William Stanley Heberden (*1864), Dorothy Edith Margaret Taylor Brown (*1888)

William was born in Ranmore, Surrey (UK), son of George Heberden, Reverend, and his wife Dorthea Gibbs. Ranmore is in the parish of in Great Bookham, Surrey (census 1871).  He later signed all legal documents as WStanley Heberden, so he must have been called Stanley.
Dorothy was born in Strath Wye, Tintern, Monmouthshire Wales, daughter of the physician John Taylor Brown and the farmers daughter Lucy Lewis. She was normally called "Nina".


Alumni Cantabrigienses - A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates, Ed. J.Venn (2011). p.320.

Stanley was sent at age 12 from home in Surrey to the boys boarding and day school Malvern College in Worcestershire. After that he continued at Leeds Grammar School in Yorkshire; the census 1881 has him in Rothwell, Yorkshire. He was in 1883, at age 19, admitted to Jesus College in Cambridge.
He then entered 1884 St George's Hospital in London, achieved there his postgraduate diploma MRCS (Membership of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons), and in 1889 the Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (L.R.C.P.).
In the mean time, his parents had moved to South Africa.

The second Boer War 1899-1902.  With the large deposits of gold and diamonds, the British Empire wished to extend its influence into Transvaal and Orange Free State. To counter that, the Boers besieged Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking in early 1900 (Mafeking from October 1899 to May 1900), and won important battles. The onward marches of the British Army, well over 400,000 men, were so overwhelming that the Boers did not fight staged battles in defence of their homelands. Then a guerilla war ensued. Peace was established in 1902 (extracted from Wikipedia).

Stanley now also moved to South Africa.
From GFT: He was in medical practice in South Africa from 1889. He first was in Fraserburg in the Karoo Highlands of Cape Col., then close to the border of what is now Botswana in Mafeking (where he was during the Boer War; see box).  [His brother George Alfred came to SA for the Boer War as medical officer to Mounted Forces.]  From 1902 Stanley was in Johannesburg as Medical Officer to the Ferreira Deep Mine, a gold mine on the Witwatersrand on the farm Turffontein (now a suburb of Johannesburg).

• Numbers in brackets in the text give access to the civil records on which the statements are based (records from familysearch.com).

Stanley's father died in South Africa in 1891 (18910302). His mother then returned to England, to London, where she died in 1907.
Stanley became a Freemason (from GFT).

At some point Stanley met his future wife Nina, 24 years his junior, most likely in the hospital, where Nina was nurse. They married in 1911 (19110228) with contract ("out of community of property", according his death certificate). One of the witnesses is J.Taylor-Brown (her father). Her birth year is given as 1890, the birth record is from 1888. Her younger sister Gwendoline was also in SA, she married there in 1915 with Edmund Ludlow-Lockwood.

Children (born in Transvaal, the first when Stanley was 40 and Nina 26): 
- Elizabeth Mary *23/12/1914, she married 15/12/1938 in Johannesburg to Arthur Hoare, reverend (19381215). Elizabeth (Bessie) moved 1945 back to England. Arthur Hoare died 02/08/1970. She later lived at 12a Cathedral Street, Norwich. She died 13/10/1987 in Norwich.


Johannesburg General Hospital situated north of the city, with its subsidiary hospitals. Postcard ca. 1930-1945; from digitalcommonwealth.org.


- Dorothy (always called Tirrey) *10/05/1916, married 25/06/1938 schoolmaster (at St Johns) John Daniel Argyle (19160510, 19380625).
- Anne *22/05/1918, married 10/04/1937 schoolmaster (at St Johns) Henry Beckwith (19180522, 19370410). She died July 1991, Fayetteville, Washington, Arkansas, USA, aged 73 (source: GFT).
- Peter, *08/04/1922, became physician in Johannesburg, married 1953 Cynthia May Callard, *09/03/1930 (19530804). Peter died 1993 (19930902) in Sandton, Johannesburg.

From the records of baptism and marriage the respective residences in Johannesburg can be derived.
1916, baptism of Dorothy: family at Ferreira Deep Goldmine;  1918, baptism of Ann: family in Parktown.
Then, twenty years on:  1937 April, marriage of Ann, she is at 66 Twickenham Avenue, Auckland Park (west of the hospital);  1938 June, marriage of Dorothy, she is at 3 St Gerorge's raod, Parktown.  1938 Decemeber, marriage of Elizabeth, she is at 3 St Gerorge's raod, Parktown, too.  1941, death of Lucy Lewis, WSHeberden in Parktown.  From this it follows that the family lived at 3 St George's road, but that Ann had already moved out.
Considerable portions of the original Parktown have been demolished between 1960 and 1975 to accommodate office buildings just north of the Johannesburg centre and a new motorway. The location 3 St George's road now has a modern high-rise apartment building.

→   how does this fit in ? -  In 1927 the family moved to South Africa. Leaving the UK in April (Southampton registration 4 April 1927), their destination was Durban, KwaZulu-Natal (from GFT).  Was this a stint back in England ??

Stanley became Senior Surgeon at the Johannesburg General Hospital (now the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital) and also held a University appointment.
The family had a cottage in Margate on the coast, some 100 km SW of Durban in KwazulaNatal, where they spent their summer vacation.
After retirement he was "consulting Surgeon".

They finally lived at 53 Eckstein Street, Observatory (to the east of the hospital). Stanley died Augsut 1947 in (his) hospital in Johannesburg (19470803).

Nina stayed in Johannesburg. She moved to an apartment in Orange Grove, a km north of Eckstein street. Her daughter Tirrey with children joined Nina there after Tirrey's husband John Argyle had left her.
Nina died in 1980.

GFT = Gibbs Family Tree

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