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 (see On the James Baines), 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 (1859–1934, married her first cousin James Yeo, four children)
– 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, died while on active service in France while serving with the Australian infantry, awarded the Victoria Cross, commemorated on the war memorial at Fromelles)
– Edith Francis Elizabeth Yeo (1874–1958)
– Minnie Ongiene Yeo (1877–1958)
– Frederick Yeo (1881–1881)
George Shapland Yeo died in 1891 and two lengthy newspaper obituaries tell us quite a lot about his life. He was a prominent farmer and stock breeder, a former president of the New South Wales Agricultural Society. He was a local magistrate and an active freemason.
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).
If you are related to this family or can correct or add to information about the lineage set out above, please use the Contact Us page to send us a message.
We are grateful to the late Norma Biggs for her help with this line.