Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

The Phabayn Family

Phabayn is an unusual surname which might have originated in Ireland. It was unfamiliar to the officials in England who kept formal records and they recorded it in several different ways. Phabayn was the commonest spelling and seemed to be that preferred by most of the family members themselves but Phabay was common (especially with the earlier members), Fabaen was sometimes used, or even Phebe or Phabe.

The earliest member of the family that we know of was Thomas Phabay who was living with his wife and children in Doveridge in Derbyshire in the 1780s. The Phabayn family’s link to the present author’s branch of the Parsons family was through Thomas Phabayn’s great-granddaughter Emily Antonetta Phabayn who in 1875 married Freeborn Parsons. Freeborn was a second cousin once removed of Sidney Alfred Parsons who is the person at the ‘root’ of the family tree described in this series of web pages.

Thomas Phabay (1718 - 1796)

Thomas’s surname was usually spelt without a final ‘n’.

He was born in about 1718 but we have no details of his life until 1756 when his son Thomas was baptised in Doveridge in Derbyshire. He was about 38 years old and his wife Mary was only about 20 so she might have been his second wife. Her maiden name was probably Smith.

Doveridge is an ancient village. It is near the Staffordshire border and is not far from Uttoxeter. The Norman officials who recorded the village in the Domesday Book called it Dubbige but its name probaby derives from ‘Dove bridge’ as it was the site of a bridge over the River Dove which is a tributary of the River Trent. There is a local rumour that Robin Hood married Maid Marion under the yew tree in the churchyard.


Between 1756 and 1791 Thomas and Mary produced seven children. The life of Thomas, their first, is described in more detail in the sections below.

Their second child Samuel passed away when he was about 28 years old. Anne, their eldest daughter, married a draper called Edmund Hodgkinson and lived with him in Wirksworth, a market town near Matlock. John died when he was still only about 4 years old. Catherine died as a young woman of 26. Francis became a military man. He eventually settled in Wirksworth where he was known as Captain Phabayn and he became Lieutenant of the Derbyshire Militia. He died in 1841 when he was in his early 50s and was buried in the family’s plot in Doveridge. Thomas and Mary’s last child was a girl called Adah about whom we know nothing except that she was baptised in Doveridge on the 11th of July 1791.

When Thomas died in January 1796 at the age of 78 his eldest child was not yet 20 years old.

Thomas’ widow Mary, who was not yet 40, did not marry again. She died in 1834 and was buried in the family’s plot in Doveridge on the 14th of July.

Thomas Smith Phabayn (1776 - 1837)

Thomas Smith Phabayn was born in Doveridge in Derbyshire in 1776 and baptised there on the 18th of December. His father was Thomas Phabay and his wife Mary. Young Thomas was given Smith as his second name so that was probably his mother’s maiden name.

By 1803 Thomas had become a surgeon and apothecary in Cheadle in Staffordshire which is about 9 miles from Doveridge. A few years later he was an apothecary in London when an opportunity presented itself: William Whitear, who was a surgeon in Alresford in Hampshire, died and Thomas decided to fill the vacancy. Whitear had been married and, as well as taking over William’s practice, Thomas married his widow Ann who was a daughter of a grocer and brandy-merchant in Alresford called John Finden.

Thomas and Ann were married in Alresford on the 10th of April 1809. A local newspaper reported the event as follows:


   “Monday was married, at Alresford, Mr Fabean, apothecary, of London, to Mrs. Whitear, widow of the late Mr. Whitear, of Alresford. ”
 

Ann was about seven years older than Thomas. Their child, John, was born the following year.

Thomas was something of a businessman as well as a surgeon. He bought several pieces of land and a small farm in the parish of East Meon which he rented out.

He and Ann had no more children and Ann sadly passed away in 1817 after a lingering illness. She was 47 years old.


The announcement of Ann’s death in The New Monthly Magazine appeared a few lines below that of the author Jane Austin who had been buried in Winchester in July.

A few years after his wife’s death Thomas decided to “reduce his establishment” and in October 1821 several newspapers advertised that an auction of his property would take place. Among the items listed were:   an elegant drawing-room suite of Grecian sofa chairs, fire screens ebonised and inlaid with ivory, imperial French canopy sofa-bed, four-post and tent bedsteads, handsome musical clock, mahogany wardrobe, bureau, secretary, and secretary bookcase, dressing-table, corner and square basin stands, Venetian and Kidderminster carpets, mahogany carved chairs, blue dinner service, slipper baths, easy chair, distilling copper, and a 42-gallon copper.

Thomas moved to Droxford, a quiet village about eleven miles south of Alresford, and lived there until 1837 when he fell ill and went to stay with his son who was Curate of Castle Cary in Somerset.

Thomas died in Castle Cary on the 19th of May 1837 and was buried there a week later.

John Findon Smith Phabayn (1810 - 1889)

John was baptised in Alresford on the 2nd of November 1810. His second name Findon was his mother’s maiden name and Smith was probably his paternal grandmother’s maiden name. He was his parents’ only child.

