Family Tree (Bruce, Denison, Douglas, Harvey, Helmcken, Mackenzie, Maclean, Maclennan, McTavish, Stewart)

Lived at Topaz Avenue, Victoria, B.C.

Occupation: Staff Surgeon, British Navy

The following information was copied from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bellamy-2869:

Biography
George was born in spring 1838, the third child and only son of George Bellamy and Wilhelmina Folds.[1]

George's family had a long association with the Royal Navy, in capacities of clergy and medicine, and George elected to follow the latter, after his grandfather. His first postings after qualification in 1858 was HMS Impregnable, then the freshly recommissioned HMS Hydra.[2]

In spring 1860 George was transferred to the naval hospital at Ireland Island, Bermuda.[3] Two years later at age 24, he married the daughter of a colleague, 15-year-old Eliza Jane Thiele:

MARRIED, at St. James' Church, Somerset, on the 10th inst., by the Revd. George Jackson, Chaplain of the Royal Naval Yard, assisted by the Revd C. P. K. Coombe, Rector of Sandys and Southampton, George Bellamy, Esqr., Assist. Surgeon, R. N., to Eliza Jane, second daughter of Charles Thiele, Esq., of Royal Naval Hospital.[4]

The couple's first two children, a son George William and a daughter Edith Winifred, were born while the group continued living in Bermuda. After a spring 1865 posting with HMS Cumberland in port at Sheerness, Kent,[5] where son Arthur was born, George was transferred to the naval hospital at Esquimalt, Vancouver Island the following spring, attached to HMS Sutlej and HMS Zealous.

Son Hugh, followed by daughters Gertrude and Alice, were born while George continued at Esquimalt. The position of a dedicated surgeon at Esquimalt was eliminated at the end of 1869 (the individual ships in port having their own surgeons, it was deemed redundant).[6] George and family elected to remain in nearby Victoria, where George went into private practice for about a year.[7] By the time final child Francis was born in summer 1871, George had returned to England, alone:

Assistant Surgeon -- Mr. George Bellamy, who returned to England a few months since from the Royal Naval Hospital at Vancouver's Island, where he had been doing duty ever since April 1866, to be assisting-surgeon in Portsmouth dockyard, vice Mr. John Dunwoodie.[8]

Dr. George Bellamy passed away in spring 1875.[9][10]

Research Notes
When George was posted to Esquimalt, Vancouver Island was a distinct colony, separate from the mainland colony of British Columbia. Shortly after his arrival the two colonies merged, taking the name British Columbia. George left BC right before it officially joined Canada in July 1871.

A number of children born to George's widow were given surname Bellamy despite the impossibility of him being their father. The only borderline case is son Edward born in summer 1873, which would have required a meeting between George and Eliza around autumn 1872. Evidently the family separation took a deeper turn in 1874, when George published a disclaimer, absolving himself from debts incurred by Eliza.[11]

Update 1 February 2026
Recent research has proven that Eliza Jane’s first seven children (George, Edith Winnifred, Arthur, Hugh Gerald Seymour, Gertrude Ellen Wilhemina, Alice Mary, Francis Karl) were fathered by George Bellamy, while her five youngest children (Edward William, Katherine Demaris, Herman, Ethel, Irene) were fathered by Kenneth McKenzie IV of Craigflower Farm. Despite this, all five of these younger children used the Bellamy surname throughout their lives, and their true paternity appears not to have been openly discussed within the family.

Notably, although Edward William was christened Bellamy, the four youngest children were christened McKenzie on the same day—20 February 1893—at St. Mark’s Church. None of them subsequently used the McKenzie surname and instead continued to go by Bellamy.

George Bellamy had returned to Portsmouth in 1871 to take up another post with the Royal Navy at His Majesty’s Dockyard, where he died and was buried in 1875.

Kenneth McKenzie never married Eliza Jane and died in 1906. Later that same year, on 11 April 1906, Eliza married James Herbert Willis, who was twenty-one years her junior. Given his age, James Willis cannot have been the father of any of the five younger children.

Sources
1. (birth) Free UK Genealogy CIO, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=3fxYEHqwAExxWNIiFQQjSA&scan=1
2. "Naval and Military Intelligence", London Sun, June 15, 1858, page 8
3. "Naval Appointments", London Morning Advertiser, March 26, 1860, page 3
4. Bermuda Royal Gazette, July 22, 1862
5. "Appointments", Naval & Military Gazette, May 13, 1865, page 2
6. "The Naval Hospital", The British Colonist, December 17, 1869, page 3, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18691217uvic/page/n2/mode/1up
7. (advertisement, e.g.) The British Colonist, April 23, 1870, page 2, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18700423uvic/page/n1/mode/1up
8. "Promotions And Appointments", Hampshire Advertiser, August 23, 1871, page 4
9. "At Portsmouth, on the [15th] instant, George Bellamy, Esq., Staff-Surgeon R. N., aged 37 years, only son of the Rev. G. Bellamy, DCL" - Hampshire Telegraph, April 24, 1875, page 5
10. (death) Free UK Genealogy CIO, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=zQZEi0tX3r9EBltEnFbZmg&scan=1
11. (NOTICE, e.g.) Daily British Colonist, March 25, 1874, page 2, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18740325uvic/page/n1/mode/1up