GARSDON is a small village just outside MALMESBURY. The VINCENTS seem to have been
mostly agricultural labourers and there are many links by marriage with the STONEHAMS,
a family of stonemasons, later to become builders. Both families were prolific and
there must be many descendants - probably now dispersed nationwide. Although most
of the families remained in Wiltshire throughout the 19th century, a number emigrated
to the New World - Canada, New Zealand and Australia (see emigration page). In the
1870's there was quite an exodus on the part of both Stonehams and Vincents to Lancashire,
where industrial expansion no doubt offered good work prospects for stonemasons .Noah
Walther Stoneham (married to Harriet Louisa Vincent) moved north to Lancaster in
the 1870's. Harriet Louisa's sister Sarah Ann Vincent (later to marry James CAMERON
from neerby BEETHAM) also accompanied them. In Lancaster Noah Walter settled at SKERTON
and established a building firm with an Alfred KNAPP who came from LEA, Wilts, just
a few miles from Garsdon and who was married to a third Fanny Vincent, sister to
Harriet Louisa and to Sarah Ann. Noah Walther's brother Gilbert Theophilus also joined
them to work in the building firm, but later emigrated with his family to South Australia
in 1901. So entwined are the two families that I suspect that many descendants have
both Vincent and Stoneham predecessors.