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. What are Unplaced Families?
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The first four chapters of this article (Early Burberrys and the Harrowsley Family, The Focus Shifts to Newdigate, Burberrys of London and Empires and Emigrations) have covered the large, interconnected family known as the "Surrey Burberry family". This family and all its branches descend ultimately from a William Burberry (d. abt. 1684) of Burstow and Harrowsley.
The "unplaced families" that are covered in this chapter are those families which are almost certain to be part of the Surrey Burberry family, but so far we are missing the evidence that allows us to say which part of the Surrey family they belong to.
Of course, the ultimate goal would be to have *no* families listed here at all. But that is probably never going to happen, as there will always be gaps in our knowledge due to sources that haven't survived to the modern day, or there will be families who simply did not generate enough source material for us to be able to track them and work out who they were. However, I am optimistic that at least some of the families here will one day be taken out of the "unplaced" list and will be assigned their rightful place in the greater Surrey Burberry family.
The families described in this chapter are families that extend further than one or two generations, and which are more than likely to be part of the Surrey Burberry family. There is a much larger list of unplaced individuals and small families on the Unplaced Individuals and Family Groups page. However, the entries for this latter page cover the worldwide situation regarding unplaced people, not just those from the Surrey Burberry family.
2. John and Sophia Burberry (née Marsh) of Reigate, Surrey
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The first mention that has been located for this unplaced John Burberry of Reigate appears in the Horley, Surrey parish register, which records his marriage to Sophia Marsh on 18 December 1811 at Horley. The marriage was by licence, and both the bride and groom lived in Horley. Sophia might have been underage at the time, as the register notes that the bride had the consent of her parents to marry. The witnesses were Thomas Marsh and Mary Marsh [1]. John and Sophia lived at New Pond Farm near Woodhatch for much of their life [2] [3], and after Sophia's death John retired to a cottage a short distance away, in Priory Road, South Park [4]. |
 Figure 5-1. Looking West Along Priory Road, South Park, Early 1900s (photo courtesy of Alan Moore of Redhill) |
2a. A Discussion of John Burberry's Origins
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The big problem with John is, we have no idea who his parents were. And because his parents are not known, he and his family cannot be tied in to the larger Surrey Burberry family tree yet, although it is an absolute certainty that he belongs in the family somewhere.
What is known about his origins? Well, to start with, his date and place of baptism are not known. There aren't even any outside candidates for the baptism of a John Burberry that even remotely look like his. And this is even though my co-researcher Wendy Stott and I have done blanket searches of all the parish registers we can think of that centre around Reigate.
The table below summarises the evidence that we have found regarding John Burberry of Reigate's date and place of birth.
| Year of Birth | Place of Birth | Reasoning | Source |
| Approx. 1789 | Newdigate | Aged 62 in 1851 | 1851 English census [2] |
| Approx. 1790 | Newdigate | Aged 71 in 1861 | 1861 English census [3] |
| Approx. 1790 | ---------- | Aged 84 in 1874 | Burial registers for parish of Redhill, Surrey [5] |
| Approx. 1790 | ---------- | Aged 84 in 1874 | General Record Office index of death registrations [6] |
It should be noted here that we have not yet managed to find John in the 1871 census, although he should be there somewhere since he died in 1874 (his wife Sophia having predeceased him by 20 years). At the time of his death he was living at Priory Road, South Park near Reigate, which was near his old home of New Pond Farm, and he was buried in the churchyard of St John, Redhill [5].
Nevertheless, even though the information on date and place of birth from the 1871 census would be welcome, the consensus still seems to be that John was born in around 1889 or 1890 in Newdigate. Easier said than confirmed though. I've personally scoured the Newdigate parish registers twice, and so has Wendy (and not the IGI indexes either, but microfilm copies of the actual registers), and we've failed to turn up any evidence of a baptism for John. We've extended the search to cover other registers in the area, including Capel, Leigh, Betchworth, Horley, Horne, Burstow, Reigate, Buckland and Nutfield, and still nothing has turned up. I've even looked at the Betchworth non-conformist registers, still with no joy.
The nearest candidate we have managed to find is a John Burberry who was baptised in Newdigate in 1788, the son of David and Amy Burberry of Newdigate [7]. Wendy and I had a series of disputes (totally friendly ones, I assure you) over the identity of this John. On one hand, he fitted the known facts for "Sophia's John" perfectly; but also, he was a perfect match for another John Burberry (nicknamed "Rebeccas's John") who had turned up elsewhere in our researches. This other John Burberry married Rebecca PESKETT (hence the nickname) on 20 June 1815 at Wisborough Green, Sussex [8] and emigrated with Rebecca and family to the United States of America as part of the "Petworth Immigration Project" [9].
Click here to read the story of John Burberry of Wisborough Green who emigrated to the United States
In the end, we came to the conclusion that the baptism record for John Burberry in the Newdigate parish registers for 1788 referred to "Rebecca's John" and not "Sophia's John". The reasons for this were as follows:
2b. A Possible Clue: Did John have a Brother?
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So this left us with no primary record for the birth or baptism of "Sophia's John", and no information on who his parents might have been. Even after looking at the Burberry families who lived around Newdigate during the 1790s, there is no who looks like they might be a possible parent for John. There is someone, however, who I think might have been John's brother. This is just a theory I have -- I could perhaps describe it more as a "gut feeling". This possible brother of John Burberry of Reigate was James Burberry of Newick and Merstham. James Burberry of Merstham is another "unknown" Burberry whose parentage is unknown. His story is dealt with more fully in 3. James Burberry of Merstham, Surrey below.
