One of the “myths and legends” in my family is that we are related to Lord Charles Beresford (1846-1919). Lord Beresford was a British admiral, naval commander, Member of Parliament, and popular public figure descended from a line of Anglo-Irish nobility. I understand the appeal of a connection to nobility, but I haven’t found anything in my family’s paper trail or in our DNA matches to link us to Lord Beresford’s pedigree. This story probably arose from wishful thinking or a comment said in jest.
The Beresford Bear, official symbol of the Beresford Family Society
My grandfather and great-grandfather were both given Beresford as a middle name, and I distinctly remember my grandfather telling me as a child that this name came from his great-grandmother Rhoda Beresford (1828-1892). I’ll delve a little deeper into Rhoda’s life in a future post. For now I want to clear up our Beresford line and share how I busted through a “brick wall” in my research to take our family tree back one additional generation.
A Regency-era marriage
Rhoda’s parents were William Beresford and Mary Anne Callow. They were married in Huntingdon in August of 1811. William was a bricklayer and later a proprietor of houses. According to their marriage record, William was a resident of Long Lane Smithfield, London (near Smithfield Market), while Mary Anne was a resident of St John’s Parish, Huntingdon.
Source: Pallot's Marriage Index for England: 1780 - 1837
William was not originally from London. On the 1841 England Census, the enumerator (i.e., the census taker) reported that he was born around 1786 in the county of Huntingdonshire, but on the 1851 Census his birthplace is recorded as “Not known.” (England and Wales Census records can be found on Ancestry.com or FindMyPast.) I couldn’t find a baptism record for William in Huntingdonshire nor could I find any Beresfords in the town of Huntingdon pre-1811. To figure out William’s early years I had to look for other Beresfords living nearby and close to him in age who could be his siblings.
The search for Siblings
Samuel Beresford (1789-1872) was a very good candidate for William’s brother. Samuel was a “coach wheelwright” (meaning he made and repaired wooden wheels for coaches) who married and raised children in Huntingdon. He reported Buckden as his birthplace. Buckden is a village 4 mi southwest of Huntingdon and is the site of Buckden Towers, the palace in which Catherine of Aragon was held after her divorce from Henry VIII. Samuel appears in Buckden baptism records with his parents listed as Joseph and Mary Beresford. (Buckden parish records are not in Ancestry.com or FindMyPast but can be obtained from the Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Family History Society.)
When I traveled to Huntingdon in 2022, I was able to visit the grave of William Beresford (1786-1855) located at Priory Road Cemetery. Here he is buried with his second wife, Mary Wilson (1794-1873). The stone reads “Sacred to the memory of William Beresford who departed this life October 14 1855 aged 69 years.” William’s first wife Mary Anne Callow (1789-1837) was buried elsewhere, before Priory Road Cemetery opened. Unfortunately, her exact grave site could not be located as Huntingdon has very few surviving headstones that predate the 1850s.
Right next to William’s grave I found the grave of Samuel Beresford and his wife Hannah Lamb. The fact that William and Samuel were buried in adjoining plots is very good evidence that they were brothers.
In my online research, I came across another potential brother for William: Henry Beresford (1800-1866). In every census record, Henry reported his birthplace as Buckden. I found a baptism record for him in Buckden parish records with his parents recorded as Joseph and Mary (the same couple named earlier in Samuel’s baptism record). Henry briefly worked as a stonemason in Huntingdon before moving to London and starting on a long career in law enforcement, becoming a superintendent of the Metropolitan Police and later a superintendent of the Railway Police. I have very few DNA matches with the surname Beresford in their tree, but I do have two matches who trace back to this same Henry Beresford. Thus, I believe that Samuel and Henry were William’s younger brothers.
The Beresford boys of Buckden
Joseph and Mary Beresford baptized seven children in Buckden, but the Beresford surname doesn’t appear anywhere in Buckden records until 1787. William wasn’t baptized there, so he must have been born elsewhere.
After expanding my search to a wider geographical area, I discovered that William was baptized in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, 20 mi to the south of Buckden. William’s baptism record (found on Ancestry.com in England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975) states that he was born on 13 March, 1786, to parents Joseph and Mary Berisford (alternate spelling of Beresford). Luckily, I found a Biggleswade marriage record for Joseph Berisford and Mary Hinkings with a date of 31 May 1785, exactly nine and a half months before William’s birth (record found on Ancestry.com in England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973). I am confident that Joseph Berisford and Mary Hinkings are William’s parents.
For whatever reason, Joseph and Mary didn’t stay in Biggleswade for long. They raised their children in Buckden and were buried there in the churchyard of St Mary’s. My next post will focus on the life of their son William, my 4th great-grandfather.
The parents, grandparents, and spouses of Rhoda Beresford (1828-1892)