Dorothy Bennett and her Ancestors

Elizabeth Light née Russell (1823 to 1846)

Elizabeth Light née Russell was the mother of Rose Dorothy Bennett’s grandmother Charlotte Smith née Light. She was usually known as Eliza.

Eliza was born in about 1823 but the details of her birth and parentage are not yet known.

In 1842 Eliza was living in Southampton and there she married Charles Light. Charles had been living two doors away from her in Orchard Lane (she lived in no.17 and he lived in no.15). Charles was a bricklayer and the wedding was attended by John Parker, who was a colleague of his, and John’s wife Mary, who signed the register as witnesses.


Charles and Eliza’s wedding was held in All Saints Church, a fine classical building in the High Street, on June the 13th.

All Saints Church was unfortunately destroyed by enemy bombing in 1940.


Charles and Eliza moved to Kingston-upon-Thames, in Surrey, where their only child was born. She was called Charlotte, and was born on the 28th of February 1843.

The family moved back to Hampshire where they lived in Meonstoke, a village in the valley of the river Meon.

On the 3rd of March Eliza 1846 died. She was only 23 years old. The cause of death was Typhus, an infection transmitted by fleas or lice.



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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.