Rose Dorothy Bennett And Her Ancestors

Rose Dorothy Parsons, née Bennett, was a grandmother of the author of this web page. She was born in 1886 in Chilworth, near Southampton in Hampshire, the eldest child of George Bennett, a coachman, and his wife Rose (née Smith). Rose had been born and brought up in Alresford which is a small town east of Winchester in Hampshire and had married George in Winchester in 1884.

Dorothy (or Dolly as she was often known) married Sidney Parsons. His story and that of his ancestors can be found at the web page — Sidney Alfred Parsons And His Ancestors.

These pages tell the story of Dorothy’s life and of the lives of some of her ancestors. They also try to convey something of the flavour of the times in which they lived.

The chart below shows Dorothy and three generations of her ancestors. Below it, the people on the chart are listed - click on any name in the list for details of that person’s life. Dorothy’s father George was born illegitimate, and his mother Frances did not name the father when she registered the birth, so we have no information about that branch of Dorothy’s ancestry.

Click on any of the following names for more information.

Rose Dorothy Bennett

   Rose Dorothy Bennett (1886 to 1923), of Southampton and Queensland

Dorothy Bennett’s Parents

   George Henry Bennett (1861 to 1941), a coachman and groom from Southampton
   Rose Smith (born 1865)

Dorothy Bennett’s Grandparents

   (unknown grandfather)
   Frances Bennett (1838 to 1917), whose illegitimate son George was born four years before she married Thomas Peckham and had seven children with him

   Frederick Smith (1839 to 1895), who was, like his father, a baker in New Alresford in Hampshire but then moved to Winchester
   Charlotte Ann Light (1843 to 1916), who was born Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey

Dorothy Bennett’s Great-grandparents

   (unknown great-grandfather)
   (unknown great-grandmother)

   Henry Bennett (1804 - 1861), who was born in Romsey but lived most of his life in Chilworth, near Southampton
   Elizabeth Misselbrook (1804 to 1880), who was born in North Stoneham, near Southampton

   George Smith (1814 - 1854), a baker from New Alresford in Hampshire
   Eliza Oakley (1814 - 1850), who was born in Ropley near Alresford

   Charles Light (1817 - 1877), a bricklayer, builder, and inn-keeper, who originally came from the village of Twyford near Winchester in Hampshire
   Eliza Russell (1823 - 1846), who died when she was only 23 years old

Other Noteworthy Relatives

One noteworthy relative of Dorothy’s was the famous Hampshire and England cricketer, George Brown, who married her sister Ada Mabel Frances Bennett.

Another was Benjamin Misselbrook who was the Head Keeper at London Zoo, in Regents Park, for twenty years. Benjamin (born 1810) was a brother of Dorothy’s great-grandmother Elizabeth Bennett née Misselbrook.

Patience Penfold came from a well-known Romany travelling family. Her husband Charles was a son of Dorothy’s great-grandfather Charles Light.

Martha Gibbs, a great-great-grandmother of Dorothy’s, was probably related to the Gibbs families of Wield, Bentworth, and Chawton one of whom, John Gibbs, lived in the village of Chawton at the same time as the author Jane Austen was staying there and worked for her wealthy brother Edward Austen Knight.

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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.

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