Hugh Thomas Shopland

Hugh Thomas Shopland was born in Bow in 1825, the youngest of the three sons of Hugh Shopland (a carpenter born in Colebrooke) and Mary Madge. His mother died when he was three; his father remarried Sarah Gibbs in Axminster in 1829 and they had one more son.

(John Jackman, who narrowly avoided being transported in 1841, was married to Betty Shopland, half-sister of Hugh Sen.)

In 1851 Hugh T. married Eleanor Jane Alford, daughter of a cabinet maker, in Exeter. His occupation then was a “carver gilder”. Shortly afterwards they moved to Torquay where he established a business as a taxidermist. They had three children.

His wife Eleanor died in 1884. In 1901, when he was 76, he married 44 year old widow Frances Jane Jones née Adams. Hugh died in Torquay in 1907.

An example of H T Shopland's work: Image courtesy Bob Church.