K - Knight

What does a boy born in Wellington, who grew up in Woodland Road Johnsonville, attended Johnsonville Primary School and then Wellington College have in common with "blue babies" ?

What even is a blue baby ? It is not a term heard so much these days but was given to those infants born with congenital heart defects. Hole-in-the-heart babies. Atrial Septal Defect, Atrioventricular Septal Defect and Ventricular Septal Defect are three of the congenital heart defects caused when the wall between the ventricles in the heart do not close completely before birth. Today there are about 1800 babies born each year in the US with this condition. 

Who is this boy from the northern suburbs of Wellington ? 

His name was Brian Boyes. After leaving Wellington College he went on to enrol in a medical intermediate year at Victoria University before studying medicine at Otago University in Dunedin. While at Otago he changed his name by deed-poll following his mother's wishes and possibly coinciding with the loss of his father. For the remainder of his life, he was known as Brian Barratt-Boyes.

He graduated from Otago in 1946 with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery, later a Master of Surgery in 1962. He lectured at Otago after his graduation and spent a year as a house surgeon at Wellington Hospital. He was appointed as a registrar at Palmerston North Hospital in 1950 and became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1952.

The senior surgeon at Palmerston North had connections with the Mayo Clinic in the United States, and it was through those connections that Brian obtained his first overseas fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery from 1953-1955. While at the Mayo he became interested in heart and lung bypass machines. In 1956 on a Nuffield Travelling Scholarship, he spent a year in Bristol, England. While there he had the opportunity to further develop the British designed Melrose bypass machine.

In 1957 he was recruited back to New Zealand by the surgeon-in-charge at Greenlane Hospital in Auckland as senior cardiothoracic surgeon with a remit to set up open-heart surgery. By this time Greenlane had been designated the sole cardiac surgical centre for the entire country. Brian would remain at Greenlane for the rest of his career despite receiving many offers from overseas through that time.

A heart-lung bypass machine had been imported from Britain by the Auckland Hospital Board in 1957 at his urging. It cost £3000. When it arrived, some parts were missing, and some Kiwi ingenuity was employed to manufacture and modify the missing pieces.

Brian Barratt-Boyes performed the first hole-in-the-heart surgery on a 10 year old on 3 September 1958 and made history in New Zealand. He was involved in the development of an external pacemaker that enabled the heart to be restarted after bypass surgery. The first permanent pacemaker was implanted in 1961.

He didn't rest here though, going on to claim long-term international achievement in the field of heart valve replacements by pioneering homograft (human donor) replacement valves as opposed to artificial valves.

In 1965 he organised a conference of overseas cardiac surgeons in Auckland, enhancing Greenlane's standing as an international cardiac centre of repute. His former mentor from the Mayo Clinic was guest of honour and amongst the attendees was a young unknown heart surgeon from Cape Town, South Africa; Christiaan Barnard who would perform the world's first heart transplant in 1967,

In 1969 by using the technique of deep hypothermia, introduced in Japan, but perfected in New Zealand by himself, Brian Barratt-Boyes was able to perform open-heart surgery on neonates. Before this, only palliative operations had been performed on small babies, in the hope they could be kept alive until they were able to withstand major surgery.

He was made a Commander of the Order of the Bristish Empire (CBE) in 1966 and knighted in 1971. He received many awards and honours within New Zealand and from overseas. He was a talented pianist (several other cardiac surgeons I have known seem to share this skill) and carpenter.

Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes died in Cleveland, Ohio on 8 March 2006 from complications following a cardiac surgery.

He was a 3rd cousin to my father, their great grandparents Mary and Henry John Barratt being siblings. Mary, the eldest of the family who will have carried memories of London in the 1830s with her, and Henry the youngest, born in Wellington in this new land of opportunity.

Sources: Te Ara, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography  & New Zealand History

J - Jeweller

Henry Davys was the youngest son of Thomas Davys and Marianne nee Norman, and was a first cousin of my great grandfather Francis. He was baptised at St Michael's Church in the parish of Raddington, Somerset 160 years ago on 11 August 1861. St Michael's was a short walk up Church Hill from his childhood home Kingston Farm.

