Chapter 1 - Early Burberrys and the Harrowsley Family
Chapter 2 - The Focus Shifts to Newdigate
Chapter 3 - Burberrys of London
Chapter 4 - From Surrey to the World
Chapter 5 - Unplaced Surrey Burberry Families
Chapter 6 - Further Notes and Resources
1. Introduction
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This chapter discusses various branches of the Surrey Burberry family who left the shores of the British Isles and emigrated to other parts of the world.
2. From Wisborough Green to the United States
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John Burberry and his wife Rebecca (nee Peskett) were the ancestors of a large family of Burberrys who originally lived at Nelsonville, Ohio in the United States, but who have since spread out to many other areas of the United States.
John was born in about 1788, the youngest son of David and Amy Burberry of Newdigate, Surrey, and he was baptised in Newdigate on 12 October 1788 [1].
John and his elder brother David Burberry worked in partnership in a fellmongering business at Loxwood, in the parish of Wisborough Green in Sussex. Fellmongering was the job of processing animal skins to produce items such as wool, leather, parchment and vellum, and was closely associated with the tanning trade. Nowadays the work of a fellmonger is done by machine, but it was a job that required considerable skill when done by hand. However, their partnership was brought to a close by David's death in 1815. David was aged 36, and his will made no mention of a wife and children; everything he had was left to his younger brother and business partner John [2].
Click here to read a transcript of David Burberry's will
A good description of the trade of fellmongering can be read here
For some time my co-researcher Wendy Stott and I were unsure of the identification of John and his subsequent story. The problem was that there was another John Burberry who was also said to have been born in Newdigate around the same time as this John (in about 1790 as opposed to in about 1788) [1]. I believe that we have finally managed to sort out this particular problem, and the solution to it is that the John Burberry who was baptised in 1788 in Newdigate to parents David and Amy was the John Burberry the fellmonger of Wisborough Green, not the John Burberry of Reigate who married Sophia Marsh.
The key to it was the will of David Burberry mentioned above [2]. There are no other Burberry families around this time that included brothers David and John, except for the family of David and Amy Burberry, and this supports the movement of both brothers from Newdigate to Wisborough Green; moreover John of Wisborough Green named one of his sons David [3], a name that was common in the David and Amy branch of the family, but non-existent (as far as we can tell) in the family of the other John Burberry.
Click here to read a discussion of the "other" John Burberry who married Sophia Marsh
John of Loxwood presumably continued on with the business he and his brother had been engaged in, until 1831, when he and his family left England and went to America as part of the Petworth Immigration Project. This was a scheme to bring immigrants from the English county of Sussex to Upper Canada (Ontario), and John Burberry and his family were part of the scheme, although their stay in Ontario was fairly short and they continued on to Athens County and then to the town of Lancaster in Ohio in the United States [4].
The http://www.petworthemigrations.com/ website gives some good information on the Petworth Imigration Project
The following extract from Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada: The Petworth Project, 1832-1837 describes the arrival of the settlers in Canada and their subsequant journey to Ohio.
"The last ship to arrive in 1832 was the England. We do not know where most of the ship's immigrants chose to settle, only the destination of the people sent by the parish of Wisborough Green. The decision to charter the England seems to have been sparked by letters from James Knight, identified by Sockett as a former maltster and innkeeper at Wisborough Green. Knight had gone to Athens County, Ohio with a party of English settlers after financial reverses at home. There, in addition to keeping a public house and a store, he was acting as an agent for the Courtauld family and promoting settlement on their estate.
"Sponsors in Wisborough Green arranged for Hale to take six families and three single men from their parish across the border to Knight's settlement. Despite arriving in the Canadas in mid-June when cholera was raging, Hale conducted the party safely from Montreal to Lake Ontario and across Lake Erie to Clevelend, where American authorities turned their vessel back to Upper Canada. Hale found another way ashore, hired wagons for Pittsburgh, and from there took his immigrants down the Ohio River to Marietta, a relatively short distance from Athens and Nelsonville.