Click here to read the story of James Burberry of Merstham, Surrey
Briefly, the reasons why I think John Burberry of Reigate and James Burberry of Merstham might be brothers are as follows:
The third point is an interesting one. Does it mean that we the researchers have overlooked the whole of a crucial record somewhere? Have we missed out a parish somewhere in our blanket checks? Will we be looking at a record one day that we haven't looked at yet, and all of a sudden all these hitherto unknown entries will start pouring forth? It's a nice thought, that one day the answers to these riddles may be solved. In the meantime, John and Sophia Burberry of Reigate remain as the earliest-known ancestors of a fairly large family of Burberrys in Surrey who cannot be linked into the larger "Surrey Burberry" family.
2c. John and Sophia's Descendants
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After John and Sarah's marriage in 1811, their names appear in the parish registers for Horley for the baptisms of their children Sophia (b. 1812), John (b. 1814) and Stephen (b. 1817). For John's and Stephen's baptisms, the additional information is provided that the father John was a farmer and he lived at New Pond, Horley [1]. The two youngest children, William (b. 1826) and George (b. 1828), were baptised in the parish of Reigate [13], although George subsequently gave his actual place of birth as nearby Horley in the 1851 census [2].
When we look at the ages of these known children, it becomes apparent that there is a substantial gap between the birth of Stephen in 1817 and the birth of William in 1826. So it is quite likely that there are other children who were born during this gap, which amounts to almost ten years. And indeed three more children have been identified based on evidence such as wills and marriage registers, even though no actual birth or baptism entries have yet been located. The additional children who have been located are Catherine Esther (b. abt. 1818), Sarah (b. before 1822) and Thomas (b. abt. 1823).
Sarah and Thomas are mentioned in their father John's will [4], and so their identifications are solid enough on this basis. Catherine's identidfication is a bit more tenuous, but it goes as follows: The Horley marriage register includes an entry for the marriage of a Catherine Esther Burberry to Thomas Robinson in 1840. At this time, Catherine's place of residence was Reigate and her age was 22, giving an approximate year of birth as 1818. But more significantly, Catherine's father was John BURBERRY, farmer, and the witnesses were John and Sophia BURBERRY [1]. Hence the age and the names of the witnesses are basically exact matches for another daughter of John and Sophia Burberry of New Pond Farm.
Click here to read a transcript of John Burberry's will
If all of these assumptions and identifications are correct, then the known family of John and Sophia Burberry looks like this:
Horley and Reigate are close to each other. Other villages and hamlets that are mentioned in the story of John and Sophia include Redhill, Earlswood, Woodhatch, Doversgreen, Sidlow and South Park, and the map below shows how close all of these places are. (The only one of these locations that doesn't appear in the map is Woodhatch, which is between Doversgreen and Earlswood.) New Pond Farm, where John and Sophia lived, is also a stone's throw south of Earlswood.
John and Sophia's modern-day descendants are fairly numerous. However, having said that, there are no known lines of descent from their first two sons. The first son John (b. abt. 1814) started off by following in the family footsteps and was a farmer. However, some time between 1841 (when he and his wife Elizabeth Ireland were married) and 1851, he moved away from Horley, changed his occupation and became a retailer of beer [14] and a victualler at the "Purley Arms" in Croydon, Surrey [15].
No further descendants of John and Elizabeth have been located. It is possible that their younger sons Walter John and George married, but neither of them can be found in the 1901 census; the last mention of them in the 1891 census, where they are both unmarried and living with their sister Eliza and a niece Maud Burberry [15]. I don't know who Maud's parents were, although I daresay the answer to that question could be provided for the cost of a birth certificate -- the birth of an Emily Maud BURBERRY was registered in the March quarter of 1880 in the district of Kensington, and that could be her [16].
Any questions about the continuation of the BURBERRY surname from John and Sophia's second son Stephen can be dealt with quite easily: it didn't. Stephen married Ruth FARHALL in 1842 [17] and they had several children including four daughters, but their only son Stephen died in October 1872 aged 26 and unmarried. Tombstones for Stephen and Ruth and their children Emily, Stephen and Sarah can be found in the churchyard of St. Emanuel at Sidlow, which was close to Doversgreen where the family lived [18].
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Stephen Senior was a victualler and beer house keeper, which is what we would nowadays call a publican. He kept the Beehive Pub in Doversgreen for many years, and still had it when Westerham Ales took it over in 1890. It seems that the Burberry family continued to run it after then, as a report of an 1895 fire there says:
"Two part boarded and brick house, one used as post office the other as a beer house, was well alight with roof falling in when brigade arrived. Fire caused by Mrs Burberry ascending stairs with parffin lamp, catching foot in stair carpet and falling. Paraffin spilt and ignited house." It was run by the Blundell family from 1909 - 1949. They lived in the pub itself, the white-boarded side. By then the Burberrys lived in the brick side and ran a wheelwrights and smithy. In 1949 it was taken over by Allied Breweries [19]. |
 Figure 5-6. Beehive Pub at Doversgreen circa 1920s (photo courtesy of Alan Moore of Redhill) |
Alan Moore and Richard Symonds have created some web pages containing photographs of Redhill and the surrounding area, and the photos and information on the Beehive pub mentioned above are taken from these pages. The original links to these pages are:
Public Houses of Reigate, Past and Present
A Journey Through Reigate Past
I'm not exactly sure who the "Mrs Burberry" was who started the fire. Stephen's wife Ruth had died in 1871 [18], and in the 1881 and 1891 censuses Stephen was described as a widower with no second wife sharing his household [20] [21].
The wheelwrights and smithy was run by Stephen's younger brother Thomas, who lived there from at least 1851 to 1871 [22] [23] [24]. In 1906 the wheelwright's shop was sold by the daughters of Thomas' son Sidney James [25].
