Garrad Garrard

Garrod Garrett

This group is devoted to the Garrad/Garrard/Garrod/Garrett families from the village of Wickham Skeith and surrounding areas in Suffolk. England. In particular, to those descendants who, either by choice or at the pleasure of the English penal system, made a new life in Australia.

From our research to date, most of the Garrads in Australia are descendants of John Garrard and Mary Cross. John Garrard and Mary Cross were both born in Wickham Skeith; John on 8 April 1763 and Mary in 1752. Their two eldest sons, John (1785-1867) and Robert (1788-1871) were both transpored to Australia as convicts, Robert arriving in Sydney in 1811 and John arriving in Sydney in 1814 and then transferred to Hobart, Tasmania. Their grandson, William Christie Garrard (son of William Garrard, born 1789) was also transported to Australia as a convict arriving in Perth in 1862, followed by his family in 1864 .

Three later descendants arrived as free settlers. George Garrad in 1855 and Jane Durrant an her daughter, Kathleen Durrant Chambers in 1918.

Many of us blessed with these surnames will understand that the spellings seem to have been interchangeable at the whim of the record keepers. As most of our early ancestors could neither read or write, often members of the same family were recorded with different spellings.

Even with the wonders of modern education, not much has seemed to change in this regard. We have an electoral roll instance of a husband and wife, residing at the same address being recorded as GARRAD and GARRARD, in 1980

in Australia from Wickham Skeith, Suffolk, England