"Knight described the people from Wisborough Green as arriving happy and 'stout hearted...tho worn down with fatigue.' and he gave Hale full credit for bringing them to their destination through the height of the cholera epidemic. Two women from Wisborough Green, both mothers of families, died within two weeks of arrival. The account of their deaths from a sickness that struck others as well as the Sussex immigrants did not give the cause or suggest that it might have been cholera. The rest of the Wisborough Green party stayed in Knight's settlement for only a few months and then moved to the town of Lancaster, Ohio." [4]
Unfortunately Rebecca Burberry was one of the two women who died soon after the arrival at Knight's settlement. The Reminiscences & Diary of Sarah Knight mentions the following:
"In August 1832 there came out to us a party from our own village, Wisbo Green, six families (sent by the parish) consisting of:
Mr. Burberry & wife & 8 children 10 Mr. Older & wife & 7 children 9 Mr. Thair & wife & 2 children 4 Mr. Saunder & wife & 3 children 5 Mr. Smart & wife & 2 children 4 Mr. Tribe & wife & 2 children 4 George Hook, Thomas Older, Ch Wuler (single men) 3 39 "The second week after they were here Mrs Saunder and I took sick. She had one babe die. But after a few weeks we recovered. ... Then Mr,. Thair took sick and Mrs. Burberry, who both died. Mr. and Mrs. Grapham came on soon after--with seven children, one died. They all continued here a few months & were doing well. We let them have every thing we could. But they soon became dissatisfied and went off to Lancaster." [5]
Family tree information that I have received from Virginia Curulla indicates that Rebecca died at Nelsonville, Ohio in October 1832 [6].
John married again sometime after Rebecca's death. The date and place of this marriage is unknown at present, but his second wife's given name was Ann and she appears with him in the 1850 and 1860 censuses for Lancaster, Ohio [7] [8]. John must have given away the business of fellmongering, because his occupation is listed as "whitewasher" in the 1850 census, and as "Day labourer" in the 1860 census. The ancestor of the Burberry family in the United States passed away at Lancaster on 17 February 1864 in his 75th year, and was survived by his second wife and six of his children [9].
Figure 1 - The Family of John and Rebecca Burberry of Wisborough Green
2a. John and Mary (née THAYER) Burberry
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John Burberry (1816--1889) was the eldest son of John and Rebecca Burberry of Wisborough Green [10]. Following is a transcript of the article on John Burberry which appeared in the History of Hocking Valley, Volume I. It is reproduced verbatim, except for formatting added by me.
"John Burberry, shipping clerk for C. L. Poston & Company, coal operators of Nelsonville, was born in Sussex County, England, Dec. 1, 1816, where he lived with his parents, John and Rebecca (Peskitt) Burberry, until his sixteenth year, receiving his education in the common school, when he immigrated with them to the United States, they arriving at Nelsonville, July 31, 1832.
"In 1833 he went to Lancaster, Ohio, where he learned the tailor's trade with George H. Smith, serving an apprenticeship of four years, after which he did journey work for a short time. About the year 1837 he began business for himself at Lancaster, continuing till the spring of 1841, when he removed to Bremen, Ohio, remaining there until 1844, and while there he served as Constable and Assessor for two years, holding both offices at the same time.
"Leaving Bremen he returned to Lancaster, where he continued the tailoring business till 1849, after which he was engaged in the store of L. D. Poston, of Nelsonville, for the following eight years. In 1857 he became associate with Mr. Poston as a coal operator, and after several years he was employed as a general manager of Mr. Poston's coal business, staying with him until 1875. Since then he has been employed by Mr. Poston's successor, C. L. Poston & Company, in various branches of their extensive business.
"May 14, 1874, he was married to Miss Mary, daughter of William and Mary Ann (Hampshire) Thayer. She was a native of Sussex County, England, and came with her parents to this country at the same time and on the same ship as our subject. Mr. and Mrs. Burberry are members of the M. E. church, of Nelsonville, of which he is Steward and Trustee." [11]
As mentioned in this article, John married Mary Thayer, who was a member of one of the other families who came out with the Burberrys as part of the Petworth Immigration Scheme. Sarah Knight's Reminiscences and Diary list this family as "Mr. Thair & wife & 2 children" [5].
John and Mary Burberry had no children, and after John died on 29 January 1889, some real estate that he owned in and around the village of Nelsonville was sold in order to settle the claims of some debts against his estate, in particular a sum of $2000 plus interest that he had borrowed from Johnson Coal (?) on 16 June 1888. The paperwork that was generated as part of the administration of John's estate lists the following as his only heirs and legal representatives: [12]
| Name | Relationship | Address |
| David Burberry | Brother | Chillicote, Missouri |
| Stephen Burberry | Brother | Indianola, Iowa |
| George Burberry | Brother | Logan, Ohio |
| James Hardgrove | Nephew *1 | Nelsonville, Ohio |
| Roland Hardgrove | Nephew *1 | Nelsonville, Ohio |
| Lelia Scott | Niece *1 | Nelsonville, Ohio |
| Mary Harps | Niece *1 | Lancaster, Ohio |
| John L. Webster | Nephew *2 | Indiana |
| Rebecca A. Webster | Niece *2 | Indiana |
| Sarah L. Latta | Niece *2 | Indiana |
| Mary E. Tanapohl | Niece *2 | Indiana |
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*1: Children of John's sister Sarah who married Rowland HARDGROVE *2: Children of John's sister (Mary) Elizabeth who married Jacob WEBSTER | ||
The list of heirs-at-law noticeably omits any mention of John's second brother Thomas and his children, which suggests that none of Thomas' family were surviving at the time the estate was being administered.
