About Myself : I was born in Northolt, London in 1946, to Harold and Marjorie Bagust (nee Maybank). I have two brothers, Bryan and Adrian, and two half brothers (Colin Bagust, and Graham Downs), born to my parents in their second marriages. I married Brenda Maureen Pelling, in 1968, and we have two children, Joanne, born in 1972, and Kevin born in 1974. Since we married Brenda and I have moved around England, 8 years in Bristol, 4 years in Nottingham, and for more than 20 years we have been settled in Southampton. Brenda works in the Department of Oceanography at Southampton University. Two years ago I took early retirement from my job as a Lecturer in Physiology at Southampton University and then obtained another position as a Lecturer at the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic, about 30 miles commuting distance from Southampton.
The Postman : I am sure that we have all wondered about our unusual name, but my interest was aroused some 5 years ago when our postman knocked on the door and said "I am interested in genealogy and came across your name in some documents dated about 1300". They turned out to be land deals concerning Robert and John de Bagehurst, or Robert of Baghurst, in a village called Bagehurst, north of Basinstoke, in Hampshire. This village is now called Baughurst, and it was the postman's opinion that Bagust was a corruption of this name.
Australian Connection : In what may turn out to be a family trait, another couple of years passed before I took the matter further. Out of the blue I received an e-mail message from Ian Bagust in Australia "We share an unusual name, I wonder if we are related". He had collected considerable amount of information on his particular branch of the Australian Bagusts. His ancestors were George and Emma Bagust (nee Lown) who married in South London in 1843 and emigrated in 1844 on the ship 'Elizabeth'.Ian also had information concerning George's family in this country. I was vaguely aware that my brother Adrian had been interested in our family history in his late teens, and so I contacted him. He had far more information than I imagined, and was able to link Ian's ancestors with the family of Bagusts that lived in the Chilton Foliat area of Wiltshire in the late 1700's.
Following in the footsteps of others : I was finally spurred into positive action and I did an evening course in Family History at our local college. This was most informative and prompted me to become more deeply involved in the topic. One of the first things that was impressed on us was 'Find out what others have done - don't reinvent the wheel'. Being a good student I contacted brother Adrian again, and after an suitable delay (family trait?) he sent me a bundle of documents which represented the results of his researches 15-20 years ago. This included a number of birth, marriage and death certificates, interesting old photographs of family members and a collection of letters forwarded to him by our cousin Delia Kemp (nee Bagust), who had also been pursuing her own research into our family history. This was a large amount of evidence, and it has taken me some time to analyse, but it forms the basis for much of the data presented on this site, particularly the London (1), Bristol and Chilton Foliat family trees.
My own Research 1999: Following on from this promising start I have been searching out all entries of the name BAGUST that I can find in the various genealogical indexes, and entering them into a database. The main areas that I have investigated so far have been -
Your Contributions welcomed : My database currently holds some 230 entries of Bagusts, dating back to 1542. I am sure that this will grow as I have more searches planned, and I hope that readers of this page will be prepared to contribute to this project by passing on any information that they might have in their possessions.