Thomas Potter Burbury was born in 1815, probably in Maxstoke, Warwickshire where he was baptised on 24 December of that year, the son of Thomas Winter Burbury and Elizabeth née Potter.
There is some confusion about who Thomas Potter Burbury married and who his children were. One source (a handwritten family tree from Kirsty Burbury in New Zealand) says that his wife's name was Edwina WINTER, but Major Timothy P.N.W. Burbury of Ince Barton, Cornwall (who is a descendant of Thomas Potter) give her name as Edwina Jane Hicks, daughter of Colonel Edward Raymond Hicks and a Lady Grey de Ruthyn. The Major has tried to establish the identity of Edwina's mother, so far without success.
There is also a question about Edwina herself. It is possible that she is the same person as a Mrs. E. Burbury who was an author of several books incluing Florence Sackville; if this identification is correct, it might go some way to explaining and clarifying some of the confusion which I have regarding Thomas Potter's spouse and children.
I have a family tree sent to me by a New Zealand member of the family who lists three children for Thomas Potter Burbury: Helen, Edward Pargeter and Kathleen. There is also a note saying that there may have been an elder brother who had Winter as part of his name, who went to Patagonia (present-day Argentina). I also have another copy of this same tree which I received from Phillip Burbury in Hobart. I think he got it from somewhere in New Zealand too. However, this tree names Thomas Raymond Dowding as an elder brother of Edward Pargeter, and has "Chile" below his name in brackets. These would both appear to be a reference to the son Thomas Winter Burbury, whose son Thomas Raymond Dowding was a sheep farmer at Punta Arenas in Chile.
The trees also mention a "Stephens" as the wife of Thomas Potter Burbury. However, the line down to his children is drawn in such a way that it could be implying that the children are of a different marriage. In a letter written to me from Mrs. Kirsty Burbury in New Zealand, she lists his wife as being Edwina Winter. Maybe this indicates that Thomas Potter Burbury did actually have two wives, or it could be a reference to the scandal that plagued the household of Mrs E. Burbury the author.
(As far as the surname Winter goes, the IGI file published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints lists the marriage of a Thomas Potter Burbury and an Edwina Jane Hicks on the 9th of August, 1841 at Westminster, London. I would guess that this means that the surname of Thomas Potter's first wife was Hicks, not Winter.)
Further to this, I have found the following entry in the U.K. Census of 1851:
The New Zealand family trees are a bit sparse on dates, but Thomas Potter Burbury was born in 1815, which would make him around 35 at the time of the census. Furthermore, Edward Pargeter Burbury, the son of Thomas Potter Burbury, was born in 1854, which was after this census was taken.
There are no matches between the children given above and the children mentioned in my family tree sources, except that both mention a Thomas as a son of Thomas P. Burbury.
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