Charlotte Ann Smith née Light (1843 to 1916)

Charlotte Ann Smith née Light was a grandmother of Rose Dorothy Bennett who married Sidney Alfred Parsons. Rose and Sidney were grandparents of the present author.

Charlotte Light was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, in Surrey, on the 28^th of February 1843. Her parents were Charles and Eliza Light (née Russell). Charles was a bricklayer.

Charlotte’s parents were only in Kingston for a short while. Charles had been born in Twyford, near Winchester in Hampshire, and he had married Eliza in Southampton. Charlotte was their only child, and soon after she was born the family moved back to rural Hampshire again where they lived in Meonstoke, a small village about 12 miles south east of Winchester, in the valley of the river Meon.

When Charlotte was just three years old her mother Eliza died of typhus.

Eighteen months later Charlotte’s father Charles got married again, to Emma Long, a carpenter’s daughter from Warnford, a few miles north of Meonstoke, and also, like Meonstoke, in the Meon Valley. Charles continued to work as a bricklayer and the family moved several more times. They lived in Warnford, Droxford (which is a few miles down river from Warnford), and North Fareham (a few miles further south again). Charles and Emma had two children. Harry, Charlotte’s half brother, was born when she was five, and Kate, her half sister, was born when she was seven.

Charlotte left home to work in Winchester and there, in 1861, she met Frederick Smith. They were married just before her eighteenth birthday on the 23^rd of February 1861. The wedding took place in St. Maurice’s Church which stood on the edge of the Cathedral yard. Most of the building was demolished in the 1950s and today only the Norman tower remains. The photograph on the left was taken at about the time that Frederick and Charlotte were married there.

Frederick lived in New Alresford, a few miles east of Winchester, where he had inherited his father’s bakery and confectioners shop in West Street. Charlotte and Frederick’s first three children, Kate, George, and Rose, were born there. (Rose Smith would eventually become the mother of Rose Dorothy Bennett.)

By 1870 when Charlotte and Frederick’s next child, Charles, was born, the family had moved to Winchester where at first they lived in Andover Road in the parish of Weeke. But soon they moved closer to the centre of the city to Lower Brook Street. Their remaining children were born there. And later again, they moved to Eastgate Street, also near the city centre but alongside the river Itchen which flows through the city.

In 1895 Frederick became ill with pulmonary turbuculosis. He was admitted to the Union Workhouse for treatment. (The Workhouse by then included an infirmary which later became known as St. Paul’s Hospital.) Frederick died there on the 30th of October 1895.

Charlotte continued to live in Winchester. In 1901 she was at no. 2 Lower Brook Street with two of her sons — William and Frank. By 1911 only Frank was living with her. She died early in the year 1916.

To read more about Charlotte and Frederick’s children click on the following link — The Children of Charlotte Light and Frederick Smith

Return to Dorothy Bennett’s Ancestors

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.