Click here to read a transcript of John Burberry's obituary
2b. Thomas and Mary Ann (née TEAGARDEN) Burberry
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Thomas Burberry (1818--1888) was the second son of John and Rebecca Burberry of Wisborough Green [10]. He married Mary Ann TEAGARDEN at Circleville, Ohio, on 17 February 1853, when he was 34 years of age [13].
The 1860 United States census for Lancaster, Ohio lists the household of Thomas and Mary Ann together with two children whose names appear only as initials - a son J.T. aged 5 years, and a daughter G.A. aged 6 months. Thomas' occupation is given as "stage driver" [14].
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However, it would seem that Thomas' family did not flourish, and had disappeared by 1889. Mary Ann's death notice appeared in the Lancaster Gazette on 9 December 1869 [15], and Thomas himself was killed in a printing press accident in Jamesville, Ohio in July 1888 [16]. The notes referred to by Mary Anderson mention that Thomas was a "widower with one child", but it is unclear who this child might have been. And following this, a Petition to Sell Real Estate submitted to the Athens County Probate Court on 8 July 1889 by the administrator of John Burberry, Thomas' elder brother, list all of the heirs and legal representatives of John but makes no mention of any children of Thomas [12]. This suggests that by this time, there were no surviving members of Thomas' family alive to be included in the joint claim against John Burberry's estate. |
 Figure 2 - Family of Thomas and Mary Ann Burberry of Lancaster |
John and Rebecca's third son was James Burberry (1820--1847) [10]. His known story is even shorter than that for his brother Thomas. James did not marry and had no recorded children, and died at the home of his elder brother John in Lancaster on 23 December 1847 [17].
2c. David Burberry and his Several Marriages
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In contrast to his three elder brothers, David Burberry, the fourth son of John and Rebecca, had a very large family, and a substantial number of present-day Burberry households in the United States can claim a line of descent from him.
A short passage in the article on George R. Burberry in a History of Kentucky edited by C. Kerr, has the following to say about David.
David Burberry was born in England, and was ten years of age when brought by his parents to the United States, the family locating in Ohio. There the lad grew to young manhood, learning the trade of carpenter and receiving a common school education, and as a journeyman went to Kentucky, where he became, subsequently, a merchant at Winchester. After about three years at Winchester he went to Missouri in 1858 and engaged in contracting, and his death occurred at Chillicothe. [18]
Click here to read a transcript of the full article on George Burberry
There has been some confusion over the names of David's spouses, caused partly by the fact that he married three times. Materials provided by several researchers, notably Mary Anderson and Virginia Curulla, have enabled us to work through the confusion, so that David's marriages can be listed as follows [6] [16].
| Spouse Name | YOB--YOD | Date of marriage | Place of marriage |
| Emily Mills KENNEDY | 1827--1852 | 19 December 1843 | Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky |
| Parmelia HOLDEN | 1832--1859 | 10 November 1853 | Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky |
| Mary Ann COOK | 1832--1911 | 26 February 1860 | Chillicothe, Livingstone County, Missouri |
The family of David Burberry's first marriage
In 1843, after David's move to Winchester in Clark county, Kentucky, he married Emily Mills Kennedy [6]. His family from this marriage is shown below.
Figure 3 - David Burberry's First Marriage to Emily Mills Kennedy
In this first family, the Burberry surname continued only through David and Emily's eldest son James Marcus Burberry, their other two sons David and Robert having died young. James moved to Anderson County in Texas, where he married Arrena Churchill in 1879. I'm not sure how far the family continued after this. James and Arrena's son Robert was buried in 1976 in the local cemetery at Creagleville in Van Zandt county, but whether he had any family of his own is not known at the moment. However, it is highly likely that there are many descendants of David and Emily still living in the Winchester area of Kentucky (and elsewhere too no doubt) as descendants of their daughter Catherine who married Absolom Mendenhall [16].
