Brixham grave

[miss marple]

Hello all

I am trying to find out more about a relative named Charlotte Edwards Dix (formerly Gaverick) part of whose will reads:

"My body to be decently buried...in the same grave wherein were deposited the remains of my late mother Mrs Elizabeth Nicolle (this surname was rather difficult to read) in the year 1792 and also those of my late beloved and ever lamented husband Captain Edward Dix R. N. in 1837, the said grave being situated in the Parish Churchyard of Upper Brixham in the County of Devon." (Since mother and daughter's surnames are different, I presume one of them must have been married twice.) Charlotte died in 1850.

I was hoping a gravestone might still be standing, perhaps with a helpful inscription! If anyone can help at all I would be very grateful.

Thank you!

Jane

[ONOPORDUM]

Did you ever find out any more about your relative?
I am interested as I am carrying out some research for a colleague and came across Charlotte Edwards Dix (formerly Gaverick) as she is named in Bryan Edwards' (1743-1800) will. He was an Englishman  who was a sugar planter and slave owner in Jamaica; he is well known as the author of the 3 volume history of Jamaica, published in 1793 in Kingston, Jamaica. The history, civil and commercial, of the British colonies in the West Indies, Bryan Edwards, Esq. F.R.S. S.A.

[miss marple]

Unfortunately I have had no further luck with Charlotte Dix - I visited Brixham churchyard myself last year but it is very large and most of the older gravestones are in a very bad state, so despite diligent searching we were unable to identify the Dix grave.

It is interesting to know of the link with Bryan Edwards, however; presumably this is where Charlotte's middle name of Edwards comes from, and may be a link on her mother's side. I must do some further research! I assume the will did not specify her relationship to Bryan Edwards in any way?

[ONOPORDUM]

 Charlotte's father, Bryan Edwards, refers to her as his daughter in his will, and in this (in 1800) he left her £2000. She was born in Jamaica 2 years before he returned to England in 1774.

Unlike other wills of white men I have read, who had similar 'relationships' (though we can rarely be sure whether the term 'relationship' accurately covers the nature of their unions) with women in Jamaica during this period, of whom there were many, in his will, Edwards never specified the ethnicity of Elizabeth Gaverick, later Nicolle; it was her illegitimacy that labelled her and she evidently carried the stigma of this to her grave - as indicated by the info you refer to on the NA website.
It is likely that she was of both white and black heritage, a combination that, over  succeeding generations, depending who she had relationships with, may have resulted in her being an ostensibly black person with a paler skin tone or an ostensibly white person with a darker skin tone.
One such family I have looked at has produced children whose skins are pale but their heritage from Africa has produced decidedly wiry hair. 

The Dix who Charlotte married was Edward Dix RN, and their son Edward appears to have married Martha Dix, who, as a daughter of the Rev Joshua Dix, was his cousin. This I assume is your line of descent, as Charlotte's daughter had no children. 
thanks for your response

[DOB7]

Mrs Elizabeth NICOLLE's burial is shown in two places:
1 Oct 1792 at Churston Ferrers - Mrs Elizabeth Nicolle
1 Oct 1792 at Brixham - Elizabeth Nicolle of Churston
She too left a will - probated in 1793 and she was described as a widow. A copy can be ordered from the NA PROB 31/839/561
Charlotte Edwards DIX was buried in Brixham 28th December 1850, aged 78, described as being of St Budock, Falmouth.

[miss marple]

Thank you both for your replies. Yes, I am connected to the family through Edward and Martha Dix - though I have Charlotte's daughter (Charlotte Elizabeth) as marrying William Wood (Lt Gen Wood, Commander of the Forces in the Windward and Leeward Islands) and having nine children rather than being childless! I did wonder whether Elizabeth Gaverick was perhaps black or mixed race; something I suppose we will never know.

Elizabeth Gaverick (or Nicolle) lived and died at Churston Ferrers, but the church there, St Mary the Virgin, was on land that was largely unsuitable for burials, so Churston Ferrers residents were usually buried at St Mary's, Upper Brixham. Charlotte Edwards Dix specified in her will that she was to be buried in the same grave as both her mother and her husband.

[ONOPORDUM]

Apologies - I misread my own notes!
the daughter, CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH, was baptised 28 Sept 1801, d.1871; she married Colonel WILLIAM WOOD, (19 Feb 1829-26 June 1875) 85th regiment of Foot, (later General Sir William Wood) on 15 July 1823 at Churston Ferrers.
THEIR daughter EMILY FRANCES WOOD who, on 20 June 1854, married Alfred Bury, 5th Earl of Charleville (19 February 1829, d. 26 June 1875). IT WAS THIS COUPLE WHO WERE CHILDLESS.

CHARLOTTE EDWARDS DIX née GAVERICK’s will (PROB 11/2125/180), dated 24 January 1851, is lodged at Kew.
In the 1841 census, she was living at UNION STREET, TRURO, with EDWARD DIX AGED 5, (28 Sept 1835-12 Aug 1904), WHO WAS PROBABLY one of Edward and Martha’s children.

They (Edward & Martha) may have had another son, William George Dix (10 March 1839-2 Sept 1884) who appears in a later census.

[ONOPORDUM]

To add a little more to the picture, Bryan Edwards (Charlotte's father), was left fatherless at 13 when his father died in 1756; the seven children and their mother were rescued by the mother's brothers, Zachary and Nathaniel Bayly, who were both slave owners and sugar planters in Jamaica. It was to  Zachary in Jamaica that the young lad from Westbury went, and it was from Zachary that he inherited plantations.
Edwards' experiences were not unusual, and a similar tale is regaled by Mario Valdes in 'Duff House and its Jamaican Secret' in Historic Scotland, Autumn 2012 pp26-29.

meanwhile I will keep digging for info on the woman with whom he formed some sort of relationship; I await the docs from Kew that I ordered a while ago.
Thanks for your assistance.