George Shapland Yeo was baptised at Swimbridge in 1833 to parents James Yeo and Elizabeth Shapland, who farmed at Bydown. His line of descent can be traced back to John Yeo and Elizabeth Fortescue of Huish.
He emigrated to Australia with other family members on the SS James Baines in 1855, and two years later married Elizabeth Pender, who had emigrated from the Isle of Mull with her parents some fifteen years earlier.
George and Elizabeth had eleven children:
– Alfred James Yeo (1858–1859)
– Mary Ellen Shapland Yeo
– George Charles Yeo (1861–1939, married Alison J. Baird, three children)
– Florence Matilda Yeo (1864–1864)
– Hannah Caroline Clarendon Yeo (1865–1945, known as Clara, married William Hunt, four children including William Yeo Hunt, 1898–1991)
– Herbert Ernest Alfred Yeo (see below)
– Albert Frederick Thomas Yeo (1871–1881)
– Claude Septimus Maitland Yeo (1872–1916) [note 1]
– Edith Francis Elizabeth Yeo (1874–1958)
– Minnie Ongiene Yeo (1877–1958)
– Frederick Yeo (1881–1881)
George Shapland Yeo died in 1891 [note 2].
Herbert Ernest Alfred Yeo (1869–1950, son of George Shapland Yeo and Elizabeth Pender) married Edith Maud Hawkes. They had four children;
– Phyllis Yeo (1903–1989, married Ronald Furbois Reynolds)
– Gwendoline Shapland Yeo (1905–1994, married Austin Hill Reynolds)
– Ernest Shapland Yeo (see below)
– Roma Yeo (1910–1995, married John Clement Hill).
Ernest Shapland Yeo (1909–1985, son of Herbert Ernest Alfred Yeo and Edith Maud Hawkes) married Linda Elizabeth Williams. They had five children:
– Norma Jean Yeo (1935–2014, married Robert Charles Biggs)
– Daphne Elaine Yeo (born 1937, married Trewellyn Wilfred Howell-Jones)
– Malcolm John Yeo (born 1941, married Shelley Roma Passmore)
– Everard Murray Yeo (born 1947, married Sandra Christine Thomas)
– David Kenneth Yeo (1950–2005).
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We are grateful to the late Norma Biggs for her help with this line.
Notes
1. Claude died while on active service in France serving with the Australian infantry. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, and is commemorated on the war memorial at Fromelles.
2. Two lengthy newspaper obituaries tell us a great deal about George’s life. He was a prominent farmer and stock breeder, a former president of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, a local magistrate and an active freemason.