Click to see Rosa and William Morley at the wedding of Rosa's niece Florence Axtell. Rosa is standing on the extreme left of the photo and William at the very back in the centre.

I am told that the Bodicote PR transcript shows William was baptised 6 Jan 1878, the son of William and Elizabeth. His father William was a labourer. There is a little mystery surrounding what happened to his parents. Just three years after his baptism, in 1881, William Henry aged 3 is living at 24 Windsor Terrace, Neithrop, Oxford, England with his aunt Caroline Morley, so where were his parents at that time?:

Extract from the 1881 census:
Caroline MORLEY Head W Female 60 Middleton Cheney, Northampton Formerly Genl Servant
William MORLEY Son Male 17 Banbury, Oxford, England Shopman In Boot & Shoe Shop
William MORLEY Nephew Male 3 Bodicote, Oxford, England
Frederick John JEFFCOTT Lodg Male 21 Coventry, Warwick, England Labourer At Brewery
John MORLEY Lodg Male 19 Adderbury, Oxford, England Groom (ND)
George COOK Lodg Male 22 Kiddington, Oxford, England Groom (ND)

Ten years later, at the 1891 census, William is back living with his mother who has remarried.
In 1891, William Henry 13, is living in Great Tew with his mother Elizabeth 45 born Great Tew and
step father George Brooks 44, born Great Tew.

William, his wife Rose and son Ernest are listed as Worley in the 1901 census.
William WORLEY 23
Rose 21
Ernest 8 months
The Kidlington Parish Register has them as Morley so I suspect that the census transcription is incorrect.

Records for Rosa vary between Rosa and Rose. Her birth and baptism record in the PR Transcript for Kidlington, Oxfordshire has "Rosa" but everything else seems to have her listed as "Rose".

Rosa's birth certificate has a blank against the entry for her father's name, and says that she was born some 13 months after the death of Henry Knibbs.

There is therefore some confusion over her exact parentage. One view is that Henry Knibbs was her father and that Rosa's mother (Elizabeth) suffered or coped badly after Henry died and simply forgot to register Rosa's birth. Avoidance of a fine for failing to register Rosa's birth on time may have been of greater priority than declaring the name of Rosa's true father at registration.

The other theory is of course, that Henry Knibbs was not her natural father.

The farming out of two of her siblings after Henry's death makes me wonder if Elizabeth, Rosa's mother, was perhaps coping badly after Henry died, so the first theory could well be possibile. One thing is for sure - we will probably never know.
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I understand from Claire Graham, a grand daughter of Rosa's brother Henry Phillip Knibbs, that her sister remembers going to visit Aunt Rose when she was a small girl. It was a cottage in Kidlington with some fruit trees and lawns and Rose was a typical country type with her hair in a bun and did a lot of baking! Claire and her sister think she died in 1952, 2 years before her grandfather Henry Philip who died in 1954.

William George Henry died aged just 1 year.