Stroud · Bristol · Brisbane · built 13 September 2026
The Wakefields
A mason from Stroud who married a Berkeley woman in Bristol, kept the same trade for thirty years, and took six of his children to Queensland.
James Wakefield has appeared on five pages of this archive and had none of his own. Until this morning he was a name, a trade and a county. He now has a birthplace, a baptism, two parents, a marriage, a street and seven children.
James Wakefield, 1806–1857
A life in six records
| Baptised | 6 April 1806 | STROUD, Gloucestershire — father RICHARD WAKEFIELD, mother ELIZABETH WEBB |
| Married | 17 October 1831 | HANNAH SANIGER, at Bristol — residence Bristol, Gloucester |
| 1841 | 6 June | Drivers Fields, St Paul, Bristol — MASON JOURNEYMAN, with Hannah, three children, a Matilda WEBB aged two, and Lyddya Sinegar aged seventy |
| 1851 | 30 March | Drivers Fields, St Paul, Bristol — MASON, aged 45, with Hannah and five children |
| 1854 | 16 December | Arrived Brisbane on the GENERAL HEWITT, entered as a MASON, with Hannah and six children |
| Died | 8 July 1857 | Brisbane — two and a half years after landing |
He is a mason in every record that gives him a trade: a mason journeyman at Drivers Fields in 1841, a mason in 1851, a mason on the assisted-passage register in 1854. Three clerks in thirteen years and two hemispheres.
Nine children
Two died, one is unaccounted for, six sailed
| Child | Born | What is known |
|---|---|---|
| Eliza | bapt. 14 Oct 1832 | BURIED at Bristol 4 May 1834, AGED 19 MONTHS. Baptised there to James and Hannah. |
| Ellen | bapt. 26 Oct 1834 | BURIED at Bristol, St Paul, Portland Square, 12 July 1840, AGED 5. |
| Martha | — | No baptism, no burial, no birth registration at Bristol in any spelling. See below. |
| Hiram | b. c.1837–8 | Errand boy at 13 in 1851; entered as a PLUMBER aged 16 on the ship. |
| Aaron | b. c.1839–41 | Errand boy at 10 in 1851; FARM LABOURER aged 14 on the ship. |
| Miriam | b. 11 Apr 1840 | A SERVANT at ten in the 1851 census; shipped at fourteen as a domestic servant. The direct line. |
| Jabez | b. 1843 | Eleven on the ship. Married in Queensland 1863, buried there 1903. |
| Zillah | b. 1845–6 | Eight on the ship. Married in Queensland 1871. |
| Ephraim | b. c.1849 | Five on the ship, and absent from the 1851 census household — the one child this archive still cannot place. |
Two daughters died small, in the same city and within six years of each other: Eliza at nineteen months in May 1834, Ellen at five in July 1840. Both were baptised at Bristol to James and Hannah, and both entries name the parents. For months this archive treated their absence from the 1854 passenger list as a question about emigration. It was not a question about emigration. documented
Martha Wakefield — resolved, and against the tree. Tested in the free Queensland index, which took minutes. The answer is better than either side of the old argument.
What this page used to say. This page said until 14 September 2026: “Martha may never have existed … she is not in the family tree either, which gives James and Hannah only Miriam.” BOTH HALVES OF THAT ARE WRONG. She is in the tree, among their eight children, with a death date of 23 April 1899, a place — MARYBOROUGH, QUEENSLAND — a cemetery and a plot number, and a cited source naming her MARTHA HURFORD (born Wakefield). The Bristol search was run in the wrong country, under the wrong surname, against a claim this archive had not read.
What this page used to say. This page said until 14 September 2026: “Martha may never have existed … she is not in the family tree either, which gives James and Hannah only Miriam.” BOTH HALVES OF THAT ARE WRONG. She is in the tree, among their eight children, with a death date of 23 April 1899, a place — MARYBOROUGH, QUEENSLAND — a cemetery and a plot number, and a cited source naming her MARTHA HURFORD (born Wakefield). The Bristol search was run in the wrong country, under the wrong surname, against a claim this archive had not read.
| Death · MARTHA HURFORD · 23 April 1899 | Queensland 1899/C/3288. The tree's date to the day — and the index names her parents: FATHER JOHN WAKEFIELD, MOTHER a HUGHES. |
| Death · MARTHA MILLINGEN · 19 July 1898 | Queensland 1898/B/30782. The other candidate: a Martha Wakefield did marry Philip Millingen in Queensland on 31 July 1887. Her parents are HENRY WAKEFIELD and CATHERINE DUNCAN. |
| No Martha Wakefield dies in Queensland at all | Searched 1855–1960. And no Wakefield death in the index gives James Wakefield and Hannah Saniger as the parents of a Martha. |
Martha Hurford was a real woman and she was not this family's daughter. She was John Wakefield's, by a Hughes, and the tree grafted her on. The index records James and Hannah's children perfectly well — Ephraim in 1868 under “Anna Sanniger”, Aaron in 1896 under “Hannah Sanegar”, Hiram in 1905 under “Hannah Sanigar”, Zillah in 1900, Miriam in 1909. There is no Martha among them, and now there is a reason rather than a silence.resolved 14 September 2026 How it was found →
The passenger register → · The 1841 household → · The 1851 household →
A loose end tied
Matilda Webb
The two-year-old MATILDA WEBB living in the house in 1841 has sat unexplained for months. James Wakefield's mother was Elizabeth WEBB. The child is almost certainly his kin.
It is the sort of thing an archive only notices when it finally learns a man's mother's name.
What is not settled
Richard Wakefield and Elizabeth Webb come from a FamilySearch-derived index rather than the parish book, and there is more than one James Wakefield in Gloucestershire. The birthplace, year and county all agree with the 1851 census, which is why they are here — but the Stroud register would settle it.an identification
James Wakefield → · Hannah Saniger → · Her six generations at Berkeley →