Another son of John and Sophia was William (b. 1826) who went to America. His father John's will says:
I give ... to my son William Burberry now in the United States of America the sum of ten pounds. [4]
I have only found a single definite reference to William in America. He appears in the 1880 census for Mendon, in Monroe County, New York, with his wife Ann and working as a carriage maker [26].
I don't know when William emigrated to America, and when and where he and Ann were married. All that can be said for sure at the moment is that William left England before September 1873, the date that his father John made his will [4]. There do not seem to be any likely-looking entries for William and Ann's marriage in the United Kingdom General Record Office indexes, so it's possible that they were married after William arrived in America. Similarly, I do not know if they had any children. William was aged 54 at the time the 1880 census was taken, so if he and Ann had any children, they might have moved out of their childhood home by that time.
There are some unplaced Burberrys in later New York censuses, including a William Burberry aged 49 in 1910 (hence born in about 1861) and living with his wife Mary in Queens, New York in 1910 and 1920 [27], and three men who were probably brothers, Harry (b. abt. 1885), Frederick (b. abt. 1893) and Stephen (b. abt 1896) living in Manhattan in 1920 [28]. The proximity of the ages for these three and the fact that the censuses give the occupations of all three as "chauffeur" suggest that they were closely related, maybe brothers. And the William Burberry aged 49 would have been the right age to have been both their father and the son of the original William who went to America.
Thomas Burberry and Jane née FELL of Doversgreen
Thomas (b. abt. 1823) was the third of the five sons of John and Sophia Burberry of Reigate. He was also the most prolific of John and Sophia's children when it comes to known descendants.
Thomas married Jane FELL on 23 September 1850 at the parish church in Reigate. The witnesses were John Burberry (the father or brother of the groom?), Eliza Fell, Harriett Fell and George Burberry (brother of the groom) [25]. In the English censuses from 1851 through to 1881, Thomas lived at Doversgreen where he and his occupation was given as "wheelwright" or "wheelwright and smith" [22] [23] [24] [20]. The occupations of wheelwright and the related trade of coach making were something of a family business for the Burberry family of Doversgreen. Thomas himself was a wheelwright, and his brother William who went to America was a coach maker (a related trade) [26].
Most of Thomas' sons followed him and also became wheelwrights or coach makers. The family business was centred at Doversgreen, but his sons tended to move elsewhere in the general district, though none of them were too far away: For example, the eldest son Thomas William was a coach builder who lived at various times at Saint Pancras, London (1881) [29], Croydon, Surrey (1901) [30] and Peckham, Surrey (1906) [31]. Thomas and Jane's other sons Arthur Edward, Walter Albert and Frederick George also took their trade as a wheelwright or coach builder to other places in Surrey and Middlesex [32]. Only Sidney James (Thomas' fifth son) stayed at Doversgreen and carried on his wheelwright business at the family workshop [25] [33].
Iain Pocknell, a descendant of Sidney, mentions the following in connection with the family business:
[Sidney's] coach making business was located next to the Beehive Pub in Dover's Green, Reigate. Sidney died when his daughter Sybil was young, and his wife died when Sybil was about 6 years old after selling the business. After this the sisters [i.e. Sidney's daughters] left Reigate and moved to Eastbourne [25].
The reference to the Beehive Pub in Doversgreen was the pub which was owned by Thomas' elder brother Stephen [19]. The 1871 census, for example, shows the two households -- Thomas' family and Stephen's family -- living side by side at Doversgreen [24].
Alfred Henry (the fourth son) was the only one of Thomas and Jane's sons who does not seem to have followed in the family footsteps; he was employed as the head gardener to Dr John Cockle and his daughter at the Lodge, West Molesey from 1890 to 1901, and in 1920 he had a bungalow built which he named Woodhatch after the previous family home area. The bungalow was built at 9 Green Lane, East Molesey for his family and his son Leonard who was also a gardener, and Alfred ran a market garden business for a while from this address [31].
One noteworthy yet tragic descendant of Thomas and Jane Burberry was Alfred H. Burberry, who was a Chief Petty Officer aboard the H.M. Submarine Affray. Alfred was born in 1922 in Yorkshire [34], the son of Alfred Thomas and Elizabeth Burberry and grandson of Alfred Henry Burberry of West Molesey [31]. He married Doris CORBETT in 1947 in Newcastle [35].
Alfred was a naval officer and perhaps spent a lot of time away from home and at sea. On about 16 April 1951, four years after his marriage, he was serving as Chief Petty Officer aboard the Affray when it sank 30 miles south of the Isle of Wight, and all 75 people on board were lost. The wreckage was eventually found, but far too late to save any of the crew. The cause of the sinking was never fully established, and the submarine remains to this day in its final resting place, the final tomb of A/C.P.O. Alfred H. Burberry and 74 crewmates [36] [37]. Alfred and Doris had no children.
Click here to read the online Wikipedia article on H.M. Submarine Affray
Thomas and Jane had a large family, but it is unclear whether the Burberry surname continues in this line down to the present day. Many of their children had daughters who married, but except in two cases these lines have not yet been followed through. The two lines which *have* been followed through are the lines of two of mty correspondents for this branch of the family, Annette Legg and Iain Pocknell. A summary of Thomas and Jane's children is given below.
3. James Burberry of Merstham, Surrey
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James Burberry of Merstham (1793--1860) was born in Reigate, Surrey, although there is some dispute about this (see 3a. A Discussion of James Burberry's Origins below). His baptism has not been found and so the names of his parents are unknown. The evidence for his year of birth exists only in the 1851 census for Surrey, where he is found with his wife Elizabeth and children living at Noddy Hall in the village of Merstham. The census entry gives his age as 58 and his place of birth as Reigate [12].