Here is a website which has a index of burials in the Creagleville cemetery in Van Zandt county, including some entries for the Burberry family
David's first wife Emily died in September 1852. I don't know her cause of death, but David suffered two losses in a fairly short time -- his wife's death followed about a month after the death of his younger son David in August 1852 at the tender age of only three years old [16].
The family of David Burberry's second marriage
After his first wife's death, David was left with three young children, the eldest aged 8, the youngest aged 1. If this was a problem for him, he solved it in a way that has been commonly employed by menfolk through the ages -- he married again two months later. His second wife was Parmelia Holden, a young lady of 20. I am not sure exactly where the marriage took place, but David appears to have still been living in Clarke county at the time, so no doubt the marriage occurred there [16].
David and Parmelia had four children of their own, in addition to the three children from David's first marriage (which were reduced to two after David and Emily's last child Robert died in infancy in 1853) [6]. It was around this time that David and his family moved from Kentucky to Missouri, as the short detail in the History of Kentucky article mentioned earlier [18]. This is shown clearly by the places of birth for David and Parmelia's children. Their first two children Charles Robert (b. 1854) and Sallie Moss (b. 1856) were born in Kentucky [6] [16], whereas their third child Flora (b. abt. 1858) was born in Missouri [19].
Figure 4 - David Burberry's Second Marriage to Parmelia Holden
At the time of the 1880 United States census, David and Parmelia's eldest son Charles was 26 years old. He had moved away from his parents who were still in Missouri, and had gone back to Kentucky, where the census shows him living in Georgetown, Scott county, single and working as a blacksmith [20]. A few years later he had returned to Missouri for his marriage to Flora Cox in 1883 [13]. After this, however, he disappears from my records. Virginia Curulla's notes (citing notes that she received from Alice Norris) suggest that Charles may have married a second time. She also notes that Charles' wife Flora A. COX might be the same person as the Flora COOK who was one of the daughters of Willis COOK and Mary Ann AMICK (who later became David Burberry's third wife) [6].
Once more David's presumed marital bliss was shattered by the death of his wife -- Parmelia Burberry died in July 1859, a few days after the birth of her fourth child Benjamin. The close proximity in dates between Benjamin's birth and his mother's death suggests that Parmelia's cause of death was as a result of complications from childbirth, but this is my assumption. Benjamin himself might also have been a sickly baby, as he died less than a month later, on 15 August 1859 [16].
The family of David Burberry's third marriage
Once again David Burberry found himself a widower with young children to care for. His eldest son James was now 15 and Catherine was 13, but the three surviving children of his second marriage were aged around 5, 3 and 1 respectively. And once more he got himself married.
David's third wife was Mary Ann COOK née AMICK. Mary Ann was born in 1832 in Howard County, Missouri [6]. She had been married previously to a Willis COOK in 1854, and had two children Lenore and Flora by that marriage [21]. Willis may have died after only a few years of this marriage, as Mary Ann (as Mary A. COOK) subsequently married David Burberry on 26 February 1860 (at a place that is not known, but it was probably Chillicothe) [22].
Figure 5 - David Burberry's Third Marriage to Mary Ann Cook
David and Mary's marriage produced the largest number of children, and subsequently the largest number of descendants. This is an assertion, because to date I have only been able to definitely follow one line of David and Mary's descendants down to the modern day. That is the line of their eldest son George R. Burberry (1861--1939), whose great-grandson Keith Burberry was one of my first correspondents for this family [22].
The tree below shows two generations of the family of George R. Burberry and his wife Lillie May McDaniel.
Figure 6 - Two Generations of the Family of George R. Burberry
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There was some confusion among various researchers (including myself) about the identity of this George R. Burberry, as he was continually getting confused with another George R. Burberry who lived in Indianola in the state of Iowa. The two Georges were born within a few years of each other and were in fact first cousins, as is shown in the figure at right. The History of Kentucky article on George clearly establishes the identity of the George R. Burberry who lived in Kentucky and was the son of David Burbury [18]. The story of the "other" George R. Burberry is told more fully in the section below on the family of Stephen Burberry. |
 Figure 7 - The Two George R. Burberrys |
George grew up in Chillicothe, Missouri and worked in the pioneering telegraph industry in Missouri and New Mexico, before finally moving to Harrison County, Kentucky where his wife Lillie had originally come from. He then moved to Centreville in nearby Bourbon County, where he took up a position as station agent, and he and his family lived there from then on. He was apparently the first person in Bourbon County -- and perhaps in the state of Kentucky -- to install a wireless telephone and telegraph in his home. His life is described in some detail in an article which was published in the History of Kentucky, edited by C. Kerr (1922) [18]. I have made a transctrption of this article, and you can read it by clicking here.
