Charlie Payne's father, who by 1903 had retired from his profession as a tailor. Henry Stableforth Payne was born in Clapham on 4 March 1851, the only child of Henry Payne (1816-1882) and Mary Stableforth (1807-1899). His father,also a tailor, had been born in Portsea and had been christened at the same church (St Mary's, Portsea) as the young Charles Dickens. His parents had married quite late in life (his mother, Mary was 42, and his father 33). Their wedding took place at the church of St John Evangelist, Smith Square, Westminster, starting a succession of weddings and baptisms amonst the Payne family at that splendid Baroque church. Henry Stableforth Payne married Emily Bent Clarke there on 10 August 1876. The couple went on to have seven children, Henry John Clarke Payne ( 1877-1944)), George Herbert Payne (1879-1963), Edward Arthur Payne ( 1881-1896), Charles Frederick Payne (1883-1919), Gertrude Elizabeth Mary Payne (1885-1973), William Norman Payne (1889-1960) and Beatrice Charlotte Annie Payne (1891-1965).
In 1881, Henry was living in Millbank Street, Westminster with his wife and two eldest children. By 1891 the family had moved to Marsden Road, Goose Green, East Dulwich. After his mother Mary died in 1899 it seems that, as the only child, he came into an inheritance that allowed him to retire. By 1901 he had moved the family to 12 Landcroft Road, East Dulwich.
Henry Stableforth Payne died of pleurisy, compounded by tuberculosis, at his Ferris Road, East Dulwich home on 14 July 1909 and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking.
