Introduction
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The surname BURBURY or BURBERY appeared in a greater concentration in northern Warwickshire than in any other place in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries. While it is natural to assume that all people with this name were related somehow, it is difficult to prove the relationships between the various family groupings that have been identified.
One particularly strong and persistent tradition along these lines is that the members of the "Coventry Burbury" family were closely related to the members of the "Stoneleigh Burbury" family. This article examines the evidence that has been given to support this tradition, and attempts to evaluate the evidence and draw some conclusions from it.
Who are the "Coventry" and "Stoneleigh" Burburys?
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Coventry is a large city in the West Midlands of England (formerly Warwickshire), and Stoneleigh is a small village in Warwickshire that is a few kilometres to the south of Coventry. It is in these two centres and in other towns and villages in the nearby region that the concentration of Burburys and Burberys used to be the strongest in past years.
Identifying all of the family groups that lived in this area is difficult, and so I use names to identify some of the larger family groupings based on where they appear to have originated from or where they mostly lived. "Coventry Burbury" and "Stoneleigh Burbury" are two such names that I use. The Coventry Burbury family starts with a William Burbury (abt. 1746--1822) who lived in Gosford Street in Coventry. His line has not been traced back with any certainty further than this. Thomas Burbury (1809--1870) who was transported from Coventry to Van Diemen's Land was a member of this family. Similarly, the Stoneleigh Burbury family starts with its earliest-known ancestor William Burbury (1778--1852) who married Catherine COX in 1805 in Stoneleigh. William was actually born in Stretton on Dunsmore, but his family had a long association with Stoneleigh and so this was the name I chose for his family.
Click here to go to the information page for the Coventry Burbury family
Click here to go to the information page for the Stoneleigh Burbury family
The tradition behind the Coventry/Stoneleigh link
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When several families with the same relatively uncommon surname live in a fairly small geographical area, the chances are high that the two families are related. And even if they are not actually related or are related in only a distant way, a tendency may arise to assume that a relationship exists and for the members of each family to call the other family members "cousins".
There has been a tradition among members of the Stoneleigh Burbury family going back more than 150 years that they were related to a Burbury who went to Australia and made a fortune there. Earlier accounts of this tradition do not seem to specifically say who this Burbury was, but certainly nowadays the emigrant cousin is identified as having been Thomas Burbury (1809--1870), a member of the Coventry Burbury family. Thomas was transported to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania in Australia) in 1832 following a riot in Coventry in which a weaving factory was destroyed, but he later received a pardon and became a successful butcher and pastoralist.
Click here to read Thomas Burbury's individual biography
Thomas' story was not well-known, even among his numerous descendants in Tasmania, until a book called Thomas Burbury 1809--1870 - A Pioneer of Van Diemen's Land was published in 1979 by Wynifred Sinclair and Elizabeth Christensen, two of Thomas' descendants. This book told the story of Thomas' conviction, trial and subsequent transportation, and also of his success later in life. The details of Thomas Burbury's life as related by this book have become familiar to many of the Burburys in England, partly as a result of Wynne Sinclair's research activities in England, and also because of subsequent contacts between English and Australian Burburys since the time when the book was published. It is difficult to say whether or to what degree the identification of Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land as the Stoneleigh Burbury's "long lost cousin" has been affected by these later contacts between the families.
Click here to read a transcription of Thomas Burbury 1809--1870 - A Pioneer of Van Diemen's Land
Regarding the tradition, Irene Makepeace-Lott (a member of the Stoneleigh Burbury family) wrote the following to me inter alia in 1997:
William Burbury, my great-grandfather, was related to the Burburys of Cross Grange, Leek Wootton, but I have not established the link -- it would be two or three generations back. However, he was closely related to Thomas Burbury who, in 1832, was transported to Van Diemen's Land, Tasmania for machine-breaking during the industrial revolution and who achieved status and wealth there. I know this because Aunt Doris said that at her grandfather William Burbury's house, the talk often turned to the relatives in Australia. There was always "a fortune waiting for the boys in Australia". William Burbury had four sons and four grandsons but none felt inclined to go, although invited.From this the tradition has thus arisen that the members of the Stoneleigh Burbury family were closely related to Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land, and hence to the Coventry Burbury family.
