Author: PAVER, William
Biography:
PAVER, William (1801-71: ancestry.com)
He was born on 7 Nov. 1801 (not 1802) and baptised on 11 Nov. at St. Margaret’s, Walmgate, York, the son of a blacksmith, William Paver, and his wife Margaret Penty, who had married at St. Lawrence’s, York, on 20 July 1800. Nothing is known of his education: in the 1861 Census he declared himself “A.M.” (for the first time) which might have been an honorary degree but of which no record has been found. With his wife Jane Unthank (d 1865) he had two children, a girl and a boy, baptised in York in 1825 and 1832, but no matching marriage record has been found. (At the time of the 1861 Census her mother, Elizabeth Unthank, was part of the household, so there can be no doubt about the surname.) Strangely, a Jane Unthank married James Walsh in York on 27 Dec. 1824: it is possible there was a gross error in the transcript, since that date would be a good match for Paver, but it is also possible that they were a different couple altogether. Paver published only one collection of poems before turning to other interests. He became a clerk in the Office of the Registrar at York and rose eventually to be Registrar of Births and Deaths himself. He was well known as a genealogist—the occupation he recorded in the Census from 1841 onwards—and published on Pedigrees of the Families of York (1842). His manuscript collections relating to Yorkshire genealogy were acquired after his death by the British Museum. He died at Rishworth St., Wakefield, Yorkshire, on 1 June 1871. (ODNB 2 Sept. 2023; ancestry.com 2 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 2 Sept. 2023; York Herald 8 July 1871)