John’s mother died when he was only about 7 years old and when he was 11 or 12 his father moved from Alresford to Droxford in Hampshire.

Nothing is known of John’s early education but in 1832 he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts by Queen’s College, Oxford and two years later a Master’s degree. In the interval he had been ordained by the Bishop of Bath and Wells and appointed as a curate at the small Somerset town of Castle Cary.

John developed in interest in Freemasonry and joined a lodge in Wells. He soon became the chaplain for Somerset.

In 1837 John’s father fell ill and came to stay with him in Castle Cary for a few weeks until he died. John inherited most of his father’s estate.

In early 1845 John became the vicar of Charlton Horethorne in Somerset. Upon his departure from Castle Cary his grateful parishioners presented him with a silver salver. John was the vicar of Charlton Horethorne for 44 years and lived at the rectory there for the remainder of his life. He took up his appointment just before the death of George Parsons who was the first of the Parsons family to live in the imposing manor house which stands beside the church. George’s son Uriah Parsons, who lived there until his own death in 1887, would have known the Reverend Phabayn very well as would the many members of the Parsons family who often visited the village.

One of John’s first actions on arriving in Charlton Horethorne was to begin restoration of the church of St.Peter & St.Paul which he did largely at his own expense. He also added four bells, also at his own expense.

In 1846 John married Elizabeth Booth who was the third daughter of the the Reverend Robert Booth, M.A., rector of Rodmell in Sussex. Rodmell is about four miles from the town of Lewis. John and Elizabeth’s wedding was held there on the 17th of January. Their first child, a boy whom they named John Baron Booth Phabayn was born in Charlton Horethorme on the 29th of September.


John and Elizabeth had six children but all except one, Antonetta, died relatively young and only Antonetta married.

John Baron Booth Phabayn was educated at Sherborne School and then Lincoln College, Oxford University.

John and Elizabeth’s second child, Edith, was born in July 1848, their third, Ada, in June 1850, and she was followed by Elizabeth in 1853, Emily Antonetta in 1854, and Adeline in 1857. Edith sadly died when she was only seven years old.

John’s wife Elizabeth, aged only 50, passed away at home on the 18th of June 1872. Three years later their daughter Ada died, she was 25 years old. Three years after that, in 1878, Adeline died, and the following year their daughter Elizabeth and their son also John died.

By the end of 1879 only one of John and Elizabeth’s six children remained alive. Antonetta (Emily Antonetta) had married Freeborn Parsons in 1875 and had gone with him to live in New Zealand. Freeborn was a nephew of Uriah Parsons who lived in the manor house next to John Phabayn’s church.

In 1881 John, a 70 year old widower with no family in England, was living in the rectory with his cook and his housemaid.

John continued to be the vicar of Charlton Horethorne until he died in April 1889, a period of 44 years.

He left a substantial estate which included 190 acres in Somerset with a licensed beer-house, and eight cottages. His household goods included richly carved furniture, a piano, rare old china, bronzes, paintings and engravings. His bequest of £300 to support the elderly poor of Charlton Horethorne established a charity which persisted until 2002.

Emily Antonetta Phabayn (1854 - 1935)

Emily, or Antonetta as she was later known, was baptised in Charlton Horethorne on the 19th of November 1854. Her father John Findon Smith Phabayn was the vicar. She grew up in Charlton Horethorne with her parents but when she was not quite 18 years old her mother Elizabeth died.

In October 1875 Antonetta married Freeborn Parsons. Freeborn, who was 21 years old, was a nephew of Uriah Parsons who lived in the manor house at Charlton Horethorne. He had been born near Shaftesbury in Dorset and brought up near Shepton Mallet in Somerset where his father John Parsons farmed. Freeborn’s father had been brought up in Charlton Horethorne.

Two months after Antonetta married Freeborn her sister Ada passed away. She was 25 years old.

Freeborn’s uncle George Parsons and his sons had recently emigrated to New Zealand where they settled in Kaikoura in South Island. Freeborn and Antonetta decided to go too. In April 1876 they arrived in Christchurch and settled at first in the Pelorus valley. About five years later they moved to the Kaikoura area and ultimately settled at Benmore Station near Ward.

Within four years of Antonetta’s move to New Zealand her sisters Adeline and Elizabeth and her brother John died leaving her father with no living relatives in England.

Antonetta and Freeborn had six children all of whom were born in New Zealand. Their youngest, a boy called Rex, died in a motoring accident. More information about them and about Antonetta’s life in New Zealand can be found at Freeborn’s web page.

In October 1935 Antonetta and Freeborn celebrated the diamond jubilee of their wedding with family and friends at their home, Benmore Station. Two months later, on the 20th of December, she passed away. She was 81 years old. Freeborn died at home fourteen months later. They were both buried in the Ward Flaxbourne Cemetery.



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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.