Click here to read a transcription of the article on George R. Burberry in History of Kentucky
Apart from George's article in the History of Kentucky, I have managed to find the households for both him and his son George McDaniel Burberry in the 1920 and 1930 censuses for Bourbon and Fayette Counties in Kentucky, and they show that the family was settled in that area and growing to a substantial size [23] [24] [25]. Even to this day, a look at the White Pages for the United States shows a very strong concentration of households with the BURBERRY surname in the area around Lexington (Harrison, Clark, Bourbon, Fayette and Woodville Counties) in Kentucky. I assume that many of these households are descendants of George R. Burberry of Centreville.
There are other lines of descent from David and Mary Ann also that I am trying to work through. Figure xx above shows their children. A correspondent Mary Anderson traces her descent from their third son Clyde P. Burberry (1864--1938) who married Addie Jane BOWLES. Two other sons William Edwin and Stephen Oliver also married, but no descendants for these two have been confirmed [6] [16].
HOWEVER, I strongly suspect that in my collection of United States census data, there are some entries that might correspond to William Edwin's family. These census entries revolve around the family of an Eri R. Burberry who was born in around 1893. Although I am missing the crucial bits of direct evidence that prove the relationship, the circumstantial evidence is strong enough to make the matter almost certain.
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Eri's first appearance is in the 1900 census for Grand Junction, Colorado, where he is living with his mother Lovella Burberry and his two sisters Kittie and Mabel. The children's birth places are given as Colorado, and their father's birthplace is given as Missouri [26]. Furthermore, Lovella's marital status is given as "D". This is not the usual "S" for single or "M" for married, and while I'm not sure what it means, it could mean something like "Divorced"? This needs to be checked. The reason why this looks like a household belonging to William Edwin Burberry's family is because William himself was also in Colorado in 1900. He appears on the 1900 census living at Ironton, Ouray County (which was not far to the south-east of Mesa County), and he also has the "D" in the column showing his marital status [27]. Moreover, William is known to have been born in Missouri [19]. Hence the unusual matching marital status for William and Lovella and the matching state of birth for William and for the father of Lovella's children, lead me to the conclusion that William was Lovella's husband, and hence the father of the children who were living with Lovella in 1900. |
 Figure 8 - The Family of William Edwin Burberry |
An additional bit of evidence for this identification is that Eri gave the name Celesta to his daughter [28], which evokes his mother's name. The family tree data from Mary Anderson and Virginia Curulla give the name of William's wife as Celeste L. Reanes [6] [16], so presumably the initial "L" stood for "Lovella".
William's younger brother Stephen Oliver (apparently known by his second name Oliver or "Olie") has no known family past his marriages. He married twice, to a Cora BROWN and to a Celestine BROWN [6]. No dates and places for these marriages have yet been found, although Celestine was likely to have been the second marriage as she appears with Olie (with her name transcribed in some published indexes as "Palastine") in the 1930 census for Fort Worth, Texas [29]. The lack of posterity for Olie may not be the situation in reality -- it is simply a result of a lack of information on him between his appearances in the 1880 census (aged 13) [19] and the 1930 census (aged 63).
2d. Stephen and Elizabeth (née CHESHIRE) Burberry
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Stephen Burberry was the fifth son of the immigrants John and Rebecca. He travelled with the rest of his family from Sussex to Ohio, arriving in the New World when he was not much more than 5 years old [16]. On reaching adulthood he worked first as a farmer and then as a coal digger, living all of this time in Athens County in Ohio. The 1860 census lists him as having $1100 in real estate and $150 in personal property [30] [31]. His first marriage, to Phebe STEENROD in 1852 [13], was unfortunately brief and ended after only five months with her death in November of the same year [32]. Stephen married again a few years later in 1855, this time to an Elizabeth CHESHIRE [13].
Stephen and Elizabeth continued to live in Athens county for several years, and their first three children John, George and Franz were all born there. After Franz' birth in 1862, however, the family moved to Warren County in Iowa, where the last two children, Elizabeth and Huldah, were born [33].
Figure 9 - The Family of Stephen and Elizabeth Burberry of Iowa
The only line of descent that I am aware of from Stephen and Elizabeth is through their second son George R. Burberry. Their eldest son John died in early adulthood and did not appear to have married [34]; their youngest son Franz Sigel married but he and his wife Martha appear in various censuses without any children [35] [36].
