dorset
Grandmother — Elizabeth Hill who was born in Mere which is in Wiltshire but not far from Gillingham

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — Moses Parsons of Kington Magna in Dorset
Great-grandmother — Martha Turl

Great-grandfather — William West who was born in Stalbridge in Dorset but spent most of his life in Stowell in Somerset
Great-grandmother — Mary Turk, his wife, who was also born in Stalbridge

Great-grandfather — Giles Jukes the elder, of Silton in Dorset
Great-grandmother — Mary Forward who was born in Wincanton in Somerset

Great-grandfather — James Hill from Mere in Wiltshire
Great-grandmother — Hannah Grey

Return to Sidney Parsons’ Ancestors

You are free to make use of the information in these web pages in any way that you wish but please be aware that the author, Mike Parsons, is unable to accept respsonsibility for any errors or omissions.

Mike can be contacted at parsonspublic@gmail.com

The information in these web pages comes from a number of sources including: Hampshire County Records Office, Somerset Heritage Centre; Dorset County Records Office; Southampton City Archives; the General Register Office; several on-line newspaper archives; several on-line transcriptions of Parish Register Entries; and several on-line indexes of births, marriages and deaths. The research has also been guided at times by the published work of others, both on-line and in the form of printed books, and by information from personal correspondence with other researchers, for all of which thanks are given. However, all of the information in these web pages has been independently verified by the author from original sources, facimile copies, or, in the case of a few parish register entries, transcriptions published by on-line genealogy sites. The author is aware that some other researchers have in some cases drawn different conclusions and have published information which is at variance from that shown in these web pages.