The Watts Family, Tallow Chandlers of Queen Camel

The Watts family’s connection with the Parsons family is through Sarah Watts (1821 to 1864) whose daughter Letitia Asplet married William Hole who was a grandson of George Parsons of Charlton Horethorne. William Hole was a second cousin once removed of Sidney Parsons’ who is the root of the family tree explored in this series of web pages. William Hole’s father, John Hole was a Somerset farmer who lived close to the Watts family’s ancestral home.

Sarah Watts’ came from a family of tallow chandlers, i.e. people who manufactured and sold candles and soap which they made from rendered animal fat. Some members of the family called themselves soap boylers. The family was based in Queen Camel, a small village in South Somerset which lies on the river Cam about six miles north of Yeovil. Just east of Queen Camel is the ancient fort known as Cadbury Castle which in Victorian times was thought by many to be the site of King Arthur’s Camelot, although few if any scholars today believe that to be true.

The chart below shows Sarah’s family.

The earliest person on the chart, Sarah’s grandfather Thomas Watts, lived from about 1750 until 1820. However there were at least two earlier generations of the Watts family in Queen Camel and several of them were chandlers or soap boilers. Some of the earlier members of the family seemed to use the name Oldays as an alternative to Watts. For example there is a will, dated 1820, of Robert Oldayes or Watts, Soap boyler of Queen Camel, and several parish register entries record the surname as Watts alias Olddays.

The description of the Watts family will begin with Sarah Watts and her siblings before continuing with her father Robert his brothers and sisters and, finally, some brief notes about her grandparents Thomas and Dorcas Watts and earlier relatives

Sarah Watts and her sisters and brother

• Sarah was baptised in Queen Camel on the 10^th of January 1821 and was still a young child when the family moved to the island of Jersey where her father Robert Watts helped Philip Asplet with his newly formed chandlery business. She grew up there with her three sisters, her younger brother Robert having died as an infant. The family lived in St. Helier, Jersey’s only town.

In 1846, when she was 25 years old, Sarah married Philip Asplet. Philip was well known in Jersey. He published poems in the local dialect of Norman French, became a friend of Victor Hugo who spent part of his exile from France in Jersey, and was an elected official (a centenier) for the parish of St. Helier. Sarah and Philip’s two children, both girls, were born in Jersey in 1851 and 1853.

Sarah’s parents moved back to Somerset in the early 1850s with their two oldest daughters Ann and Mary. Their other daughter, Susan, had married a Jersey man in 1843. Robert, Letitia, Ann, and Mary lived in Marston Magna, the village which neighbours Queen Camel to its south. Robert died and was buried there in 1855 and his wife Letitia in 1861. After Letitia’s funeral Susan, her son Robert Coutanche and Sarah’s daughter Letitia Asplet stayed for some time with Mary at her home in Little Marston road. Mary was at that time still unmarried.

Sarah died in Jersey when she was just 44 years old and was buried in St. Helier in January 1864.

Sarah’s daughter Letitia provided the link to the Parsons family. She married a farmer called William Hole whom she had met whilst visiting Somerset. William’s father John Hole had married Jane Parsons who was the only daughter of George Parsons of Charlton Horethorne.

• Mary Watts was Sarah’s oldest sister. She was baptised in Queen Camel on the 31^st of January 1851. When her parents returned to Somerset from Jersey in the early 1850s Mary lived with them in Marston Magna and she continued to live there after they died.

In 1862, when she was 47 years old, she married a farmer called George Walford and went to live with him in North Petherton.

Mary died in North Petherton in 1874 when she was about 59 years old. Probate was granted to her sister Susan Coutanche.

• Sarah’s sister Ann got married soon after her father died. Her wedding in Marston Magna was to a farmer from Queen Camel called Samuel Brooks. They lived at Camel Farm where Samuel farmed 400 acres. Ann died in Queen Camel late in October of the year 1901.

Ann and Samuel’s two children never married. They continued living together at Camel farm for the rest of their lives.

• Susan, Sarah’s youngest sister,was baptised in Queen Camel on the 10^th of June 1823 and grew up in Jersey. When she was just 20 years old she married Edward Coutanche in St. Helier; he worked as a commercial clerk. They had one child, Robert, who was born in 1845.

After her husband Edward died in 1890 Susan remained in Jersey where she lived alone for at least ten years, but in her final few years she lived in Queen Camel where she died in February 1904.

Susan and Edward’s son, Robert Coutanche, did not remain in Jersey. As a young man he farmed in Axminster in partnership with a relative of his aunt Ann’s husband. Axminster is near the border between the counties of Devon and Somerset and Robert met his wife Emma while he was there. After marrying they farmed in Marston Magna before eventually retiring to Watford in Hertfordshire.

• Robert was Sarah’s only brother. He was baptised in St. Helier on the 2^nd of January 1827 and was given his mother’s surname as a second name. Sadly, he died the following January. He was buried in St. Helier on the 8^th of that month.

Robert Watts and his siblings

• Robert Watts was Sarah’s father. He was baptised in Queen Camel on the 1^st of February 1781, the eldest child of Thomas Watts and his wife Dorcas. Robert’s father Thomas was a chandler and Robert learnt the business from him working in the family’s chandlery business, Watts & Co.

Robert was about 33 years old when he married. His wife was Letitia Longman who came from Sutton Montis, a nearby village which nestles below Cadbury Castle. Their wedding there was on the 3^rd of January 1814. Letitia father, who had been a carpenter, had died two years beforehand and left her £50 in his will.

