I'm repeating and slightly rewording this message (the gist was sent yesterday as a reply to an old posting, but therefore with an unhelpful subject heading), with apologies.
Anyway, I have a question about a William Jefferies, born maybe about 1810 in Wiltshire: is anyone able to suggest a date and place of his baptism and/or of birth (and names of parents)?
This is what I know. He is in the 1841 census at Marlborough, living with his wife Louisa, saying he was born in the county and with a reported age of 30 (so presumably born in Wilts within 5 years of 1810). William and Louisa, whose maiden name was Bullock, were apparently married in Devizes in 1837; William is there said to be "of Hungerford". (Louisa's parents are listed in extracted records from Devizes in the IGI, as James Bullock and Elizabeth Amor of Avebury.) 6 daughters were born to William and Louisa in Marlborough, Wilts (Louisa, 1839; Alice and Emma, twins, 1843; Mary, 1845; Clara, 1847; Emily, 1849). In June 1850 William embarked with his wife and 5 daughters (Emily died young) on the "Minerva", under the Byrne emigration scheme to Natal. They arrived in Durban on 3 July 1850, the ship was wrecked off Durban that day and broke up during the night of 3-4 July. All the passengers survived the hair-raising rescue through the surf, but 300 tons of their luggage is reported to have been lost. (Not all the passengers were too poor: a racehorse apparently managed to swim ashore, and the lid of a grand piano was salvaged.) Another daughter was born to William and Louisa on Durban beach, where the new arrivals had had to find shelter in tents etc, on 31 July 1850, and they had yet another daughter in Natal in 1855. All the daughters are supposed to have been redheads.
Reports passed down through the family say that William always claimed to be from Draycott Foliat near Swindon, which is where Richard Jefferies, c.1734-1822, great-grandfather of the more famous Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) is also said in older literature to have been from. (The later Richard Jefferies, himself born at the nearby Coate, wrote novels as well as non-fiction based in Wiltshire, and he and the family are quite well documented. I believe there is a Richard Jefferies museum in Swindon, as well as other memorials. He is in all the reference books, in the Dictionary of National Biography, etc.) If there is a link between William's family and that of the two Richards, it could be significant that William turned immediately to running a bakery after his farm in Natal failed - Richard's family had included bakers. But if the literature is right, the family connection between William and Richard must be at least three generations back.
I haven't managed to find any plausible baptism or birth for William, and wonder whether anyone can help!
Geoff
