Stephen Pharo was born in 1828, baptised privately at St Michael’s Church. His parents had married in Farnham in January 1818, as William Pharo and Hannah Baker. Stephen was the fifth of their seven children.
By 1841, his eldest sister Jane had left for domestic service in Farnham. By 1851 she was in Albany Cottages, Camberwell with her widowed uncle Moses Baker, a master builder, likely to keep house. Stephen’s sister Mary was also in domestic service for the surgeon Edward Houlden, first in East Street, Farnham and by 1851 in Dippenhall Street, Crondall when his family moved. She remained in Houlden’s household after he was widowed in 1856.
Stephen’s eldest brother George and youngest sister Eliza were in the parental home at the West End in 1851. His younger brother James, with whom he had been baptised in 1830, had died aged 9 in 1839.
There were others in the village named Pharo, sometimes spelt as Pharoh, but it is unclear how they were related.