Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

John Complin of Morestead (1686 to 1744)

John Complin was a four times great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons who was the grandfather of the author of this web page. His daughter Mary was a grandmother of Faith Newlyn, the wife of John Boyes of Owslebury who became notorious through his role in the 1830 Swing Riot there.

John Complin was baptised in Morestead near Winchester in Hampshire on the first of April 1686. His parents, John Complin and Faith West, farmed in Morestead where they had settled after marrying and their descendants continued to farm there until well into the 19th century. More information about the Complins of Morestead can be found by following this link — The Complin Families of Morestead

John’s earliest known ancestors, William Complyn and his wife Agnes, had lived in the village of Weeke to the north west of Winchester in the 15th century and there is a memorial plaque to them in the church there dated 1498. Read more about them and their descendants by following this link — The Complins of Weeke and their descendants

At the time of John’s birth England was in a state of political turmoil. King James II had recently succeed his brother Charles II and he was a Catholic. People were suspicious that he had French sympathies and many still remembered the excesses of his father, Charles I. Soon after James’ accession a rebellion broke out in the south west of England led by the King’s nephew, the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth was defeated and executed but just three years later a group of noblemen invited James’ daughter Mary’s Dutch husband, William of Orange, to bring his protestant army to England. He did, James was deposed, and William and Mary became joint sovereigns, an event known as the Glorious Revolution. When John Complin was about 16 years old King William died (Mary had died a few years before) and was succeeded by Mary’s sister Anne who became Queen Anne. During her reign, in 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain.



As a young man John had moved to North Baddesley, a village north of Southampton. But on the 29th of November 1709 he married Elizabeth Goldfinch, a girl from the small village of Compton which is about two miles west of Morestead. Elizabeth’s family, the Goldfinches, had been tenants of the manor house in Compton since before the civil war, and maybe much longer, and were prominent members of the community.

The map on the right shows North Baddesley underlined in red. The position of Compton is marked with a red C and Morestead with a red M.

John and Elizabeth began their married life in North Baddesley and had four children there: Elizabeth, Margaret, Anne and John. But by 1717, when their son Richard was born, they had moved to Morestead. It seems that the family may have maintained connections with the Baddesley area because when their eldest daughter Elizabeth got married in 1733 it was to a man from Bishopstoke which is close to Baddesley.

They had five more children while they were living in Morestead: Robert, Mary (an ancestor of Sidney Parsons), William, Charles and Thomas.

In 1722 John and Elizabeth’s son Robert died. He was only two years old.

John’s wife Elizabeth died in May 1729 and he was left with his nine surviving children to look after. The youngest of them, Thomas, was only a few months old.

John made his will in 1744. In it he appointed John Goldfinch of Compton as one of the trustees for his younger children. John Goldfinch was probably his deceased wife’s cousin, the son of her uncle John. The other trustee was Charles Wade.

 

John Complin & Elizabeth Goldfinch’s children

John and Elizabeth had six sons and four daughters.

 

•    Elizabeth was baptised in North Baddesley on the 30th of November 1710. She would have been about eighteen years old when her mother died in 1729. When she married four years later she was said to be living in Morestead. The ceremony was on the 26th of May 1753 in Bisphopstoke and she married a farmer called William Dean. William and Elizabeth spent the rest of their lives in Bishopstoke. He died in 1766 and she died nine years later at the age of 55 years and was buried there on the 14th of February 1776.

•    Margaret, John and Elizabeth’s second child, was baptised in North Baddesley on the 15th of January 1712. In 1738, when she was not quite 27 years old, she married a a joiner from Winchester called Edward Collins. The wedding was at the church of St. Peter Cheesehill in Winchester. Her whereabouts after then are not known.

•    Anne, who was John and Elizabeth’s third child, was baptised in North Baddesley on the 15th of December 1713. She married a man called John Green and went to live with him in Wonston which is about seven miles north of Winchester. They had three children — Elizabeth (b.1742), John (b.1744) and Mary (b.1745).

