A William Croxall, who was a gardener, came to Glenelg, South Australia onboard HMS Buffalo in 1836, along with his wife and daughter.
According to State Records of South Australia, the list of passengers on HMS Buffalo that left Spithead on 22nd July 1836 included the names of William & Eve Croxall.
This headstone is located at St Jude’s cemetery at Brighton: -
It is the headstone at the grave site for William Croxall and his wife Mary. It indicates that William Croxall arrived at Glenelg onboard HMS Buffalo in 1836. HMS Buffalo arrived at Port Lincoln on 24th December 1836, and then Glenelg on 28th December 1836.
179 names are given on the passenger list, including those of William & Eve Croxall. William is listed as being a gardener and Eve is listed as being William’s wife.
It appears from the headstone that William died on 19th December 1867, almost 31 years after arriving at Glenelg in December 1836. He was aged 84 when he died.
It also appears that when William died, he had a different wife. Her name was Mary, and she died just over five years after William. She too was 84 when she died on 20th January 1873. That suggests that she was about five years younger than her husband.
One-time replica of HMS Buffalo
What became of Eve Croxall is unknown. Now here is a twist! According to the web page found at https://bound-for-south-australia.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/1836Buffalo.htm , Eve Croxall was 45 years old when she boarded the Buffalo at Spithead. William is said to have been 43 years old, two years younger than Eve. William is also said to have come from Southsea, England.
The twist though is that, according to https://bound-for-south-australia.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/1836Buffalo.htm, they had a daughter called Mary with them when they sailed from Spithead. There shouldn’t be any confusion between Mary the daughter and Mary the later wife, but there is much confusion over William’s birth date or age.
If Eve was 45 in 1836, she would’ve been born about 1791. If William was 43 in 1836, he would’ve been born about 1793. If he was 84 years old when he died in 1867 though, he would’ve been born about 1783. That makes a discrepancy of about ten years. There is no way that the headstone reads anything like the year of death as being 1877. It appears to read ‘1867’.
It is highly unlikely that William’s wife called Mary was also his daughter. It is more likely that William remarried a woman called Mary, who was about five years younger than himself. That being the case, I can only wonder what became of Eve and Mary her daughter.
I didn’t expect to get bogged down over birth years regarding William. Trying to find out any more on the topic seems to be too complicated for me.
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