Lucraft and Luckraft One-name Study

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The Luckerifts of Devon, Yorkshire & Jersey

The Luckerift surname is very rare, and I always thought it might be a variant of Luckraft. Through the help of Hilary Bouteloup, in Jersey, and John William Joseph Luckerift in Barnsley, Yorkshire, we now have a tree going back to William Luckerift in Diptford in 1800. John was in his 80's when he helped me, and sadly died recently, but he was very pleased to see the tree develop, and go back into his family history.


Jersey Royals


John described his father, John Shillibeer Luckerift, born 1848 Diptford. John S was married three times, and was one of the 12 original growers of Jersey Royals, which were then imported into England by the importers called Nightscales one of whom was married to John S's niece Evelyn Lucraft.


Horse Buses


John S also ran one of the horse buses in Jersey, and a George Shillibeer ran horse buses to the Bank in London, in 1829. The building George used in London, to make the horse buses, is now called Shillibeer's Brasserie, at Carpenter's Mews, North Road, north of Kings Cross.


Sarah Luckraft of Diptford


The other end of the story begins with Sarah Luckraft, born about 1790 who left a will in 1869 when she died in Diptford, Devon. It's a complicated will, leaving small bequests to a number of nephews and nieces. Sarah was married to William Luckraft, a labourer, or husbandman, and when she died left a house, a garden field and an orchard at Curtisknowle. Curtisknowle is a large house, in a small hamlet, where the surrounding houses have been beautifully restored.

On their two tombstones, William in 1837 and Sarah in 1869, however, their name is spelt Luckerift. It appears that the Luckerifts that follow flow from the change of spelling at this time.


Local Contacts


Hilary Bouteloup in Jersey, descended from John S's brother, has done a lot of Shillibeer and Luckerift work on Jersey.

Clive Shillabeer in Bournemouth has done more work on Shillabeers, in all their variant spellings.

There is a Luckerift in Australia and one in Devon, with whom I've not yet managed to make contact.

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