Evidence for the Coventry/Stoneleigh link
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Apart from the oral tradition and perhaps a certain amount of psychological plausibility, there is not a lot of direct evidence that confirms that a family link does indeed exist between the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family. The evidence that has been cited in support of the tradition is as follows:
1. Similarity in appearance between Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land and William Burbury of "Crewe Farm"
As mentioned above, Thomas Burbury was transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1832. He was born in 1809. This makes him roughly contemporary with William Burbury (1822--1901) who was a son of William and Catherine Burbury of Stoneleigh. William was born in 1822 in Stoneleigh, and married Elizabeth KENCH in 1848. From him are descended most of the Stoneleigh family.
Photographs of these two gentlemen are given below. From their ages, you can see that they were roughly contemporary. Irene Makepeace-Lott says that there looks to be a close resemblance between the two. Although both photographs are a bit grainy, it is possible to see a resemblance between them. However, this is admittedly not a good basis for drawing conclusions about the two gentlemen being related.
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| Figure 1 - Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land (1809-1870) | Figure 2 - William Burbury of "Crewe Farm" (1822-1901) |
2. Bridge Cottage, Stoneleigh
This is the name of a cottage in Stoneleigh which was the home of Frederick Ewen Burbury and his family. Irene Makepeace-Lott was one of Frederick's children and she remembers fond years as a child living in the cottage. I visited Stoneleigh in the autumn of 2001 and I am grateful to the current owners for allowing me to take some photographs of the cottage at this time.
 Figure 3 - Bridge Cottage (formerly known as Van Diemen's Cottage), Stoneleigh |
 Figure 4 - Plaque on the front gate of Bridge Cottage |
People at Home - Living in a Warwickshire Village 1500-1800 is a book about the village of Stoneleigh. In this book it is mentioned that "Bridge Cottage was sometimes called Van Diemen's Cottage, a name recorded in 1858." The reference given is to maps of Stoneleigh still held at the Abbey.
The plaque on the front gate of Bridge Cottage still refers to Van Diemen's Land, and it has been suggested that this was an indication of kinship between the Stoneleigh Burburys and the Coventry Burburys. However, the name "Van Diemen's Cottage" was actually associated with two thieves who were transported to the colony many years after Thomas Burbury was transported from Coventry, and so it is not actually related to the Burbury family in any direct way.
Where might the link have been?
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No other direct evidence for the link between the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family has been presented, and so the only way to establish the truth of the tradition is to see if the ancestral lines of both families can be researched and taken back in time far enough for a common ancestor to be found.
The following chart shows abridged family trees for the earliest-known generations of the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family. The names of the two gentlemen whose photos appeared earlier on in this article and who were assumed to resemble each other are given in bold type.
The family trees in the above chart show the earliest-known ancestors of both the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family. A tradition in the Coventry Burbury family told how the family was directly related to the Burburys of Leek Wootton. This Leek Wootton family was a branch of yet another Burbury family that lived in the general area and to whom I have given the name of the Kenilworth Burbury family. The direct link between the Coventry family and the Kenilworth family was even given in several family trees that were compiled 80 or so years ago. According to this tradition, the William Burbury who married Hannah Salmon was the son of William Burbury of Leek Wootton and his wife Elizabeth nee WINTER. From there the family traced its line back at least four more generations to an otherwise unnamed Burbery who was warden of the parish of Holy Trinity in Coventry and who died sometime before 1661. However, this claim is in fact incorrect, and clear evidence disproving it has been discovered.
Click here to read a discussion of the origins of this particular tradition and how it has been disproved.
