Elizabeth Rachel Aiskew: Seventy Years in Fareham

Elizabeth Rachel Aiskew (c.1751–1839) belongs to a different kind of local story. She was neither an admiral nor a politician. Her significance comes from how deeply rooted she and her sister became in Fareham.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Revd John Aiskew, a Church of England clergyman associated with Blendworth in Hampshire. The Clergy of the Church of England Database confirms a John Aiskew active in ministry during the eighteenth century.

Elizabeth and her sister Mary Ann Aiskew subsequently made Fareham their home. Their memorial in St Peter & St Paul’s records something striking: the sisters had been residents of the town for more than seventy years. Mary Ann died in 1835 aged 81, while Elizabeth Rachel died on 29 July 1839, aged 88.

That means Elizabeth had known Fareham from roughly the 1760s. During her lifetime Britain fought the American War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars; George III, George IV and William IV occupied the throne; Portsmouth and the Royal Navy expanded enormously; and Fareham itself changed around her. Yet for more than seven decades this remained her home.

Their memorial also reveals an interesting connection between two Hampshire parishes. Although the sisters had spent most of their lives in Fareham, their bodies were laid to rest in the chancel at Blendworth, where their father had served. Their relatives nevertheless placed a memorial to them here in Fareham, the town with which their adult lives had become identified.

Elizabeth's story is therefore one of belonging. Some of the people remembered in St Peter & St Paul’s travelled across oceans and fought in famous battles. Elizabeth Rachel Aiskew's remarkable statistic is simpler: more than seventy years as part of the Fareham community.

Her memorial quietly reminds us that the history of a town is also made by those who remain, grow old there and become part of its fabric.