Introduction / Families / Drever / David Drever and Ann Reid / Thomas Drever and Jane Groat

Thomas Drever and Catherine Burgar

Thomas Drever (b. 16th November 1845) was the second of the six children of Thomas Drever and Jane Groat and their oldest son. He married Catherine Burgar (c. 14th August 1842) in Leith on 5th November 1875.

Catherine was born in Westray and was the older of the two children of Thomas Burgher and Elizabeth Seatter. The family moved to Cott in Pharay around 1850.

Thomas and Catherine had at least eight children, the first five born in Leith before they emigrated to Australia:

• Barbara Stephenson Driver b. about 1870 who married John Benjamin Saunders on 30th December 1891. They had at least four children. Benjamin was a saddler. Barbara died at Narrabri, New South Wales in 1913.

• Jemima Driver b. about 1873

• Elizabeth Driver b. about 1875

• Matilda Driver b. about 1876

• May Driver b. 1878 and died the following year

• Jane Driver b. 2nd June 1879 in Mintaro, S.A. who married James R. Browngedge in 1898. They had family.

• Edith Catherine Driver b. 12th May 1881 at Mintaro, S. A.

• George Driver b. 13th August 1886 and died seven days later at Mintaro, South Australia

There may have also been another male child who died by 1896.

They emigrated in 1879 on the Loch Fyne and settled in Mintaro, a slate quarrying town, north of Adelaide. Their youngest daughter, May Drever, died on the voyage on 1st March 1879 at the age of six months. This family used the spelling “Driver” for their surname.

Mintaro is near to Hoyleton where Thomas’s brother, James Drever, settled before moving to Streaky Bay.

Little is known of the family after about 1893.