In his will, Thomas Mason appoints his sons Thomas, William, Robert and Frederick as trustees. William was probably baptised at Dedham on 28 October 1783.

He may have been the William Mason living at Ardleigh in 1811 and 1821 (as was his brother Thomas junior). He married Mary Ann Whitaker, at Boxted on 28 October 1813. A James Mason was witness, so if this is the right William then this must be his brother, my 3xgreat grandfather James Mason.

William was variably described as a farmer and miller. In 1818 he was a miller living on Colchester Road, Ardleigh Heath.

His children, all baptised at Ardleigh, included Mary Ann (baptised 1815 ), Elizabeth (1818), Sarah (1822), William Henry (1825), Anna Maria (1827), Ellen Adelaide (1831), Thomas? (1831?) and Catherine (1833). In 1844 William Henry married the daughter of Joseph Page Simson of Pond Hall, Wix, part of the Simson family connected to the Masons via William Simson.

When the 1841 census was taken the younger children were with the Whitaker family at Boxted. William and Mary Ann, and the elder children, were at Landermere Hall, Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex. In 1851 William, by now widowed, farmed 244 acres here and employed ten men: just one of the many Masons farming in this part of Essex at this time.

A William Mason died at Thorpe-le-Soken in 1854, aged seventy-one.