Stephen John Iles Fooks was baptised Melcombe Regis 10 June 1793, the son of William and Ann Fooks. His middle name at baptism was spelled Eyles. He appears to have been baptised a second (?) time, on 10 October 1804, along with Mary and two other siblings. Here the entry in the Melcombe parish records has him as Stephen John Aisles Fooks, son of Wm and Ann Fooks. 

Also, the 1800 land tax records lists William Fooks occupying a premises owned by Stephen Illes. The 1813 records list the proprietor as Stephen Ayles. It is not clear who this was: there is also a female named Illes (forename indecipherable) listed as a proprietor in 1800.

Stephen married a Charlotte (probably Charlotte Holloway, in 1816 at Andover) and, according to his will, became a school master at Basingstoke, Hampshire. He died aged thirty-nine, in 1832, at Basingstoke. His body was returned to Dorset for burial at Wyke Regis on 16 April 1832. His monument, in Portland stone, is at All Saints, Wyke Regis (Weymouth). This has his name as Stephen John Isles Fooks.

Stephen’s will was written in March 1831 (and proved 1832). It is short, perhaps hurriedly written, and gives Charlotte as the sole executrix and beneficiary. Charlotte, it seems, didn’t survive much longer than Stephen. Seven years later, a Charlotte Fooks was buried at Andover, Hampshire, in 1839, aged forty-six (and thus born, like Stephen, in 1793). Within a few months of her death, another Charlotte Fooks died, aged just fourteen, at Weyhill near Andover. Was this their daughter?

Stephen’s will was witnessed by Robert More Perkins, James Johnstone Luce and James Mackenzie Fooks. From 1841, Perkins (1809–91) was a school master at Chilcutt’s School, Tiverton, Devon and so may have been a fellow master at Basingstoke in 1832. Luce seems to have been a general practitioner, born at Melcombe Regis, according to the 1851 census, when he was living at Stratfield Mortimer, Berkshire. So perhaps Stephen was ill for a year prior to his death and his doctor was called upon to witness the  will, when it became clear his illness was serious?

The last witness to the will is puzzling, however: Stephen’s eldest brother James Mackenzie Fooks had apparently died some seven years previously, in 1824, so this must be James’s son, James Mackenzie Fooks the younger (1814?–37), possibly aged just seventeen in 1831.

Iles, Illes, Eyles, Aisles, Isles, Ayles – the name, in its various spellings, is a curious one. It must be a family name as one of the daughters of James Mackenzie Fooks was named Catherine Jane Iles Fooks (born June 1819). Also, a will was drawn up in 1824 by Jane Iles of Cerne Abbas: the witnesses include Jane Fooks, widow of James Mackenzie Fooks, and others of the Fooks family.