Thomas Teschemaker

Thomas Teschemaker was the son of Joan (John) Teschemaker (1770-1820) and Alida Esther Thierens (1768-1818). He married (firstly) Elizabeth Mackenzie in Demerara on 21 May 1828. They had one child Cecil de Shute Teschemaker. Elizabeth died in Demerara in February 1830. On 3 August 1831 he married (secondly) Henrietta Eleanor Elizabeth Thierens (née Overweg) (c.1801 – 1882) at St Michael’s, Barbados. Henrietta had previously been married on 4 October 1816 to John Cornelius Thierens I (c. 1789 - 1829), and they had had two children, Albertina Elizabeth Thierens (c. 1823 – 1844) and John Cornelius Thierens II (1827-1903).

Thomas and Henrietta stayed on in Demerara for some time after their marriage, and their son Frederick William was born there on 16 March 1834. By the time their second son Thomas John Cornelius was born in 1839, Thomas was living in England; this son’s birth was registered in Tiverton. At the time of the 1841 Census, Thomas was enumerated in Peter Street, Tiverton, and shown as being of independent means, no doubt due to his plantations in Demerara. His wife was not listed as present on census night. Those present included A.E. Thierens and J.C. Thierens, both born abroad, presumably in Demerara; these were the two children from Henrietta’s first marriage. Also there were Thomas and Henrietta’s two children, Frederick W. Teschemaker (q.v.) and (T.) J.C. Teschemaker (q.v.).

In the 1851 Census, the family were listed at 22 Beacon Hill, Littleham, Exmouth. Thomas, aged 48, born in London, was shown as a ‘Proprietor of West India property’. His wife Harriet (the anglicized version of Henrietta), age 47, and born in Demerara, was listed as a British subject. Also there was their son Frederick W., age 17, born in Demerara.

Two years after Thomas’s death in 1853, his widow Harriet and their two sons (Frederick q.v. and Thomas John q.v.- known as Fred and Tom) headed off to New Zealand. After a while they established a 20,000 acre sheep run, which they named Haldon, after the Haldon Hills in Devon. Much later, John Cornelius Thierens, Harriet’s son from her first marriage, also went out to New Zealand, and lived with his half-brother Tom.

We are grateful to Peter Wingfield-Digby for compiling this entry.

T71/886 British Guiana claim no. 1149. T71/887 British Guiana claim nos. 2399 (Nieuw Oosterbeck) and 2402; National Probate Calendar 1867.

Information on the lives of several Teschemakers and Thierens in New Zealand can be found in the handwritten notes available in the Macdonald Collection at the Canterbury Museum: https://collection.canterburymuseum.com/objects?query=teschemaker&limit=25 [accessed 27/11/2019].

FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Births, 1837-1983 [database online]; FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online]; Times 28/09/1853 p. 10; 1851 census online.

L.G.D. Acland, The early Canterbury runs, containing the first, second and third (new) series (Christchurch, New Zealand, Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd) [accessed via http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/AclEarl-fig-AclEarlTit.html 09/03/2011].