This page last updated 2 February 2007
I owe most of the scanty information I have about the early generations of this line to Alan R Prime, who has a website for his Prime Family History Society and has been diligently conducting a one-name study and sharing the results very kindly with enquirers like me. Apparently the name became established in eastern England when many Huguenot and other European protestant refugees fled the wars of religion in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Thomas PRIME was born about 1768 in Norfolk. He married Elizabeth WARNES in Aslacton in the south of that county in 1785.
Their son John PRIME was born about 1805 in Norfolk. He married Esther YOUNGMAN in Aslacton in 1826. In 1850 he gave his occupation as Labourer.
Their daughter Mary PRIME was born about 1827. In 1850 she was living in Aslacton and gave birth to a son, William Thorpe PRIME, and married William THORPE, in that order. She was thereafter known as Mary THORPE.
Mary's son, young William, was most of the time known as William THORPE too. However, he would honestly use his birth surname of PRIME for most official purposes - for example when, in 1873 at Diss in Norfolk, he married Harriet LAST. In 1881 they lived at Gissing in Norfolk, and William was an agricultural labourer. In 1901 they lived at Carlton Colville over the border in Suffolk, and William was a horse man on a farm. William died in 1916.
William and Harriet had children including Florence PRIME, born at Gissing in 1881. In 1901 she was a housemaid in Lowestoft, in Suffolk near Carlton Colville. In 1905 she married Arthur Albert READ. She died of tuberculosis in 1921 leaving eight children aged from 15 years down to a few months.
If you are interested in this line I'll be very pleased indeed to hear from you. Email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my name and number @ service provider. Please do not delete the automatically-generated subject line, so that I know your email is not spam. You can add more to the subject if you like but if you delete what appears I may not read your mail.