Author: Challoner, T.
Biography:
CHALLONER, Thomas (1806-1854: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the son of Malina Hester (or Melina Esther) Skillern (1780-1930), a milliner, and her husband Neville Butler Challoner who had married in St. Anne’s church, Soho, London, on 4 Aug. 1805. Neville Challoner was a well-known musician, teacher, composer, and music seller who, with a relation of his wife, operated a music warehouse as Skillern and Challoner first in Greek Street, Soho, and then in Regent Street. Thomas Challoner was born on 20 Nov. 1806 and baptised in St. Anne’s, Soho, on 1 Nov. 1807. Nothing is known about his education. He married Henrietta Banks when she was still a minor in Marylebone church on 20 Jan. 1830; Malina Challoner was one of the witnesses. The 1841 Census shows the family living in Marylebone; there are three children and Challoner is identified as “Ind[ependent].” By 1851 they had moved to Bristol where they lived with their two sons and two daughters at Neville Lodge, Coronation Road; Challoner’s occupation is given in the Census as a teacher of rhetoric. Another son was born on 23 Sept. 1852 in Bristol and—unlike the other children—was baptised in the non-conformist chapel. Challoner died at home in Jan. 1854. His will was proved on 3 Feb. 1854; it left any ready money and some household goods to Henrietta but the remainder of his estate was to be held in trust by two London friends—Robert Richardson Banks, an architect, and James Scott, an artist—with the proceeds to be used for the benefit of Challoner’s wife and children. The eldest son, Thomas Skillern Challoner, emigrated to Canada where he became a farmer in Strathroy, Ontario. (ancestry.co.uk 3 Jan. 2024; Highfill [for Neville Butler Challoner and Thomas Skillern]; National Archives [UK] PROB 11-2185-282)