Henle Beard Family History

Welcome To The Henle Beard Website: One Family, Three Countries

Prologue: Buckfast, Devon

This website is dedicated to all the descendants of the Henle and Beard families of Buckfast, Devon, England, who have since made their homes in many parts of the world. Their story begins in a quiet valley in South Devon, beside St Mary's Abbey at Buckfast and the farms around it. The Beards were a Buckfast family. Elizabeth Beard, née Lewis, was born at Buckfast on 25 March 1859, and she and John Beard married at Buckfast Abbey on 22 July 1889. Their home was Northwood Farm, and their children included Lilian, who would one day marry a young German from the Abbey.

The family carries two heritages. The Henle side is German, and the Beard side has Scottish origins. The Beard motto is Dominus Fecit, The Lord Made.

Chapter 1: The Monk Of Buckfast

In 1910 a young German named Martin Stanislaus Henle left Wurtemberg for the green hills of South Devon. He was born in Germany in 1892 and was just 17. He was going to join Dom William Henle (Father William, Albert Henle), believed to be Martin's uncle, a priest at St Mary's Abbey in Buckfast. Martin lived at the Abbey as a monk and took yearly vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. He worked the soil as a market gardener and helped build the Abbey with his own hands.

When the Great War broke out in 1914 he was a German living in England. The other German monks stayed on at the monastery, but Martin chose instead to be interned on the Isle of Man, the only one of them to be interned. A photograph from those years shows him standing sixth from the right among the men of the camp. Newspapers of the time followed the question of Buckfast's German monks closely; see In the Newspapers.

After the war Martin came back to Buckfast, and his life took a new direction. On 18 May 1920 he married Lilian Beard of Northwood Farm at the Abbey where he had once kept his vows. On 10 May 1927 he became a naturalised British subject. The London Gazette recorded him as "Henle, Martin; No Nationality; Farmer; Dart Bridge Farm, Buckfastleigh, Devon" (London Gazette, 3 June 1927). Without knowing it, he had begun a family pattern of leaving one homeland to build a life in another. His children would one day carry it to Canada and to the far side of the world.

Chapter 2: Dart Bridge Farm

Martin and Lilian had nine children between 1921 and 1933. The first four were born in a council house in Buckfast: John in 1921, Antonia in 1922, Cecelia in 1924 and little Thomas in 1926. Thomas lived only three weeks. He had pyloric stenosis, a narrowing of the muscle at the base of the stomach that kept him from feeding. After his death the family moved to Dart Bridge Farm, bought with £20,000 borrowed from Granny Beard, a large sum that secured the old manor house and its farm.

Dart Bridge was a place to grow up in. The house dated from the 16th century and had three storeys and eight bedrooms. It was said to have once been a chapel for pilgrims riding from London to St Mary's Abbey before the Reformation. The last five Henle children were born here: Mary in 1927, Paul in 1928, Theresa in 1929, Elizabeth in 1931 and Margaret in 1933.

The farm ran to 90 acres. Martin kept cattle and sheep and a couple of milking cows in the meadows, and Lilian took in guests and served meals and Devonshire cream teas to the many visitors who passed the front gate on their way to the Abbey. The family remembered seeing Queen Mary and Prince Edward drive past the gates on their way to the Buckfast races, and there were stories of ghosts at Dart Bridge too. A photograph from 1932 shows Lilian and Martin with Paul, Liz and Theresa and the family dog, Rose. In 1938 all of Elizabeth Beard's grandchildren lined up for a photograph, except Joseph Beard, who was not yet born. The young Henles are scattered through the rows with their Beard, Sanders, Sampson and Cousins cousins.

Chapter 3: The War Years In Devon

The Second World War began in 1939 and the visitors stopped coming to Dart Bridge. Martin turned the land over to hay, wheat, corn and barley to help feed the nation. John, the eldest son, left the farm to fight, and as Sergeant John Anthony Henle (service number 5620714), Royal Regiment of Artillery, he was awarded the Military Medal, announced in London Gazette supplement 36753 on 17 October 1944 (London Gazette supplement 36753). He received the medal from Field Marshal Montgomery. Antonia and Mary both left school to help their father on the farm, and Cecelia joined the WRNS.

