Geography | washbourn

Early Origins - England 1250~1743

The Washbourn families in England were centred around 2 distinct geographic areas in the western counties at different times, prior to their emigration to New Zealand. The notes that follow summarise these movements.

Geography - the English Counties :

where did they come from?

Early generations of the family in New Zealand believed that they were pronably descendants of the old English Washbourne family from Worcestershire, doscumented in the scholarly book "The Washbourne Family" by James Davenport, published by Methuen in 1906, about the Washbourne family of Little Washbourn and Wichenford in the county of Worcestershire. The first member of that family was a Sir Roger Washborn in 1259. Almost exactly 500 years later, Ernle Washbourn Esq. died in 1743 without issue, and the lands of Washbourne in Worcestershire passsed out of the hands of the Washbournes and the main m of the family came to an end.

There were however three well-established cadet branches of the Washbourn family :

A Bengeworth Branch which hived off a few miles only, near Evesham, in the 1500s and fathered a thriving American branch (who nowadays spell their surname ‘Washburn’)
A London Branch which left the main line about 1600
A Gloucestershire Branch which broke away one generation later (and has descendants in and around the city of Gloucester today). Some emigrated to Canterbury (New Zealand) in 1850 and there are descendants are still living in and around Christchurch.

There was also another branch, documented in the 1960s:

A Wiltshire Branch whose descent from the main line has not been established. It is from this branch that the New Zealand Washbourns arise.

However .... The advent of DNA science in the 1990s has suggested that there are two distinct genetic groups within the Washbourn(e)s and that the Wiltshire Branch members (with some of the American Washburns) are genetically distinct and therefore not closely related, to others carrying the surname. Refer to the section on Genetic Ancestry for more detail.

1. Wiltshire ca 1540-1820

(See map section below)

A section of northern Wiltshire, showing the parishes where early Washbourn families lived. Crudwell and Hankerton lie to the east of Tetbury in the centre. Eastcourt, Minety and Cloatley are nearby, to the east; Lea and Cleverton a little further south. Oldbury on the Hill, where Richard Washbourn is buried, is on the left centre of this map. Wroughton is located at the bottom right.

Scale: the distance between Oldbury on the Hill and Minety is 13 miles [21km.].

The first direct ancestor of the Wiltshire Branch traced is John Washbourn of Escott, a husbandman farmer, born about 1540, and 10 generations descended from Sir Roger. He and his descendants lived in the northern Wiltshire villages of Eastcourt, Minety, Cloatley, Cleverton and Lea. The earliest tomb of the family that has been found is that of a John Washbourn (1706-1758) whose altar tomb survives in the churchyard at Lea. Some time in the 1730s, this John Washbourn moved further south to Yatesbury where another 2 generations farmed. At about this time (the middle 1700s), a Thomas Washbourn established a Wroughton dynasty a few miles away to the north-east near Swindon, where the members occupy a large chunk of Wroughton churchyard; there are descendants of this cadet branch in England to this day.

Altogether the Washbourns farmed in Wiltshire for about 8 generations, over at least 300-odd years, before Richard Washbourn, born in Yatesbury in 1775, turns up in occupation of several large properties in Surrey in southern England.

2. Surrey ca 1820-1852

The enigmatic Richard Washbourn from Yatesbury, 18th in descent from Sir Roger de Washborne, disappeared from the records for 22 years. During this time, he marries, has a son, loses his wife, and in some unknown way acquires a ‘daughter’, Emma Everley, born 1811. He reappears in the records in occupation of several large properties in Surrey, 100 miles from Wiltshire, in 1825, from whence his son William Everley Washbourn was born in 1819.

It was from ‘Tillingdown’ near Caterham in Surrey that this son, William Everley Washbourn, by now married and with 6 children, emigrated to New Zealand in 1852. ['Tillingdown' Farm is located just to the east of Caterham, close to the telephone symbol on this map section. Caterham is now part of Greater London.]

The story of the emigration and the family’s subsequent settlement in the Nelson region has been recounted in Enga Washbourn’s book 'Courage and Camp Ovens', published by Reed in 1970.