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David Augustus PEACHEY (1834/5–1888)
St Giles [Ss Philip & James] section: Row 47, Grave J32

David Augustus Peachey was born in Cheltenham in 1834/5 and baptised at St Mary's Church there on 8 March 1835. He was the son of the tailor David Peachey and his wife Catherine.

By 1837 David’s parents had moved to Clifton, Bristol. The 1851 census shows his family living there at 6 Princes Place: David (16) was working as a general clerk to a solicitor, and his father was a tailor employing three men.

In the second quarter of 1858 in the Clifton district, David Augustus Peachey married Emma Benden (born in Bristol in 1831/2). They had four children:

• Ernest Augustus Peachey (born in Stafford in 1859, reg. second quarter)
• Mabel Benden Peachey (born in Exeter in 1860, reg. fourth quarter)
• Louisa Agnes Peachey (born in Exeter in 1863, reg. fourth quarter)
• Harry Herbert Peachey (born in Taunton in 1868, reg. third quarter).

David became a newspaper reporter. He and Emma began their married life in Stafford, and he was then based in Exeter between 1860 and 1863. At the time of the 1861 census David (26) was working as a newspaper reporter and living at Pavilion Place there with Emma (29) and their first two children Ernest (1) and Mabel (six months, misrecorded as Isabel). The family had evidently moved on to Taunton when Henry was born in 1868.

By the time of the 1871 census the family was living in Oxford, at 2 Observatory Street. David Peachey was still a newspaper reporter, all four children were alive, and his wife’s unmarried sister, Louisa Benden (44), a dressmaker forewoman, was paying the family a visit.

By 1878 the family was in Northampton, where both of Peachey’s daughters died: Mabel Benden Peachey at the age of 17 in 1878, and Louisa Agnes Peachey at the age of 15 in 1879.

The 1881 census shows David Peachey, now the editor of a newspaper, living at 11 Parade Square, Northampton with his wife Emma and their youngest son, Harry (13), and one servant. Their only other surviving child, Ernest (21), was working as a journalist and lodging in Bath.

Peachey’s book entitled Shorthand Shortened: Being a Combination of the Best Principles Contained in the Stenographic Systems was published in 1882 and is still in print.

In the 1880s David Augustus Peachey was appointed editor of the Oxford Chronicle, and the family came back to Oxford and lived at 6 Norham Road.

Peachey died in Oxford in 1888:

† David Augustus Peachey died at 6 Norham Road on 22 February 1888 at the age of 53 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 25 February (burial recorded in the burial registers of both St Giles’s and Ss Philip & James’s Church).

The following description of the funeral appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 3 March 1888:

THE LATE MR. PEACHEY — The funeral of the late Mr. D. A. Peachey, Editor of the Oxford Chronicle, whose death occurred on the 22nd ult., at his residence, No. 6, Norham-road, after a brief but painful illness, took place on Saturday last, at St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Walton-street. The remains were followed to the grave by the two sons of the deceased and other mourners, and the staff of the Chronicle, and representatives of the other Oxford newspapers attended as a mark of respect. Several choice wreaths were placed on the coffin, one of which was given by the employes, a number of whom officiated as bearers. The service was conducted by the Rev. W. B. Duggan, Vicar of St Paul’s.”

His effects came to £957 10s. 4d., and his executor was his wife Emma (staying at 6 Speenham Road, Brixton with her son Ernest on 14 April 1888 when probate was granted).

Emma then went back to her home city of Bristol, and in 1891 was living on her own means at 227 Cheltenham Road, Westbury on Trym with her son Harry (22), who had also become a newspaper reporter.

Emma Peachey died at 56 Park Street. Bristol at the age of 61 on 22 April 1892. Her effects came to £388 3s. 3d., and her son Harry was her executor.

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Peachey’s surviving children

• Ernest Augustus Peachey (born 1859) also became a journalist and author. In the third quarter of 1884 he married Clara Beatrice Johnston (born in Newry, Ireland in 1863/5), and their only child, Georgie Coralie Peachey (known as Coral), was born in 1886. At the time of the 1891 census he was living at 6 Speenham Road, Lambeth, North Brixton with his mother-in-law, his wife, Georgie (4), and one servant. By 1911 his wife was dead and he was living at 86 York Mansions, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea with his daughter Georgie (24), who was a music student; his unmarried sister-in-law Georgina Johnston (45); and a cook. Ernest Augustus Peachey died at 22 Telford Avenue, Streatham Hill, Surrey on 30 December 1920, and his effects came to £268 1s. 7d.: his daughter Coral was his executor. Coral married Falk Z. T. Hovind in the Wandsworth district in the third quarter of 1925.She died in Eastbourne near the beginning of 1969.
• Harry Herbert Peachey (born 1868) died at 132 Brixton Hill on 20 February 1900 at the age of 31 and was buried in Norwood Cemetery;