3a. A Discussion of James Burberry's Origins
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There is some substantial disagreement in the sources over James' date and place of birth. As mentioned above, the 1851 census gives his age as 58, which would mean a year of birth of about 1793. The census also gives his place of birth as Reigate. However, Paul Burbery, a descendant of James who lives in Exmouth, Devon, has supplied me with a substantial amount of information on his BURBERY/BURBERRY ancestors, and some of the information which Paul has collected conflicts with this. Specifically, among Paul's information was a note saying that although James' age at the time of his death was given as 67 in the parish register, it was given as 62 on his death certificate [38]. If the age of 62 was closer to James' correct age, then this would make his approximate year of birth closer to 1798 rather than 1793.
This is a significant difference, and on the strength of it, Paul followed the line taken by the Newdigate Historical Society, and assumed that James Burberry was the son of John Burberry and Sarah née Lawrence of Newdigate [39], although Paul had noted that this was an assumption which needed confirming. At first glance, the argument in favour of the assumption is persuasive: John and Sarah did have a son James who was baptised in Newdigate on 19 May 1799, and this looks like it could be a match for the baptism of James Burberry of Merstham. The problem, however, is that the Newdigate parish registers also contain an entry for the burial of a James Burberry, infant son of John and Sarah, on 21 July 1799 [7]. So from this it is clear that James Burberry of Merstham cannot have been the son of John and Sarah of Newdigate.
The problem with James' varying years of birth still has not been resolved, however the current count is two in favour of about 1793 (the 1851 census and the parish register entry for James' burial) against one for about 1798 (James' civil death certificate) [12] [38].
In either case, the birth and baptism records that have been looked at by myself and other researchers don't throw up any other good candidates for James Burberry of Merstham. Nothing we have found comes anywhere close. The nearest one is a James Burberry who was born in Betchworth (near Reigate and Newdigate) on 7 April 1796 to parents James and Sarah (née LONGHURST) [40]. However, the story here is similar to the story for the James Burberry of Newdigate mentioned above: the James Burberry of Betchworth died in 1833 aged 37 (so born circa 1796), which effectively disqualifies him from the race too [41].
In the article on John and Sophia Burberry (née Marsh) of Reigate, Surrey above, I mentioned a gut feeling I have that James Burberry of Merstham might have been a brother of John Burberry of Reigate. The reasons for this are simple enough, and they are worth repeating:
And as I mentioned in the article on John Burberry above, it is intriguing to think that maybe we the researchers have overlooked some crucial record somewhere which will end up solving a heap of problems we have with these unknown families areound Newdigate and Reigate -- once we wake up to it and finally locate it. But putting dreams aside, at the moment we have found nothing at all which gives us any indications on who James Burberry of Merstham's parents were.
3b. James and Elizabeth's Descendants
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The lack of records continue to a degree with James' family. He married a lady by the name of Elizabeth, but the actual marriage record hasn't been found either, so we don't know what her last name was. Paul Burbery' notes state that in 1834 James Burberry was living at Newick in Sussex in an area known as Newick Rough, and four of their children were baptised there [38]. I haven't looked at the Newick registers myself, and the entries that Paul is referring to do not appear in the LDS International Genealogical Index. In fact, the LDS Family History Library Catalogue does not show copies of the baptism registers for Newick after 1812, and even the records they do have appear to be transcripts, not original parish registers. So I'm not sure where the original registers might be, maybe at the East Sussex Record Office? In any case, a job for the future is to track down the Newick parish registers and take note of the original BURBERRY entries that they contain.
I'm not clear why James had moved to Newick, which was in Sussex, quite some distance from Reigate. I assume it was something to do with his work as a farm labourer. Paul Burbery's notes go on to say that by 1847 the family had moved to Merstham, just to the north of Reigate and Redhill, where their two youngest children were born. The 1851 census shows the whole family living at Noddy Hall in Merstham [12].
James died on 29 March 1860 in the Union Workhouse at Reigate of bronchitis and chronic exhaustion [38]. In 1861 his widow was living in Nutley Lane, Reigate with the three youngest children, Benjamin (a carpenter), John (a pot boy in a pub) and Elizabeth (9 years old) [3].
James and Elizabeth Burberry had quite a large family. Their eldest son James (1836--1921) married Hannah AYLING or AYLON and had eight children of their own [38]. In the 1881 census James' surname is spelt as BURBERY [42], and this branch of the family continued to use this spelling consistently down to the present day. One of James and Hannah's children, Dennis Burbery (1875--1942) was the great-grandfather of my correspondent Paul Burbery. Dennis' son Arthur Thomas Burbery (1905--1976) was an accomplished artist who frequently had displays in galleries. His paintings were usually Cornish harbour scenes in watercolour or oils, and were signed "A.T. Burbery" [38].
Two other sons of James and Elizabeth -- Benjamin (b. 1838) and Joseph (b. 1841) also had families whose lines continue to the present day, where they still live mainly in the south of England [43].
4. Thomas Worsfold Burberry of Brockham Green, Surrey
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Thomas Worsfold BURBERRY was born about 1807 in Ifield, Sussex [44] [45]. For most of his adult life, he lived at Brockham Green, in the parish of Betchworth in Surrey. His occupation is generally given as grocer [7], although the 1841 census mentions that he was a "grocer and baker" [45]. The 1851 and 1861 censuses call him a "grocer and farmer", and mention that he is occupying 60 acres of land at Brockham Green [44] [45]. Perhaps this land was run as a market garden to provide produce for Thomas' grocery business?
 Figure 5-11. Family of Thomas Worsfold and Harriett Burberry of Brockham Green |
Although Thomas was born in Ifield, Sussex and lived much of his life in Betchworth, he also had a close association with Newdigate, the home of a large number of the members of the Surrey Burberry family. He married Harriett HUMPHREY at Newdigate on 13 July 1829, and their three children Thomas (b. 1833), Emily (b. 1835) and Mary Ann (b. 1838) were all baptised at Newdigate. Moreover, Thomas was also buried at Newdigate in 1864 [7]. This is a little bit of a puzzle, since on the surface, the only direct association between Thomas and Newdigate was that his wife Harriett was a member of the Humphrey family which was prominent in Newdigate at the time.
