My 3xgrandfather Charles Fisher Sheppeard lived in Suffolk from birth in 1799 to about 1832. In 1823 he married Sarah Clark from Tattingstone. They had six children. From 1824-26 he was the innkeeper at the Shoulder of Mutton in Hadleigh and it seems he sold up after that, perhaps he was in financial difficulties.. The last record of his existence in Suffolk indicates he was in East Bergholt when his last child was born in 1831.
His next appearance is in New South Wales in 1836, so the immediate assumption is that he may have been transported for some offence, but I can't find a convict record that fits.
I am puzzled why he would leave his wife and children for any other reason. His wife Sarah remarried a few years later (calling herself a "widow") and was living in London with Charles Marsden in 1841.
CF Sheppeard spent several years as an overseer on a number of sheep grazing stations, notably for Benjamin Boyd at one time. In 1849 he married Eliza Brown ("widower") in Melbourne, Victoria. He died in 1854.
Getting back to why and how he left England - are there any local records that might show him up if he had been convicted for something?
What other way and for what reason could he have emigrated? I can't find him anywhere between 1831&1836.
