This section examines another of the Hampshire families of RAMPTON, those living in the area covered by the modern-day Registration District of Basingstoke. The parishes in this section of the One-Name Study are:

The area is bordered on the North by Berkshire, on the East by Hartley Wintney, on the West by Kingsclere and Whitchurch, and on the South by Winchester, Alresford and Alton.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Basing, has parish registers from 1621 (1617 for burials) although there are a number of gaps. Old Basing has seen only two Rampton events. The first was the burial, on 7 Aug 1818, of George Rampton TAPHOUSE, an infant. The second Rampton event was the baptism of Ivy Coston Rampton, on 5 Jun 1892. She was the daughter of Jesse, an Electrical engineer, and his wife Mary. At the time their place of residence was given as Long Ditton, Surrey. Why did they come to Old Basing in order to baptise their daughter? Could it be that Jesse came from the Basingstoke area? There are a couple of candidates for Jesse:


I have identified the following Parish Register Burials for the parish of Old Basing:

Date of Burial	Full name	Age	Father	Mother	Residence
7 Aug 1818	George Rampton TAPHOUSE	Infant			Basing
14 Jan 1907	Patience COWDRY	74			Basing
24 Nov 1915	Hannah RAMPTON	86			The Workhouse

There were no Rampton baptisms recorded, and only one marriage, that of Harry Rampton to Edith Ethel White in 1911.

Basingstoke's oldest Anglican church is St Michael, which has been keeping registers since 1638. The earliest RAMPTON entry in the registers is the baptism of Thomas RAMTON to Henry and his wife Mary on 6 Sep 1669. I have been unable to find a marriage for this couple. They had two more children before Mary died in 1672, but by November 1673 Henry had remarried (again, no record in the Basingstoke registers) to Joan, by whom he had several more children. Details of the family can be found on Henry's Family Chart.

Basingstoke, being the major town in th area, has proved to be a vast melting pot. People gravitated to it from most of the surrounding parishes, and it is very difficult to identify many of them as belonging to one or other family, especially before 1851. Some of the families are identifiable, like David the Ostler, his wife Martha, and a large brood, who baptised children in Basingstoke from 1828. He originated in Tadley, and the family chart can be seen in that section. Others, such as Richard who married Ann GODWIN in 1810, baptised three children in Basingstoke, and then disappeared from view!

The Parish Church of All Saints, Bradley, has parish registers from 1725. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St James, Bramley, has parish registers from 1580. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Leonard, Church Oakley, has parish registers from 1559.

The Parish Church of St Leonard, Cliddesden, has parish registers from 1636. There was a Rampton family living here in the late 17th century. Steven Rampton and an unnamed wife, baptised three children - Dorothy on 15 Aug 1669, William on 17 Nov 1672, and Ann on 23 Apr 1676. There is also recorded the marriage of Dorothy Rampton (widow) to Robert WATMORE 1 May 1683 at Cliddesden, so possibly Steven's unnamed wife was actually Dorothy. However, I have been unable to discover where Steven originated, nor what happened to the three children. All this information comes from the IGI and the BVRI - perhaps more detailed examination of the Cliddesden registers would prove fruitful.

The Parish Church of All Saints, Deane, has parish registers from 1659. There is only one rather enigmatic Rampton event for Deane by Basingstoke, that is the baptism of George Rampton Taphouse on 19 Oct 1817. It is not clear from the entry if George was in fact illegitimate (even though the name of the father was being given) or whether Jane's middle name was Taphouse. In any case, it has not so far been possible to trace father George, nor any marriage of these two, nor indeed if any subsequent children were born to them. George the father could possibly be the illegitimate son of Jane Rampton born in Herriard in 1791. Young George unfortunately died less than a year old and was buried in Old Basing as George Rampton Taphouse on 7 Aug 1818.

