Author: Busby, C. S. B.
Biography:
BUSBY, Charles Stanhope Burke (1814-1901: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the second of six children and the only son born to Charles Augustin Busby (1786-1834), an architect, and his wife Louisa Mary Williams (1788-1873). They had married in St. George’s, Bloomsbury, London, on 3 July 1811. Charles was born in Marylebone, London, on 4 Feb. and baptised on 12 Apr. 1814. His grandfather was Dr. Thomas Busby (q.v.), musician. The family, including Busby’s newly born sister, moved to New York in 1817, possibly as a result of the failure of a bridge designed by Busby’s father. There his father made measured drawings of major timber bridges which were later published but he was unsuccessful at obtaining work and they returned to England in 1819. On 6 Feb. 1830 Busby was apprenticed for five years to Jacob Boys, a King’s Bench attorney in Brighton, and he passed his law examinations in 1836. He worked first in Brighton before moving to Derbyshire where, in Brampton on 1 May 1850, he married Susanna Frith (1813-95). They lived in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where he practiced as a solicitor and they had four children, two daughters and two sons. Busby served as a coroner, magistrate, and Clerk of the Peace in Derbyshire. His eldest son, Charles, eventually joined him in his law practice which became known as Busby and Son. The 1901 Census shows him living with one daughter at 79 Carlisle Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, and he died there of “senile decay” on 15 July 1901. His will was proved on 1 Aug. 1901 and distributed an estate of over £26,000. Busby seems not to have published anything other than Poems which was issued by subscription in 1834, a year after his father declared bankruptcy; it may have been an attempt to assist the family financially. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Aug. 2023; Alec Skempton, ed., A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers [2002]; ODNB [for Charles Augustin Busby] 21 Aug. 2023) SR