Thomas and Sarah Mason’s youngest son, Robert, was born in 1797/8 at Dedham. He also farmed at Brightlingsea, at Hall Farm, with his wife Elizabeth (presumably née Jolly or Marven). He was an ‘agriculturist’ who, at his most prosperous in 1861, was working 590 acres and employing fifteen men and eight boys. No doubt these included his sons George Thomas Mason (born 30 September 1827; married Maria Sach Baker at Brightlingsea on 28 February 1850; died, aged fifty-two, at Boxted Hall, Essex on 10 July 1879) and Philip Cooper Mason (born c.1832).

One report in the Essex Standard of 27 August 1841 reads:

On Monday evening last as Mr. Robert Mason of Brightlingsea Hall was on his way home from Mr. Thomas Mason’s of Dedham, when turning a corner in the parish of Bromley his horse took fright and ran away with the chaise, which coming in contact with a post by the roadside, Mrs. Mason was thrown out with great force, but fortunately escaped with a few slight bruises. The horse going at full speed Mr. M. considered he would run home, and borrowed a horse to follow him: but the horse was found the next morning with part of the chaise lying in a ditch near where the accident happened, and when released was found to be so much injured that it is not expected to recover.

By 1871 Robert was widowed and living at Great Bentley. His farming was scaled back to 170 acres, seven men and three boys: a sign of the times or, as he was seventy-four, perhaps his advancing age. He lived a further twelve years and died, aged eighty-six, at Belle Vue House, Colchester on 1 September 1883, ‘universally beloved and respected’, the last of his generation, born in the eighteenth century. His executors were his grandson George Mason, of East Mersea, Essex, and his nephew Rowland Tayler, the Colchester veterinary surgeon.