The Parish Church of All Saints, Dummer, has parish registers from 1541. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Eastrop, has parish registers from 1813, although it does hold Banns registers from 1759. Transcripts of the earlier missing registers, from 1750, are available. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Martin, Ellisfield, has parish registers from 1540. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Andrew, Farleigh Wallop, has parish registers from 1839, earlier events having been recorded in Cliddesden Parish Registers. The only Ramton event in the registers was the marriage of James Rampton to Emily Whitcher on 25 May 1874.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Hartley Wespall, has parish registers from 1540, although the bulk of the records are from 1558. There is only one Rampton event in this parish, the baptism recorded in the IGI of William Rampton on 29 Jan 1617. No parents are given.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Herriard, has parish registers from 1666. The first reliable record of a Rampton event in Herriard is the birth of Ann to John Rampton in 1693, and the last is the burial of Mary, widow of Richard Rampton, who died in 1847. There are a few Ramptons recorded in the 1841 census, but none at all in subsequent censuses, and very few people in those censuses who will admit to having been born in Herriard. So what happened to the Ramptons in this village? They were fairly prominent - successive generations were blacksmiths, and Mary (d. 1847) was listed in the 1841 census as a Smith, a business she had inherited from her husband Richard nearly 10 years earlier. Succeeding generations seemed to have a larger number of girls born than boys, and Richard and Mary, to take a case in point, baptised nine children (two boys and seven girls), of which six did not survive infancy, the survivors being all female. Successive generations moved to other Hampshire parishes, and there are a substantial number of related births in Medstead and Bishops Sutton, as well as one branch which moved to Old Alresford, where there was already a well established family of Ramptons. Others moved even further afield, coal mining taking two brothers to Nuneaton in Warwickshire, and work on the railways luring four brothers down to Brighton in Sussex. So far as I have been able to trace, only one emigrated to Australia. However, one very prominent son of Herriard did emigrate to Utah, America, where he singlehandedly founded a large dynasty - this was Henry the son of William the Blacksmith. The Chart of the Herriard Ramptons can be found here.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Mapledurwell, has parish registers from 1618. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

This parish contains one of the largest concentrations of the RAMPTON name in Hampshire and is therefore the subject of a separate section; Click Here.

The Parish Church of St Nicholas, Newnham, has parish registers from 1725. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

North Waltham lies to the south-west of Basingstoke, and is surrounded by the parishes of Steventon, Deane, Dummer, and Popham. The parish church is dedicated to St Michael, and registers exist from 1654. In two of the parish registers for North Waltham, the rector has included a fascinating insight into the rise and fall of population of this small parish over the course of sixty years. He has listed the population and number of inhabited houses, from 1821 to 1889.

In 1821, of the 81 families in the parish, 72 families were chiefly employed in agriculture, 7 families chiefly employed in Trade, etc., and 2 families were in neither category. The population was remarkably consistent throughout the period, except for the last eight years, when the parish lost 100 people and 16 dwellings. No explanation for this abrupt fall in population is given by the rector.

Rampton events in North Waltham are few and far between. The earliest is the marriage of Ann RAMPTON to John ETHRIDGE on 15 Apr 1708. The rector did not state whether they were of the parish or were outsiders, but the implication of the lack of other parish names in the register entry (where other entries did state if the bride or groom came from elsewhere) suggests that they had at least lived there for some time. I could find no baptism for Ann in North Waltham, and the couple do not appear to have baptised any children there, nor were they buried there. Did they emigrate? Or move to another parish?

So far, I have identified the following Parish Register Baptisms for the parish of North Waltham [where a name is highlighted, I have identified a family group - click on the name]:

Date of Baptism	Full name	Father	Mother	Maiden Name
20 Mar 1814	Amelia RAMPTON	Daniel	Mary	BARNET
14 Sep 1823	Anne RAMPTON	David	Martha
23 Oct 1825	Lyddo RAMPTON	David	Martha
13 Nov 1853	? RAMPTON

I have identified the following Parish Register Marriages for the parish of North Waltham:

Date of Marriage	Groom	Bride	Groom's Parish	Bride's Parish	Witness
15 Apr 1708	John ETHRIDGE	Ann RAMPTON	North Waltham	North Waltham
29 May 1813	Daniel RAMPTON	Mary BARNET	North Waltham	North Waltham	John RAMPTON

I have identified the following Parish Register Burials for the parish of North Waltham:

Date of Burial	Full name	Age	Father	Mother	Spouse
12 Jan 1814	Mary RAMPTON	26
13 Dec 1814	Amelia RAMPTON	11 mths	[From Popham]

The Parish Church of St Mary, Nutley, has parish registers from 1758 (marriages), burials and baptisms later. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

See the separate section on Pamber.

The Parish Church of St Catherine, Popham, has parish registers from 1628. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Preston Candover, has parish registers from 1688. There is only one Rampton event, the marriage of John Rampton to a lady called Elizabeth (no surname given in the Phillimore's Index) sometime in 1696. I have speculated, in the Herriard section of this study, that this is actually the second marriage for John Rampton, the blacksmith of Herriard. Such an early marriage register entry will probably have little detail, such as originating parish, but there should be a licence of some kind if he were marrying outside his parish. This entry needs more research.

See the separate section on Sherborne St John.

The Parish Church of St Leonard, Sherfield, has parish registers from 1574. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

See the separate section on Silchester.

The Parish Church of St Nicholas, Steventon, has parish registers from 1604. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stratfield Saye, has parish registers from 1539. I have only traced one Rampton event so far in Stratfield Saye marriage registers, that of the marriage of William RAMPTON to Mary HACK on 15 Oct 1700. This parish needs a lot more work.

