Charles Parkhouse married Mary Ann Heard 5 February 1860 in Taunton St James. Nine months later, on 2 September 1860, Mary Ann died of a uterine haemorrhage after giving birth to a female child, Elizabeth Ann, on the 2 August 1860. The child survived to maturity and in 1881 was living, unmarried, with her maternal grandparents in Luxborough Somerset.

On 27 August 1863, Charles Parkhouse married again. His bride was Sarah Dominey. The ceremony took place in the parish church of Thurlbear Somerset where their first child, Emily, was christened in July 1864. By the time their second child, William, was born they had moved to Puriton, Somerset, where all remaining 8 children were born and where they they remained for the rest of their lives. They are buried , a few yards from their cottage, in Puriton Churchyard.

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In June of 1891, the 26 year old Emily Parkhouse married a merchant seaman, James Hunter, a Canadian. They must have spent some time in Canada because their first child, Gladys, was born there in about 1896. However their first son, David, a year younger, was born in Puriton where Emily and James, now a “stationary engine driver” were still living in 1901 with those two children and a third child, one year old Edmund (Eddie).

Their last child, Rose, was born after 1901. They subsequently moved to Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan where they died, James in 1944, Emily in 1956. I remember calling on Emily with my father and shaking her very arthritic hand. Other than that I have only a memory of how her back garden rose so steeply behind the house. It's strange to think (in the 21st century) that I shook hands with someone who was born as long ago as 1864.

At the end of the nineteenth century there was a drift of population from the West Country to South Wales due to the greater employment opportunities there, based on coal. William Parkhouse, the second child of Charles and Sarah, appears to have been the first of my paternal family to have followed the trend. He married Emily Baker in Bridgend, Glamorgan, in the December of 1890. The 1901 census reveals that he was a coal miner in the parish of Llandyfodwg Glamorgan. This is north of Bridgend and could well be Ogmore Vale, to where Emily later moved.

The 1901 census also reveals that they had spent some time back in Puriton, Somerset in the previous few years. The same trend was followed by William’s siblings, Alfred James Parkhouse, my grandfather, and his sister Rose, who moved to Aberkenfig and Nantymoel respectively.

(51° 10' 15.33" N   2° 58' 22.14" W) View using Google Earth