I've had a look at my notes and found this:-
THE BURRELLS
The earliest member of your Burrell family that I have found so far is a Thomas Burrell and the earliest record of him is his marriage to Elizabeth Gunn in Colston Bassett Nottinghamshire on 26th Nov 1821. Elizabeth and Thomas had one daughter baptised Mary Ann Burrell on 11th Aug 1822. Sadly, in June of 1823, Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died and just over a year later the daughter Mary Ann also died.
On the 27 April 1826 Thomas married again. His new wife was also an Elizabeth, Elizabeth Whitaker. They were married in Branston in Leicestershire and the parish register says that Thomas was a widower from the parish of Colston Bassett. Back in Colston Bassett , Thomas and Elizabeth had 4 children between 1826 and 1832, These four were James Burrell; Thomas Burrell; Ann Burrell and John Burrell all baptised in Colston Bassett. James and Ann both died as babies.
In 1835 Thomas and Elizabeth had another daughter, Elizabeth and Elizabeth was baptised in Colston Bassett as Elizabeth Bradley, the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Bradley! Two further children Harriet, born summer 1837 and William born 1839 were both baptised as the children of Thomas and Elizabeth Bradley. Compulsory registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in September 1837, before then the main records of these events was in the parish registers and these normally only recorded baptisms and only occasionally the date of birth.
As William was born in 1839, after the introduction of registration of births, marriages and deaths, a copy of William’s birth certificate was available.. To complicate things even further, the father‘s and mother’s names on the certificate were given as Thomas Burrell and Elizabeth Burrell!.
Then in the national censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861, Thomas and the members of his family still living with him are recorded with the Bradley surname. The confusion continues when Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died in November 1853 and was buried in Colston Bassett as Elizabeth Bradley but her death certificate gives her name as Elizabeth Burrill.
Thomas used the Burrell surname for both of his marriages and for the baptisms of his first 5 children, born before 1837. Thereafter the Bradley name confuses things. I think something must have happened around 1836 to cause him to use the name Bradley. Cold it have been the introduction of the compulsory registration of BMDs in 1837?
Eric