Julie, maybe BINGO?????
Kite and Shona, thanks for your interest in the elusive Thomas Charles. A warning however - prolonged searching can become addictive!
Shona, yes the court cases and the reports are entertaining but so much is fantasy and little fact. Because of the Australian connection of George Hollamby Druce the papers here faithfully reported what was written in English papers. I haven't come across that snippet about Druce and Brock nor the bit about the Cattle show at the Bazaar.
Over the last five years I think I've read just about everything available on line and had contact with a number of Druce descendants from both of TC's families here and in the UK. Many of the Ancestry trees are copies of copies of copies and from what I've seen not researched. That's one reason I don't keep a tree there.
I saw records of the other Thomas Charles Druce the brewer. No one has evidence of TC's birth and the only reason I suspect Witney/ Oxfordshire is the information on the censuses.
There is one possibility of a family with a Thomas Druce in Eynsham and Ducklington in Oxfordshire but no son Thomas was born in the relevant years.
After I read Herbert Druce's statements at his Old Bailey trial I came to the conclusion that TC was probably the illegitimate son of an Oxfordshire Druce and decided to better himself. When he married Elizabeth Crickmer (not an elopement as speculated in some places as she was of age) she would have come into her inheritance from her father. TC no doubt saw this as the means to his upward mobility which helps explain how a draper's assistant could manage to become a business partner with the Boulnois people and then owner of the Baker Street Bazaar. I think he left Elizabeth about 1832-33 when he moved to London. She spent a number of years at Great Yarmouth where William was an apprentice before moving back to London where she died in 1851. TC married Annie within a month of Elizabeth's death although they had several children by that date.
My ancestor was William Crickmore Druce bn 1827 at Bury St Edmunds, son of Elizabeth Crickmer and TC. He arrived in NSW about the mid 1850s as did brother George. Although George is mentioned in a codicil of TC's will there is no mention of William, Frances or Charles.
If TC wanted to hide his origins he has certainly succeeded!