Mrs Julia Adelaide Parry

A carte-de-visite portrait of Mrs Julia Adelaide Parry (née Bonham).

Born on 24 December 1821 at Kelveden Hall in Essex, Julia Adelaide Bonham was the youngest daughter of Henry Bonham and Charlotte Elizabeth née Morrice. She was baptised at St Marylebone in London on 16 May 1822.

Henry Bonham was the Member of Parliament for Leominster from 1806 to 1812, for Sandwich from 1824 to 1826, and for Rye from 1826 until he resigned his seat in March 1830, shortly before his death in April 1830.

On 10 July 1866 at Chailey in Sussex Julia Adelaide Bonham married Nicholas Parry of Little Hadham, Hertfordshire. Their marriage was childless.

Nicholas Parry died on 28 November 1879, leaving an estate valued at £25,000. ‘The testator bequeaths to his wife, Mrs Julia Parry, £500 and the option of residing at his house, Little Hadham, with the use of the furniture, horses, carriages, and effects; he also gives her a rentcharge of £620 per annum for life. After making some other bequests, the testator leaves the residue of his personality to the person who shall succeed to his real estate; and he devises all his real estate to the use of his cousin, Henry Digby Mitchell, for life, with remainder to his first and other sons successively, according to their respective seniorities in tail male’ (Illustrated London News, 28 February 1880).

When the census was taken in 1881 Mrs Parry was a widow living at Hadham Place, Little Hadham, Hertfordshire. Also present on the night of the census were five servants, including a butler.

In 1901 she was living at The Cedars, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, with a housekeeper, a housemaid and a cook.

In 1911 she was living with four servants at 7 Third Avenue, Hove, Sussex.

Mrs Julia Adelaide Parry died there on 4 April 1913, leaving an estate valued at £1544.

Photographer and location unidentified.

[From an album compiled by the sitter’s niece Marianne Charlotte Isabelle Gilbert, wife of Colonel Walter Raleigh Gilbert of Priory House, Bodmin, Cornwall.]