Thomas William Smith

Biography

Thomas William Smith was most probably born in the summer of 1844, in Hardley, in the parish of Fawley, Hampshire, third son of Henry and Sarah Smith (née Willis). Although civil registration of births had been introduced in 1837, his birth appears either not to have been registered or to have been incorrectly indexed; just possibly he is the otherwise-unexplained "Edward Thomas Smith" whose indexed in the third quarter of 1844 in the New Forest registration district. He was baptised on 15 September 1844 at Fawley. On the 1851 census he was living in Hardley with his parents and siblings; a decade later he was still there, now working as an agricultural labourer.

Thomas married Sarah Eliza Croutear on 8 October 1868 at South Baddesley, a chapelry in the parish of Boldre, Hampshire, the parish in which she had grown up. In February 1870, when their first child, Mary Frances, was baptised, Thomas and Sarah were living in Denny Lodge, the sparsely populated civil parish west of Fawley, where Thomas was working as a labourer. When the census was taken the following spring, they had settled in Exbury where Thomas had gained employment as a gamekeeper. Probably this employment was intermittent as he was described as a gardener when his son Edward was baptised in 1873, then back to being a gamekeeper for his next two sons' baptisms. Sometime between the baptisms of their third and fourth sons in 1877 and 1880 respectively, the family moved back to Hardley, and on the 1881 census were enumerated at number 8, Newtown, the name for the part of Hardley south of the Forest Home pub. On this and subsequent censuses, Thomas was described as a labourer: a general labourer in 1881, an agricultural labourer in 1891, an ordinary agricultural labourer in 1901, and an estate labourer in 1911. Perhaps he still did occasional work as a gamekeeper, which could explain his three youngest sons all becoming keepers.

At the time of the 1901 census they were looking after their oldest granddaughter Daisy, the illegitimate daughter of their eldest daughter Mary Frances, known as Polly to the family. This may have been a short-term arrangement, perhaps during an illness, as Mary and her much older husband William Cotton were living just a few houses away. On the 1911 census they were again looking after a grandchild, this time Lionel the second son of their son George, an arrangement that continued for some time. Thomas and Sarah's children Edward and Lily never married and also lived with their parents until their parents' death (although Edward, a fireman on a ship, was frequently away); they remained living in the house until it was demolished in the about the 1940s. Thomas died on 25 May 1914, aged 69, and Sarah on 3 February 1929, aged 81. They are buried together in the churchyard of All Saints, Fawley.

Children & grandchildren

• Mary Frances Smith (1869–1959). Married William Cotton (1843–1923).
  • Daisy Lavinia May Smith (1897–1995).
• Edward Smith (1873–1959).
• George Smith (1874–1952). Married Edith Vane (1872–1951).
  • George Archibald Smith (1901–1973). Married Kathleen Helena Richardson (1907–1998).
  • Lionel Vane "John" Smith (1903–1980). Married Gwendoline Mary Moody (1905–1972).
  • Albert Edward Smith (1905–1983). Married Kate Alice Hogben (1906–1978).
  • Doris Smith (1909–1985). Married Victor Carter (1900–1985).
• Charles Smith (b 1877). Married Edith Mary Tickner (b 1871).
  • Ivy Hilda Smith (b 1910).
• John Smith (1880–1966). Married Julia Mabel Trevett (1886–1964).
  • Violet Mabel L Smith (1913–1987). Married (i) Herbert Johnson, (ii) Henry Bird.
• Lily Kate Smith (1882–1958).