Henry had five older sisters, two older brothers and one younger sister. As the youngest son, carrying on running the farm was most likely not an option he ever considered. Besides the lease for three lifetimes was coming to an end. Both of his elder brothers died, one aged eight years and the other as a young man.

In 1871, when his family were recorded on the census living in Bedminster he was still at school. His eldest sister and brother were employed as Draper's Assistants and two other sisters were Draper's Apprentices. It is unclear when the family returned to Raddington or whether they all returned for a time. But at the next census in 1881 Henry was in Bristol and his sister Mary Ann was living in Westbury-on-Trym, to the north of Bristol working as a Draper's Assistant.

Henry was living at 22 High Street, Bristol, on the north side of the River just across the bridge. He was living with John Hooper, a Jeweller. Henry was a Jeweller's Assistant. Their immediate neighbours on High Street were Confectioners, Watchmakers, Accountants, Tailors and Outfitters, Draper's Assistants and another Jeweller.

Ten years later at the 1891 census, Henry was lodging with Edward Wyatt and was still working as Jeweller's Assistant but it is unknown who he was employed by. On the 2nd of September 1896 he married Mary Liddiard in Knowle, Somerset, which is now a suburb of Bristol. Interestingly although they were married in Bristol, Henry gave his residence as the parish of St Paul, Truro, Cornwall and his occupation was Watchmaker.

He had obviously relocated to Truro at some point between 1891 and 1896 and this was where he would spend the rest of his life. In 1901 he is recorded on the cenus at 10 & 11 Cathedral Lane in Truro. A lease document found indexed at National Archives, undigitised and held at the Archives and Cornish Studies Service reveals that a 14 year lease was signed in June or September 1896 (tricky when you haven't seen the actual document) for this address and included Henry Davys, jeweller and Theophilus Lutey Dorrington, watchmaker and jeweller. They were to keep in repair the shop and shutters, and paint two coats of paint on the exterior every four years and the interior every seven years, They were not permitted to make structural alterations.

Theophilus had been a watchmaker in Church Lane since the 1860s. Perhaps he  had advertised for an Assistant and that was how Henry came to move there. They formed a partnership - Dorrington and Davys which operated at least until the death of Theophilus in 1911. He was a member of the United Grand Lodge of England and perhaps it was this lodge which Henry also became a member of.

Henry and Mary only had one son. At the 1911 census the family were living at 22 Lemon Lane and Henry's sister Emma was visiting or living with them. Mary died in 1912 and Henry in 1916. A great account of Henry's funeral and information about his life appeared in The West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser on 28 December 1916.

Theophilus and Henry provided cups, and trophies to many local events documented in the newspapers through the years, and advertised a wide range of jewellery, watches and spectacles.

Christmas Supplement to The West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser 18 December 1902

A 19th century wall clock with painted circular dial by Dorrington & Davys of Truro sold by Truro Auction Centre in 2015.

I - Icecream Vendor

Thomas Morrison was born in Wellington in 1846. His father, Daniel, was a sea captain and died from injuries sustained in a shipwreck when Thomas was 12. His mother, Elizabeth Cooper,  was a younger sister of my great great graandfather. Thomas was the eldest child with five younger siblings. His mother remarried the following year and had another six or seven children before she and her husband relocated to the West Coast of the South Island.

Thomas' sister married in Kaikoura in 1870, but it is unclear where Thomas lived as a young man. In 1880 he appears on the electoral in Christchurch, living in Montreal Street and working as a fish hawker. By this time he was also married, although there doesn't seem to be a record of a marriage, with two young daughters.

On 28 March 1882, he and his family sailed from Auckland on the City of Sydney, part of a group of Mormons making their way to Utah. They arrived in San Francisco about three weeks later and made their way over land to Salt Lake City. Shortly after arriving their youngest daughter died aged 19 months.

Eighteen months later, Thomas married a second time, two months before his first son was born. He went on to have nine more children with Emily and four with Susanna. Thomas started a business in 1883 selling hot pies from a box cart with hot coals in Temple Square. This business, Morrison's Meat Pies, was taken over by his sons and operated for over 100 years. He also had an icecream cart business which he operated with his sons.

