Part of the Earley family tree
Family background
Jane Grist was born in the tiny village of Pentridge, about 4 miles north-west of Cranborne, Dorset, probably in Autumn 1820.
She was baptised at St Rumbold’s church in Pentridge on 3 December 1820; the baptism register records her as “the daughter of Jane Grist, single woman”. No father is recorded.
The older Jane was born in about 1778; her first recorded child was a son, William, who was baptised at Pentridge on 9 February 1807; the baptism register records him as “base-born”. Her second child, Harriet was born in about 1816 – no baptism record has been traced.
When Jane was found to be pregnant again in February 1820, she appeared before the magistrates in Dorchester on a charge of “bastardy” for refusing to disclose the identity of the father. On 10 February, she was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, but on 27 September, shortly before the birth of her daughter, Jane, she was discharged by order of the magistrates.
In January 1826, Jane appeared again before the magistrates, this time at Cranborne, when she was found guilty of stealing wood from a hedge [presumably to try to keep herself and her children warm]; she was sentenced to 4 months hard labour, to be served in the Dorset County Gaol at Dorchester.
Jane senior died, aged 59, in a typhus outbreak in December 1837 and was buried at St Rumbold’s Church on 4 December; buried alongside her was her 22-year old daughter, Harriet. Six weeks later, on 15 January 1838, Harriet’s 16-month old son, George William Grist, followed his mother and grandmother into the grave.
At the 1841 census, 20-year old Jane was working as a servant to Charles Chalmers Foot, a Romsey-born solicitor, and his sister, Harriet Boorn Lee and her two children, at Sturminster Newton, about 20 miles west of Pentridge. [One of the children, 2-year old Frederick Fawson Lee went on to become an eminent surgeon; he died in an influenza epidemic at Salisbury in April 1899.]
Marriage and children
Two years later, Jane was at Alderbury, 3 miles south-east of Salisbury. On 4 December 1843, aged 23, she married 35-year old George Rose, a farm labourer from nearby West Grimstead, at Alderbury parish church (replaced by the present St. Mary’s church in 1858).
Her first child, Martha Rose was born 6 months later, on 1 June 1844. She was baptised at St John’s Church, West Grimstead on 28 July 1844.
Over the next 15 years, five further children were born, all at West Grimstead:
Mary Elizabeth Rose, born 1 April 1846
Joseph Rose, born 5 November 1850
Mary Jane Rose, born 7 December 1852
Emma Rose, born 8 September 1855
Thomas Grist Rose, born 2 November 1859
After the birth of her first child, Jane moved away from the Anglican church, and her subsequent children were all baptised at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on the Salisbury circuit.
Jane and George lived at West Grimstead for the remainder of their married life, with various children and grandchildren, until George’s death, aged 81 in March 1889.
At the census in April 1891, Jane was living at York Road, Lambeth (by Waterloo railway station) with her daughter Emma and her husband, Samuel White, a gas fitter, with their nine children.
Jane died at West Grimstead on 24 November 1897, aged 77. By this time, she had returned to the Church of England, and was buried at St John’s Church, West Grimstead on 27 November 1897.