The Wiltshire Washbourns of New Zealand

The family owes a great debt to Richard who was able to research, tease out, and document the descendants of one John Washbourn of Escott in Wiltshire, who is recognized as the progenitor of the Wiltshire Branch of the Washbourns.  Richard produced a family tree with supporting detail, of some 10 generations from 1540 to William Everley Washbourn, born 1819, of Caterham in Surrey.  This note describes his project which was a significant break-through contribution to our knowledge of the Wiltshire Washbourns, without which we should still be wondering where we came from.

 

Richard (b. 1910 in Sumner); eldest son of HEA Washbourn and Sydney Laing Sinclair.. Educated Nelson College. He entered the Royal Navy 1927. He had a distinguished career, both sea-going and land-based administrations with the Royal Navy and the Royal NZ Navy.  He retired from the Royal Navy as a Rear Admiral from the role of Director-General Weapons 1960-62 in 1962.

 

Richard married June Beatrice Medwin Herapath in London in 1943; there were two children  -  Elizabeth Medwin Eastman  Washbourn (1944), and Jonathan Everley Washbourn (1948); both  born in England;

 

Whilst based in the UK (ca 1950 - 1962), Richard, with the assistance of his wife June, researched and documented the links of the original Wiltshire Washbourns.  His baseline documentation began from a few clues written by his uncle HO (Pete) Washbourn in 1910 in a letter to his father, and later printed as a 15-page reference.  Richard describes how they tackled the searches :

 

Uncle Pete did the spade-work in about 1910.  He knew only about the Surrey homes, “Tillingdown” and “Salmons”, back to about 1835.  He got back to Yatesbury and 1755.  His clue was the mention of a White Horse by one of his aunts.  There are at least half a dozen White Horses cut in the chalk downs in England.  He was lucky and chose the right one first, with Yatesbury less than a mile away, and a large Washbourn tomb almost barring the way to the Church door. 

 

We put up a Campaign Map on the wall of my room, Ordnance, 1” to the mile, with coloured pins to indicate occurrences of Washbourns for twenty miles around Yatesbury, and Parishes whose records we had searched, and intended to search next.We spent a long time bothering parsons on Saturday afternoons and Sundays to search their records.  We saw a lot of Wiltshire, met a lot of people, and had some amusing experiences, made some friends, and learnt a lot about the past.

 

No internet in those days, so Richard and June had to do their searching by correspondence, travel and visits to people and places.  After about 10 years of work :

 

The thirty odd pages that follow are culled from a series of files about a foot thick, containing my notes and records of all our researches in the Parishes, Somerset House, the Public Record Office, the Salisbury Diocesan Records, Surrey County Archives, Wiltshire County Archives, Winchester and Gloucester repositories of Wills, and correspondence.

His one regret :-

I have not succeeded in reaching back to the family of Little Washbourne and Wichenford, and it seems

unlikely that I shall have the opportunity to try further.

 

Richard completed his researching by compiling an illustrated dissertation to summarise his results, entitled

"The Wiltshire Branch of the Washbourn Family" in 1961   Only a few original typed copies were produced, but they have been transposed for availability to family members.

 

Richard died at home in Onekaka in 1988.