The younger children grew up in the middle of all this. Paul was at boarding school in Plymouth until the school was bombed. It was then moved to Buckfast Abbey, and Paul came home. In 1940 Margaret made her First Communion, and the same year Lilian took Mary, Margie, Theresa, Cecelia and Liz to Brighton Beach. One photograph from around this time shows the three youngest girls, Theresa, Margaret and Liz, side by side. In 1945 Liz, Frances and Margie were photographed under the pear tree at Dartbridge.

After the war the family began to grow again. Cecelia married Anthony Winstanley, son of Alfred and Violet. The connection between the Winstanleys and the Henles began with Alfred, who had once lived with the Beards as a farming student. Their daughter Veronica Margaret was born in 1946 and their son Andrew John in 1947. A large family photograph dated 1946 shows three generations together: Theresa, Margie, Liz and their brothers and sisters, the first of the next generation, and Alfred Winstanley himself.

Chapter 4: Cecelia And The Canadian Branch

In 1947 Anthony Winstanley, then serving in the Merchant Marine, visited Vancouver in British Columbia. He then proposed that his young family go to live in a country that offered more opportunities at the time. According to the family, Martin and Lilian were not at all pleased with the idea. But in 1948 Cecelia, Anthony, two-year-old Veronica and one-year-old Andrew sailed for New York, then crossed the whole of Canada by train. Cecelia was the first of Martin and Lilian's children to make her home overseas.

In Veronica's own words: "I was 2 and Andrew was 1. We arrived in Vancouver in the winter and went to live in a tiny seaside town set in the forest an hour outside Vancouver. I remember these times with great nostalgia despite huge financial difficulties, the arrival of 5 more children and the absence of our dad for long periods. I loved the fact that we got letters from him from all corners of the world. Our life was hard but free and exciting."

Back in Devon, Martin did not live long after they left. He had developed angina, and rest did not seem to help. A local chiropractor worked on his spine, and for the last six months of his life he was relatively free of pain, well enough to work on the farm. Everyone thought he was cured, though Lilian still massaged his sore back. In the week before he died he went to Mass every morning. On his last evening, after a day on the tractor pushing down a hedge, he told Lilian, "I am going to turn the corner". In German the phrase means the opposite of what it means in English. He slept peacefully, woke, sighed and died on 15 October 1949, aged 56, only a year after the Winstanleys reached Canada. He was buried on 18 October, Lilian's birthday.

In 1956, after the birth of her son Mark, Cecelia became ill and very homesick for England. Somehow the family borrowed money from the parish, and she took the children home to meet the relatives and see the homeland they had heard so much about. They spent a year at Dartbridge, living first with Granny in the Barn and later with Aunty Gertrude and Uncle John in the big house. The ties between the families ran deep. Anthony was Gertrude's brother and Cecelia was John's sister, so the Winstanley children are double cousins of Lucy, Lizanne, David, Frances and Claire Henle. The Canadian family's collection holds many photographs from England.

Of the 1956 visit she wrote that they went "to finally meet all the relatives and the homeland we had heard so much about." The connection between the Winstanleys and the Henles began with Alfred, who, Veronica believed, studied farming with the Beard family; he can be seen in the early photographs in the Gallery.

Photographs from England in the Canadian family's collection.

Chapter 5: Leaving Devon: The Australian Branch

Life at Dart Bridge went on without Martin. In 1950 Margie, Tony, Theresa and Liz were photographed with Granny outside Ingsdon School, with a row of young children, among them Lizanne and Lucy Henle, in front. In 1954 Margie and Liz were photographed again with Granny, John, Mary and a crowd of young cousins.

Within the next couple of years the young Henles began to set out for Australia, one after another. Paul went first. Liz and Don Grimes followed him, and then Margaret, whom Paul sponsored to come out. When Cecelia and her children arrived at Dartbridge in 1956, many of the family had already "left to go to Oz". Only Uncle John, Aunty Mary and Theresa were still in Devon, so Theresa's own journey came later [ship and dates to be confirmed].

Lilian, Granny to the grandchildren, stayed on in Buckfast. Of her children, Cecelia was now in Canada, and Paul, Liz and Margaret were on the other side of the world.