One of his sons, George, got into a skirmish with a customer, a disagreement over change tendered for icecream in July 1901. The customer threw an apple at his head and threatened him with a whip, the boy drew gun, loaded with blanks and fired it. Was the business so prone to those type of encounters that a 16 year old boy was compelled to carry a gun ? Maybe it was the heat of midsummer and the late hour of the day. 

I wonder what Thomas thought when he was told his son had been arrested and conveyed to the Police Station. 

Deseret News, Salt Lake City, 8 July 1901, Page 2

H - Housewife

 Housewife.

Such a misnomer for an occupation. For many, for many years, it was much maligned. Undervalued and misunderstood with a multi-faceted, often changing, job description and unpaid.

I remember when I was growing up hearing discussions about changing the title, working out what the financial value of the role would be - if you could ever find anyone or anyway to pay. Home Duties, Domestic Engineer, Manager - Home Operations etc.

We have progressed a little in the last four or five decades. The work carried out at home, caring for children, budgeting and planning for meals, cooking and cleaning has gained some recognition. Still no monetary gain though. Additional duties include chauffeur; ferrying children to a multitude of extracurricular activities, to and from school, and social engagements (birthday parties and play dates), IT guru, homework supervisor. Housewives (and Househusbands) seem to be able to turn their hand to anything.

Many of them hold down full, or part-time PAID roles as well.

Not too long ago women had no place in the paid workforce. In some countries it is still so. But women have always pulled their weight. Managed big houses, supervising staff, helping on the farm, milking, looking after poultry, doing laundry, minding children. It is nothing new.

What has changed slightly in society is the way we have begun to acknowledge this work and value the contribution it makes to the future.

I have read many census', church records, electoral rolls over many years in my family history research. On so many documents women's occupations are not acknowledged. The exception seemingly those occupations generating a little income; milliners, dressmakers, glovers, lace workers etc. Mostly women's occupations are just not recorded. Sometimes they are there initially on a census form; farmer's wife, farmer's daughter, housewife and later crossed out as if they just don't matter. In 1939 at the beginning of World War Two when the United Kingdom recorded the names, birthdates and occupations of its citizens in readiness for rationing once more women seemed invisible, their contribution to society meaningless. 

"Unpaid domestic duties" summed it all up really.

Are you one of these superwomen ? Juggling a paid job and a busy at home job ? Caring for children, or elderly family members and making sure they are all fed, clothed, warm and clean ?

What title are you going to use for yourself when you complete that next application form, registration form or census ?

G - Green Grocer

Henry James was baptised in Leintwardine, Herefordshire on 17 August 1819. His mother Elizabeth was unmarried, and his father is not mentioned. Elizabeth married John Richards a few years later and had at least 6 children.

On the 1841 census Henry is recorded as a servant for Thomas Hall in Buckton a tiny hamlet just a few miles from Leintwardine. In 1846 he married Ann Thomas, who in 1841 had been a servant at Jay House in the adjacent parish. When their two daughters were baptised at Clungunford their place of residence was given as Broadward, and Henry was a labourer.

By 1851 they had left rural Herefordshire and were recorded as visitors staying with Ann's sister and her family in Dudley. Henry still recorded his occupation as a labourer but by 1871 he had moved into a new line of work. He was living in Paradise Street and recorded as a Gardener. This area of Dudley, Red Hill, Paradise and Dixon's Green had brickworks, a gas works, and a lot of collieries and mine shafts. It doesn't seem like the ideal environment for a garden, but it seems to have been a fairly profitable venture because in subsequent census' he was recorded as a Green Grocer and later a Retired Green Grocer.

Did being a Green Grocer mean he had a store ? Or did he simply grow vegetables and take them to market ?

One of Henry's half-brothers was a Gardener. He took a bit of tracking down late one night when I was trying to work out just how the niece listed on the 1881 census fitted in to the family. John Richards was about 12 years younger than Henry. He wasn't a small time gardener selling his crops at a local market. Instead, he seems to have been gardening on a much larger scale.

