The Reverend George Anguish
The Reverend George Anguish died on the 5th July 1843 aged 79. The Clergy database provides his
clerical biography from Venn:
Adm. pens. (age 17) at CAIUS, Dec. 23, 1781. S. of Thomas (1741), barrister. B. Feb. 7, 1764, in London.
School, Eton. ' Matric. Michs. 1782; Scholar, 1782-9; B.A. 1786; M.A. 1789. Ord. deacon (Norwich) June
11, 1786; priest, May 18, 1788; C. of Spexhall, Suffolk, 1786. V. of Moulton, Norfolk, with Tunstall, 1788-
1813. V. of Potter Heigham, 1789-1803. Preb. of Norwich, 1790-1820. R. of Gisleham, Suffolk, 1797-1833.
R. of Ashby, 1803-10. R. of Lound, 1810-16. Succeeded to Somerleyton Hall, 1810. Brother of Thomas
(next). Died unmarried July 5, 1843, in London. (Carthew, Launditch, III. 310; Venn, II. 106; Norfolk
Official Lists.)
As the heir to the not inconsiderable Somerleyton estate in Suffolk most of his will with its three
codicils is taken up with making sure it all passes safely to his nephew Lord Sidney Godolphin
Osborne*. However one section is taken up with the provision of £20,000 in trust to provide
annuities for two women and their four children.
When his will was written on the 19th November 1837 Elizabeth Jeffries and her two natural
daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, are living at 13 Lambs Conduit Street in Holborn, with Mary Ann
Stacey, the daughter of Anna Maria Stacey. Elizabeth Jeffries’ natural son, George Jeffries is living in
Phoenix Cottage in Walworth. Anna Maria Stacey is living in Norwich, and married to William
Sussams, a grocer and tea dealer. The codicils reveal that Elizabeth Jeffries (the mother) had died
in 1841, and that Mary Ann Stacey had married Henry Bush.
George Jeffries was born on the 18th September 1799, and he was baptised as George Jafrys at St
Mary Coslany in Norwich on the 22nd as the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Jafrys. Mary & Elizabeth
were twins born on the 20th November 1802 and baptised the following day at St Lawrence in
Norwich as the illegitimate children of Elizabeth Jeffries. Anna Maria Stacey (George got her name
wrong in his will) was born in Norwich on the 29th August 1812 and baptised privately the
following day at St Stephen’s, with only her mother, Anna Maria Stacey, named; she was publicly
baptised on the 27th August 1827 at St Michael at Plea, Norwich, again with no father named. By
this date however Anna Maria Stacey was already married to William Sussams, a citizen of
Norwich, who was the recently bereaved father of a very young son when they married at St
Benedict’s in Norwich on the 27th March 1825.
In the subsequent marriages of Anna Maria Stacey (the daughter) to Henry James Bush in 1839
and Elizabeth Jeffries (the daughter) to John Semmens in 1851, they both name George Anguish,
Clergyman or Clerk, as their father. None of George’s children with Elizabeth Jeffries had children
of their own, but Anna Maria and Henry had a large family and many of their descendants had
Stacy as part of their name. One grandson born in 1900 was given the name Norman Anguish
Stacy Bush to show just how long family memories can last.
* I can’t help remembering Winston Graham’s clergyman in the Poldark books, the Rev. Osborne
Whitworth, who also had Godolphin connections.
George Watson Stacy Bush x 2
It seems unlikely that two men who share the same combination of names as above would be
unrelated but so far I can’t find a link between the two who both give this as their name in the
1911 census. George Watson Bush of 137 Cassland Road, Homerton named his son born in 1910
George Watson Stacy Bush, and gave the name Stacy as a third christian name to all the children
he had with his second wife Flora Isabel Bayliss. His father was the Henry James Bush who married
Anna Maria Stacey in Holborn in 1839, and George Watson was born in Saxmundham in 1846,
though he was baptised as George Walter. His name develops over the years from plain George in
1851 to George W. S. Bush in 1901. While he grew up in Norwich, and married his first wife,
Caroline Barber, there in 1869, he spent much of his time working in Hackney, first as a
Commercial traveller in hardware, then as a railway clerk, and finally as a registration clerk for
voters. Caroline died in 1896, and he married the 22 year old Flora in Hackney in 1899; their eight
children would join the three he already had from his first marriage. He died in 1920 in Hackney.
The second George Watson Stacy Bush first appears with this full name on his enlistment into the
RAMC on the 15th September 1884. Aged 21 and born in Norwich, he has been working as a Clerk
presumably in Surrey as he has served with the Surrey militia and enlists at Kingston. He signs his
full name with the good handwriting expected of a clerk. By the time he was discharged in 1905 he
had served in Egypt, Malta and South Africa; he had also married Edith Mary Alexander in Hackney
in 1892 - when he names his father as George William Bush, a Commercial traveller - and had
three children, all of whom have the third christian name of Stacy. On his discharge the family
went to live in Thornton Heath, but by 1918 they have moved to Enfield where he died in 1933.
There is some confusion over the date of his birth: the Army List gives it as 16 September 1863,
while for the Civil Service evidence of age he says it is 10 August 1864; unfortunately neither of
these dates correspond to the birth or baptism of a George Bush in Norwich. Also unfortunately
he doesn’t seem to appear in any censuses until after his discharge from the Army.
The George Bush he is most often identified with in family trees on Ancestry was born in
Garvestone in Norfolk and baptised there as George William Bush on the 30th March 1866 to
parents George Bush and Mary Ann Soones. They had married in the Mitford registration district
(which includes Yaxham and Garvestone) in 1853, and their daughter Ann Elizabeth was baptised
in Yaxham on the 3rd October 1858 when George is described as a Farmer. By 1866 when George
was baptised his father is an innkeeper in Garvestone, though newspaper reports of goings on at
the White Horse say he is a farmer and innkeeper. In the 1871 census Mary Ann is in Norwich,
described as an innkeeper and married, there’s no sign of George senior; she had another
daughter, Harriet Ann, born on the 11th August 1875, and baptised with no father’s name on 20th
September 1885. Mary Ann is a widow in the 1881 census, living with children George and Harriet;
George by this time is 16 and a tinware manufacturer.
I know three years is a long time but I find it hard to believe he went from this to living in Surrey,
working as a clerk, joining the militia and extending his name. His father was not a commercial
traveller, though the first George Watson Stacy Bush was in 1881, and it might be a coincidence
that the second George Watson Stacy Bush married in Hackney where the first George Watson
Stacy Bush worked from before 1881. The first George Watson Stacy Bush would have been 18 in
1864, and was living at home with his parents still in Norwich, working as a Collecting Clerk. You
can probably guess what I’m thinking … The second George Watson Stacy Bush was possibly born
with a different surname and though perhaps supported by his father’s family grew up away from
Norwich. They must have maintained contact for him to take on his full father’s name by the time
he enlisted; did he say his father’s name was George William Bush on his marriage to spare the
blushes of the local registration clerk?
Tales around the tree
The Rev. George Anguish, and, George Watson Stacy Bush x 2