Robert Hogg

Robert was born in Ashkirk, Roxburghshire, Scotland where his father was an agricultural labourer. This was an occupation that could have a seasonal element and involve the family moving to follow work availability. Evidence of this can be seen by following the birthplaces of Robert’s siblings.

Robert was the eldest in his family; he had ten younger siblings; three sisters and seven brothers. He married Helen Redpath in Traqhuair in the summer of 1872. Robert worked as a ploughman and shepherd. For a short time around 1891 he was an Assurance Agent but by the mid-1890s he and his wife had moved south and across the border into Northumberland, England with their sons and married daughter.

Robert became a plate layer in a colliery. He was still working in the colliery at the time of the 1921 census and likely later. In 1926 he was a widower, his wife had died in 1922. He was seventy-eight years old and had thirteen grandchildren eight of whom lived in Australia and one great grandchild.

Robert is the youngest of the three great-great-great-grandparents of my daughter who were alive in 1926.

Peter Joseph Becker

Peter was the ninth child of eleven; a twin although his sister only lived for a few weeks. He was the fourth child to be born in Australia to his German immigrant parents who had arrived ten years before his birth.

Peter grew up in Surry Hills, Sydney. His father was a stonemason and builder. By 1885 though, Peter had moved south to the Queanbeyan area, possibly with one of his brothers, where he had met and married his wife.

In 1926 their family was grown and most of their children were married. They had been dairy farmers in the Illawarra district and possibly earlier near Queanbeyan. Although they had voluntarily declared bankruptcy and surrendered their farm in 1910, they were once more dairy farmers at Dunoon in the Northern Rivers district. Several of their married children had also migrated north with their families, and their younger daughters married local boys.

Peter was sixty-four, still happily married, a father and a grandfather to twenty-nine grandchildren.

Out of sixteen great-great-grandparents, thirteen were alive in 1926 and Peter and Sarah from the previous post were the eldest living of those. The remaining three living ancestors of my daughter in 1926 are from the next generation back. They will be coming up next.

Sarah Hall

Sarah was born in Boagh a small townland in County Cavan near Cootehill. She was the seventh child and sixth daughter in a family of ten. She and eight of her siblings emigrated from Ireland to New Zealand with their parents when Sarah was fourteen.

She married Francis Davys in 1885, they lived in Dargaville and Papakura then Taupiri where Francis ran a sawmill in part with his brothers before moving to Tamahere and Hamilton. They raised seven children.

In 1926 Sarah was sixty-four and had been a widow for twelve years. She had eleven grandchildren including two born that year. She lived in Cook Street Hamilton East near Steele Park with her unmarried daughter and her youngest son along with his wife and their new baby boy.

Margery McIntyre

Margery (Marjorie) was sixty-two and living in Dunoon, New South Wales with her husband of forty-one years. She had been born at Guise’s Flat a small locality between Michelago and Queanbeyan on the road to Cooma. She was the second child of fifteen and had one older brother.

She had met and married her husband in Queanbeyan. Her first-born son died aged three weeks, but she and her husband went on to raise a family of seven. They were dairy farmers but following a rough patch shortly after their youngest children were born in the Illawarra district, they voluntarily sequestered their land in bankruptcy.

They were farming again in 1926 having joined the great migration north to the northern rivers district of New South Wales during the later years of World War One. Some of their older married children had also moved north with them. All of their children were married or at least in relationships. They already had twenty-nine grandchildren.

John William Fuller

John was the youngest of two in his family. His parents had emigrated to Christchurch New Zealand as newlyweds and he and his brother were born there. In 1926 John was sixty, he was still working for Railways at Middleton Station a short walk from his home.

He and his wife raised a family of five, the youngest were still attending school in 1926. Their eldest two sons had completed (or almost completed) apprenticeships as fitters with P.D.Duncan. Their eldest son had surprised them by leaving to live and work in Australia a few years earlier without any discussion. They were both a little anxious that history should not repeat with their younger son.

John enjoyed listening to radio short-wave broadcasts in his shed in the backyard. He enjoyed listening to music but I don’t know if he played an instrument. Most of his children had learned to play though. He also liked sketching, painting and photography and would spend time “colourising” photos to bring them to life from the sepia tones in which they were developed.

William George Cooper

William was the ninth child in his family. His parents had come to New Zealand with their parents with the first wave of settlers from England. His father and grandfather were tailors, but William served an apprenticeship with his older cousin to become a carpenter/builder.

In the early 1890s he had moved north from Kaikoura, first to Wellington and then to the Horowhenua where he me his young wife; the daughter of a carpenter. They raised a family of nine moving to the Waikato about 1910 after William had completed building the Levin Post Office. For a time, they farmed near Waihou before returning to live in Hamilton and briefly Auckland where William returned to his earlier career and built several houses.

In 1926 William was fifty-nine, the family home was in Firth Street, Hamilton East. His siblings were spread far and wide across the country, none lived nearby. Three of his daughters and his surviving son were married and he was now a grandfather to seven grandchildren. William was also a great gardener spending much of his spare time tending a large productive vegetable garden.

Emma Louisa Bartlett

Emma was the third daughter in her family. Both of her parents were born in New Zealand, but her grandparents had all emigrated with their young families on the same ship and settled in Nelson, New Zealand. Emma was born in the Waitohi Valley, near Picton. In about 1883 her parents moved north from Marlborough to Horowhenua. Her father was a carpenter, and it was likely through his network that she met her husband, William Cooper.

In 1926 Emma was fifty-one years old and had been married for thirty-two years. Together they had had nine children, although two sons had died, one possibly during the Spanish Flu pandemic and the other from complications with appendicitis.  Three of her daughters and her surviving son were married and there were already seven grandchildren.

Emma’s brother William died in 1926 leaving his five children orphaned as their mother had died in the Spanish Flu pandemic eight years earlier. I imagine there will have been much sadness surrounding this and discussion as to where the children would go and who would raise them.

The family home in 1926 was in Firth Street, Hamilton East.