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As well as almost certainly being a relative of some sort, Thomas Worsfold Burberry was also mentioned as a "friend" of another Thomas Burberry, of Horsham in Sussex. This second Thomas Burberry was a wealthy gentleman who came originally from Betchworth in Surrey [41], and owned farmland and rental properties in Betchworth and also in the parish of Horsham in Sussex [49]. He was also the father of the Thomas Burberry who founded the Burberrys of London firm.
The relationship between Thomas Worsfold Burberry and Thomas Burberry of Horsham is unclear at the present, but the latter referred to Thomas Worsfold Burberry as a "friend" and named him as one of the trustees and executors of his will [49]. No doubt the two Thomases were acquainted since they both lived at Brockham, and no doubt they both probably had knowledge of how they were related -- knowledge which, alas, is lost to us now.
Despite his regular appearance in records for Burberry hot-spots such as Newdigate and Betchworth during the 19th century, Thomas Worsfold Burberry did not leave much of a heritage in the form of a large family which continued his name through to the modern day. No modern-day descendants of his have been located, and indeed his name did not survive him. The only son of Thomas Worsfold and Harriett was a Thomas who died in 1853 aged 20 [7]. [Note: This reference still needs to be confirmed from Newdigate parish registers.] Their two daughters both married, but children of those marriages have not yet been traced.
4a. A Discussion of Thomas Worsfold Burberry's Origins
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The problem with working out who Thomas Worsfold Burberry was -- and consequently fitting him into his rightful place in the Greater Surrey Burberry Family Tree -- is an age-old problem which has confronted us before. The problem is basically that although evidence such as census returns tell us where and when he was born, no direct evidence of his birth (such as a baptism entry in a parish register) has been located. And because we lack such evidence, we have nothing that tells us who his parents were.
The evidence we do have -- mainly census returns -- tell us that Thomas Worsfold Burberry was born in 1807 in Ifield, Sussex [44] [45]. However, no corresponding baptism entry for Thomas has been found, even though the parish registers for Ifield have been checked. He appears in both the 1851 and 1861 censuses, and in 1851 he was aged 44 and in 1861 he was aged 54. Moreover, he died in 1864 and was buried in the churchyard of Saint Peter, Newdigate, and his burial record gave his age as 57 [7]. [Note: This reference still needs to be confirmed from Newdigate parish registers.] All of these sources point consistently to a date of birth of sometime around 1807.
Unfortunately, no Thomas Burberry born around 1807 to any parents anywhere has been located. The nearest candidate is the Thomas BURBURY who was baptised in Chichester, Sussex on 27 June 1809 [46], but he is known to have been the Thomas Burbury of Coventry who was transported to Van Diemen's Land [47]. There are some other Thomases who were baptised at more removed dates, such as the Thomas Burberry (1803--1858) who was son of Richard and Martha Burberry of Betchworth, or the Thomas Burberry (1813--1841) who was son of David and Sarah Burberry of Newdigate, but both these Thomases can also be discounted because their dates of death have been documented as being before Thomas Worsfold Burberry's [39] [7].
An additional clue to Thomas' identity is in the 1841 census, where he is found living with his family at Brockham Green in Surrey. With him is his wife Harriett whom he married in 1829, and his three children Thomas, Sarah and Mary Ann [48]. But also with him in the household is a Jane Burberry aged 20 years, and so born some time around 1821 (remembering that ages in the 1841 censuses were approximated).
So who was this Jane Burberry? And what might she be able to suggest to us about the family of Thomas Worsfold Burberry? If she was a close relative of Thomas, perhaps she was a sister or a cousin. She was too old to have been a daughter.
Jane was not a uncommon given in the Burberry family at this time, and there are three possible candidates for the Jane who was in the Brockham Green household in the 1841 census. The three candidates are as follows:
| No. | Name | Date and place of birth | Parents |
| (1) | Jane Burberry | abt. Dec 1818, Crawley, Sussex | William & Hannah (née Wilkins) [50] |
| (2) | Jane Burberry | 11 Feb 1818, Ifield?, Sussex | Thomas & Martha (née Sanders) [51] |
| (3) | Jane Burberry | 8 Oct 1819, Newdigate, Surrey | David & Sarah (née Humphrey) [7] |
Figure 5-13 above is an abridged tree which shows where the three Jane Burberrys appear relative to each other in the Surrey Burberry family. The three candidates for Jane are shown in brown.
So these are the candidates. But this begs the question: what relation was Jane to Thomas Worsfold Burberry? Unfortunately, as shown in Figure 5-12 above, the 1841 census did not mention the relationship that each person in the household had to the head of the household. So from what the 1841 census alone tells us, we do not know if Jane was a sister, a cousin, or what.
Considering that Thomas Worsfold Burberry was born in about 1807, it would seem unlikely that he was an elder brother of Jane. The reasoning for this is pretty simple: if you look at all of the candidates for Jane in Figure 5-13, you can see that in all cases, the parents were married after this date (1811 for Jane (1)'s parents [52], 1816 for Jane (2)'s parents [40], and 1808 for Jane (3)'s parents). Of course nothing is impossible, particularly when it comes to children being born before their parents got married. But it's a bit extreme to assume something like this happened when there's nothing around to actually support it.
So if Jane wasn't a sister, was she a close cousin of some sort? It's a bit difficult to make any sort of conclusions about this when we don't even know where Thomas Worsfold Burberry fits into the tree himself. So although the presence of Jane Burberry in Thomas' household in the 1841 census is a tantalising clue, it doesn't end up helping us much in our quest to identify who Thomas was.