In 1851 he was lodging with a family of agricultural labourers, but his occupation was Gardener, which could have been the same as his elder brother. His work led him to many locations which can be traced through the baptisms of his children. He was married in Aston, Warwickshire and his first child baptised in Stoke, Worcestershire. In 1861 he was employed at Coton Hall, Alveley in Worcstershire and living with his young family in the Gardeners Cottage. They remained there for about four years before relocating to Nercwys in Wales where a daughter was baptised. This child turned out to be the niece living with her Uncle Henry in 1881. 

Sadly, John's wife died shortly after this birth in 1865 and he appears to have quickly left the area. Understandable with four young children and no family close by. He didn't waste time though and married again in November 1867 in Shrewbury, Shropshire. He and his second wife had seven more children at various places in Herefordshire; Leintwardine, Ludlow and Downton. There were several large properties in these areas where a Gardener might be gainfully employed. 

In 1871, John isn't on the census with his family in Ludlow, but his wife is recorded as "Gardener's wife (absent)". By 1881 none of the children from the first marriage are with Jane at their home in which by now was Newark in Nottingham, and Jane was a widow. Of those older children, one remained in Ludlow and on the census was living in a lodging house and recorded as an Under Gardener, following in his father's footsteps perhaps. Another was in Dudley with her uncle and the other two like their father haven't left any obvious clues as to their whereabouts.

One day I might unearth them. 

F - Fisherman

Jacob Denniss was born in October 1847 near Dapto New South Wales, most likely at Marshall Mount, where his father Richard and mother Sarah were raising their growing family. Richard and Sarah had emigrated from Appledore, Kent on the Westminster, arriving in Sydney in January 1838. They brought with them their three young children and went on to have ten more after settling in the Illawarra where Richard farmed. He was involved in municipal goings on as well, being nominated for elections, working on roading projects and voicing his displeasure with some of the decisions made by councillors and questioning their qualifications to be making those decisions, in letters to the editor in local newspapers.

But this is not about Richard.

Jacob and his younger brother Abraham did not follow their father's farming footsteps. Instead, they made their homes on the shores of Lake Illawarra where a fishing community was developing near Mullet Creek, Kanahooka and Berkeley.

Abraham was also a champion sculler in the Illawarra competing for many years with Edward Barber. Lake Illawarra was popular with scullers, Abraham and Edward's rivals Tom Clifford and Bill Beach went on to become world champions. 

Jacob married Mary Green, daughter of Lincolnshire emigrant John Green and his first wife, in 1864 and three years later, Abraham married Mary's younger sister Naomi. Both brothers fished in the Illawarra for near on two decades being joined in their endeavours by their sons. 

In 1883 Abraham and some of the Clifford's, including two who had become his sons-in-law, left the Illawarra and relocated to Tuggerah Lakes establishing themselves there at Canton, Tacoma and Noraville where they pioneered the Lake fishing industry. Generations of fishermen would follow in their footsteps. Fish were boxed up at Canton and carted to the sheltered cove at Noraville to be transported each day to the markets in Sydney. Later they were taken from Tacoma to the railway station and on to Sydney.

In 1989 and 1990 Jack Darcey interviewed a cross section of men and women involved with various aspects of the fishing industry in Australia as part of a project at Murdoch University. He travelled over 26,000 kilometres. One of his interviews was conducted with Pat Clifford, a great grandson of Abraham, who recalled fishing as a child with his sister using a chaff bag which they dragged through the river to catch prawns. 

Jacob meanwhile remained at Lake Illawarra. Just as two of Abraham's daughters had married into the Clifford family, two of Jacob's daughters married into the Massey family. The Massey family had also been fishing the lake since at least the 1860s. Both the Massey's and the Denniss' have streets named after them in Berkeley.

Jacob died in 1895 and Abraham in 1918. When George, Jacob's son, died in 1952 his obituary mentions that he and his father were the first people to send prawns from Lake Illawarra to the markets in Sydney. 

Totally unrelated to fishing but connected to these families I came across a couple of articles in newspapers where Jacob was committed to trial in November 1888 for shooting a young man named Charles Massey. It turns out that Charles was amongst a group of young men who had proceeded to Jacob's house "tin-kettling"  a newly married couple. The couple were Jacob's daughter Emily and Charles' brother William who were married 13 October. Jacob, not realising who was in the group, apparently just meant to scare them off. Oops. Keeping up the theme of pedigree collapse in this branch of the family, another of Charles' brothers had married a daughter of Jacob's in 1882. I wonder what effect the even had on family dynamics.

