I
wrote about my Dad and my grandfathers as part of the #52Stories blog challenge
last year, and also it isn’t Fathers’ Day in Australia or New Zealand until
later in the year. I wrote about my great grandmothers for Mothers’ Day this
year; so great grandfathers...these four are all DNA confirmed too.
Francis Davys
was born 11 January 1854 probably
at Hurstone Farm in Milverton, Somerset. He was the 3rd son in the
family. His birth certificate gives his place of birth only as Milverton. I was
hoping it would narrow down the date when his parents had moved from Nethercott
Farm near Lydeard St Lawrence where his 2 elder brothers were born, and where
they were still living at the 1851 census. But no.
His
father’s family had been associated with the Milverton area and adjacent
parishes since at least the middle of the 17th century. They were
farmers, landowners or leaseholders, with connections to many other notable
families in the district. When he was seven years old, Francis emigrated to New
Zealand with his parents and five brothers. They arrived in Auckland in 1862,
part of the Albertland scheme to settle at Port Albert near Wellsford. On
arrival it became apparent that the information they had been given prior to
leaving England was not at all what it had seemed. The land was not
particularly arable, the transport options to travel from Auckland to the
Hokianga were not entirely reliable and the settlement itself was floundering.
Many settlers did not go and claim their land at all. It is unclear whether
they made the journey, or whether they elected to stay in Auckland and not go
to Port Albert at all. Auckland was still a fledgling city, but with a little
more resource and infrastructure than Port Albert.
The
family did stay in Auckland for a time and a daughter was born a year after
they arrived. By the time he was fifteen and his second sister was born in
1869, they had moved to Tararu on the Coromandel Peninsula on the shores of
the Hauraki Gulf. Here the older boys and their father were gold mining. By the
late 1870s-early 1880s most of the family had moved again to the Waikato and
taken up farming. Later some of his brothers ran a sawmill at Rukuhia, and one
became a builder in Cambridge and owned a timber yard there. Francis lived in
Papakura for some years after he married Sarah Hall there in 1885 before moving
to Taupiri where he and his brothers had another sawmill.
At
the end of 1907 they moved again, to Tamahere, where they lived until the end
of 1913 on the corner opposite the church. I believe they had a shop there and
ran the Post Office. They moved to Hamilton in early 1914, where Francis died
on 11 March that year.
William Cooper
was born 1 February 1867 at Kekerengu,
North Canterbury. He was the 9th child and 4th son in his
family. His parents were both immigrants having arrived in Wellington with
their parents in 1841 & 1842. William’s father was a tailor, probably
employed at Kekerengu Station. Some of William’s
maternal uncles also worked on the station as shepherds and one as an overseer.
They all had large families, so he would have grown up in a sizeable extended
family with many cousins. When he was about four his family moved south to the
township of Kaikoura where his father continued to find work as a tailor. His
three youngest siblings were born in Kaikoura. When he was about nine or ten
his mother left the family, taking with her the three youngest children.
William
became a builder, learning the trade possibly from his brother-in-law Tom
Cooke, the husband of one of his elder sisters. Tom had initially come to New
Zealand with his cousin William who established a business as an ironmonger,
builder and contractor. Tom left his young family and returned to England in
the late 1880s though. So it may have been William Cooke then, not Tom, who taught this William
his trade.
By
the 1890s William had moved to the Horowhenua, perhaps via Wellington. He
married Emma Bartlett in Manakau in 1894. Their first three children were born
there before they moved to Levin in 1899 where he built the new Post Office
which was opened in 1903. About 1910 they moved to the Waikato and farmed at
Elstow near Te Aroha until about 1918 when they moved further north to
Auckland, before moving to Hamilton in 1921. They spent most of the 1930’s
farming again near Katikati, returning briefly to Hamilton where he had built houses.
He also built a home in Mission Bay Auckland and they lived there for a couple
of years, returning to live in Hamilton in 1943. Emma
and William celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1944. Emma died in 1945 and a few years later William remarried.
He
was reportedly visited by a man claiming to be his nephew from Australia, the
son of one of his sisters who had left with his mother many years ago. This
encounter was emphatically denied later, but was remembered by others who heard
accounts of it at the time. He died 4 January 1961 in Hamilton.
John William Fuller
was born 3 June 1866
in Christchurch, Canterbury. He was the 2nd and youngest son of
immigrant parents who had arrived in Christchurch in 1860. His father was a miller
by trade and worked at and built a number of mills in early Christchurch. They
lived in Fendalton, Riccarton, Avonside, Sydenham and Waltham. John was
baptised at St Luke’s on the corner of Kilmore and Manchester Streets. The
church was badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake and has since been demolished.
When
he was almost twelve and his brother eighteen, his mother died. (So much for
the story about her running off and their father needing to employ a wet-nurse
! Wonder where that story started ?) At this time they were living in Second
Street, Waltham; sometimes described not as a street, but as a collection of
houses. Today it is more Sydenham than Waltham and is named Sandyford Street
and Byron Street. This location was close to the railway station and there were
a number of mills and bakers in the area. In 1890 John appeared on the electoral
roll at his father’s address in Stirling St Sydenham (now Cass Street). At this
time his father also appeared on rolls for Ellesmere and Geraldine where he was
working as a miller at Irwell and Pleasant Point. John was likely employed with
the Railways by now, where he worked all his working life.
In
the late 1890s he was living with his elder brother, his family and their
father in Riccarton. It was here that he met his wife Edith Vose. They were married
on 8 May 1901 in Sydenham. They lived their entire married life on the property
which had been left to Edith by her elder brother Samuel and raised a family of
five. John enjoyed photography and colourised pictures by hand. He was also a
bit of an artist and some sketches survive that he made of the view from his
window when ill in bed. He was also a fan of radio and would spend hours in his
shed tinkering to receive a clear signal on shortwave. One afternoon his
children hid outside and played a short recital to trick him – but that is
another story. John died in Christchurch on 17 November 1942.
George Timms
was born 20 August 1877 in
Stamford Place Milverton, Warwickshire. He was the 2nd son and
youngest child in his family. When he was 6 months old his mother died,
responsibility for his care and for his elder brother and sisters mostly likely
fell on his eldest sister. In 1881, his second eldest sister was living out of
the family home, in service. Alice aged 18 and Mary 13 were probably managing
the house, perhaps with some support from their maternal grandparents who lived
next door, while their father worked. In 1883, his father remarried to a widow
who lived across the lane, this probably relieved Alice and Mary of some of their
household duties.
At
least two of his sisters moved away from Leamington, and most of his siblings
were married by the start of the 20th century. George followed a
similar career path to his father and became a groom and then a coachman. He was employed as the coachman at Cranford
House, on Kenilworth Road when he married Laura Kelsey in 1901. The first two of
their four children were born there before they moved back into Leamington.
In
Leamington he became a motor car driver and later a taxi driver. Life threw
Laura a few curve balls resulting in her becoming an absent parent and spending
twenty years in an asylum. George raised
his children mostly alone, depending on the eldest to help out in the home, in
the same street where had had lived as a child. Life was strict though, if they
saw him driving in the street they were not to acknowledge him at all. Since
most of his sisters lived away from Leamington, and his brother lived some
distance away it is unclear whether there was any other support available to
the family. One aunt did live very close by, but from all accounts theirs was
not a harmonious relationship.
His eldest
daughters moved abroad to New Zealand in the 1920s. He died on 5 August 1939
from a fall down the stairs, perhaps a stroke.
