Wilts Ohitiiary. 437 



Agriculture " is the best known. He was consulting botanist to various 

 agricultural societies and Steven Lecturer on Agricultural Entomology 

 to the University of Edinburgh. " By his death " (says The Times, in 

 an obituary notice quoted by the Wilts County Mirror, June 1st, 1906) 

 " British agriculture, in the widest sense of the word, has lost one of its 

 best and most intelligent friends, teachers, and critics." 



William Francis Parsons, died June i7th, i906, aged 89, at 



Hunt's Mill Farm, Wootton Bassett, where he was born January 4th, 

 1817. Buried at Wootton Bassett. He belonged to an old yeoman 

 family which has occupied farms in the Wootton Bassett neighbourhood 

 for centuries. He married, in 1871, Miss Nicholls, and leaves one son, 

 Eichard, who succeeds him in the tenancy of Hunt's Mill. It was as a 

 local antiquary that he was specially known. No one knew so much of 

 the historj' of Wootton Bassett and its neighbourhood for the last two 

 centuries and more. His memory for accurate detail was astonishing, 

 and his industry in making notes was great. He has left over seventy 

 volumes of cuttings, letters, scraps, and MS. notes, chiefly on the history 

 of this part of North Wilts. He was an original member of the Wilts 

 Archieological Society, and always took much interest in its proceedings. 

 To those who knew him, and the stores of odd and out of the way local 

 knowledge of which he was full, it was always a matter of deep regret 

 that he never put this knowledge at the disposal of posterity in more 

 complete and permanent form than the numerous letters which he wrote 

 to the various local papers of North Wilts, letters which were alwajs 

 worth reading, and always contained a multitude of accurate facts. 

 Twenty-five j'ears ago he might have given the county a historj' of 

 Wootton Bassett and the adjoining parishes during the last two or three 

 centuries wliich would have contained a mass of interesting details 

 concerning the people and the places concerned. 



He was Mayor of Wootton Bassett in 1870 — 72, and alderman 1877 

 to 1886, when the corporation was dissolved. He was also churchwarden 

 for many years. 



Long obit, notice, Devizes Gazette, June 21st; short notice. Standard, 

 June 21st, 1906. 



Charles Septimus Adye, died at Bradford-on-Avon, July 7th, 

 1906, aged 63. Buried at Bradford-on-Avon. An architect by profession, 

 he had been since 1887 the County Surveyor for Wilts, an office which 

 made him well known throughout the county. He was a consistent 

 churchman, and was churchwarden from 1882 — 1903. A generous 

 tribute to his devotion to the public service was passed by the past and 

 present chairmen of the County- Council. Devizes Gazette, August 9th; 



Wilts County Mirror, August 10th. 

 Obit, notices, Salisbury Journal, July 14th ; Salisbury Diocesan 



Gazette, August, 1906. 



Rev. £dward Blackstone Cokayne Frith, died Sept. isth, 



1906, aged 76. Ch. Ch., Oxon, B.A., 1852. Deacon, 1858, priest, 1854, 



