Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

Mary Hallard née Parsons (1843 to 1916)

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

Mary was born in the latter part of the year 1843 in the village of Marston Magna in the south-eastern part of Somerset, close to the border with Dorset. It is a few miles north-east of Yeovil and a similar distance north-west of Sherborne.

Her father Edward Parsons was an agricultural labourer who, despite being the eldest son of a moderately wealthy farmer, did not receive an inhertiance from him.

Mary was baptised in Marston Magna on the 10th of January 1844 and grew up there with her parents and her brothers and sisters.

When she was 17 years old Mary was living in Gillingham in north Dorset. She was a nursemaid in the house of a solicitor called Robert Freane; her sister Elizabeth, who had been widowed and lost her only child, was also there working as a maid.

Mary got married in May 1868. The wedding was in Marston Magna and her husband was Charles Hallard who had been born in Worcestershire but was living in Thornford in Dorset. Their first child, Agnes, was born there in 1870.

The family moved to Steeple on the Dorset coast where they lived in a cottage next to the school house and Charles worked as a groom. Their second child, Ethel, was born there in 1875. But by 1879, when their son Bertram was born, they were living in Thornford again and Charles worked as a gardener.

Some time between 1881 and 1892 Charles and Mary had moved to Meopham in Kent, just south of Gravesend. Charles still worked as a gardener but at a nursery. Their children were not living with them. Agnes was a housemaid in a hotel in Bournemouth. Bertram and his sister Ethel were servants of an army officer at the Royal Victoria Barracks in Southsea, Hampshire.

By 1901 Bertram had returned to live with his parents — he worked as a bicycle mechanic. Agnes had married in 1895 and lived with her husband Michael Ryan a few miles away in Bexley, but Michael Joined the army and he and Agnes went to South Africa. Mary & Charles’s daughter Ethel’s whereabouts in 1901 are a mystery.

Charles Hallard, Mary’s husband, died in 1907.

Mary continued to live in Meopham (the address was Lacknut Cottages, Culverston) with her son Bertram and her daughter Ethel.

In May 1916 Mary’s daughter Ethel, who was living with her, had an illegitimate son.

Mary died at home of old age on the 9th of November 1916 in the presence of her son Bertram.

Mary Hallard née Parsons’ children

Mary had three children.

•   Agnes Jane Hallard was born in Thornford in Dorset but baptised on the 13th of February 1870 in Marston Magna where her mother was born. She lived with her parents in Steeple and Thornford in Dorset but by the time she was 21 years old she was a housemaid at the Imperial Hotel in Bournemouth. Her parents moved to Kent and after Agnes fell pregnant her baby daughter Ethel was born there. That same year, 1895, she got married. Her husband, Michael Ryan, was a dock policeman, probably based across the river at Tilbury. In 1899 their son Archibald was born. By 1901 Ryan had become an apprentice electrician and the family were living closer to London at Bexley. Michael joined the army, and after the Boer the family were living in Bloemfontein in South Africa. Their daughter Mabel was born there. After returning to England the family lived at Griggs Green near Liphook in Hampshire where their last child was born. Michael was a private in the Army Veterinary Corps, but he was unable to work because of bad health. Michael died there in 1912 after which no more is known of Agnes.

•   Ethel Mary Hallard was born in 1874 while her parents were living in Steeple, a village in the Purbeck Hills in the area now known as Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. By the time she was 16 years old she and her younger brother Bertram were living in the Royal Victoria Barracks in Southsea as servants of an army officer called Lieutenant Arthur Cox. In November 1895 Ethel was a witness at her sister Agnes’ wedding in Kent and in 1907 her father died. By 1911 she was living with her widowed mother and her brother and she worked as a domestic cook. In 1916 she had a child, a son called Stanley, and later that year her mother Mary died. Ethel continued to live in their home at Lacknut Cottages in Meopham near Gravesend with her brother Bertram who was by 1921 an invalid; he died in 1925. Ethel continued to live in the same house with her son Stanley, who worked as a general labourer, until she died in 1965. Stanley died in 2003.

•   Bertram Edmund Hallard was born in Thornford in about 1879. When he was only about 13 years old he and his sister Ethel were living in barracks in Southsea as servants of an army officer. In his early 20s he lived with his parents in Meopham, near Gravesend in Kent, and he worked as a bicycle mechanic. After both his parents had died he continued to live in the family home with his sister Ethel, and by 1921 he had become an invalid. Bertram died in December 1925 and was buried at Meopham on New Year’s Eve.

Ancestors of Elizabeth Giddings previously Sly and Dunford 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.