4b. Was Thomas Worsfold BURBERRY Actually Thomas WORSOLL?
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This section of the Thomas Worsfold Burberry discusses a possible theory as to Thomas' origins -- a theory which makes the bold proposition that The wasn't a Burberry at all to start with.
The basis for these suspicions is the text of the will of a Thomas Burberry (1733--1820) of Ifield in the county of Sussex. This Thomas Burberry was the eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Burberry. His story is told more fully in Chapter 2 - The Focus Shifts to Newdigate, but briefly he was born in Newdigate in about 1733 and also married his wife Sarah Robinson in Newdigate in 1758 [7], but from around 1760 onwards to his death in 1820 he lived in Ifield in Sussex [51].
In his will, Thomas Burberry divided up his estate in more or less equal portions for the families of his six children. His daughter Elizabeth, however, seems to have been singled out for extra favourable attention for some reason. According to the will, she had married a William WORSOLL and had a child Thomas WORSOLL. Whereas the other children were given their bequests in lump amounts, the will directed that Elizabeth's share be invested and that she be paid the interest and dividends directly. Moreover, special provision is also made for Elizabeth's son Thomas, and this was even though others of Thomas' children had children of their own at the time. The reason for this singling out is unclear to me. Another point to note here that the will (which was signed in 1817) states that Thomas Worsoll (the testator's grandson) was under age at the time [53].
WORSOLL was could have been a variant spelling for WORSFOLD, which was certainly a common name in both the Newdigate and Ifield parish registers at the time [7] [51]. On searching through the parish registers for Newdigate in Surrey, it struck me and my colleague Wendy Stott how common the WORSFOLD surname was in that parish. Unfortuantely the marriage record for Elizabeth Burberry and William Worsoll or Worsfold cannot be located.
And so my line of speculation goes something like this: Elizabeth Burberry may have been a single parent (perhaps she was a widow, or perhaps her husband was absent for some reason, such as transportation or away fighting in a war?) that had made her dependent on her own family for support, and thus her son Thomas was raised more as a Burberry than as a Worsfold. And so at some stage, either deliberately or by confusion, Thomas may have adopted the Burberry surname, and hence became known as Thomas Worsfold Burberry rather than Thomas Worsoll or Worsfold.
This theory isn't helped by the fact that no baptism record for Thomas Worsoll or Worsfold has been found in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) of parish registers. Wendy and I have looked at the Ifield parish registers directly, but unfortunately we were mainly on the lookout for BURBERRY entries, and so we didn't notice if there had been a baptism for a Thomas WORSOLL sometime around 1807 listed in these registers. A future job is to re-check the Ifield parish registers, paying particular attention to the entries for around 1807.
It's worth taking another look at Figure 5-13 above again in light of this WORSOLL/BURBERRY theory. This figure shows the relationship between the three Jane Burberrys who were proposed as possible candidates for the Jane Burberry who appeared in Thomas Worsfold Burberry's household in the 1841 census for Brockham Green. Besides the Janes, though, I also added two other people who I've been discussing here. One of these is the Thomas WORSOLL who was mentioned in the will of his grandfather Thomas Burberry of Ifield; the other is the Thomas Burberry of Brockham who mentioned his "friend" Thomas Worsfold Burberry in his will.
Again, it's impossible to draw any hard and fast conclusions from the relationships shown here. But even so, if we assume that the Jane Burberry at Brockham Green in 1841 was a close relative of some sort to Thomas Worsfold Burberry, then Figure 5-13 shows us that all of the candidate Jane Burberrys were reasonably close relatives of Thomas WORSOLL.
So in the end we don't really know who Thomas Worsfold Burberry was or how he was related to the larger Surrey Burberry family. Some more exploration of the WORSOLL angle might be in order, including another look at the Ifield parish registers.
5. William Burberry of Horne, Surrey
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The only definite known reference that we have to this William is in the parish registers for Horley, Surrey, where an Abner Burberry was baptised on 11 October 1793 to parents William and Mary Burberry. The parish register states that William lived at Horne, which was close to Horley [1]. Horne and Horley were in the area where the earliest-confirmed member of the Surrey Burberry family lived. This was William Burberry (d. abt. 1684) who owned the manor of Harrowsley at Horne. The Manor of Harrowsley was within what is known as "Horne Detached", or in other words, the little bit of the parish of Horne which was separate from the main part of Horne [54]. Figure 5-14 shows the area of Horne Detached (with the boundaries taken from the 1842 Horne Tithe Map, provided courtesy of Peter Cox of Haroldslea). Horne detached is the area within the solid-line border. The town and parish of Horley are directly to the west, and the parish of Burstow is directly to the east. The main part of the parish of Horne is further east, on the other side of Burstow. As you can see from this map, even in recent times the area of Horne Detached appears to be virtually all farmland. There was probably no church within Horne Detached, and so as the local parish registers do in fact show, the Harrowsley Burberrys went to Horley and occasionally Burstow (the parish directly to the east of Horne Detached) to get all their baptisms and burials done [1] [55].
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 Figure 5-14. Map Showing the Area of Horne Detached (Image provided courtesy of Peter Cox) |
This may provide us with a possible clue as to the identity of this William Burberry of Horne. If William lived at Horne but had his son Abner baptised in Horley, it suggests that William was living within the area of Horne detached; and if he was living within Horne detached, it suggests very strongly that he was a member of the Burberry family of Harrowsley manor.
And in fact, there is a good candidate that appears in the Harrowsley Burberry family. This candidate is William Burberry, the eldest son of the William Burberry who sold Harrowsley. Nothing much is known about him, except that he was born in about 1760 and was baptised on 26 June 1760 in the parish of Burstow [55]. Maybe he married a girl called Mary (although no such marriage record has been located yet) and maybe he had children.
