Ann Dunkason (Payne, Rann)

Ann Payne was born on 23rd January 1816 to James and Mary (nee Seager) who lived in Furzey Lodge, at the site of the property now called Mares Tails. Ann was the youngest of their three daughters.  ​Her father James died in 1815 aged 25, just a few weeks before Ann’s birth, as a result of a head injury when, intoxicated, he fell from his cart as he was crossing a stream. Her mother Mary was baptised as a member of the Beaulieu Rails church on 23rd November 1826.

​Ann(18) married Peter Rann (29) on 9th September 1834 at Boldre church. They lived near Pennerley and had three children (George, Jane and Hannah), before Peter died in 1841.

​On 30th March 1845 at Boldre church, Ann married John, the 24-year-old son of William and Ruth Dunkason. They lived close to his parents in Furzey Lodge with Jane’s daughters and together had two more children, twins Mary and William. In 1871, John was working as a labourer and living with Ann, step-daughter Jane and son William.

​John died in 1881 and was buried at East Boldre’s chapel on 30th January 1881. That year’s census lists Ann as a widow and a farmer of 10 acres assisted by son William, both still living in Furzey Lodge. ​In 1891, Ann, now 76, was living in Furzey Lodge and working as a ‘farmeress’ assisted by 45-year-old son William.

​Ann died on 26th January 1895, aged 79.

 

​William Dunkason

William Dunkason was born in 1846 in Furzey Lodge, Hampshire, England, to Ann and John.

​Marriage records show William, aged 44, married Eliza House in 1891. Eliza had worked as a servant in Lymington before returning home, following her mother’s death, to look after her father’s household.

The 1901 census records William as a farmer working on his own account, living with two servants, Emily Gregory, a widow, and her son Stephen.

William’s probate records give his widow as Emily Dunkason – this is his former servant, Emily Gregory (nee Harvey) who married William in Amesbury Wiltshire in 1905.

William and Ann’s deaths both post-date the chapel’s surviving burial record (1837 – 1894) so we have no information about who conducted their burials and the exact dates.