Dear Jim Burslem,
It is great to hear from you. I can trace the Burslems back to Thomas de Burslem in the 1400s. I read somewhere that the Burslems took part in the Crusades. The coat of arms of scollop shells is said to be a reward for winning a naval battle with the Arabs.
My late father's full name was Frank Charles Godolphin Burslem. I will look up the christen name of Francis's wife . Elizabeth Godolphin who was born in Heston and taken to London to be christened. She grew up on the Dixie's estate and married John Burslem.
Their son Francis was the captain of the Frigate " Conventry" which captured a French naval vessel of the coast of France durning the wars between France and England in the late 1760's.
His son James Godolphin Burslem fought in the Battle of Egypt in 1801. he was finally awarded with a medal in 1847. He was a colonel.
His son Francis Henry Burslem was the first of 3 Francis Henry Burslems.
he was born in Portsmouth in 1807 and died in Sydney in 1888. I am trying to find his grave. He attended Woolwich Military Academy and graduated in 1824. he was assigned to the Stockport Barracks were he meet the daughter of a confectioner Sarah Richardson. Francis spent a short time in Tasmania on military duty before returning to England to marry Sarah. Her family were detailed for her to marry Francis in 1828 whereas Francis was disowned by both his military peers and his family.
Francis Henry (number two) was born in 1830 in Stockport. Francis retired from the military to live as a gentleman until the money ran out. they moved to Liverpool to start a confectionary business which failed so did the marriage. Sarah returned to her father's house in Lower Hillgate street in Stockport and sold pieces of cloth for a living before she died. She must have died no later than 1834 as Francis remarried in 1834 tp Bridget Boddle. I am trying to find out were in Stockport Sarah is buried.
With Francis father's help Francis got a job a a surveyor in the first non convict settlement of Australia,South Australia. Francis and Bridget had a son James Godolphin Burslem. FHB and family can to Adelaide in 1838. According to records Bridget died in 1839. However there are Boddle Burslems living in Tasmania. Their son James died in 1842 and is bured in Adelaide.
Francis Henry Jnr was given away to a family to look after.
Francis Henry snr worked in South Australia as a surveyor in Adelaide (surrounding area)and the Burra Copper Mines until the early 1850s.
He was an owner and manager of a hotel (now Kingston House) in Kingston. SA.
Both Burslem Hill and Burslem Creek is named after him.
Went to live in Cgynet in Tasmania and married Susan Fynes in 1852. he was a farmer and member and suveyor of the Cygnet Roads Trust . Susan died in 1862. He married Ann Elizabeth Anderson.
They had a daughter Elizabeth Ida Born in Hobart in 1864.
FHB went to Auckland in NZ . He stayed until 1883. He suveyored lands taken from the Maori people in the Maori Wars,surveyed the goldfields in Grahamstown, worked for the government. He was considered at noted surveyor. He was a founding member of the ISNZ Institute of Suveyors of New Zealand. He returned to Australi in 1883. He lived in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, Died 1888. His widow died in 1898 and the Coast Hospital, Little Bay (infectious disease hospital). I do not know wear she is buried.
Elizabeth Ida married Goodwin Packer. They had a daughter Pansie before they divorced. Elizabeth Ida or just Ida had a daughter to John Nicholson (Mabel Elizabeth Ann Nicholson. I know nothing about Ida and John. Ida later married a John Porthouse. Mabel was disowned by the family. (This made me upset as Mabel was my grand mother and she was a lovely lady.)
John Porthouse died in 1936 Ida Porthouse died in 1945.
Mabel married Francis Henry Burslem number three in Balmain in the 1920's dad was born in 1929.
Now back to Francis Henry number two. He inherited 200 pounds from John Richardson, Sarah's father. FHB was the licence holder of the Emu Hotel in Bourke from 1866 to 1871. After that he was a overseer at a sheep station near Bourke. that is how he meet the Holmes family my great great grandfather Peter Holmes was working there as well.
He was also a station manager at another station.
Around 1877 he bought and operated the Midway Hotel which was haif way between Gilgandra and Duddo.
It was operating until the 1920s when the railway came through. FHB not only operated this hotel but tried to mine and sell coal to the railways unfortunately the scheme did not go ahead.
Their two sons the eldest Charles Goring won a Military Medal in WW1 and worked in Duddo's land office,
Francis a carpenter came to Sydney in the 1920's, worked on a sheep station near Mendooran in the 1930's. Moved to Mt Pritchard near Liverpool in the 1940's and died and in 1963.
There is a portrait painted of Francis Henry Burslem and Sarah Burslem whle they lived in Stockport . Francis Henry jnr tried to get them.
Holmes and FHB jnr buried in Dubbo.
Mary Holmes married Francis in Dubbo 1877. She died in Marrickville in 1934 at one of her daughter's houses. Is buried at the cemertry near Sutherland Railway Statation, Sydney. Mabel and FHB no3 are buried with my father at Cof E section Rockwood Cemetery, Sydney.
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Topic: Holmes family from Cork (Read 4114 times)