Childhood

George, the oldest son of Benjamin and Harriett Chester, was born at Hardington in 1851.

George was baptised “George Purchase Chester,” but other records omit “Purchase” as his middle name.

The use of the name “Purchase” derives from his father’s unusual circumstances. The son of Edward Purchase and Harriet Chester, he was born fourteen years before before his parents married. If they had been married, his surname would have been Purchase. 

George’s father, Benjamin, was a weaver. The family home was in Barry Lane.

In July 1870, George’s mother, Harriet, died, aged 41. In about September 1876, George’s father, Benjamin, remarried.

Early occupations

George was a farm labourer by age nine and a carpenter by twenty. By the time he married in 1876, he was a railway labourer.

Marriage

In November 1876, George married Fanny Burford at Luppitt. She was the illegitimate daughter of Eliza Burford.

Residences

George and Fanny lived in one of the railway cottages at Hardington Marsh. When George’s father died in 1896, the couple moved to Barry Lane. George was initially a general labourer and then a farmer.

Wife’s death

Fanny died on 7 February 1915, aged about 62, after a long illness.[1]

George’s death

After his wife’s death, George became too depressed to work. Dr Colmer treated him as a patient but to no avail. On 19 November 1915, George cut his throat with a pen knife, inflicting a deep wound from which he died five days later. At the inquest, the jury found that he died from “exhaustion and septic absorption from a wound self-inflicted, whilst in a state of unsound mind.”^[2]

George died intestate, leaving an estate valued at £205-13s-4d.

Children

George and Fanny had one son, Albert George, born on 26 September 1878.

References

[1] The Civil Registration Death Index states Frances’s age as 60; Western Chronicle 3 December 1915 p. 6.

[2] Western Chronicle 26 November 1915 p, 4; 3 December 1915 p, 6.