Thomas de Castro, a Butcher in Tumut

The Queenslander, Brisbane

28 July 1866

A Goulburn journal quotes the following from a Tumut paper:-

It may perhaps be in the recollection of many of our readers that a man calling himself Thomas de Castro, and in some way connected with the London Butchery, the business of which was carried on in the premises now occupied by Mrs. Caspersonn, left Tumut, and opened a butchering establishment at Wagga Wagga.

It now turns out that the said Thomas de Castro is no less a person than Sir Roger Charles Tichborne, with landed estates bringing in a rental of £9000 per annum, and an accumulated fund of some £50,000 to his credit in the bank. De Castro was in possession of his title and property when living in Tumut, but not having been in communication with his family for some years, was not aware of his good fortune.

[The Baronet in question, who is now the representative of a very old Catholic family in England, passed through Goulburn on the 10th instant, on his way to England, with his wife, whom he married in the colony, and who is now Lady Tichborne. He had been absent from his country some sixteen or seventeen years, and never had any anticipation of coming to the title. Several deaths in the family had given it to him.]

On referring to the "Baronetage of the United Kingdom," which I of course, in common with other members of the higher order of the aristocracy, always have by me, I find that in the year 1854 the representative of the family was "Sir James Francis Doughty Tichborne, born 1784, married 1827 a daughter of Henry Seymour, Esq. Assumed the name of Doughty by Royal license in 1853. Creation, 1620. Seat, Tichborne Park, county of Hants. Heir, his son Charles, born 1829." And who, I suppose, has obligingly retired from this sublunary scene, together with other obstructions, in order to make room for the lucky butcher "De Castro," who can now not only slaughter his own beeves and cut beef steaks of his own rearing, but feed his kin in his own park. Happy fellow!