Click here to go to the information page for the Kenilworth Burbury family
As mentioned above, the tradition handed down to Irene Makepeace-Lott claimed that her family, the Burburys of Stoneleigh, were also related to the "Burburys of Cross [sic] Grange, Leek Wootton". It is possible that the Stoneleigh Burbury family's claims to a connection with the Leek Wootton Burburys was implied because of their supposed relationship to the Coventry Burburys who also made this claim. Probably, however, the claim was made for reasons similar to the Coventry Burbury's claim: through a wish to be associated with a local gentry family. On reflection, it seems a bit odd that no such "coat tail" claims of kinship have been made to the Wolston Burbery family, who were tenant farmers of the Earls of Denbigh and who in their heyday were probably equal in wealth and prestige to the Kenilworth Burburys. Possibly this is because the Wolston Burberys dwindled in the latter half of the 19th century and no members of the family survived in Warwickshire to bear such a legend down, or perhaps the spelling of "Burbery" which this family used more consistently was enough to quash theories of kinship?
Much effort has also been devoted in trying to take the line of William Burbury of Stoneleigh back further. The chart above mentions the three most likely candidates for William's parents, but at this stage it is not absolutely clear which one of the three is correct. I have written a separate article that discusses the process by which I and other researchers have arrived at this shortlist of three candidates for William of Stoneleigh's parents.
Click here to read a discussion of the attempts to identify William of Stoneleigh's parents
In the case of both the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family, we have been unable to take the lines back any further than shown in the above chart. Hence it is impossible to draw any definite conclusions about whether Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land and William Burbury of "Crewe Farm" were indeed cousins to each other.
One theory - the Bourton on Dunsmore Burbery family
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It was while writing up my notes for this article that a possible solution to the dilemma suddenly presented itself. This solution fits quite a few of the known facts and does not wildly contradict some of the other known facts. Although it is merely a hypothetical solution, I will detail it here.
We know that neither the Coventry Burbury family nor the Stoneleigh Burbury family were particularly wealthy to start off with. Although they were perhaps not steeped in poverty, they were "self-made", with Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land acquiring wealth through his butcher's shop and pastoral interests in Tasmania, and his contemporary and possible cousin William Burbury of "Crewe Farm" achieving success in his market garden business. There is no direct link that can be proved at this stage between either of these two families and the wealthier tenant farming Burbury/Burbery families of Kenilworth or Wolston.
Something else that I only took proper notice of during the main writing-up of this article was that although William Burbury of Coventry was born in around 1746, his place of birth is unknown. Moreover, the date of 1746 is imprecise, because it is taken from his age (76) at the time of his death (in 1822). I have always assumed that because he lived in Coventry, he was born there, even though no record of the baptism of a William Burbury around 1746 has been found in any of the Coventry parishes (Holy Trinity, St Michael or St John).
There is, however, a William Burbury who was born around the time in question and who is otherwise a complete loose end. He is the William who was baptised on 21 January 1745 in Bourton on Dunsmore as the son of William Burbury and Mary nee Constance who were the earliest-known ancestors of yet another family grouping in the area, namely the Bourton on Dunsmore Burbery family. Nothing further is known of this son William. He would be an ideal candidate for William Burbury of Gosford Street, Coventry. Bourton on Dunsmore and Coventry are quite close to each other, and indeed when Mary nee Constance died in 1751 her husband William remarried Susannah EDMUNDS in the parish of St John, Coventry, the very parish where William Burbury of Gosford Street would have lived.
Click here to go to the information page for the Bourton on Dunsmore Burbery family
But what makes this hypothesis even more significant and plausible is that one of the candidates for William of Stoneleigh's parents are Thomas Burbury and Catherine nee Mitchel, and this Thomas was also a son of William and Mary Burbury of Bourton on Dunsmore. In other words, if the hypothesis were true, William Burbury of Gosford Street, Coventry (ancestor of the Coventry Burbury family) would have been brother of Thomas Burbury who married Catherine Mitchel (candidates for the parents of William Burbury of Stoneleigh). And thus Thomas Burbury of Van Diemen's Land and William Burbury of "Crewe Farm" would have been second cousins. The following chart shows this diagrammatically, with the unproved links shown in red.
However, the relationship shown in the above chart -- although it looks nice and would tie up a lot of loose ends -- is hypothetical and unproven. And until the links can be proved or disproved and other possible links established, the exact nature of the relationship between the Coventry Burbury family and the Stoneleigh Burbury family remains uncertain.
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