Showing posts with label A to Z 2017. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A to Z 2017. Show all posts

Saturday, 6 May 2017

2017 A to Z blogging challenge

This is my fourth year participating in the A to Z blogging challenge.  This year I wrote mostly about places associated with my family history.

The places were mainly in England and southeastern Australia. Maps compiled using mapalist.com.


  • A is for letter from Anzac : my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952) was a doctor on Lemnos near Gallipoli. He was mentioned in a 1915 letter from the journalist Keith Murdoch to the Australian prime minister  bout conditions at Gallipoli.
  • B is for Borneo : my third cousin four times removed, Claude Augustus Champion de Crespigny (1829-1884), spent much of his life working in Borneo and researching its natural history and geography.
  • C is for caught in Caen during the Reign of Terror : In 1792 my 6th great grandparents Constantine Phipps (1746-1797) and Elizabeth Phipps née Tierney (1749-1832) were living in Caen, France. That year they took a trip to back to England and left six of their children behind. The parents were unable to return to France and the family was separated for more than five years because of hostilities between he two countries.
  • E is for Eden Park, home of Wentworth Cavenagh : 'Eden Park' was the Adelaide home from 1867-1892 of my great great grandparents Wentworth Cavenagh (1822-1895) and his wife Ellen Jane Cavenagh née Mainwaring later Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1845-1920).
  • G is for Gretna Green : in 1804 Eliza Champion Crespigny (1784-1831), my 5th great aunt, was married at Gretna Green over the border in Scotlandto Richard Hussey Vivian (1775-1842)
  • J is for jail: Bankruptcy of William Pulteney Dana : William Pulteney Dana (1776-1861), my fourth great grandfather, was jailed for bankruptcy in 1840. The prison was known as the Dana, after his father the Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823). It is still called the Dana.
  • O is for Oakleigh, a suburb of Melbourne, where my mother-in-law Marjorie Sullivan was born in 1920.
  • Q is for Queenscliff in 1882 : the birthplace of my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny in 1882. His mother, Annie Frances Champion de Crespigny née Chauncy (1857-1883) died there after his birth.
  • S is for the Snowy : some photos of my husband Greg working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme
  • T is for Talbot in 1869 : my three times great grandfather Philip Champion Crespigny (1817-1889) sold his farm near Talbot, Victoria
  • U is for Unibic biscuit tin : On a biscuit tin commemorating World War I is a 1917 photograph of my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952) escorting Queen Mary  on a visit to the war hospital he commanded.
  • Z is for Zehlendorf the district of Berlin where my grandparents Hans Boltz (1910-1992) and Charlotte Boltz née Manock (1912-1988) first lived when they were married in 1937.


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Saturday, 29 April 2017

Z is for Zehlendorf

My maternal grandparents, Hans Boltz (1910-1992) and Charlotte  Manock (1912-1988) were married in 1937.

Their first home was in Eschershauser Weg 27, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Berlin. Zehlendorf is a district in the south-west of Berlin near the Krumme Lanke lake, on the edge of the Grunewald forest.

They lived in a  flat (apartment) in a housing estate known as Onkel Toms Hütte, served by a  U-Bahn station named after the 1852 anti-slavery novel. The estate, designed by several by well-known architects, among them Bruno Taut and Hugo Härings, was built between 1926 and 1932 . The apartment blocks had communal back gardens that led into the forest.

My grandmother, Charlotte Boltz, outside her new home in 1937

Eschershauser Weg in 1937

Eschershauser Weg in the snow about 1937




from Google maps
A satellite view of Eschershauser Weg showing how it is set in the forest and the communal grounds surrounding the flats from Google maps



According to Google Maps a U-Bahn leaves for Berlin Zoo every ten minutes. The journey takes just over half an hour. Charlotte's parents lived near Berlin Zoo.


Public transport from Eschershauser Weg to Berlin Zoo from Google maps

Hans's parents lived at Florastraße 13 in Steglitz. His father, Fritz Boltz (1879-1954) was a live-in janitor at a school there. There is still a school at that address. Florastraße is about six kilometres away from Eschershauser Weg and it takes about half an hour to get there by public transport.


From Eschershauser Weg, Zehlendorf, to Florastraße, Steglitz per Google maps
I visited Eschershauser Weg in 1982



The back of the flats overlook a communal garden with a sand pit and play space. Each flat has a balcony. Photographed 1982.


The sandpit at the back of the flats in 1982


My mother playing in the sandpit at Christmas time. She was three years old.

My mother playing in the sandpit aged 4


My mother on her sled at Christmas when she was three years old. The balconies at the back of the flats can be seen.

My mother told me about tobogganing on her sled down a very steep slope with two stones at the bottom of the path that you had to avoid. I found the path and stones in 1982. The slope was not big but it must have seemed so to a small child.
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Y is for football at Yarra Park: G. Dana footballer

One of my earliest posts was about my first cousins four times removed George and Augustus Dana, the sons of Henry Dana (1820-1852), commandant of the Native Police in the colony of Victoria.

