The Family of Peggy Best and William Crouch

Peggy was born in 1828 at Blandford. She married William Fisher Crouch, a yeoman, dairyman, baker and carrier. William's father had a 90 acre farm at Shroton, Dorset (now Iwerne Courtney). In 1861, William and Peggy lived at 40 Crews Yard, Shroton.

When William died, Peggy and the family lived with Thomas (William's unmarried brother) and their widowed mother, Maryanne. Peggy continued with the bakery business and young William helped his uncle and became a farmer. He prospered sufficiently to buy Hamoon Manor and farm when he married Ada Stone.

Parents

children

• Mary Fisher born 1849,
• Sarah Jane born 1850
• Frances born 1852
• Elizabeth born 1854
• John born 1856
• Mary F born 1858
• James born 1859
• William F born 1861, married Ada Stone
• Their son, Robert Fisher Crouch, was educated at Milton Abbas School and Blandford. He was a farmer and married Kathleen Mary Bastable in 1939. They lived at Shroton Cottage, near Blandford. They had one son and two daughters

  Robert was Vice-Chairman of the Salisbury Conservative association (1942 - 46), a member of the New Varieties Cereal Committee and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (1947 - 57), and Chairman of the British Land Council. He was elected for North Dorset in 1950 and sat as a Member of Parliament until his death in 1957. His recreation: gardening; clubs: Farmers' Constitutional and Grasshoppers.

• Virtue Mary born 1863
• James Alfred born 1865

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