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George R. Burberry, the second son of Stephen and Elizabeth, should not be confused with his cousin George R. Burberry who was the son of David and Mary Ann Burberry. This other George was around the same age as George in Iowa, but lived in Centreville, Kentucky. I created some of this confusion myself during the initial stages of my research into this family. I believe the error started with the assignment of two marriages to the same George R. Burberry: firstly the marriage to Lillie May McDaniel in Kentucky in 1887, followed by the marriage to Jane Kerr also in 1887 but in Iowa. In fact my data still shows that both marriages took place on the same day, so this might still be an error left over from the original confusion. After the dust of confusion settled, George R. Burberry's first wife was Jane Kerr, the daughter of a Mr and Mrs E. W. Kerr of Omaha, Nebraska [37]. A descendant, Denise Hill, wrote to me that Jane Kerr "... was an actress in Hollywood and had roles in the movies 'The Painted Veil' (1934), 'She Gets Her Man' (1935), 'Les Miserables' (1935), 'The Garden of Allah' (1936), and 'You Can't Have Everything' (1937). They were smaller roles, but she is listed in the cast credits." [38] |
Figure 10 - The Two George R. Burberrys |
The confusion over identifying George R. Burberry that I mentioned above, is not helped by the fact that even after George's marriage to Jane in 1887 and the birth of their daughter Orena in 1890, George then appears in the 1900 census for Indianola as a single man (in other words, not widowed or divorced) [39]. If this is saying something definite about his marital status at the time, I'm not sure what it is; otherwise, it may simply be a reporting or transcription error. By 1920 he appears to have married again, as his wife Cora J. Burberry appears with him in the census for that year [40]. Then by 1930 his marital status is this "D" (for divorced?), and he is living with his brother Sig and working in Sig's grocery and variety store as a clerk [41].
George and Jane's line continued through their only child, a daughter Orena. She married twice, the first time to a Seth WEEKS, and secondly to James BURSON.
Click here to read a transcription of the obituary for Orena Burson née Burberry
Click here to read a transcription of the obituary for Orena's first husband Seth Weeks
2e. George and Maria (née KAUFFMAN) Burberry
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The youngest son of John and Rebecca was George Burberry. He was born in 1830, so would been very young indeed when the family left Sussex [6].
Figure 11 - The Family of George and Maria Burberry of Ohio
Not a great deal is known about George. He married a Maria KAUFFMAN in 1861 in Lancester, Ohio, and most of his life was spent in Logan and Gore Falls in nearby Hocking County, working as a baker [42] [43].
George and Maria had several children, as shown in teh figure above. Of those who have been located in the later censuses such as the those for 1920 and 1930 for 1920, they all seem to have stayed in Ohio [44] [45] [46]. The chart below shows the next generation of descendants of George and Maria, all of who were living in Ohio around 1920 and 1930.
Figure 12 - Descendants of George and Maria Burberry
Again, my information on these families more or less runs out after 1930. Whereas other branches of the Burberry family spread out from Ohio to other states such as Kentucky and Iowa and even as far away as California, George's branch appears to have stayed in Ohio for longer. Having said that, however, I have only found one entry in the modern-day United States White Pages for a Burberry household in Ohio.
2f. The Burberry Daughters
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In addition to the sons of John and Rebecca Burberry who have perpetuated the Burberry surname in the United States, the descendants of the Burberry family have also swelled greatly through their two daughters (Mary) Elizabeth and Sarah.
The following two trees show the children of the two Burberry girls, Elizabeth who married Jacob WEBSTER, and Sarah who married Rowland HARDGROVE. The children's names that appear in brown are those who were named as legal heirs and beneficiaries of their uncle John Burberry Junior.
Figure 13 - Family of Elizabeth Webster née Burberry
Figure 14 - Family of Sarah Hardgrove née Burberry
Although the scope of my own research has centred more closely on the BURBERRY surname, other researchers have followed through the lines of Elizabeth and Sarah in much more detail, in particular Virginia Curulla who has done extensive work on her WEBSTER line and has been an invaluable source of information on the overall family. She also pays tribute to the work done by Alice Norris, who in turn received much information from her own mother Mary Deane Webster, a granddaughter of Elizabeth Burberry who married Jacob Webster.
3. From Wales to New Zealand - Walter Arthur Burbery
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1. Introduction
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The Wales Burbery family lives almost entirely in New Zealand, but the name for this family comes from the earliest Burbery member of this family, a Walter Arthur BURBERY who was born in Aberstwyth, Wales in 1888 [1] [2].
