Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

Harriet Boyes, previously Noble, née Slade (1816 to 1893)

Harriet Slade was baptised on the 20th of April 1816 in Hamble, a coastal village near Southampton in Hampshire. Her father John Slade was, at the time, a shipwright and her mother Mary was from the well known seafaring Diaper family of the village of Itchen Ferry, just across the river from Southampton. Mary’s father Thomas Diaper had been an inn keeper in Hamble, and so was her sister Rosetta’s husband, John Grace, who became a great friend of Harriet’s father. Harriet was John and Mary Slade’s second daughter. Soon after she was born her father, John, took up the licensed trade himself and Harriet grew up in the Cross House area of Southampton (near the western end of the present Itchen bridge) and later at the Anchor Inn in Bishopstoke, a few miles north of Southampton.

Harriet was the maternal grandmother of Sidney Parsons.


This picture of the Anchor Inn was taken in about 1955. The pub stood alongside the River Itchen, between Winchester and Southampton. The building shown is too modern to be the actual pub which John and Harriet owned, but undoubtedly stands on the same site. The pub no longer exists, having been converted into flats and doctor’s surgery.

Harriet’s father died in 1832, when she was about 16 years old. After that, her mother kept the pub and ran it with the help of Harriet’s brother John.

In January 1839 Harriet married Thomas Noble, a local man, in the church at Bishopstoke. Her sister Elizabeth was one of the witnesses at the ceremony. About a year later Harriet had their child and at almost exactly the same time her husband Thomas died. Their child, a son, was baptised on the 27th of March 1840 and she called him Thomas after his father. Harriet went back to live at her mother’s pub.

Four years later, in 1844, Harriet married again. Her new husband was William Boyes, a timber carrier and farmer. He was a widower and already had five children. He was a son of John Boyes of Owslebury who had become notorious following his role in the 1830 Swing riots.

William and Harriet lived in Fair Oak, north of Southampton, and had seven children - John, Edward, Harriet Eliza, George, Alfred, Richard and Enos. Their daughter, Harriet Eliza, eventually married a man from Somerset called John Parsons who had become a publican in Southampton and they became great-grandparents of the author of this web page.

Harriet and William lived together in Fair Oak, eventually at Crowd Hill Farm which is near Fisher’s Pond, but in about 1880 or 1881 William began to suffer from money problems and he was twice taken to court for failing to pay his poor rate. By 1884 William was living in the Winchester Workhouse and he died there of old age on the 16th of April 1886.


Harriet was admitted to the South Stoneham Union Workhouse at Hedge End. The workhouse buildings are now on the site of Moorgreen Hospital.

The picture on the right shows the laundry of the South Stoneham Union Workhouse in the early years of the 20th century.

The Hampshire Advertiser reported that two of her sons, John and Edward, were ordered to help pay for the support of their mother in the workhouse.


“THE SUPPORT OF A MOTHER. — John Boyes and Edward Boyes, one described as a farmer and the other an innkeeper, at Winchester, were summoned at the instance of South Stoneham Guardians, with regard to the maintenance of their mother, who had become chargeable to the Union. — The defendants said there were six brothers, one of whom lived at home, and they alleged that he had squandered a lot of money which their father once had. They were willing to pay equal shares with the other four sons. — The bench made an order for each defendant to contribute 2s per week towards their mother's support.”
 

Their brother whom they said had squandered their father’s money was probably Alfred.

Harriet was still living in the workhouse when she died of apoplexy on the 16th of May 1893. She was buried in Colden Common on the 19th.

Children of Harriet Slade and William Boyes


Harriet had one child with her first husband, Thomas Noble, and seven with her second, William Boyes.

Harriet Eliza was Harriet’s third child with William. She was born on the 5th of July 1852. She married the Southampton publican John Parsons and one of their children, Sidney Parsons, became a grandfather of the author of this web page.


To read about Harriet’s other children with William please click on the following link — The Children of William Boyes

Ancestors of Harriet Slade


Parents
Father — John Slade
Mother — Mary Diaper

Grandparents
Grandfather — James Slade
Grandmother — Sarah Warner

Grandfather — Thomas Diaper
Grandmother — Catherine Rice



Return to Sidney Parsons’ 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.