GEORGE PARSONS RN

He was born. 7 Midford Place, St Pancras, London, 14.1.1851

an alley off Tottenham Court Road. He entered the Royal Navy via Greenwich Naval College in 1872, retired with the rank and died in Rochester in 1933. His forbears had been carpenters and cabinet makers in Bath during the 18th century but his grandfather came to London with his young family of Engineer Captain,forebears had been carpenters and cabinet makers with his young family around 1830. George's father, Richard (1818-84), was trained as an engineer in Woolwich Dockyard and married Jane Crawford, the Scottish shipwright, at Charlton in 1842. The couple had 5 children daughter of a during the next 6 years but Richard Parsons‘ advanced religious and political views did not render him acceptable to employers and this helps to account for the squalid circumstances of George's birth. (There were 36 people living in the house at the time.) The family, now 7 in number, returned to Woolwich where 3 more children were born but By 1861, departed for India from where he sent money home occasionally, 2 of these died. in infancy. Richard Parsons had when the rate of exchange was in favour, leaving Sarah to manage as well as she could with the help of her Crawford relatives.

The children had. a good education at the hands of a Mr Stevenson. George's elder brother, John (1843-67), also trained as an engineer but was rejected. by the Royal Navy on medical grounds. He joined the Peruvian Navy in 1866 and South America the following year Geroge's younger brother Richard, first helped his mother to run a tobacconist's shop but was later employed as an accountant by the South Eastern Railway died in mysterious circumstances in South America following year. George's younger brother, first Company- George's sisters, Emma, Sarah, and Jane, all became schoolteachers but married respectively a naval officer, a carpenter, and a chemist, well before the diary commences. The whole family maintained a lively correspondence, some of which survives. George remained single until 1882 he married Fanny Mesnard,a lady of Huguenot extraction, who, with her elder sister and younger brother, ran a bookshop and POst Office in Bexley Heath

Diary during Australia Station Tour

JOHN PARSONS

Born Woolwich 1843 Died Peru 1867

GEORGE PARSONS

Born 1890. 1 July. Born at Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada. Father George Parsons

George Parsons RN Family