Thomas and Robert Kersley came from the small rural village of Mapledurwell located near Basingstoke in the county of Hampshire in England. Their parents were William Kersley and Letitia Prince. William married Letitia in around 1818 although we have yet to find out where the wedding took place. As shown in the Kersley Family Tree, the couple had at least eleven children while they were at Mapledurwell: Mary Ann (baptised in 1819), George (1820), Emma (1822), Henry (1825), Thomas John (1826), Charles (1827), James (1830), John (1831), Louisa (1833), Robert (1834) and Joseph (1836).
The local parish registers show that William was 'the base born son of Sarah [Kersley] by Robert Fewel' (or Fowel, the writing was difficult to decipher) and was baptised at Mapledurwell on 12 May 1793 (Gaye Dunn believes that Sarah later married Robert). Sarah was probably the second daughter of Joseph Kersley (1744-1814) and Mary Wigmore (buried in Mapledurwell in 1810) although this has not been proven. Letitia Prince was baptised at Mapledurwell in August 1794. Her parents were Thomas Prince (1748-1818) and Mary Prince (1752-1822). Letitia had seven siblings: William, George, Mary, Robert, Jean, Thomas and Ann, all of whom were born (and most buried) in Mapledurwell.
The Mapledurwell Parish Church
Letitia Kersley died and was buried at Mapledurwell in November 1836 (probably from complications arising from the birth of their last child Joseph). The 1851 census shows William Kersley, aged 57 and born in Mapledurwell, living in Monk Sherborne (which is near Mapledurwell) with an Emma Kersley, aged 29 and also born at Mapledurwell. We have not as yet been able to establish the date of William's death. He seems not to have died in Mapledurwell. The Catherine House records show that a number of William Kersleys were buried in the area between 1842 and 1878 including one who was born in 1792 and was buried in Whitchurch.
William's grandfather, Joseph Kersley, was probably the youngest son of Richard and Elizabeth Kersley (nee Staples). An extract from a book on Lasham and Herriard sent to me by Gaye Dunn indicates that Richard moved from Winslade in Hampshire to Herriard after he married Elizabeth Staples there in September 1731. Richard's son, George Kersley, was said to own Hale Farm which he inherited rather than bought. George married three times, first to Jane Rout, then Elizabeth Cooper and finally to Sarah Blunden (in 1787). By this time the farm, which had passed to George's first son (also George), had to be sold in order to pay off the family's creditors. 'From then on', the book continues, 'life became very different and it showed in the lifestyle of the children born to George and Sarah' who had to work as labourers and ploughmen.
It seems that George's brother Joseph, who married Mary Wigmore in Herriard in 1762, moved to Mapledurwell some time after their wedding (the parish records shows three of their children were baptised there from 1778). The list of burials at Herriard obtained from GenWeb include Joseph and Mary who, while residents of Mapledurwell, were buried at Herriard on 5 June 1814 and 6 March 1810 respectively. Gaye Dunn has Joseph's children as: William (1764-1847), Mary (1767-), John (1770-), Sarah (1773-), George (1774-), Ann (1778-), Elizabeth (1781-), Charlotte (1785-1842) and James (1789-1824). The parish registers for Mapledurwell confirm that Ann, Elizabeth and Charlotte Kersley were baptised there in 1778, 1781 and 1785 respectively. The other children were not mentioned and so may have been baptised in Herriard.
The Phillamore listings for Hampshire show that the following Kersleys were married in Mapledurwell between 1788 and 1808: Mary Kersley married John Slater on 14 February 1788; William Kersley married Sarah Hall on 1 November 1790; Charlotte Kersley married a Thomas Gidge on 24 April 1806; and Ann Kersley married Robert Gary on 17 November 1808. The listings also show that a John Kersley from Mapledurwell married a Hannah Wise in Herriard on 2 October 1800. Maureen Sharpe found, in the marriage allegations for Hampshire, a George Kersley, a 21 year-old yeoman of Mapledurwell, marrying a Mary Bentham, also 21, of Upper Nately. An internet listing for the Wild, Batchelor and Hewlett families in Hampshire provides a list of Charlotte Kersley and Tomas Gidge's children who were all baptised at Old basing between 1806 and 1826 (the various families are listed on my Kersley/Laurence family tree maintained on Rootsweb).
It seems that Thomas Kersley may have served as a sailor and that he jumped ship at the port of Melbourne sometime in the early 1850s and headed inland to the goldfields. While at Ballarat he met and married Bridget Buckley by licence in the local Church of England on 18 March 1856. Thomas was then aged 28 years and Bridget was 21. She came from Michelstown in County Cork in Ireland. The wedding certificate states that her father was a farmer named Daniel Buckley and her mother was Bridget Mahony. The Griffiths valuation index for 1852 shows that an Ellen Buckley rented a house and yard at 26 George Street Michelstown (from the Earl of Kingston) and that a Bridget Buckley leased a garden at 45 George St. Ellen's land was said to be worth three pound five shillings. Other Buckleys recorded in Michelstown at that time were Denis (at 39 George St) and Patrick (67 Mulberry Lane)
Winnie thinks Bridget emigrated to Australia with the Byrnes family who had employed her to look after their children during the journey out. She left the family after arrival and made her way to Ballarat where she met Thomas. Thomas' younger brother Robert also emigrated to Australia (in around 1855) and eventually made his way to the Mudgee area in NSW where he married Catherine Murray on 16 May 1867. The Kersleys' life and times in Australia are described at Life in Australia.