John Taylor (1771 to 1832)

John Taylor was the father of Sidney Parsons’ paternal grandmother Elizabeth Taylor. She married Edward Parsons and their son John Parsons was Sidney Parsons’ father.

John was baptised in the village of High Ham in Somerset on the 1^st of May 1774. High Ham is near Langport and is situated on a ridge immediately south of King’s Sedgemoor which is a part of the Somerset Levels.

As a young man John lived and worked in Stoke sub Hamden, a village a few miles to the west of Yeovil in south Somerset. He might well have been learning the baker’s trade there, as that was his occupation for most of his adult life.

In the year 1799, when he was about 28 years old, John got married in Yeovil. The wedding was on the 13^th of January. His bride, Rosanna Bond, was about 26 years old and she, like him, had been born in High Ham but both of her parents had died before she was 10 years old.

The entry in the register of St. John’s church shows that John was able to sign his name but Rosanna was not and made her mark instead.

After their marriage John and Rosanna went to live in Marston Magna which is about five miles north of Yeovil and John worked as a baker. Their five children were all born in Marston Magna.

Rosanna died in 1817 when she was only about 44 years old. She was buried in Marston Magna on the 8^th of June of that year. Her oldest child, Mary, was only about fourteen years old and her youngest, Sarah, was not yet five.

In 1831, when John was about 60 years old, and fourteen years after his wife had died, his daughter Elizabeth married Edward Parsons who was the eldest son of Charles Parsons, the richest farmer in the village. However Edward was not in his father’s favour so the wedding was probably not the lavish affair which might have been expected for such an occasion.

John Taylor did nor re-marry. He passed away in April 1832, just under fifteen years after his wife. His burial was on the 10^th of that month. His house, his baker’s shop in Camel Street, and his small orchard, both of which were near the centre of the village, passed to his oldest son Thomas.

John and Rosanna Taylor’s children

• John and Rosanna’s daughter Mary was baptised in Marston Magna on the 17^th of April 1803. It is not known what became of her.

• Thomas was John and Rosanna’s second child. He was born in about 1805 in Marston Magna and he was about 12 years old when his mother died. When his father died in 1822 he was about 27 years old and he took over the baker’s shop in Camel Street. Two years later he married a local girl called Sarah Eden. Thomas’ first child was born in 1838 and he was named him John after Thomas’s father. He and Rosanna had three more children - Mary Eden Taylor (born 1840), Rosanna Bond Taylor (born 1845) and Sarah Frances Taylor (born 1847). Thomas died when he was about 74 years old at the end of October in 1879.

• John and Rosanna’s third child was John Taylor who was born in 1807. He moved to Portsmouth, in Hampshire, where he worked as a carpenter and joiner in the Royal Naval dockyard. In September 1835 he married a Portsmouth girl called Harriet Wheeler at St Mary’s church. They had one child called Mary. He died in 1867.

• John and Rosanna’s daughter Elizabeth was baptised on the 15^th of April 1810 in Marson Magna. She married Edward Parsons who was the eldest son of the richest farmer in the village. Several of their children moved to Southampton among whom was their son John who became Sidney Parsons father. Elizabeth and Edward lived for a while in Bruton in Somerset but spent most of their lives in Marston Magna. She died there on the 29^th of December 1874.

• John and Rosanna’s youngest daughter was Sarah, born in Marston Magna in 1812 and baptised on the 19^th of December of that year. She was one of the witnesses at her sister Elizabeth’s wedding.

John Taylor’s ancestors

Parents
Father — Charles Taylor who was born in Somerton but lived for most of his life in High Ham in Somerset.
Mother — Catherine Tucker from the village of High Ham near Langport in Somerset.

Grandparents
Grandfather — Jeremiah Taylor, a blacksmith and beer seller from Somerton in Somerset who was sometimes in trouble with the law for allowing gambling on his premises.
Grandmother — Betty Salisbury who was the third child, and eldest daughter, of a blacksmith in Somerton.

Grandfather — Robert Tucker who came from High Ham in Somerset.
Grandmother — Katherine (or Catherine) his wife.

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — unknown
Great-grandmother — unknown

Great-grandfather — Samuel Salisbury who was a blacksmith in Somerton. He died there in 1730 when his daughter Betty was only about ten years old.
Great-grandmother — Mary Withy who also came from Somerton and married Samuel there in September 1705. After Samuel died she married John Harris.

Great-grandfather — John Tucker
Great-grandmother — Anne (or Anna) Baylie who married John Tucker in High Ham on the 3^rd of August in the year 1689.

Great-grandfather — unknown
Great-grandmother — unknown

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.