Chapter 6: New Beginnings Down Under

Paul was the pathfinder. The boy whose school had been bombed out of Plymouth, and who had grown up among the cattle, sheep and wartime harvests of Dart Bridge, settled in Queensland and made his living as a pineapple farmer. The farm was a long way from the Devon meadows, but he had grown up working the land. Paul was also an expert wood turner, a craftsman who could shape a piece of timber into something lasting and beautiful.

Liz and Don Grimes came next. They were married in Victoria [date to be confirmed], with Margie as bridesmaid, the two sisters smiling side by side in the sunshine. Liz and Don made their home in Victoria and created Old Mill Park in Bright, leaving their own mark on their new home.

Margaret, the youngest of the family, followed with Paul as her sponsor, the big brother who had gone first opening the way for his little sister. After a short time teaching in outback Queensland, Margie moved south to Victoria. It was at Mt Beauty, in the mountains of the north-east, Richard believes, that she met and married Leo Cola. They had four children: Caroline (Carla), Anthony, and the twins, David and Mark.

The marriage ended in divorce, and not long afterwards came the family's hardest day. Margie and the young children were travelling by taxi between Dunolly and Maryborough when the driver had a heart attack and the taxi struck a tree. Mark, one of the twins, did not survive. He is remembered with love.

Around this time Margie met Brian Theodore Ruff, son of Theo and Connie Ruff. They married in 1971, and Margie became Margaret Ruff. With that marriage the Henle family was joined to the Ruff family, whose own Australian story began with Abraham Ruff, who came from Zurich by way of London to Victoria in 1853. Brian was Abraham's great-grandson, and that story is told at abrahamruff.com. Brian and Margie had three more children: Anne, Richard and Paul.

With their six children, Brian and Margie ran View Hill Lodge in Bendigo, a lovely old home built by the first mayor of Bendigo. It was used as special accommodation, and there they cared for 24 elderly residents. In their retirement, Brian and Margaret returned north to Queensland and settled in Helidon. Their son Richard, the second youngest, later moved to Helidon too with his dog Jack, and it was there that he met his wife-to-be, Linda Kaye.

Theresa, the last of the four to make the journey, came to Victoria and settled in St Albans and Indented Heads.

Chapter 7: Gatherings Across The Years

The years went by. Lilian died in Buckfast, Devon, on 8 July 1974 at the age of 81. Across England, Canada and Australia the Henle brothers and sisters also lost one another: Mary in 1995 and Antonia in 1997. Heart disease ran through the family, and many of Martin and Lilian's children had bypass operations later in life, just as their father had suffered with his heart.

There were happy gatherings too. In 1993 the whole Ruff family came together for Margaret's 60th birthday, with children and grandchildren around Margaret and Brian.

In 1997 Cecelia came from Canada to visit her sisters in Australia. Almost fifty years after she first sailed from England, three of the Henle girls stood together again: Cecelia, Margaret and Theresa, with Jack, Richard's dog, at their feet.

Epilogue: One Family, Three Countries

Cecelia died in 2007, and John, the eldest, who had stayed in Devon when the others left, died in 2010. That same year this website was started, so that the family scattered across three countries could tell its story together. It has three managers: Claire Henle in England, Veronica Diment in Canada and Richard Ruff in Australia.

Martin's story began in Wurtemberg in 1910, when a boy left Germany for a monastery in Devon. It continued at Dart Bridge Farm through cream teas, war harvests and family photographs. From there it crossed the Atlantic with Cecelia in 1948 and reached Australia in the 1950s, when Paul, Liz, Margaret and Theresa set out to start again on the other side of the world. Today Martin and Lilian's descendants live in England, Canada and Australia, still bound by the motto of the Beards: Dominus Fecit, The Lord Made. Theresa gave much input into telling the history of Martin and Lilian, and we hope every branch of the family will add its own chapters in its own words.

This website is for all the descendants of the Henle and Beard families, wherever they now live. It is a work in progress. If you have information, stories, photos or corrections you would like added, please send them through the contact form or contact one of the website managers.

Website Managers

England - Claire Henle - [email protected]

Canada - Veronica Diment - [email protected]

Australia - Richard Ruff - via the contact form below

I have taken all due care to respect the privacy of individuals. If you believe any information on this site is wrong, please let me know with reference material and I will correct it as soon as possible. Richard Ruff - website manager.

Contact

Write to one of the website managers above, or send a message to Richard here.

Family Crests