Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

John Newlyn (1718 to 1796)

John Newlyn was a great-great-grandfather of Harriet Eliza Boyes who became the wife of John Parsons the Southampton publican. He was therefore a three times great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons who was the grandfather of the author of this web page.



John was born in the Parish of Tichborne in Hampshire which is about four miles east of Winchester in central southern England, and close to the source of the River Itchen. His ancestors had lived in that area for at least a hundred years. Some information about them can be found by clicking on — The Newlyn family of Tichborne and Cheriton.

Tichborne is a small village. Its population in 2001 was only 168 although, like many villages, its population was much larger before farming became mechanised. In 1841, for example, there were 340 people living there. The village centre is marked with a red “T” on the map and two other villages in which John lived, Easton and Compton, are underlined. Owslebury, where several of John’s children lived, is south east of Compton, just off the lower edge of the map.

The village is famous for the Tichborne Dole, an annual charitable festival which dates back to the 12th century. The story is that Lady Mabella Tichborne, whilst very ill and believed to be dying, wished that a donation of farm produce be made each year to the poor of the parish. Her husband, Sir Roger, did not approve and agreed only on condition that the produce came from land she was able to walk around while carrying a burning torch. Lady Tichborne managed to crawl around a 23 acre field before the torch went out. The tradition continues to this day.


On the 17th of November 1745 John Newlyn married Mary Complyn. Mary came from the Complyn family of Morestead, but she was living in Easton when she married John, probably with relatives as her mother had died while she was still an infant. Her mother, Elizabeth Goldfinch had come from the Goldfinch family who had been prominent farmers in the village of Compton since before the time of the Civil War.

John and Mary’s wedding was in Easton where Mary had lived since her father died, and they settled there and farmed for some years. Their first six children were born there: John, Thomas, Mary, William, Elizabeth and Robert. William, who later became the father-in-law of John Boyes of Owslebury, has his own biographical web page.

The picture shows the church at Easton where John and Mary were married and where five of their children were baptised. Their fourth child, William, was baptised in nearby Ovington with a note in the parish register saying he had been born in Easton.

In 1755 John and his family moved to Compton, south of Winchester, where he took a lease of 21 years on New Barn Farm from Sir Thomas Heathcote. Sir Thomas had recently inherited the Heathcote Baronetcy from his father, the first Baronet Heathcote of Hursley, who had been a wealthy merchant and member of parliament. Compton was (and still is) a very small village and, with its 290 acres, New Barn Farm was the second largest farm in the parish. The largest farm was owned by John’s wife Mary’s mother’s family, the Goldfinches who had lived there at least since the Civil War, a hundred years before. At the time of Mary’s marriage to John Newlyn, her cousin Richard Goldfinch held the lease of New Barn Farm but he gave it up in favour of John and Mary. The farm was in the southern part of the parish not far from the hamlet of Silkstead. It had originally been established by the Benedictine Priory of St. Swithun’s in Winchester who had built a large walled farm there and later a manor house which, in the late 17th century, was for a time a secret Roman Catholic boarding school.

Three more children, Richard, Faith and James, were born while John and Mary were living at New Barn farm but in 1768 the family was struck by tragedy. Three of their children died within two weeks of each other. The first of them, Richard, who was not quite 12 years old, was buried on the 28th of May, Faith, who was 10, was buried on the 5th of June, and Elizabeth, aged 16, just four days later.

John and Mary lived in Compton for the rest of their lives. In 1766 he renewed the lease on New Barn Farm for another 21 years and in 1788 he did so again.

A curious incident occurred in 1775. James Froude, one of John’s employees ran away after quarrelling with a carter. His father advertised for information offering a reward of one guinea and he was found eventually found on board a ship at Spithead. The story appeared as follows in the Hampshire Chronicle in May of that year:


“Wednesday last, James Froude, late servant to Farmer Newlyn of Compton, was found by his father on board the Grenville East-Indiaman as Spithead. — The account he gives of himself is, that the carter, with whom he was at plow, quarrelled with and beat him in a severe manner, and threatened to murder him if he did not instantly leave the place. Accordingly he set out and travelled to London, where he was met by two persons of genteel appearance, who, under a shew of pity, (he appearing in distress) invited him to some house, where they plied him plentifully with liquor, with which he soon got intoxicated and fell asleep, and when he awaked the next morning, found himself on board the above ship at Gravesend.”
 

John’s eldest son John died in 1786 and Mary died in April 1792. In October of that year John made his will. To read it see — Transcription of the Will of John Newlyn of Compton. His executors were his nephew John Complin of Morestead (who was a son of his wife’s brother John) and William Faithfull, a solicitor in Winchester.

When John died four years later in March 1796 he was buried in Compton.