2. Origins in the Howell family of Wales
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One of the first contacts I had with the Wales Burbery family was with Ron Burbery of New Zealand, who told me how very little was known of his grandfather Walter's early years, except for his place of birth. Ron also told me that there was some confusion about Walter's surname. It seems that he had used the surname HOWELL as well as BURBERY, and the family were not sure of why this was or which surname was Walter's original surname [1].
A partial answer to this was found in records from England and Wales. Firstly, the General Record Office (GRO) indexes of Births, Deaths and Marriages contain an entry for the birth of a Walter Arthur HOWELL, registerd in the December quarter of 1888 in the district of Aberystwyth, Wales [3]. Further exploration turned up Walter and his family in the 1891 census living at 9 Portland Lane, Aberystwyth in the county of Cardiganshire, Wales [4].
| Place: 9 Portland Lane, Aberystwyth (RG12/4558/22/38) | ||||
| Name | Relationship | Age | Occupation | Place of Birth |
| Alfred George HOWELL | Head | 44 | General Labourer | Islington, London |
| Sarah HOWELL | Wife | 42 | Aberystwyth | |
| James HOWELL | Son | 16 | Plumber's Apprentice | Aberystwyth |
| Louie HOWELL | Daur | 13 | Aberystwyth | |
| Alfred Ernest HOWELL | Son | 11 | Aberystwyth | |
| Annie HOWELL | Daur | 6 | Aberystwyth | |
| Walter Arthur HOWELL | Son | 2 | Aberystwyth | |
| William John HOWELL | Brother | 46 | Screwer in Rig Waggon Works | Islington, London |
This Howell family appear in earlier censuses too. In 1881 Alfred George and Sarah were living at the same place, 9 Portland Lane, with their children and Alfred's brother William John [5]. Ten years before that, in 1871, they were still in Aberystwyth, but at a different address, in Coronation Street [6].
A search of the 1861 census for England turned up the following household, which would appear to be Alfred George Howell and his brother William with their parents James and Mary, living in Clerkenwell, London [7]. Clerkenwell is in the borough of Islington, which is where Alfred and William were born.
| Place: 1 Mount Road, Clerkenwell, London (RG9/-- (pending) ) | ||||
| Name | Relationship | Age | Occupation | Place of Birth |
| Jamesa HOWELL | Head | 56 | Greengrocer | Usk, Monmouthshire |
| Mary HOWELL | Wife | 53 | Basingstoke, Hants | |
| Eliza HOWELL | Daur | 23 | Plumber's Apprentice | Islington |
| Mary HOWELL | Daur | 21 | Islington | |
| William HOWELL | Son | 16 | Clerkenwell | |
| James HOWELL | Son | 16 | Clerkenwell | |
| Alfred HOWELL | Son | 14 | Islington | |
Thus a summary of the family's movements during the latter half of the 19th century would go something like this: James Howell, a native Welshman from the county of Monmouthshire, moved from Wales down to London, probably some time before 1840 when he was aged in his mid 30's, and married Mary, an English girl from Hampshire. Later on, perhaps in about 1870, James and Mary's youngest son Alfred moved back to Wales, to Aberystwyth and married a local girl there. Alfred and his new wife Sarah settled down in Aberystwyth and raised their family there for the next 30 years.
This clears up some of the confusion over Walter Arthur Burbery's surname. His original surname was clearly HOWELL, as shown by his birth registration and the 1891 census [3] [4].
3. The Change from Howell to Burbery
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The next step of the mystery was to find out why Walter Arthur Howell had changed his surname to Burbery. I supposed that part of the question would be answered if we could locate Walter at some point in time between the 1891 census and his next confirmed appearance, which was in 1914 in New Zealand where he married Elizabeth BRADNOCK [8]. At the time of his marriage in 1914, he had adopted the surname of BURBERY, as this surname appears on his marriage certificate, and he and his family used the BURBERY surname exclusively from that point on.
The big clue to the "Burbery" question came in the form of the 1901 census for England. By 1901 Walter would have been about 12 years old, and so I searched through the 1901 census records for a Walter Howell who fit the known criteria. And I found one -- and as luck would have it, he was staying in the home of a Henry and Maggie Burbery!
Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the households of Henry and Maggie Burbery in the 1901 and 1891 censuses respectively [9] [10]. The information is fairly consistent between the two households, which confirms that the households are for the same people. One minor point of difference is that Henry's surname is spelt as "Burberry" in 1891 and "Burbery" in 1901, but that was a common-enough occurrence.