The Parish Church of All Saints, Stratfield Turgis, has parish registers from 1672. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St All Saints, Tunworth, has parish registers from 1749. I have a licence Allegation for a marriage between Mary RAMPTON and Francis HARRIS, husbandman, on 22 Sep 1734. Both are from Crondall, so it is not clear why they wished to marry in Tunworth. I have not as yet been able to identify any children from this marriage.

The Parish Church of St Stephen, Up Nately, has parish registers from 1695. Here again, I have only one reference, to a marriage recorded in both Phillimore's and the IGI. The marriage took place between Dorothy RAMPTON and Nicholas PARR on 13 Apr 1709. Further investigation is required to determine if they were both of the parish, or whether a licence was involved that gives further information

The Parish Church of St Mary, Upton Grey, has parish registers from 1558. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St Lawrence, Weston Patrick, has parish registers from 1574. The marriage of John READING to Elizabeth RAMPTON took place on 22 Jul 1724 at St Thomas Winchester [IGI], but both bride and groom gave their place of residence as Weston Patrick in the Marriage Licence Allegation. No other Rmapton events occurred for nearly a century, until the marriage of Daniel RAMPTON and Sarah KNIGHT on 24 Jun 1821. Daniel was from Froyle, but Sarah was "of Weston Patrick".

The Parish Church of St Mary, Winslade, has parish registers from 1723. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

The Parish Church of St James, Woodmancott, has parish registers from 1762. I have not located any Rampton events in this parish.

See the separate section on Wootton St Lawrence.

Worting is a small parish to the west of the Basingstoke sprawl, and in official records, the people of Worting seem to have preferred to give their birthplace as Basingstoke. Indeed, in some sources, such as the 1881 census, the birthplace has been transcribed as "Worthing", causing even more confusion. The parish church is dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury, and the registers exist from 1604. The earliest Rampton event to take place in Worting was the marriage of Edward RAMPTON to Mary TARGETT. Both were said to be "of Worting" and the witnesses were F Baker and Charles Targett. So where did Edward come from, as he does not seem to have been born in Worting? Edward died in Worting and was buried on 14 May 1830, aged 61, meaning that he was born circa 1769. I have no baptism records for an Edward between 1739 and 1787, so either he was a lot older than he looked (!) or a lot younger, or his baptism has not been recorded nor indexed by the IGI. The search continues. His wife, Mary Targett, states in the 1851 census that she was born in Basingstoke circa 1778. She was living next to the Post Office in Worting at the time of the 1851 census, and gave her occupation as Pauper (postwoman). When she died, on 16 Mar 1856 aged 78, her occupation was given as Widow of Edward Rampton, postman. Edward and Mary had four children of which I am fairly certain, and a fifth of which I am a little less sure:

• Thomas, bapt. 1 Apr 1802 at Basingstoke
• Mary Martha, bapt. 22 Mar 1804 at Basingstoke
• Sarah, bapt. 5 Dec 1805 at Basingstoke
• George, bapt. 21 May 1815 at Worting
• John, bapt. 7 Nov 1821 at Andover - (possible only) John moved to Lambeth and on his marriage certificate (2 Apr 1848) gave his father as Edward Rampton, deceased - no father's occupation. From an examination of the 1851 census, his birthplace is shown as Andover, and the British Isles Vital Records certainly lists a John, son of Edward and Mary, date of birth 10 Oct 1821 at Andover. It is unusual for such a long gap between children - were there other children of Edward and Mary as yet undiscovered?

Worting also has a number of RAMPTON families, not all of whom appear to be related. The principal families moved backwards and forwards between Basingstoke and Worting, some branches moving to South London, another branch to the Channel Islands. Many of them worked for the Railways, as plate-layers, guards, and station masters; others became full-time soldiers. See the Box Chart for the Worting Families from which you can select individuals, or begin with the family chart for Edward RAMPTON.

On 19 Apr 1803, Thomas Rampton was buried at Worting. Sadly, no age was given for Thomas, nor a place of abode, so tracing his history is very difficult, but there may be a clue, in that Edward and Mary (see above) had a first-born son, Thomas, baptised 1 Apr 1802 in Basingstoke. I have found no subsequent information on a Thomas born around 1802, so it is possible that Edward and Mary's son died in infancy and they took him back to Worting to be buried.

On 1829, Thomas Rampton of Worting, aged 70, was buried at Worting. He would have been born around 1759. Could he have been Edward's father? There is a baptism in the parish of Herriard for a Thomas, on 7 Feb 1760, which looks very possible - he was the son of Thomas and Katherine (nee KERSLEY) who had been married a year earlier in Herriard.

Further information can be found at Hantsweb and at the HantsLife website.

All events have been checked, as far as possible, against primary sources. Occasionally, secondary sources, such as Phillimore's Index of Marriages in Hampshire or the International Genealogical Index (IGI), have been used where it has not been possible to view original material, and this is always mentioned in the text with a caveat. Unless otherwise stated, all places are in Hampshire.