John seems to have been well liked and respected because on his tombstone the following epitaph was engraved —

“In Memory of John Newlyn late of Compton whose humility and resignation to his maker's will justified the ways of God to Man shewing by his actions through life that an honest man is the noblest work of God”.




The notice on the right, which appeared in the Hampshire Chronicle on the 7th of May 1796, was placed by John’s executors, John Complin and William Faithfull. The description of his house and the list of his effects to be sold gives an impression of the kind of life that John had lived as a reasonably prosperous yeoman farmer in the 18th century.

Whatever the outcome of the proposed sale, John’s eldest remaining son, Thomas, retained the farm in Compton but years later, in 1812, John’s daughter Mary and his granddaughter Nanny (who was his son John’s daughter) claimed that the executors had failed to pay them their full legacies and took the matter to court.

 

Children of John and Mary Newlyn


John and Mary had nine children. They were :

•  John, their first child, who was born in about 1747 while the family were living in Easton. They moved to Compton when he was about eight years old. On the 18th of April 1771 John married Nanny Winkworth of Owslebury. They had obtained a licence the previous day with John’s father as bondsman. The parish of Owslebury borders Compton to the south east and the ceremony was held there. John and Nanny settled in Winchester where John became a butcher. They had three children — Thomas, Anne (or Nanny), and John, in 1772, 1773 and 1774 respectively. John died in December 1786 before he was forty years old leaving Nanny to look after their teenaged children. Thomas never married and died in 1799 when he was about 27 years old. Anne married a miller called called Charles Frederick Young. And young John carried on his father’s trade as a butcher in Winchester but, like his father, he died while he was still a relatively young man, in September 1817.

•  Thomas was also born in Easton, about a year after his brother John. He got married on the 6th of April 1777 to Betty Comely who at the time was living in the village of West Boarhunt, about 15 miles south east of Compton. They had no children. When Thomas’ father died he, as the eldest surviving son, inherited New Barn Farm. Two years later, in 1798, he was farming 34 acres of his own land in Compton as well as another 209 acres which he leased. In May 1798 Thomas made a will and less than a year later he died. He was buried in Compton on the 12th of February 1799. His wife, Betty, continued to live at New Barn Farm which she ran with the help of her nephew James Comely. When she died in 1816 it passed to James who lost it when he was declared bankrupt in 1839.

•  Mary Bowden was John and Mary’s eldest daughter. She was baptised in Easton on the 1st of January 1750 and she would have been just five years old when her father first leased New Barn Farm and the family went to live in Compton. Mary married Thomas Winkworth who was a brother of her brother John’s wife. The ceremony was on the 4th of April 1773 in Compton. The couple spent their married life in Thomas’s home village of Owslebury. They had seven daughters (Elizabeth, Ann Mary, Faith, Mary, Nanny, Sarah and Anna) and two sons (Thomas and John). In December 1795 Mary’s husband Thomas died, and a few months later her father John died as well. Mary returned to Compton to live and stayed there until she died in 1820. She was buried on the 23rd of April.

•  William was also born in Easton, in the year 1751. After growing up in Compton he moved to London where he married Jane Elkins, an Owslebury girl. William and Jane moved back to Owslebury where he farmed. Their daughter Faith married John Boyes and was to become a great-grandmother of Sidney Parsons who was himeself a grandfather of the author of this web page. William Newlyn has his own biographical web page.

•  Elizabeth was born in 1752 in Easton and she would have been only three years old when her parents moved to Compton. She died there when she was sixteen years old and was buried on the 9th of June 1768 just four days after her younger sister Faith and twelve days after her younger brother Richard.

•  Robert was the last of the Newlyn children to be born in Easton. The family moved to Compton when he was about one year old. He married Susanna Truelove, who was also from Compton, on the 8th of April 1776 when they were both twenty two years old. They settled in Compton and raised their children there.

•  Richard was baptised in Compton on the 27th of July 1756. He died before he was twelve years old and was buried on the 28th of May 1768.

•  Faith also died in the early summer of 1768. She was buried on the 5th of June, not long after her tenth birthday.

•  James was baptised in december 1766 in Compton. In 1795, when he was 28 years old, he married Hannah Complin who was his cousin and six years older than him. She came from Morestead which is a few miles south east of Compton. James and Hannah settled in Wonston, a village about seven miles north of Winchester, where James leased a farm. They had three children — John, Charles and William. James wrote his will in 1808 while he was only in his early forties so he probably suffered from poor health, and after he died in 1810 he was buried in Morestead. James’s nephew William Newlyn was the executor of his estate. After he died Hannah continued to live in Wonston with her children. She never re-married. Thirty years later she was still in Wonston living with her son Charles, and she died there early in 1842.



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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.