Rawdon Briggs(1041) was the seventh child of Harrison Briggs (311) and Elizabeth Brough(370). His christening is listed in the IGI, based on church records, and took place on 23 Dec 1793 at St. Mary's church, Hull. According to a pedigree in the undated publication My Family Chronicle by Mary Briggs Colquhoun he married twice. His first wife is given as Jane Spicer in Mary Briggs Colquhoun's publication, whereas the IGI, based on parish records for St. Peter's Church, Leeds, gives her name as Elizabeth Spicer, and the date of the wedding as 26 Aug 1818. There were two children of this first marriage, both born in Wakefield according to the 1851 English census.
| Name | Notes |
|---|---|
| William Briggs(1043) | Born 1829. |
| Mary Jane Briggs(1044) | Born 1831 and died 1920. |
Subsequently, presumably after the death of Elizabeth/Jane, Rawdon married Esther Mary Holmes Maiben(1045), known as Essie. According to Mary Briggs Colquhoun, Esther was the daughter of Richard Maiben, Army Surgeon of Sligo in Ireland, and his wife Jane Holmes, the daughter of Thomas Holmes of Farmhill, Co. Sligo. Again, according to the same source, after two sons, both named Rawdon, and who both died soo after birth, they then had five sons who survived, all born in Wakefield. In the 1851 English census the family is living at 7 South Parade in Wakefield, with Rawdon Briggs as the head, described as a corn merchant, aged 54, his wife Esther M. H. Briggs, aged 39 and born in New York, William, aged 21, Mary Jane, aged 19, and then the second family Robert (9), Rawdon B. (7), Richard Martin (6) and Spicer Galland (3).
| Name | Notes |
|---|---|
| Robert Briggs(1046) | Born 1841. Died 1885 in Fiji. |
| Rawdon Bentley Briggs(1047) | Born 1843. Died in Queensland in 1927. |
| Richard Maiben Briggs(1048) | Born 1845. Died 1868 in Brisbane. |
| Spicer Galland Briggs(1049) | Born 1848. He was not with his mother at the time of the 1861 English census, and I have not found him elsewhere. His name crops up as a Licenced Surveyor in Queensland in 1882 in connecton with the Brisbane Trigonometrical Survey (Queensland Govt. Archives, SRS5133). |
| Anthony Brough Briggs(1050) | Born 1853. Married Matilda Warner. No other details known. |
Following the death of Rawdon Briggs in 1858 (GRO deaths index, Jun quarter 1858, Clifton, vol.6a, p.99), the family must have moved from Wakefield, for in the 1861 English census Esther is living at Grange Mount, Birkenhead, in Cheshire. Her step-son William, aged 31, is described as, I think, a rice merchant. Rawdon Bentley, aged 17, is described as an apprentice merchant, and Richard Maiben as an apprentice engineer. Anthony B. is there, aged 7 and a schoolboy. Mary Jane, Esther's step-daughter, is not present. There is a Mary Jane Briggs, described as a visiting neice, aged 29 and unmarried, in the house of Joshua and Anne Hood in Bradford, so possibly Anne Hood was a sister of Elizabeth Spicer.
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© John Stowell 2005