Rose Bennett née Smith (1865 to 1939)

Rose Bennett née Smith was the mother of Rose Dorothy Bennett who married Sidney Alfred Parsons.

Rose Smith was born in New Alresford, in Hampshire, on the 27^th of November 1865. Her parents were Frederick and Charlotte Smith. Frederick was, like his father before him, a baker who lived in West Street.

New Alresford is a pleasant market town a few miles east of Winchester. On the map it is underlined in red. The red C on the map marks Chilworth where Rose’s husband came from.

Rose was her parents’s third child — she had an older sister Kate, an older brother George, and a younger brother Charles.

When Rose was about four years old the family moved to Winchester. They lived in Andover Roar where Frederick was a baker but later they moved to the centre of the city.

On the 6^th of April 1884 Rose married George Henry Bennett at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Hyde in Winchester.

Saint Bartholomew’s Church is shown on the right. There is some evidence that the body of King Alfred the Great, which was re-interred after the dissolution of Hyde Abbey during the reign of King Henry VIII, lies buried in its grounds.

George and Rose lived in Chilworth. George been a fireman on the railways but he worked as a gardener and groom. Their first child, a daughter whom they named Rose Dorothy, was born there. But soon afterwards the family moved to the Isle of Wight where George became a coachman at Apse Manor near Shanklin. While living on the Isle of Wight two more daughters were born, Ada and Gladys. Rose’s grandfather Charles Light had for a while kept an inn near Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

When the family moved back to the mainland in about 1890 they lived for a while at North Baddesley, which is near Chilworth, before moving again to live at various addresses in Southampton. Their remaining children — George, Edward, Thomas, Elsie and Reginald were born there.

In 1923 Rose and George’s daughter Dorothy’s family was hit by a series of tragedies. First Dorothy herself died of pneumonia leaving her husband Sidney Parsons to look after their children. Then a year later Sidney died and the children became orphans. Just four months after that Sidney’s father John Parsons also died. Rose was with him and registered his death (she gave her address as 140 Wilton Road Southampton). Rose and George looked after some of the children but the eldest boy soon joined the merchant navy and the two youngest boys were placed with foster parents paid from the proceeds of their recently deceased grandfather John’s estate.

The picture on the left shows Rose with the five youngest of her daughter Dorothy’s orphaned children.

In the back row are Frank, George, William and Dorothy and next to Rose is the youngest child Evvy who had been born just before her parents returned from Queensland.

The eldest child, Reginald, who is not in the picture, was probably away working.

In later life Rose and George moved to North Baddesley which is near to Chilworth where they had started their married lives and once again George worked as a groom and gardener.

Rose died of heart disease on the 11^th of January 1939 at her home in Castle Lane, North Baddesley.

Her husband George died in 1941.

To read more about Rose and George’s children click on the following link — The Children of Rose Smith and George Bennett

Ancestors of Rose Smith

Parents
Father — Frederick Smith
Mother — Charlotte Smith née Light

Grandparents
Grandfather — George Smith
Grandmother — Eliza Smith née Oakley

Grandfather — Charles Light
Grandmother — Eliza Light née Russell

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — William Smith
Great-grandmother — Martha Smith

Great-grandfather — Thomas Oakley
Great-grandmother — unknown

Great-grandfather — John Light
Great-grandmother — Martha Light née Tucker

Great-grandfather — William Russell
Great-grandmother — unknown

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.