Robert’s father died in July 1820 and a few years later he moved with his wife and family to the island of Jersey where his brother Bartholomew was a butcher in St. Helier. Robert continued to work as a tallow chandler and saop boiler with premises at 34 King Street in St. Helier.

Soon after they arrived in Jersey Robert and Letitia’s last child, Robert, was born but sadly he died about a year later.

In 1829 Robert paid a visit to England where he witnessed the wedding of his brother Benjamin in Yeovil.

Robert and Letitia’s children grew up in Jersey. There, in 1846, their daughter Sarah married a young but well respected local man, Philip Asplet, who was, like Robert, a chandler. Another of their daughters, Susan, also married a Jersey man; his name was Edward Coutanche and he worked as a shipping clerk.

In the early 1850s Robert, Letitia, and their two unmarried daughters, returned from Jersey to live in Marston Magna, a village near Queen Camel in Somerset. Robert died in Marston Magna in March 1855. Letitia died there six years later.

• Thomas Watts was named after his father. He was baptised in Queen Camel in December 1782 but there is no verifiable record of him after then.

• Ann, Thomas and Dorcas’s first daughter, was baptised in Queen Camel on the 29^th of December 1784. In November 1810 she married William Cook Palmer in Ashington, her mother’s home village. William had been born in Charlton-Mackrell in Somerset but lived in West Camel where his brother John was the parish priest. Just two months after her wedding Ann died. She was buried in Queen Camel on the the 12^th of January 1811.

• Bartholomew Watts was baptised in Queen Camel in January 1787.

Bartholomew became a butcher and, as a young man, moved to St. Helier on the island of Jersey. He was a Freemason and joined the Mechanical Lodge there. In September 1819 he married a woman called Charlotte King from the village of Folke near Sherborne in Dorset. In the mid 1820s they were joined in St. Helier by Bartholomew’s older brother Robert and his family.

Charlotte died in May 1845 and was buried in churchyard of St Saviour which is near St. Helier.

The following year Bartholomew married again. His second wife was Emmeline Bignell and the ceremony was in St. Hellier. Barthomew was by then nearly sixty years old and Emmeline was over 40 but she had not been married before. Bartholomer gave his profession as Army Contractor.

Bartholomew Watts died in Jersey in November 1864 and was buried in the parish of St. Saviour.

• Susannah, born in 1789, was the first of Thomas and Dorcas’ daughters to be given that name. She died in January 1891 when she was just over one year old. She was buried in Queen Camel.

• Benjamin was baptised in Ashington, his mother’s home village, in 1792 but he died when he was less than six months old. Six years later Thomas and Dorcas gave another of their sons the name Benjamin.

• George was born in 1794 and baptised in Ashington. Nothing more is known of him.

• Joseph was born in 1796 and he was also baptised in Ashington. He joined the 1st (or Royal) Regiment of Foot, 4th Battalion in January 1810 but he was discharged in September of the following year.

Joseph died in Queen Camel in May 1815 when he was only 18 years old.

• Benjamin, born in 1799, was Thomas and Dorcas’ second son to be given that name. He was baptised in Ashington on the 14^th of April of that year. He was just 20 years old when his father died. Later that year he married Mary Ann Ewens in Yeovil with his brother Robert as a witness. Both bride and groom were both at that time living in Yeovil and Mary had been born there.

Benjamin was a butcher, farmer, and grazier who often acted as a livestock judge for agricultural shows in South Somerset. In January 1836 he announced in several newspapers that he would be commencing business as an auctioneer. He continued as an auctioneer for the rest of his working life.

A newspaper reported in July 1846 that Benjamin had been severely injured when falling from a horse but was expected to do well under the skilful care of Dr. Tomkins.

Benjamin died in June 1862 and was buried in Queen Camel.

• Susannah was baptised in Ashington on the 29^th of November 1801. She was the second of her parents’ children to be given that name, the first Susannah having died ten years previously.

Susannah died in January 1719 aged only 19 years and was buried in Queen Camel.

• Eliza was Thomas and Dorcas’ youngest child. She was baptised in Ashington in September 1803. Nothing more is known of her.

Thomas and Dorcas Watts

Sarah’s grandfather Thomas Watts was born around the middle of the 18^th century, very likely in Queen Camel. He was probably a son of Thomas Watts, a chandler, who died there in 1778.

Thomas also became a tallow chandler and in 1779 he, with his brother Robert, took out a lease on some property in Queen Camel. The following year he married. His wife was Dorcas Bartlett who came from the village of Ashington and the wedding was held there on the 3^rd of April. Ashington is in South Somerset on the River Yeo about five miles north of Yeovil.

His chandlery business was in Queen Camel and he and Dorcas lived there but they retained strong links with Ashington and some of their children were baptised there.

Thomas died in July 1820 and was buried in Queen Camel. Dorcas was buried there 13 years later.

Thomas had another brother, Bartholomew, who was a publican and kept the New Inn in Queen Camel which he leased from Sir Henry Paulett St. John Mildmay of Dogmersfield Park in Hampshire.

Other members of the Watts family

There was a Robert Watts (also known as Oldayes), a ‘Soap Boyler of Queen Camel’, who left a will dated 1720. He left the tools of his trade (including his copper) to his son Robert. His will also mentions his children Susannah, Ann, Mary, William and Roger and names his wife Anne as the executrix.

A Thomas Watts of Queen Camel was taking apprentices into his chandlery business in the 1750s. He was probably the father of Sarah’s grandfather Thomas.

Several other members of the Watts family were also at that time working as chandlers in Sherborne in North Dorset which is only about 7 miles from Queen Camel.

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.