PARSONS

Benjamin (son of Thomas Parsons, yeoman). b. Nibley, Gloucs. 16 Feb. 1797; apprenticed to a tailor at Frampton-on-Severn 7 years; studied at Cheshunt college 1821–5; congregational minister at Ebley, near Stroud Aug. 1826 to death; started a provident fund 1832 and a day-school 1840; has been called the Oberlin of Gloucestershire; author of Why have you become a Pædo baptist, a dialogue between Hezekiah Hastie, a baptist, and Simon Searche, a pædo baptist. By John Bull, Stroud 1835; Anti-Bacchus 1840, 11th you sand 1843; The wine question settled 1841; The mental and moral dignity of woman 1842; Tracts for fustian jackets and smock frocks, No. 1–18, 1848. d. at the Chapel house, Ebley 10 Jany. 1855. E. P. Hood’s The Earnest minister, the life of Benjamin Parsons (1856) portrait ; The lamps of the temple , 3 ed. (1856) 520–41; S. Couling’s History of the temperance movement (1862) 339–40.