Albert William BYRCH (1844-1909)

Albert William Byrch (1844-1909) was a friend of the Sladden family when the Byrch family lived in Evesham.  At the beginning of the 20th century, the Byrches emigrated to New Zealand.  May Sladden stayed with the Byrches for a few days on a visit to New Zealand in 1906.

Albert Byrch was born at Evesham in 1844, the fourth of six children of William Abraham Byrch, a solicitor, and his wife, Frances Elizabeth (née Phillips).  Albert grew up at The Abbey, Merstow Green, Evesham.  He became a solicitor like his father and joined the family firm of Byrch, Cox & Sons. 

On 27th January 1878 at St Andrew’s, Deal, Kent, Albert married Constance Bremmer.  At the time of the 1881 census, they lived at 5 Greenhill; by 1891 they had moved to The Elms, Bengeworth.

Albert and Constance had six sons and four daughters:  Albert Phillips (1879-1943), Charles Edmund M (1880-1880), Constance Eleanor (1881-1964), John William Urquhart (1883-1927), George Ernest Berry (1884-1952), Frederic Victor (1887-1915), Winifred (1888-1955), Florence Marion (1890-1984), Henry (1892-1978) and Marie Sybil (1894-1970s).

In 1902 the Byrch family emigrated to New Zealand and took on a sheep station at Mount Brown, six miles from Amberley, South Island.  All the family emigrated with the exception of Albert Phillips Byrch, the eldest, who was living in Guernsey.  It was at the Mount Brown homestead that May Sladden visited them in February 1906 and wrote about the visit in her diary.  Soon after the Byrches moved to a sheep station at Motunau near Canterbury.

Albert Byrch died at Napier on North Island in August 1909 and was buried at Linwood, Christchurch, South Island.  His death was reported in the local newspapers in England.  Constance survived him by over 30 years.