Millar Buzzard

4.0
The Family of Alfred Ernest and Emily Alice Buzzard

After his death, there is a report of Emily Alice and the children living with her father Charles Gibson Millar on the yacht “White Heather” and cruising around the world. However, Charles did not purchase the yacht (reportedly for the princely sum of £59,000) until September 1899, five months before his death on 18th February 1900.

He was on a cruise in the Atlantic Ocean, off the Canary Islands, and in very bad health, when he went ashore at Las Palmas and died of a heart aneurism. Ironically, before the voyage, he’d written to the secretary of the Royal Yacht Squadron before the voyage, “I expect it will end in my being dumped out somewhere in the North Atlantic one fine morning with half-a dozen fire-bars at my toes.” Those onboard the “White Heather” at the time, were his daughter Emily Alice, her new husband Major William Slade Vincent and his sister Emily Blanche Langtree. (The world cruise referred to aboard the “White Heather” was done in 1890, by the boat’s previous owner, Mr. R. Cecil Leigh. [52]

His body was brought back to Southampton on 4th March 1900, put on a train to Woking where he was cremated. His ashes were shipped back to Australia, and he was interned in the family grave on 26th May 1900.

After Alfred Ernest died, it was reported that Emily Alice and her four children went to live on a family-owned sheep station in Western Australia. She was supposed to have left the children in the care of a governess and to have embarked on a sea voyage where she met her second husband to be. No evidence can be found that the girls lived on a sheep station in W.A.

Vera Buzzard (1888 – 1971) [53]

Marjorie Buzzard (1889 – 1978) [54]

Alys Buzzard (1892- 1937) [55]

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[52] Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 30 September 1899, page 22
[53] Photographs from Beaumont House The Land and its people E.R. Simpson
[54] Photographs from Beaumont House The Land and its people E.R. Simpson
[55] Photographs from Beaumont House The Land and its people E.R. Simpson