Mary Ann Aiskew: A Lifetime in Fareham
Mary Ann Aiskew (1754–1835) was the daughter of Revd John Aiskew of Blendworth and, together with her sister Elizabeth Rachel, spent most of her long life in Fareham.
The sisters are remembered not because they held public office or travelled the world, but because they became deeply rooted in the town. Their memorial records that they had been residents of Fareham for more than seventy years. For Mary Ann, that meant living here through an extraordinary period of British history: the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the enormous growth of nearby Portsmouth as a naval centre.
Mary Ann died in 1835, aged about eighty-one. Her sister Elizabeth survived her by four years, dying in 1839. Although Fareham had been their home for most of their lives, the sisters were buried at Blendworth, maintaining the connection with the parish where their father had served.
Their memorial at St Peter & St Paul’s therefore tells a quieter kind of history. Many names around the church are associated with admirals, soldiers and distant campaigns. Mary Ann Aiskew represents the people who simply became part of Fareham itself, remaining in the same community across generations of enormous national change.
The inscription is particularly valuable because it preserves something that official records often do not: the fact that Fareham was their home for more than seventy years.