The solution to this problem will likely be solved if we can only locate the marriage record for the unknown William of Horne and his wife Mary. However, at this stage I and co-researchers have scoured all of the Established church marriage registers that we can think of for the parishes surrounding Horne, Horley and Reigate, and we've even looked at some Non-conformist registers too, and we haven't been able to locate a record for this particular marriage.
5a. The Next Generation - Abner Burberry of Reigate
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The only evidence that has been found for the marriage of William and Mary Burberry mentioned above, is the baptism of their son Abner on 11 October 1793 in Horley [1]. We haven't found any other children for this William and Mary.
If Abner was an only child, his own family was quite large. He married Hannah Burdale in March 1814 at Reigate [56], and they quite a large number of children.
A problem with working out the full number of children for Abner and Hannah has been that some of the childrens' baptisms have been found in parish registers, but several haven't. Hence a number of other sources have been required in order to compile a full list of their children. The table below shows which sources have provided information linking each child as a son or daughter of Abner and Hannah. "HAC's Notes" refers to some handwritten notes on the descendants of Abner and Hannah which were compiled by Henry Albert Churchill, a descendant of Abner and Hannah's daughter Jane Olive.
| Given Name(s) |
Year of Birth (Approx.) |
Parish Register Baptism |
In 1841 Census with Hannah [57] |
HAC's Notes [58] |
| Harriet | 1814 [59] | Buckland [59] | No | Yes |
| Fanny Maria | 1816 [60] | ----- | No | Yes |
| Emma | 1818 [61] [62] | ----- | No | Yes |
| Eliza | 1822 [63] [64] | ----- | No | Yes |
| Abner | 1824 [5] | ----- | Yes | No |
| William Gadford | 1824 [65] [66] | ----- | Yes | No |
| Jane Olive | 1827 [50] [67] | Reigate [50] | No | Yes |
| Charlotte | 1828 [68] | ----- | Yes | Yes |
| John | 1831 [69] [70] [71] | ----- | Yes | Yes |
| Mary | 1834 [50] [72] [73] | Reigate [50] | Yes | Yes |
| Ellen | 1834 [57] | ----- | Yes | No |
| Andrew | 1838 [50] [57] | Reigate [50] | Yes | Yes |
(I would like to give special thanks to John Cordes, a descendant of Jane Olive BURBERRY and Henry CORDES, for his assistance in collecting the data for the above table. In particular, it was his relative Henry Churchill's notes which told us about several children we would not otherwise have known about, and his copy of the 1841 census for Hannah's family that he sent me was the key to several breakthoughs, particularly the revelation that William Gadford Burberry was one of Abner and Hannah's children.)
Abner Burberry was a watchmaker who lived most of his life in Reigate in Surrey [59] [69], and all of their children were born there, with the possible exception of their eldest daughter Harriet who was baptised in the nearby parish of Buckland [59]. In the 1841 census Abner was found lodging at High Street in Croydon, Surrey in the house of a Pasqual CATTARES who was also a watchmaker [74], while Hannah and the children were still at Redhill [57], so perhaps Abner had gone on a short business trip which took him away from home on the night of the census.
Hannah died in September 1848 [75], and after this Abner remarried to a Mary EASTON on 12 October 1849 in Reigate [50] [75]. Nothing else has been discovered about this Mary, and she does not even appear with Abner in the 1851 census for Reigate. Abner is listed as lodging in the household of an Elijah PUDDEY, and his status is given as married, but Mary isn't with him [69].
Abner died in December 1857 aged 66, and was buried at Redhill [5]. One aspect of the burial entry for Abner in the Redhill parish register is a bit unexpected: it says that he was of "Lewis", which could be an error in hearing or transcription for "Lewes", the town in Sussex. If Abner had lived virtually his whole life in Redhill near Reigate, why was he living at Lewes? Perhaps he had retired from his watchmaking trade and chosen Lewes as his place of retirement.
Abner's line continues to the present day, mostly through descendants of his daughters. The total number of grandchildren for Abner and Hannah that I've been able to locate currently stands at 20. I haven't traced the female lines of descent much past the births of these grandchildren, although John Cordes (a descendant of Abner and Hannah through their daughter Jane Olive) has done more work on these lines than I have, and much of the information I have comes from him [58].
Of the total of 20 grandchildren, only one continued to carry on the surname of BURBERRY, and that was the son William Gadford Burberry. William was Abner and Hannah's second son and the only one of their sons to have children. Two other sons -- Abner and Andrew -- died without marrying [5], and a third son John married a lady by the name of Harriet but they had no children [70].
