Last updated on 08/11/2022

The Suffolk Buggs

This is post was migrated from an old blog called Locke Family. Posts on that blog have now been imported into this one. The old blog will eventually be deleted.

My material grandmother was Emma Bugg. She was born in 1869 in the Suffolk village of Lawshall near Sudbury. This family connection brings the Buggs into the wider family tree.

Emma Bugg in 1929. The boy is said to be her lodger.

Emma Bugg married Herbert Arthur Webb. He was born in 1864. They were married at St. Peters Church in Fulham.

Herbert Arthur Webb came from a large family and had at least four brothers and possibly one sister; their names were Edith, Frederick Arthur, Ellen Maud, Violet May, Herbert Reginald, George Robert and Doris Alice (my mother.)

I never knew Grandmother Emma because she died in 1948. Here she is (on the far right side of the picture) in Portsmouth with members of the Locke family:

Agnes, Ivy, Mary, Doris, Peter, Derek and Emma at the house in Tangier Road, Portsmouth in 1944

Herbert Arthur was a carpenter and lived in Fulham, in London. He was the son of George and Elizabeth Margaret Webb but George had died the year before Herbert’s marriage.

Many of Herbert’s brothers are buried in Brompton Cemetary.

George Webb was born in 1818 in Chelsea, then a village on the outskirts of London. He was christened at the parish of Chelsea St.Luke, an Anglican church in Sydney Street. When George was born, the village of Chelsea was expanding. It was a large and architecturally impressive building; the author Charles Dickens was married there in 1836 as were the parents of Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the scouting movement) in 1846.

George Webb was the son of Francis and Charlotte Webb. In 1861 we know that George was living at 12 South Street. He was a master carpenter. In 1846 he married Elizabeth Margaret Suter, his marriage being registered in the district of Kensington. George died in 1888 at the age of 70 and was buried in Brompton cemetery. At the time of his death he lived at Leete Street, in Chelsea. George purchased a burial plot at the Brompton cemetery in 1853 for which he paid the sum of three pounds and three shillings.

The Webb family grave in Brompton cemetery, photographed in 1992

Read about the Webbs of Chelsea and Fulham.

The Bugg family

Robert Bugg (born 1811 in Hawstead), married Louisa Farrow (born 1811 in Lawshall, Suffolk). Robert Bugg and Louisa Farrow are shown in the IGI index of February 1988, page 3, 100.

Robert and Louisa’s children were Robert (born 1838), Emma (born 1840), Charles H. (born 1842), Charlotte (born 1845), Jacob (born 1847), Ambrose (born 1850) and Lynetta (born 1852). Robert Bugg also appears in the above cited IGI index. The entry indicates he was christened on 4th March 1838 in the parish of Bradfield Combust.

Robert Bugg (born 1838) married Mary Anne Ive in 1850 at Hawstead. Their daughter was Emma Bugg, my maternal grandmother.

Margaret Bugg

Sometimes called Polly, Margaret Bugg was known to my uncle Bob of Leeds. She might have been born in 1863 in the village of Hawstead, Suffolk. There is a reference to a Margaret Bugg in the 1871 cenuses for Hawstead, given as Margaret, aged 8, born 1863 at Hawstead. She is shown as the granddaughter of Robert Bugg (Senior) who was 61 at the time (b 1810) an agricultural labourer of Hawstead whose wife was Louisa (nee Farrow). If this is the right Margaret, her siblings could have been Jacob and Ambrose. More data is required to verify this.

Arthur Bugg was born in Lawshall in April 1865. He was the grandfather of John Bugg a relative of Lynda Bugg who I corresponded with in the 1990s about the Bugg family tree. They, it appears, are descendants of Robert and Mary Ann. That would make me a distant cousin of Lynda. It seems that Arthur married Suzannah Taylor in 1888 (he would have been 23 then) and they had nine children. Lynda gave me the names of the children as Elizabeth Mary, Gertrude Mary, Edith, Arthur Charles, Harriet Ruth, George Edward, Frederick James, William John and Grace.

Suffolk

The English county of Suffolk contains several places of interest – Hawstead, Bradfield Combust, Hartest and Lawshall. The Stonhams lie four miles east of Stowmarket and include Little Stonham, Stonham Aspal and Earl Stonham. Census data and parish registers are held at the record office in Bury St. Edmunds. Lawshall in the county of Suffolk is in the registration district of Sunbury. In 1871 Lawshall had a population of 870; by 1881 this had declined to 799 and then down to 770 in 1891.

Unverified notes

The 1861 Census shows a Charlotte Bugg (aged 16, which would have been right given she was born in 1845) working as a servant in the house of William Snell, a farmer, of Hawstead.

The 1871 Census shows a Margaret Bugg (aged 8, born 1863), grand-daughter of Robert Bugg and Louisa.

Alice Bugg (born 1867) was the daughter of Robert, a labourer; her mother was Ann of Lawshall.

The problem of verification

I mentioned Jacob Bugg (above) as a possible brother of Margaret. In the census data that I have for the area there are three Jacob Buggs. One born in 1806 who married Eliza (1841 census), another born in 1847/8 at Hawstead (1851 census) and one born in 1803 (1851 census). This highlights the problem of verification. Persons with a name can be verified as a relative only if they have proven connections to known and verified individuals. For example, the 1881 census for Hawstead shows an address called The Flat at Hawstead. The people listed there were Robert Bugg, his wife Louisa, his son Jacob and his gandson William G. Nunn who was aged 6 at the time. These people were all born in either Hawstead or Lawshall, which places them in the right area. The dates of birth, calculated from the ages they gave, seem to tie up more or less.

The primary sources that verify a family connection are certificates of birth, death or marriage or an entry in a parish register that gives enough information to confirm their relationship to known individuals.