Sarah Eliza Croutear

Biography

Sarah Eliza Croutear was born on 21 February 1849, in East End, in the parish of Boldre, Hampshire, fourth daughter of Charles Samuel and Frances Croutear (née Harding). Her first names appear reversed as Eliza Sarah on her baptism entry dated 27 May at Boldre, and on the 1851 census she appears to be listed as Frances Croucher. (Although the surname is spelt Croucher rather than Croutear, both local surnames, there's little doubt this is the right family. Sarah did had an older sister, Frances Jane, but she appears on the 1851 census as Jane.) On the 1851 census, as on the 1861 census, she is living with her parents in Tanners Lane, a remote lane stretching down to the coast.

Sarah married Thomas William Smith on 8 October 1868 at South Baddesley, a chapelry in the parish of Boldre. 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. 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.

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).