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A tradition in the branch of the family which is descended from William Gadford Burberry is that the eldest male child in the family has always been given the middle name of "Gadford", and this tradition has been followed for six generations. Figure 5-16. to the right shows this in the form of an abbreviated chart. A break in the direct line occurred with the third "Gadford" (William, born 1873) who died in infancy; however the tradition was retained and carried on by his next brother Abner who called his son Alfred Gadford. The tradition has continued on down to Simon Gadford Burberry (born in the 1980s) who is the youngest member of the family at the time of writing. Another family member to be given the traditional middle name was William (born 1914), the son of Richard William. However, this William did not continue the tradition with his own son and grandsons, so that the tradition can be said to have been more consistently applied to the senior male line in the family. The origin of this tradition of using "Gadford" as a middle name is unclear. Michael Gadford Burberry (the fifth in line to follow the tradition) mentioned in correspondence to my co-researcher Wendy Stott that he didn't know much about the family, but he had heard that members of the family lived in a large house in Reigate but squandered their money. Michael also mentioned a wooden chest in the possession of his family which bears the initials "S - G 1692" [77]. This might relate to the Gadford tradition in some way -- perhaps the "G" represents "Gadford"? One theory on the possible origin of the tradition goes back to the earliest-known generations of the Surrey Burberry family. As mentioned in Chapter 2 - The Focus Shifts to Newdigate, the ancestor of the "Newdigate" branch of the Surrey Burberry family was a John Burberry, younger son of William Burberry of Harrowsley who is the earliest-known ancestor of the family. John married Sarah GATFORD on 30 May 1697 in Horne [78]. Surname spellings in those times were often irregular and inconsistent, and so the difference between "Gatford" and "Gadford" can probably be ignored for the present purpose. John and Sarah were the descendants of the overwhelming majority of the Burberry family. In fact the only line that is known to not be descended from them is the Harrowsley branch which represents the senior branch of the Surrey Burberry family (discussed in more detail in Chapter 1 - Early Burberrys and the Harrowsley Family). And as I've explained above, I'm leaning towards the hypothesis that the unknown William Burberry of Horne and his son Abner Burberry of Reigate (the subjects of this article) were descended from the Harrowsley branch. In other words, if my hypothesis is correct, then Abner's son William Gadford Burberry is not descended from John Burberry and Sarah née Gatford. And besides, there is a gap of about five generations between John Burberry's marriage to Sarah Gatford (in 1697) and the first appearance of "Gadford" as a middle name (William Gadford Burberry's birth in 1824). So this suggests that the appearance of "Gadford" as a middle name is not directly connected to this historical Burberry-Gatford marriage. And other than that, we have no ideas as to where the tradition came from. |
 Figure 5-16. 'Gadford' as a Middle Name in the Family of William Gadford Burberry |
William Gadford Burberry junior (son of William Gadford senior and the second generation to have the "Gadford" middle name) worked on the railroads, as did his sons Abner, Richard William and George [79] [80]. A fourth son Henry was a senior engineer for Babcocks and Wilcox in Hull, Yorkshire [77]. A correspondent Peter Enlund found some records in the National Archives at Kew, London which included registers of engine crews who worked for the South Eastern Railway. Among the entries in the registers are accounts of misdemeanours and fines levied on William during his employment. The records also contain references to William's sons Abner and Richard William. Examples of the entries found are as follows:
Peter Enlund notes that "Lads usually started in engine service as engine cleaners, learning how to prepare the locomotives and receiving training. They would then progress to Fireman and then on to be a Driver; firstly shunting then progressing to goods trains and then into passenger service. ... The men who drove and fired the engines in these times were very hardy individuals as the locomotives seldom has enclosed cabs and belting along at 50 mph in the wind and rain cannot have been much fun at all. ... We know that William was a passenger train driver because the fines involved platforms. Richard Burberry joined on 17/6/1895 as a clerk in the locomotive offices, and then became a fireman on 2/1/1899. He was transferred to Slade's Green 30/12/1899." [79]
6. William Burberry of Herkimer County, New York
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William Burberry (1810--1869) was an unplaced Burbery who came from Worth in Sussex. In William's case we do have a baptism record so we know basically when he was born, but unfortunately the baptism record states that he was "base born" and does not give any parents' names whatsoever, not even a mother's name [81].
A possible candidate for William's mother is Mary Burberry (1790--1852). Mary was born in about 1790 in Ifield, Sussex, the daughter of James and Phillis Burberry of Ifield [51]. She has two marriages recorded: the first to a William Snelling SKUCE on 31 October 1812 in Ifield, and the second to a William DINAGE on 23 January 1838 in Brighton [82]. Both of these marriages took place after William Burberry's estimated date of birth. This Mary is about the only female child born in the Ifield branch of the Burberry family who was unmarried and of the right age in 1810 to have a child. But despite the possibility, I haven't managed to find anything to substantiate it.
William married Jane ELSEY (1816--1887) on 16 August 1834 at Crawley Down, Sussex. Their children are shown in the following tree.
The daughters Rebecca (b. 1834) and Mary (b. 1836) were baptised in Worth, Sussex [50], but the remaining children were baptised in Ifield [51]. In the 1851 census the family are found living at Lowlands Heath, Ifield, and William's occupation is given as "Agricultural Labourer". In the same household in the 1851 census were an Elizabeth Elsey, unmarried and aged 49 who was his wife Jane's sister, and also an Edward Sayers, widower aged 74. Both were born in Ifield, and both were described as paupers [83]. William and Jane's daughter Rebecca was old enough to have moved out of the home, and she was living in the household of a James WELLS of Charlwood, Surrey and working as a servant [84].
Sometime between 1851 and 1859 the family emigrated from England to the town of Russia in Herkimer County, New York State. The exact date that they left is not known, but it was before 1859 because the cemetery records for Russia contain references to members of the family who were buried there. For instance, two of William and Jane's children, James (1846--1859) and Sabina (1850--1859) died in 1859 and were buried in Century Cemetery. Hence the family had moved to Russia some time before 1859 [85].
The line for this family doesn't seem to have flourished. The two children James and Sabina died at young ages, and another of William and Jane's sons, William (1839--1865), was killed in 1865 at Hatcher's Run, Virginia, presumably while fighting in the Union army during the American Civil War. The daughters Rebecca (1834--1903, married William FIELD), Mary (1837--1919, married William THEOBALD) and Jane (1841--1891, married George SIMPSON) had children who died young or without marrying [85]. Only their daughter Sarah appears to have had any family which survuved past childhood and who could possibly represent a line of descent to the modern day for this family. Sarah and her husband James Starkins appeared in the 1880 census for Herkimer County with their three teenage daughters [86]; and it is quite possible that their lines continued, although I haven't followed it through yet.
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