Passmore, Mrs Caroline

Singer

Collection date: Aug 1907

Area: Somerset - Taunton District

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Mrs Caroline Passmore of Pitminster (1828-1913): age 80, 2 songs on 23 Aug 1907: Sharp wrote that Caroline was ‘a very variable singer and phrases often altered’ (FT1440). In his field notebook (tunes) Sharp noted that she was ‘named after Queen Caroline’ (CJS1/9/2/1907/9 p9).

She was probably baptized Caroline King at Bristol St James on 20/1/1828, daughter of James & Ann King. On 18/7/1872, aged 44, she married George Hearn at Bristol St James (6a 23) but George died and she was remarried to George Passmore, also widowed, at Bedminster St John on 29/8/1876.

George was born at Corfe, a village just east of Pitminster and 4 miles south of Taunton. He married Elizabeth Bond at Taunton St James on 2/1/1860 and was 22, a ‘marine’. He could not sign his name. In 1861 he was in the Forton marine barracks and in 1871 he was 34, a marine gunner at Portsea barracks with wife Elizabeth and 2 young daughters (10 and 9). After Elizabeth's death, it's not clear if Caroline helped with the raising of the two girls or not. By 1881 George and Caroline were on their own at Clifton (Bristol) running a ‘refreshment house’. They moved to Sellicks Green, Pitminster for the 1891 census, when George was described as an agricultural labourer.

In 1901 (RG13/2273 f60 p16) he was 64, a Naval Pensioner, and Caroline was 69. They were still at Sellicks Green in 1911 census, where it’s confirmed that they had been married 34 years with no children. A note in the margin adds that Caroline was ‘feeble-minded’. She died April qr 1913 aged 85 (6a 182).