One interesting thing about this household -- in addition to their surname -- is Maggie's place of birth. The 1901 census gives her place of birth simply as "Wales", but the 1891 census gives it as "Cardiganshire, Wales". Cardiganshire is the county in Wales where Aberystwyth is located. So it seems obvious from this that Maggie Burbery was some sort of relative of the Howells, who also lived in Aberystwyth. This is supported by the fact that in the 1901 census, Walter is listed as Henry and Maggie's nephew.
As often happens, the answering of one question usually gives rise to more questions. And this is the case here too: The excerpts from the 1891 and 1901 censuses above show us that Walter Howell was a nephew to Henry and Maggie Burbery, and Walter's presence in their household probably had something to do with the reason why Walter later took the surname of BURBERY. Maybe Walter's real parents had died and so he was taken in by his relatives and raised as their son?
The relationship that clearly existed between Walter Howell and the Burberys would have been through Maggie's family rather than Henry's family. I sat this is because Maggie was shown as having been born in Cardiganshire where Walter was born [10]. As yet I haven't been able to establish exactly what this relationship was. As Walter was a nephew, that would make Maggie his aunt. I suppose that before her marriage, Maggie was either a HOWELL (sister to Walter's father Alfred Howell) or a JEFFRIES (sister to Walter's mother Sarah Howell née Jeffries). Unfortunately despite my best efforts, I have been unable to locate a marriage for Henry and Maggie. So I don't know what Maggie's maiden name was.
One way around this particular impasse would be to search the Welsh censuses for years prior to 1891 to try and find a Maggie (or Margaret) who was born in Aberystwyth at around the required date (around 1854 judging by her ages given in the 1891 and 1901 censuses). I suspect that Maggie was from the JEFFRIES side rather than the HOWELL side, because Alfred Howell and his siblings were born in and around Clerkenwell, Middlesex [6] [7] rather than in Wales; it was his wife Sarah née Jeffries whose family came from Aberystwyth in Cardiganshire [4] [5] [6].
4. Who were these Burberys?
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So who was Henry Burbery?
This Henry caused me a little bit of trouble when it came to identifying him. The known facts seemed pretty clear: the 1891 and 1901 censuses told us that he was born around 1854 in Godstone [9] [10], and this and the surname spelling of "Burbery" indicated to me quite clearly that he belonged to the family of John Burbery (1808--1849) of Bletchingley, Surrey. John had several sons who lived at Godstone and worked in the stone quarries there, and two of these sons -- Robert and John -- had sons named Henry. Robert's son Henry was born in 1864 and died young, so he could be discounted. The problem with John's son Henry was that he was also born in 1864, according to the information that my co-researchers and I had taken from the Godstone parish registers. However, it had always seemed a bit odd that John and his wife Hannah had had another child, a daughter Rosy, who was also baptised in 1864, and only two months before Henry [11]. If the two children had been born together, then why hadn't they been baptised together?
Another co-researcher had transcribed the date of baptism for John's son Henry as 1834 instead of 1864, so obviously something was getting mixed up and the matter needed to be checked. On checking, it was verified that both years were wrong, and Henry had in fact been baptised in 1854! So it all fitted together .... Walter Howell's uncle Henry Burbery turned out to be this one after all, son of John Burbery of Godstone and grandson of John Burbery of Bletchingley. The Godstone Burberys are a branch of a very large family that was based in the county of Surrey in England and traces its line of descent back to a William Burberry (died 1684). I have written extensively on this large family in the Surrey Burberry family article on this website.
Click here to go to the information page for the Surrey Burberry family
5. From Wales to New Zealand
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The reason for Walter's adoption of the Burbery surname is still not fully known, though. I assume it would be linked to the reason why Walter was in his uncle and aunt's household in 1901 rather than with his parents. Perhaps Walter's parents had died -- or left him for some reason -- and he was taken in and adopted by his uncle Henry and aunt Maggie as their own son. Henry and Maggie do not appear to have had any other children that I can find, so maybe they welcomed this chance to have a child of their own to look after and raise.
Henry Burbery died in 1910, when Walter was 22 years old [12]. It may have been soon after the death of his uncle and adopted father that Walter decided he would leave the British Isles and try his luck in a new land. Whenever it was that he decided to leave, by 1914 he had made his way to New Zealand and was living in Wellington, where he married Elizabeth BRADNOCK [8].
Figure 2 below shows the children Walter and Elizabeth, most of whom were born in Wellington (or at least, their births were registered there). Only one child's birth was not registered in Wellington, and that was Leonard Walter, who was born at Lower Hutt [13].
4.
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5. Sidney Burberry - A Research Success Story
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