Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

Edward Boyes (1712 to 1755)

Edward Boyes was a great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons’ maternal grandfather William Boyes. His grandson John Boyes (1782-1856) became something of a celebrity when he was sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land after the Owslebury Swing Riot.

Edward and his ancestors were farmers. For generations they had lived in the parish of Owslebury leasing their land and houses from the manor of Marwell. The earliest of his ancestors that we know of was John Boyes who at the very beginning of the 17th century leased his land from Sir Edward Seymour who was the Lord of the Manor at that time. The Seymour family had acquired Owslebury manor during the reign of Henry VIII after the king married Jane Seymour. In Edward’s time the manor was owned by the Mildmay family.


The village of Owslebury is in central southern England about four miles south east of the ancient city of Winchester. It lies on the old Roman road which led from Winchester (known to the Romans as Venta Belgarum) to the coastal fort at Portchester (Portus Adurni).

The countryside is chalk downland and the land was used mainly for grazing sheep with some arable farming.



Edward was baptised in Owslebury on the 23rd of January 1712 during the reign of Queen Anne. His parents were Robert and Hannah Boyes.

Edward lived all his life in the parish of Owslebury. He was baptised in St. Andrew’s church, married there, all of his children were baptised there, and when he died he was buried in the churchyard.

The church is pictured to the right. The earliest part of it probably dates from the fourteenth century but it was extensively remodelled during the latter part of the seventeenth - at about the time that Edward’s parents were born.

Edward’s parents Robert and Hannah had four children. Edward had two brothers called John and Robert, and a sister called Mary. Edward was their youngest child.

Edward’s father Robert died at the early age of 43 years on the 1st of January in the year 1715. His oldest child, John, was eight years old and Edward was only two. Edward’s mother Hannah, who was about 32 years old when her husband died, got married again. Her new husband was called Ralph Miller. The Boyes children, including Edward, were probably raised in their stepfather’s household. Hannah lived for many more years and died on the 5th of April 1751 at the age of 68.

In 1736, when he was 24 years old, Edward married. His bride was a girl from Owslebury called Rachel Paige (or Page) and their wedding was on the 22nd of November. Mary had been born in Owslebury to William Paige and his wife Ann but Ann had died while Rachel was still a very young girl and her father William had then married a widow called Mary Wareham. William Paige was a farmer and he was a churchwarden in St. Andrew’s church.

Edward and Rachel’s five children were all born in Owslebury. The last of them, Edward, who was baptised in July 1748, became a great-great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons who was a grandfather of the present author.

Edward was only about 43 years old when he died around Christmas time in 1755. He was buried in Owslebury on the 27th of December. His eldest child, John, was about seventeen years old and his youngest, Edward, was only seven.

His widow Rachel lived to a ripe old age and never re-married. She was 84 years old when she died in Owslebury on the 5th of September in 1797.

Edward Boyes’ Children



Edward and Rachel had five children between the years 1738 and 1748.


•  John was baptised in Owslebury on the 7th of November 1738. Nothing is known of his life except that he was buried in Owslebury on the 25th of January 1799.

•  Edward and Rachel’s second child was William who was baptised on the 13th of September 1740. He was about 15 years old when his father died. When he was about 26 years old he married a girl called Phoebe Howard who, like William, lived in Owslebury. They had seven children: Mary, Betty, Lydia, William, Thomas, Jenny and John. Like his father Edward, John died young. He was only about 41 years old when he was buried on the 27th of April 1781, just a year after the birth of his youngest child. His wife, Phoebe, lived for another forty years and never re-married.

•  Rachel was born in 1741 and married when she was about 27 years old. Her husband, Caleb Blundell, was a farmer who inherited Hensting Farm. Her brother Edward was one of the witnesses at the wedding. Rachel and Caleb were married for just over 30 years until he died in December 1798. She died in June 1809.

•  Susannah was born in 1744 but died while she was still only five years old. She was buried on the 21st of May 1750.

•  Edward’s youngest child Edward was baptised on the 4th of July 1748 and was about seven years old when his father died. He married twice. Eleanor Woods, who he married in May 1775, gave him four children the youngest of whom, John, would become a great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons who is the main subject of these genealogical web pages. His second wife, Alice Prickett, gave him three more children during their ten years of marriage before his death in 1795. Edward’s story is told in more detail on his own web page.

Edward Boyes’ Ancestors



The earliest known member of the Boyes family in Owslebury was John Boyes who was mentioned in a list of the tenants of Sir Edward Seymour, esquire of Marwell, which was made some time between 1601 and 1625. John may well have been a grandfather of the earliest Edward Boyes shown on the chart.

The two Edwards and the Robert Boyes on the chart leased their farms from the Mildmay family who had acquired the manor in 1626 during the reign of King Charles I.


Parents
Father — Robert Boyes, a farmer who lived in Owslebury
Mother — Hannah, whose maiden name is not yet known

Grandparents
Grandfather — Edward Boyes, who was also a farmer in Owslebury
Grandmother — (unknown)

Grandfather — (unknown)
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.