Ich spreche nicht deutch, nor do I speak Polish, mais je parle couramment français.
Please excuse the length of this, my first, message. I am researching the life of the above gentleman who was Rector of Greasley, Nottinghamshire, from 1866 to 1907. He wrote the first local history of the parish in 1901, but remains a man of mystery for the first part of his life in Prussian Poland/Polish Prussia. He arrived in England in 1853, (a refugee from the aftermath of the Insurrections of 1846/7), settled in Whitechapel, London, learned the language, became Anglican (he had been Catholic), went to South Africa as a missionary, and was ordained Deacon (1857) and Priest(1860). He returned to England in 1863, and resumed a clerical vocation.
He called himself Baron, which, if true, means that his title must have been Prussian, Austro-Hungarian or from the Holy Roman Empire. When he applied for British nationality in 1866 (a simpler procedure then), he said he was in his 39th year, and a citizen of the Kingdom of Poland. This implies he was born circa 1827, but I haven't yet been able to trace his actual birth record. In the Censuses of 1871, 1881 and 1891 he gives his birth place as Warsaw.
At ordination he claimed to be a graduate of Breslau University (MD - but that may be an attempt to give an English equivalent). The University records were largely destroyed in the fighting of 1946, and the authorities there (Wroclaw) have no trace. Does there, by some lucky chance, still exist, in, perhaps, private hands, a Breslau University Calendar for the period 1840 - 1853, where his matriculation or graduation is recorded?
When he married in 1873 (aged 47, he said), he gave his father's name and occupation as Godfey von Hube, gentleman (at the time, this implied he was of independent means, based on landed property, not trade, but perhaps a profession). As he seems to have anglicised himself to a great extent, it may be that this is a version of Gottfried or Godeffroy.
I would greatly appreciate the help or observations of the Listers in trying to solve the problem of what is becoming an intractable mystery.
Thank you in advance.
Donald Webb.