Frederick Smith (1839 to 1895)

Frederick Smith was the father of Rose Bennett and a grandfather of Rose Dorothy Bennett, who married Sidney Alfred Parsons.

Frederick Smith was born in New Alresford, in Hampshire, in central southern England, on the 22^nd of February 1839. His parents were George and Eliza Smith. Frederick’s father was a baker who lived in West Street.

New Alresford is a pleasant market town a few miles east of Winchester on the old main road from Southampton via Winchester to London. On the map Alresford and Winchester are underlined in red.

The town of Alresford is old and was mentioned in the Domesday Book, the record of the survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror after the Norman conquest. Over time two settlements developed: a rural village called Old Alresford, and the more developed small market town of New Alresford which lay just south of it around the main road. A fire on May Day 1610 destroyed most of the town and it was re-built over the following decades. Daniel Defoe wrote in 1734 — “The town is since that very handsomely rebuilt, and the neighbouring gentlemen contributed largely to the relief of the people, especially, by sending in timber towards their building”.

William Cobbett, in his well known book “Rural Rides in the Counties” published in 1830 wrote — “and over some pretty little hills to Alresford, which is a nice little town of itself, but which presents a singularly beautiful view from the last little hill coming from Abbotston”.

Frederick was his parents’ eldest child. When he born his parents had only recently moved to New Alresford. His father George had been born there, but was working as a baker in Marlylebone, London, when he married Eliza.

Frederick had a sister Charlotte and a brother Robert. The family lived in West Street and his father, George, continued to work as a baker and confectiober.

In 1850, when Frederick was only eleven years old, his mother Eliza died. George’s sister, Hannah, moved in with them to act as housekeeper. But less than four years later George died, leaving the three children as orphans. He left no will but the court appointed George’s father William, a blacksmith in Alresford, and his brother-in-law William Pewsey as administrators of his estate. William Pewsey became the children’s guardian. Frederick learnt the bakery business but spent some time staying with his Uncle, Cornelius Knight, who was a fruiterer in Paddington in London. Cornelius was the husband of Frederick’s father’s sister Charlotte.

When his father died the court had appointed Frederick’s grandfather William as the guardian of the children and administrator of the estate until the eldest of them reached twenty one. So at that age Frederick became responsible for running the New Alresford bakery business in West Street once owned by his father. Later his younger brother Robert also became a baker in New Alresford, in East Street.

Frederick married Charlotte Anne Light in Winchester on the 23^rd of February, 1861. The ceremony was held at St. Maurice’s church. The photograph on the right was taken at about the time that Frederick and Charlotte were married. The church stood on the edge of the cathedral grounds and today only the tower remains, in the High Street. St. Maurice’s in Winchester was Charlotte’s home parish at the time of her marriage, but she had been brought up in several villages along the Meon Valley, some miles south east of Winchester.

For a while after they were married Frederick and Charlotte lived in Alresford, at the baker’s shop in West Street. Their first three children were born while they were living there: Kate Eliza, born in 1862, George born in 1864, and Rose, born in 1865. By 1870 when their next child, Charles, was born, the family had moved to Winchester where at first they lived in Andover Road in the parish of Weeke. But soon they moved closer to the centre of the city to Lower Brook Street. Their remaining children were born there. And later again, they moved to Eastgate Street, also near the city centre but alongside the river Itchen.

In 1895 Frederick became ill with pulmonary turbuculosis which, at the time, was usually known as consumption or pulmonary phthisis. He was admitted to the Union Workhouse which, by that late date in its history, included an infirmary which treated many people who were chronically ill and not necessarily paupers. Later, in 1912, a large nurses home was added to the building and the whole complex eventually became known as St. Paul’s Hospital. The picture on the left shows the workhouse building.

Frederick died on the 30^th of October 1895.

After Frederick’s death Charlotte moved back to Lower Brook Street and lived there with those of her children who hadn’t yet left home. By 1911 only Frank was still living with her.

Charlotte died early in 1916.

Children of Frederick and Charlotte Smith

Frederick and Charlotte had eight children. They were :

• Kate Eliza, born 1862 in New Alresford. Kate grew up in New Alresford and Winchester with her parents. When she was 20 she went to live with her uncle Harry Light in Chilworth, near Southampton, where she worked for him as a barmaid. Harry had taken over the Clump Inn in Chilworth after his father Charles Light had died. In 1884 she married Alfred Cummins, a groom who later became a brewer’s drayman, and lived with him in Portswood in Southampton. They had six children of whom two died young. Alfred died early in 1936 and Kate died late in 1949.

• George Frederick, born 1864 in New Alrseford. George moved to Winchester with his parents when he was a boy, and when he was old enough to work he became a draper’s porter at first and then a railway porter. He got married in 1888 to Elizabeth Ann Bray who had been born in Cornwall but was living in Winchester at the time. George and his family moved to Eastleigh, about ten miles south of Winchester, which was an important railway centre, and worked as a railway signalman. George and Elizabeth had two sons — William John Smith and George Frederick Smith, born in 1890 and 1891 respectively. In later life George worked as a railway booking clerk. He died in 1935 and Elizabeth died in 1941.

• Rose, born 1865 in New Alresford, was an ancestor of the author of this web page. Rose married George Bennett and lived most of her life in Chilworth. Their eldest child was Rose Dorothy Bennett, who became the wife of Sidney Alfred Parsons.

• Charles, born 1870 in Winchester. Charles became a railway porter, like his older brother. He married Edith Emily Hall, who had been born on the Isle of Wight, but had moved to Chilcombe in Hampshire where she lived with her widowed mother. Charles and Edith married in Winchester and lived there for a while before moving to Sholing in Southampton. They had two sons, Charles Edward and George Albert.

• Harry Albert, born 1872 in Winchester. Harry lived in Winchester all his life. He became a house painter and married Anna Maria Marriner in 1893. They had a daughter, Dorothy, born in 1895, and a son, Frank, born in 1899. When she was 16 Dorothy became a kitchen maid at a preparatory school in New Milton, by the Hampshire coast to the east of Bournemouth and Christchurch.

• Emily, born 1875 in Winchester. In 1899 she married Reuben Mills, a bricklayer. They lived in Winchester and she died there in 1973.

• William James, born 1878 in Winchester. After his father died in 1895 he lived with his mother until 1902 when he married Rose Hand, who also had been born in Winchester. William worked as a postman. They had a daughter, Emily Bessie, and a son, Bertram James.

• Frank, born 1879 in Winchester. Frank worked as a bricklayer and lived with his widowed mother until at least 1911. His whereabouts after then are not known.

Ancestors of Frederick Smith

Parents
Father — George Smith, a baker from New Alresford
Mother — Eliza Smith née Oakley who was born in Ropley

Grandparents
Grandfather — William Smith who was a blacksmith and coach-builder from New Alresford
Grandmother — Martha Smith née Gibbs who came from the Gibbs family of Ropley and Bishop’s Sutton

Grandfather — Thomas Oakley who was born in Medstead in Hampshire but lived for most of his life in Ropley
Grandmother — Ann Oakley née Money who was also born in Medstead

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — William Smith from New Alresford
Great-grandmother — Mary Smith

Great-grandfather — (unknown)
Great-grandmother — (unknown)

Return to Dorothy Bennett’s 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.