The Early Boyes Families of Owslebury

The Boyes families of Owslebury are connected to Sidney Parsons’ family tree through William Boyes who was Sidney’s maternal grandfather. William Boyes was baptised in Owslebury in 1807, the second son of John Boyes (1782 to 1856) and his wife Faith (née Newlyn).

Owslebury is a village and parish in the county of Hampshire in central southern England. It is about four and a half miles south east of the ancient city of Winchester and lies just within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park.

The map shows the village and its immediate surroundings as they were in 1791. Note Boysland Farm in the far south western corner, near the small triangular lake now known as Fishers Pond; could that have been the ancestral home of the Boyes family?

The village of Owslebury lies at the top of a low hill on the Roman road which led from Winchester (known during the Roman occupation as Venta Belgarum) to the coastal fort at Portchester (Portus Adurni).

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries the village belonged to the Marwell estate which since 1626 had been in the hands of the Mildmay family having previously been owned by the Seymours after Henry VIII granted it to his uncle Sir Henry Seymour. There is a tradition that the old house was the scene of King Henry’s courtship of Lady Jane Seymour and that they were secretly married there. That old manor house was on the site of the present Marwell Manor Farm which is near Fishers Pond just south of the road to Portsmouth. There was also a manor house in the adjacent parish of Marwell Woodlock which Sir Henry Seymour already owned; that house was rebuilt in the early 19^th century and can today be seen in the grounds of Marwell Zoo.

The soil in the area is clay with underlying chalk and the traditional land-use was a mixture of arable and grazing for sheep. Until the late 17^th century there was an iron foundary in the parish.

The earliest member of the Boyes family that we know of is John Boyes who appeared in a list of the tenants of Sir Edward Seymour, esquire of Marwell, which was made some time between 1601 and 1625. We also know that in 1617 John Boyes was in a legal dispute with the Smyth family concerning the ownership of a lease on some property in the manor of Marwell.

The Seymour family sold Marwell Manor in 1625 and the following year it was in the hands of the Mildmay family who retained it until 1858.

In 1664, 1673 and 1679 the records of the manor named a juror called Edward (or Edwardus) Boyes and in 1662 a widow called Alirid Boyes.

That Edward was probably a grandson of John’s, or just possibly a son. He must have grown up during the Civil War when there was a good deal of military activity in the area. In March 1644 parliamentary troops under the command of General Sir William Waller had defeated the Royalist army commanded by Ralph, the First Baron Hopton at the Battle of Cheriton only five miles from Owslebury. In September of the following year parliamentary troops had been stationed on Compton Down, which is even closer to Owslebury, at a place now known as Oliver’s Battery. They bombarded Winchester castle which was defended by Lord Ogle and his royalist troops. Lord Ogle surrendered the day after the bombardment began.

Edward’s grandson Edward Boyes (1748-1795) was a grandfather of John Boyes (1782-1856) who was a great-grandfather of Sidney Parsons.

The early parish registers for Owslebury are fragmentary and incomplete and it has not been possible to establish a definitive genealogy for the earlier Boyes generations but the following chart is consistent with the information which has so far been discovered. The well known John Boyes (1782-1856), who became famous for his role in the Owslebury Swing Riot, and who was the present author’s great, great, great grandfather, was a son of Edward Boyes and his first wife Eleanor Woods who appear at the bottom right of the chart.

Edward Boyes’ children

• Robert Boyes (1671 to 1715) — his wife was called Hannah and he died on the 1^st of January 1715 at the age of only forty three years.

• John Boyes

Edward Boyes’ grandchildren

• John, son of Robert Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 20^th of October 1706.

• Mary, daughter of Robert Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 7^th of October 1708.

• Robert, son of Robert Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 9^th of February 1710.

• Edward, son of Robert Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 23^rd February 1712, died December 1755.

• Mary, daughter of John Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 9^th of October 1698.

• Phillip, son of John Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 17^th of July 1705.

• William, son of John Boyes — baptised in Owslebury on the 9^th of March 1710.

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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.