Yep that's the chap, although I reckon "corn trade" is a transcription error and it's actually "cork trade". I've got a reasonably good picture of him, but my question has always been "what took him to Newfoundland in the first place?" When back in Bristol, after this brief stint of cork work, he ended up working for CT Bennett & Co, Newfoundland merchants, and living above their offices in Queen Sq.
He was in Newfoundland before this 1855 marriage - I have him in the Freemasons' records in St John's in 1849, and witnessing a marriage in 1853. He doesn't appear in the 1841 or 1851 censuses in England so I assume he disappeared on his travels age 18 or earlier (b. 1823).
He seems to have named two of his daughters - Elizabeth Lash and Laura Gertrude Ayre - after two large baking firms in St John's (Lash's and Ayre's), presumably as some kind of patronage. He was also involved in business with a JN Finlay and were shipping goods around Newfoundland by sea. And hotfooted it back to England in 1869 shortly after suing someone in the St John's courts.
All these nuggets but no real strong picture of what he was up to originally!
