Grave Ref NCh(J)29

The Buxey family has been established in the Berkshire/Newbury area for over 250 years, with a number of different lines around Hungerford, Bucklebury and Kingston Lisle. I am sure that they are all connected somehow in the late 1600s/early 1700s, but I have not yet been able to identify the links!

Of those above, Joseph and Elizabeth were my great grandparents. Joseph was born at Inkpen c 1837 to William and Jane (nee Faithfull) Buxey. William was the son of Richard Buxey c1765-1846 and Mary (nee Franklin), also of Inkpen. Elizabeth was born in Bovey Tracey, Devon c1828 and married Joseph at Inkpen in December 1860. They had 4 children, Reuben and Maurice, in Inkpen and Mary Jane and Sampson in Newbury. Joseph was a brewer’s drayman and lived in Jack Street, Newbury. The family suffered a number of early deaths, Reuben died at 26 of TB and Mary Jane, who married John Tucker, a baker, also died at 26 from cirrhosis of the liver and exhaustion. Sampson their last child died at 5 weeks and is also in Newtown Road cemetery (surname spelt Buxcey). Joseph also succumbed to TB at 43. Elizabeth is shown on the 1891 census lodging in Speen and working as a monthly nurse. I cannot find her on the 1901 census but I imagine that at some stage she moved to the St Mary’ Almshouses where she died. In 1906. The surviving son Maurice was my grandfather. He died in 1940 and is buried at Shaw. I suspect that Reuben and Mary Jane were also probably buried in Newtown Road, although not identified.

William and Mary Ann were married, and William is also a descendant of Richard Buxey, who was his great grandfather. He was born in Leverton in 1850 to Henry and Harriet (nee Chancellor) Buxey. He married Ann Phillips in Hungerford in 1873.William was variously and groom, grounds servant, and gardener, in Hungerford and then in Ruislip, Middlesex before returning to Falkland Cottages, Wash Hill, where the 1911 census shows William as a jobbing gardener. His wife was recorded variously as Ann, Mary and Mary Ann on censuses! He died at the Newbury Union at Sandleford, which I understand became by that time, more of a residence for impoverished elderly than a workhouse. They had two daughters, Emily Maria (1873)  and Elizabeth Ann (1881), however I do not know anything about them at this stage.

Hannah who died in 1906 at 80 was part of the Buxey family in Bucklebury. I have not much information on her other than the 1901 census where she is shown as a pauper, widow and a monthly nurse at the Newtown road workhouse. In the 1991 census she is shown with husband George, also born in Bucklebury, living in Almshouses in Donnington and “living on own means”. Hannah then disappears off the radar in earlier censuses. George shown in the 1881 and  1871 censuses as married to Mary who is much older than him. Working on the assumption that George and Hannah may have married late, I believe that Hannah was born Hannah Fisher who married Thomas Osgood in 1852 and he died in  Q1 1888. George’s wife Mary died in 1884. There is a marriage recorded in Q4 1888 between Hannah Osgood and George Buxey, so I think that that is what happened. Both George and Hannah had large families from their previous marriages; it is sad that Hannah died in penury….perhaps the remarriage did not meet family approval.