The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 50 No.1 | June 2023

Searchers

still, that part of my family tree bore fruit to the most colourful stories. I will not go into details of his story again but a brief recap:- Thomas COMPTON , Junior, a gentlemen, who lived in Portsmouth and was buried in Bedhampton is supposed to be my 3 x Great Grandfather according to BMD records. His working life in Portsmouth is shrouded in mystery and, when I wrote the original article, I said I was not convinced he was the birth father of his four children from whom I am descended. Based on his father’s career as a Captain in the East India Company, I supposed he might have had something to do with Royal Navy or Merchant Navy and might have been away at sea for longish periods. His father’s, (Thomas Compton, Senior, London) will of 1808 made more than ample provision for all his children but the provision for Thomas COMPTON , Junior was odd because the provision for him of £1500 3% Consolidated Bank Annuities (rather less than that provided for his siblings) was left in trust for him with three of his brothers on the condition that if he was already married or subsequently married without his brothers’ consent then the bequest would fall to his

brothers instead. This rather implies that he did not know of the whereabouts or condition of Thomas COMPTON , Junior at that time and/or that he did not approve of his activities. Following a short career working for the East India Company as a Private Trade Clerk living in Hackney not far from his father’s home and then in 1801 in the service of John BLACKHALL Esq, late Sheriff of the city in Staines, for which he gained the Freedom of the City, he disappeared from all records until he married Merrender Roods PAUL (aged 13½!) in 1809 in Alverstoke. Merrender was the daughter of Mary PAUL and an unknown father. She was baptised on the 23rd January 1796 in Westham Sussex. Her mother subsequently married a widower, Foster ELLIS , a Sergeant in the Artillery, in Westham. The latter was possibly based at Forton Barracks at the time of Merrender’s marriage

and records show he retired in 1816. The next record pertaining to Thomas

COMPTON , Junior is a newspaper report from the Hampshire Chronicle of a court case in the Old George Inn , Buckland, Portsea on 11

November 1816. In this, a jury was summoned on a writ of inquiry to

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