William John Birch

[4] Jonathan Birch had been an East India Company ship captain, making a number of voyages.

[6] Jonathan Birch resided in Gower Street, London, and at Pudlicote House, near Shorthampton in Oxfordshire, built in 1810, which he purchased in 1822.

[9] William John Birch was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and New Inn Hall, graduating B.A.

[12] He was involved as an organiser in the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association of the late 1840s, with Edward Miall, Thomas James Serle and others.

[15] With William Henry Ashurst, he was a major backer of the Anti-Persecution Union set up in 1842 by George Holyoake and Emma Martin, and also of the Theological Utilitarians.

[19] When in 1845 Holyoake was seriously ill, and under financial strain with the Movement, his publication, Birch with others found him in London after he returned from a period in Leicester with Josiah Gimson, and saw him back to health.

[20] Birch contributed to the Movement, as did Sophia Dobson Collet, and others grouped as "middle-class freethinkers" (George Gwynne, Arthur Trevelyan).

[22][23] Holyoake introduced him to Robert Owen, in company with Michael Foster and Percy Greg;[24] and dedicated to him his The History of the Last Trial by Jury for Atheism in England (1850).

[22] That year John Chapman took over The Westminster Review, the quarterly journal of the radicals, and Birch gave it financial support.

[31] At this period Giles was planning a biblical commentary to be written with Thomas Wilson, a Cambridge graduate who had left the Church of England in 1847: working title the "Bampton Bible".

[1] Birch was one of Giles's bail sureties at the time of his being charged with offences related to a marriage ceremony carried out in 1854.

[38][39] When Giles wrote to Birch with the bad news that the Cornish mine would require a "thumping call" to continue, in May 1855, it was from Oxford Castle where he was imprisoned.

[40] The following year, Birch bought the advowson of Draycot Foliat, with the intention of nominating Giles to the living.

[41] On 27 September 1856 Birch and his wife Margaret Fanny gave a farewell dinner at 21 Henrietta Street, London, attended by John Allen Giles, before they set off on a voyage to the USA.

Fabio Caccia, the younger son, middle name given as Guiliano or Juliano or Julian, married Pauline Birch, the elder daughter.

[73] Her 1869 marriage was recorded as "At Florence, Cavalier Mario Caccia Major in the Italian Army, to Clara A., daughter of Mr. W. I. Birch, Dec.