E - Enumerator

Being an Enumerator is by no means a full time role or a career with long term prospects for the majority. It's an opportunity which comes around once every five to ten years in most countries when the government sets the date for a national or state census.

These days I guess Enumerators are mostly sitting at a desk in front of a computer, entering or manipulating data. Our census forms have like many aspects of life become an online paperless exercise. It wasnt that long ago though that forms were delivered door to door by hand, one for every person living in the house with instructions to complete the form on the given night. Then over the next few days or a week the Enumerator would return to collect the completed forms and begin their task of documenting the data before submitting their completed enumeration district to their superior.

Even earlier on, when literacy levels were not as high as today, the Enumerator might have been responsible for completing the data, not just collating it onto a summary sheet. I have studied the census' for the parish of Raddington in Somerset for each decade between 1841 and 1911. It is a small parish so has been quite easy to map. I've placed markers for each farm or cottage and below I have listed the names of the Enumerators for each census and the route they took (or is it just the order they transferred the information to the summary sheets ? If it was the route they took, many of them are very higgledy-piggledy. Of course they may have found nobody home on their first visit and needed to double back at a later time. Who knows ?

Several of the Enumerators for Raddington are members of our family, I have included their relationship to me. I have also noted the name of the place of residence for each Enumerator and listed the route they took or the order they added the information to the summary sheet. No Enumerator was named in 1851. James Nicholls the Enumerator in 1861 was the only one who did not live in the parish.

6 June 1841 John Yeandle, 1C5R, Upcott.

Upcott, Moorhouse, Blackwell, Mill, Parsonage, Poor House, Kingston, Batterams, Chubworthy, Notwell, Littlewilscombe, Battscomb, Waterhouse

30 March 1851 not named

Upcott, Kingston, Chubworthy, Littlewilscombe, Waterhouse, Poor House, Moorhouse, Blackwell, Batterams, Notwell, Parsonage, Batscombe, Spring Cottage, Smiths Cottage, Lower Mills

7 April 1861 James Nicholls

Higher Batiscombe, Lower Batiscombe, Chubworthy, Spring Cottages, Bathams (Batterams?), Kingston (Manor House), Parsonage, Church House, Waterhouse, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell (Blackwell), Upcott, Notwell, Little Wiveliscombe.

2 April 1871 John Palfrey, Notwell

Little Wilscombe, Chubworthy, Battscombe Cottages, Spring Cottages, Church House, Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell House and Cottages, Upcott, Notwell. (Kingston, the Manor House was not enumerated so presumably nobody was living there, while the Davys family were in Bedminster. They appear on the census there with most of their children employed in the Drapery business.)

3 April 1881 Thomas Davys, 3xG Uncle, Kingston

Church House, Parsonage, Washer's, Waterhouse, Raddington Mill, Smiths Cottage, Blakewell Cottage, Upcott, Notwell, LittleWilscombe, Chubworthy, Spring Cottages, Battiscombe Cottages, Batterams Cottages, Kingston.

5 April 1891 John Yeandle, Grandson of John Yeandle & husband of  1C4R, Upcott

Kingston, Church House, Batrums, Rectory, Batrums, Spring Cottage, Lower Battiscombe, Higher Battiscombe, Manor (Chubworthy), Little Wilscombe, Notwell, Upcott, Blakewell Cottages, Washer's, Raddington Mill.

31 March 1901 Tom Tarr, Notwell

Notwell, Chubworthy, Upcott, Blakewell Cottages, Little Wilscombe, New Cottages, Battiscombe, Kingston, Kingston Cottages (Batterams ?), Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Church House, Spring Cottages, Blacksmith's Cottage.

2 April 1911 Arthur Heywood, Chubworthy

Kingston, Buttersham, Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell Cottages, Notwell, Little Wilscombe, Manor House (Chubworthy), New Cottages, Spring Cottages, High Batscombe, Upcott.

It is census night here in Australia on 10 August 2021, I wonder who might be looking up family in a hundred or so years after they have sifted through our social media footprints in their genealogical journey.