BASSETT, Martha

1823 - 1907

Martha Bassett was born at Brandon, Suffolk and baptised on 1 June 1823, third daughter of Revd William C Bassett (3 August 1789-20 September 1838) and his wife Martha née Brewster (1791-16 January 1865) who married at Brandon, Suffolk on 18 November 1815. In 1851, young Martha was a 27-year-old, living at Nether Hall, Thurston, Suffolk with her unmarried brother William Chinery Bassett (9 September 1816-29 July 1863), a landed proprietor, their 59-year-old widowed mother Martha and two other sisters, Jane [Young] 31 and Eleanor [Edwards] 28 and they retained five indoor servants. In 1871, Martha was a 47-year-old with no occupation, boarding at Guildhall Street, Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk, the home of 60-year-old widow Hannah Leroth and her daughters. Martha exhibited at the Bury & West Suffolk Fine Art Society in 1882, an oil ‘Lilium Lancifolium’, which was highly commended. In 1881, a 57-year-old boarder at 2 Beaufort Place, Oystermouth, Gower, Glamorganshire, the home of James Frazier, a master mariner, and his family and by 1891 Martha Bassett was living 'on own means' at Beaufort Place, Oystermouth, Gower, Glamorganshire and where she died on 18 December 1907, aged 84, she was unmarried.