... I have just added a 'Cleo story' to my family history site which tried to tell the story from Cleopatra's perspective ... and all thoughts/suggestions etc will be welcome.
Congratulations, Barry. You have put together an excellent write-up, which draws together the various strands of what we have discovered to date -- and in a very well balanced way. It is great to have such a narrative account so readily accessible for reference on your Ennever site. The accompanying images of documents and source citations are also most useful.
It is kind of you to credit individual RootsChat contributors in the footnotes as you have. Of course, it is impractical to name all the many people who have added value to our communal pot of info; but I think I would like to put in a special word for Michael Dixon, because he was the one who discovered those very revealing press reports about the court affiliation proceedings, and unravelled a good deal of info about Cleo's sister "the Empress of Austria" (aka Maria Theresa) and her Bishop marriage -- which in turn produced the census evidence suggesting that John Burgoyne may well have been working at the Curragh barracks complex at the time she was born.
Reading sections of the two threads again, I am struck by the many gaps that remain about the Burgoyne family's time in Ireland. It still galls me that that John's Irish will seems to have been lost in the Four Courts fire, with no surviving solicitor's draft or extracted copy having yet turned up -- nor even a Kentish MI that might tell us more about his final employment as a clerk [of works??] at Woolwich Arsenal. Given that Maria Theresa was made executrix and lived in London, there really ought to be a copy of the missing will in some English solicitor's file of client papers. One day . . .
Turning back to the Enever connection, I note that your present wording says this about Augustus's activities before he emigrated:
It is probably true that Augustus Joseph's father, Augustus William Enever, was a relatively successful business man but it was his brother, Frederick Francis (Frank) Enever, who owned or ran the corn merchants. Augustus William is always recorded as a clerk, commercial traveller and an accountant and lived in London while the corn business was operating in Banbury, Gloucestershire. The company's headed notepaper suggesting some success as it carries a royal monogram and the legend "As Supplied To The Royal Farms". This falls some way short of the obituary's headline of 'Once Master of British Commerce', a sub-heading of 'Once Controlled Large Industries in England' and its content which reads 'The son of one of England's wealthiest corn merchants, a power in the London corn exchange, owner of a fleet of vessels'.
Well I think that I have now found some "chapter and verse" on more of the Cleveland Plain Dealer's claims -- at least in the sense that it does seem true that before leaving the UK Augustus had ceased to operate as a clerk and/or corn exchange dealer for his uncle's firm at Banbury, and had indeed struck out in business on his own account with a partner. Clear evidence of this appears in a notice of dissolution of partnership published in the London Gazette just a few months before he sailed for America, which tells us that he had been occupying accommodation in the City at the New Corn Exchange in Mark Lane, and used warehouse space across the Thames at 86-87 Bankside. His partner -- errant or not -- was one George Imson Goodhart.
* See the
London Gazette, 1 July, 1884 (p.3024). More digging with those specifics could just reveal some additional info. (As well as the usual genealogical databases, might just be worth a long shot or two in the Gale 19th c. Newspaper database?)
Rol
* ADDED: As background, albeit rather off-topic, the LMA database of London Marriages 1754-1921 (available via An***try.com) includes an image from Hampton PR recording his marriage. This occurred on 26 Jan. 1886 and describes him as 33, bachelor, merchant, the son of Charles Emanuel Goodhart, Esquire. The 1891 census has him living with his family at the Limes, Bromley, still a corn merchant, born Beckenham, Kent: RG12/631 fo.75r&v, pp.23-24. The GRO records his death in Q1 1902 aged 49 -- Kingston RD, vol.2a, p.300. He may not have died in great prosperity, because nothing seems to show up for him in the online index to the probate calendars. See also the information shown here:
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/o/t/Rosemary-Cotton/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-1022.htmlBut N.B. that conclusions about his economic standing may well be premature, because at the time of writing the annual calendars for certain years were (and today remain) missing from Anc***ry.com's probate database. One of these gaps relates to the years 1899-1903 inclusive --
Words from "But" ADDED 10 Jan. 2011.