•    John was John and Elizabeth’s first son and the last of their children to be born in North Baddesley. He was baptised there on the 29th of December 1715. The family moved to Morestead soon afterwards. John grew up in Morestead and in 1742 he married a girl called Mary Dummer who was living in Winchester but originally from Bishopstoke. They married in the parish church of St.Thomas, Winchester. John farmed in Morestead and he and Mary had ten children, three of whom died as infants or young children. John died in 1779 leaving his farm to his son John who had been born in 1745. His son John became an Overseer of the Poor for the parish of Morestead and was an executor of his uncle William Newlyn’s will. Soon after his father died he advertised a large farm to be let. It had three hundred acres and a cottage in the hamlet of Holt, a little way to the east of Morestead and close to Mill Barrow Down where the well known pub Milburys now stands. John lived in Morestead and farmed until he died there in 1813 leaving his farm to his nephew, John Complin. Read more about the three John Complins at — The Complin Families of Morestead.

•    Richard was baptised in Owslebury, a parish which adjoins Morestead, on the 30th of December 1717. In 1747 he married Mary Buxsey in Morestead and they had three children, all daughters, whom they named Mary, Ann, and Sarah, but Sarah died soon after she was born. Four and a half years after they had married, on the 9th of June 1752, Richard’s wife Mary died. She was buried in Morestead. Eight years later Richard got married again. His second wife’s name was Martha Leach. Richard and Martha had one child together, a daughter called Martha who died in 1768 when she was about six years old. Richard’s wife Martha died in 1801 and Richard died in 1806. He was buried in Morestead on the 6th of July.

•    Robert was baptised in Morestead on the 10th of March 1720. He died when he was just over two years old.

•    Mary, an ancestor of the current author, was baptised on the 8th of February 1722 in Morestead. She married John Newlyn in November 1745. One of their grandchildren, Faith Newlyn became the wife of John Boyes of Owslebury who achieved notoriety through his role in the 1830 “Swing” riots. More details of Mary’s life can be found at her own biographical web page which can be reached using the following link — Mary Newlyn née Complin.

•    William was baptised in Morestead on the 30th of March 1724. Beyond that nothing of his life is known for certain. However an Admiralty document of 1757 names a William Complyn as the surgeon of a privately owned ship called the New Elizabeth, based in Portsmouth, which had been armed and commissioned to act against France. Although there is no proof that he was the same William Complyn it can be reasonably supposed that he was. There was a good road from Morestead to Gosport on the shore of Portsmouth Harbour where the Royal Navy had a victualling centre at Weevil Yard and a new hospital called Haslar. Also, over forty years later William’s nephew William Complyn (1753-1825) got married in Gosport.

•    Charles, who was baptised on the 15th of February 1726, became a became a butcher and owned a slaughter house and stables in Water Lane in the East Soke district of Winchester. He also owned a house and a farm in Kings Worthy which is just to the north of Winchester. In 1752 Charles married Martha Coward in Chilcombe, which is about a mile and a half east of Winchester and their daughter Martha was born the following year. When Charles’ brother John died in 1779 he was one of the executors of his estate. Charles died in 1808 and was survived by his wife Martha who lived until 1816. They were both buried in Morestead. Their daughter Martha married twice. Her second husband was a Winchester corn merchant called Richard-Coventry Faithfull with whom she had a son of the same name who joined the Honourable East India Company and eventually became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Bengal Army. Their daughter Elizabeth Armstrong Faithfull (Charles Complin’s great-grandaughter) married a man called Charles Webber Hutchinson (1883 to 1886) who became the Postmaster General of India’s Madras Province.

•    Thomas, John and Elizabeth’s last child, was baptised in Morestead on the 17th of September 1728. He grew up and farmed in Morestead and, on the 16th of November 1758 he married Elizabeth Kersley. Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Sarah Kersley born in about 1737 in Bishops Sutton, a village about eight miles east of Winchester. Thomas and Elizabeth lived in Twyford, which is a village near Morestead, and it seems that they had no children. Thomas died in March 1767 and was buried in Morestead. His wife Elizabeth did not re-marry and and when she died in 1809 she was also buried in Morestead.


More information about the Complin families of Morestead can be found at — The Complin Families of Morestead



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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.