Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

Martha Witt née Parsons (1850 to 1930)

Martha was an aunt of Sidney Parsons’. Her brother John was Sidney’s father and was the present author’s great-grandfather.


Martha Parsons’  parents came from the south-west of England and for most of their lives they lived in the village of Marston Magna, shown by an X on the map.

Marston Magna is about four miles north of Yeovil and is very roughly equidistant from Bristol, Exeter and Bournemouth.

During the latter part of her life Martha lived in or near Bournemouth.

Martha was baptised in Marston Magna on the 3rd of October 1852, the youngest of her parents Edward and Elizabeth Parsons’ nine children.

By the time she was 21 years old Martha had left home to work as a waitress at a hotel in Poole (near Bournemouth on the map). She later moved to Lymington, which is between Bournemouth and Southampton, and she she gave that as her place of abode when she got married in February 1873. She married a police constable called Edmund Witt and the wedding was held in Islington in London near where he lived. Martha lived with Edward in London for a while and their first child, Henry, was born there the following year. Later that year Martha’s mother Elizabeth died in Marston Magna.

Within a couple of years Martha and Edmund moved to Southampton where he became a railway policeman. (Martha’s sister Elizabeth and her brother John were living in Southampton at that time).

Their second child was born in Southampton, on the 12th of February 1876, but the family did not stay in Southampton for long. Edmund gave up police work an became a house painter, and they moved to Thornford in Dorset where two of Martha’s sisters had lived until recently. By 1880 the family was living in Fordingbridge in Hampshire where Edmund had been born. Their their next child, Eunice, was born there. They lived near the centre of the small town just a few doors away from John Vincent who was a brother of Martha’s sister Jane’s deceased husband Luke Vincent.

For a short while Edmund and his family lived in Combe St. Nicholas, a village near Chard in Somerset, and Edmund worked there as a coachman. Their daughter Lena Kate was born there in September 1885 but by 1887 when their next child was born they were back in Fordingbridge.

Martha and Edmund’s youngest child, Florence, was born in 1892 in Bournemouth, and Martha and Edmund then stayed in Bournemouth for the rest of their lives. Edmund worked as a painter and decorator.

In 1912 Edmund became ill with bronchitis and he suffered from this for six years until he passed away on the 8th of March 1918.

Martha continued to live at their home in Holdenhurst Road for almost exactly 12 more years until she passed away on the 12th of March 1930.

Martha’s children

•   Henry Edward Witt was born while his parents were living in London and he was baptised at St Barnabas, Finsbury on the 14th of June 1874. He became a clothiers’ assistant in Southampton and in 1900 he married a girl called Emily Leeson. They lived in Southampton and had five children. After some years Henry gave up his job at the clothiers and became a painter’s assistant (his father had worked as a painter and decorator). Henry died in 1943 and Emily died seven years later.

•   Lilly Elizabeth Witt was born on the 12th of February 1876 in Southampton. When she was 25 years old she married George Herbert Pullen. He had been born in Middlesex but they went to live in St. Hellier in Guernsey in the Channel Islands for a while before moving to Bournemouth, and then to Blandford Forum in Dorset, where George worked as a brewer’s clerk. In 1813 George, Elizabeth, and their four children emigrated to Canada, arriving in Quebec on the 13th of August 1913. They settled in the west of Canada, in Esquimalt on Vancouber Island. George worked at city hall. George died there in 1956 and Lilly died ten years later.

•   Annie May Witt, born February 1878, lived with her parents until she married when she was about 28 years old. She worked as a clerk in a grocer’s shop. The man she married was Henry Herbert Longcroft Neal who worked at a paper factory and became its manager. They lived in Bournemouth, in Southbourne road. Their three children, Violet, Herbert and Peggy, where all baptised on the same day — 25th May 1918. Annie died in Bournemouth in 1954. Henry died there two years later.

•   Eunice Babel Witt was born in 1880 in Fordingbridge in Hampshire which was her father’s home town. She lived with her parents until she was at least 35 years old. In the 1911 census, when she was 30, no occupation was recorded for her. In 1916 she married Ernest Bleathman who was serving in the Royal Garrison Artillery. (He had previously been in the Army Cyclist Corps.) When the war was over he resumed his job as a solicitor’s clerk in Bournemouth and they lived her parents house in Holdenhurst road. By 1921 Eunice’s father had died but her youngest sister Florence, who worked as a milliner, was living there in the house. Eunice’s husband Ernest died in March 1929 and her mother Martha died the following year. Eunice died somewhere in the Bournemouth area in 1961.

•   Lena Kate Witt was born in September 1895 during her parents’ brief stay in Combe St.Nicholas, near Chard in Somerset. In 1908 she married Ernest Henchley, a pharamcist whose father was a dentist. At first he and Lena lived in Bournemouth, then in Hove on the Sussex coast, and finally in Hythe in Kent. In 1927 the marriage broke up. Ernest told Lena to leave the house and go back to her mother. They argued but after a few days she did. She took the matter to court to obtain a separation order and Ernest was ordered to pay her £2 per week. Lena lived in Bournemouth for the rest of her life and died there in 1977.

•   Reginald Albert Witt was his parents’ youngest son. He was born in Fordingbridge on the 15th of June 1887. As a young man he worked as a motor-car driver but later he became a car salesman and then a garage manager. On the outbreak of World War 1 he joined the Army Service Corps and he was a Lance Corporal in 1915 when he married a girl called Minnie Gertrude Gibson. Their wedding was in St. Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex. They had a son who was born in Bournemouth and, after being discharged from the army in January 1919, Reginald and Minnie lived in Bournemouth. Reginald was present at the deaths of both his parents, in 1918 and 1930. Reginald died in 1968. Minnie lived for another 20 years.

•   Florence Evelyn Witt was her parents’ last child and the only one born in Bournemouth. She was baptised on the 12th of June 1892 in St. Clement’s church. In 1924 she married William Godfrey Hale and lived with him in Bournemouth. William was a town councillor. Florence died in 1943 and Godfrey died in 1966.

Ancestors of Martha Witt née Parsons


Parents
Father — Edward Parsons, a gamekeeper, farm labourer and gardener from Marston Magna in Somerset
Mother — Elizabeth Parsons née Taylor

Grandparents
Grandfather — Charles Parsons, a wealthy farmer in Marston Magna
Grandmother — Ann Parsons née Jukes

Grandfather — John Taylor, the village baker in Marston Magna
Grandmother — Rosanna Taylor née Bond, who had been born in High Ham in Somerset

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — William Parsons, a publican and landowner who lived in Holton in Somerset, but had been born in Kington Magna in Dorset
Great-grandmother — Mary Parsons née West, baptised in 1753, the daughter of a farmer from Stowell in Somerset

Great-grandfather — Giles Jukes, who came from a village near Gillingham in Dorset
Great-grandmother — Elizabeth Jukes née Hill

Great-grandfather — Charles Taylor, who was born in Somerton in Somerset but lived most of his life in High Ham
Great-grandmother — Catherine Tucker, who came from High Ham in Somerset

Great-grandfather — John Bond, who came from High Ham which is near Langport in Somerset
Great-grandmother — Anne Bond née Read



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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.