Reviewing digitised Australian newspapers on Trove recently, I came across several mentions of a G. Dana in the 1860s. I believe that this G. Dana is George Kinnaird Dana (1849-1872), the son of Henry Dana. G. Dana was playing the local football code, now known as Australian Rules Football.




A game at the Richmond Paddock, part of Yarra Park,  in the 1860s. A pavilion at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is on the left in the background. (A wood engraving made by Robert Bruce on July 27, 1866.)

G. Dana played mostly for South Yarra. South Yarra Football club was in existence from at least 1864. In 1873 South Yarra Football Club merged with a Saint Kilda Cricketers Club to form the Saint Kilda Football Club, which still plays football today.

In May 1866 Dana was playing for South Yarra. The rule for the season had been adopted at a meeting of delegates held at the Freemasons' Hotel.


FOOTBALL. (1866, May 12). Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic. : 1857 - 1868), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199059375


Dana chose one of the sides for the South Yarra Club. In the two hour game in May, neither side scored a goal.


FOOTBALL. (1866, May 12). Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic. : 1857 - 1868), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199059375

Dana played for South Yarra against Melbourne for the Challenge Cup in June 1866.

FOOTBALL. (1866, June 2). Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic. : 1857 - 1868), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199059376



Dana is also mentioned in September as playing for the Challenge Cup. Dana scored the second and final goal for South Yarra with a good running drop kick. Apparently drop kicks are no longer used in Australian Football League although there is a video of a drop kick being played in 2013.


The Challenge Cup. (1866, September 15). Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic. : 1857 - 1868), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199057292





On 14 September 1867 G. Dana was mentioned as being a member of the Melbourne Football Club team which was scheduled to play a team drawn from the 14th Regiment [the 2nd Battalion, Buckinghamshire Regiment of Foot].
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1867. (1867, September 14). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5777936


George Dana later became a trader in the South Pacific. In 1872, at the age of 23, he accidentally shot himself in the foot and died of tetanus on the island of Tanna, in present-day Vanuatu.


Family Notices (1873, April 1). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5851052



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Thursday, 27 April 2017

X is for destruction of a piratical fleet near Xiānggǎng (Hong Kong)

My fourth great uncle Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring  was the tenth of the seventeen children of Rowland Mainwaring (1783-1862), eldest of the eight children of Rowland's third wife Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard (1811-1891).

Karl Mainwaring was born 4 September 1837 at Mannheim in Germany. He died 21 August 1906 at Saint Helier, Jersey.

On 19 September 1856 Karl Mainwaring appointed as lieutenant in the Royal Navy.  From 1874 to 1893 Karl Mainwaring was harbour master in Kingston, Jamaica. He retired from the navy with the rank of captain.

In 1866 Lieutenant K.H.A Mainwaring was stationed in Hong Kong with the China Squadron on  HMS Princess Charlotte.   

Xiānggǎng is the modern transcription of 香港 , Hong Kong, 'fragrant harbour'.



HMS Princess Charlotte painted 1838 by James Kennett Willson from Wikimedia Commons



HMS Princess Charlotte was a 104-gun first-rate ship launched in 1825. Once the the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, from 1858 until she was sold in 1875 the Princess Charlotte was used as a receiving ship, a harbour-bound hulk used for stores and accommodation in lieu of a permanent shore base.

Kellett’s Island, looking west across Wanchai towards Central and the Peak, with HMS Princess Charlotte on the right (1869 - 71). Retrieved from Cheung, Tim. "Maritime Museum to Show Historical Pictures of HK." Artinfo. BlouinArtinfo Corp., 15 Jan. 2014. W <http://hk.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/983316/maritime-museum-to-show-historical-pictures-of-hk>.


Hong Kong Harbour about 1868 from The China Magazine Midsummer Volume 1868, page 88,  digitised by Google books.  The view possibly shows Signal Hill.

In July 1866 Lieutenant Mainwaring was given charge of HMS Opossum.

In 1865 HMS Opossum had been engaged in attacks on Chinese pirates in co-operation with the fleet of the Manchu Qing government. The attacks were reported in The Illustrated London News of 23 October 1865.

'Expedition against the Chinese Pirates' from The Illustrated London News of 23 October 1865 page 409 with illustration: Fleet of Chinese junks, with HMS Opossum, preparing to attack pirates at How-Chow. Retrieved from thegenealogist.co.uk

On 18 July 1866 HMS Opossum, commanded by Lieutenant Mainwaring, together with HMS Osprey attacked pirate vessels in Sama Bay, now known as Sanya Bay on Hainan Island, 250 miles south-west of Hong Kong. The British destroyed 22 Junks and 270 cannon and killed about 100 men.

HMS Opossum was a wooden screw gunboat of the Albacore class which carried about 38 crew and four guns. (In the 1866 Navy List, the Opossum is listed as a tender to the Princess Charlotte and Mainwaring is in charge of the Haughty, also an Albacore class wood screw gunboat.) HMS Osprey was a Vigilant class gunboat with about 80 crew and four guns.

H.M.S. Osprey and H.M.S Opossum destroying Chinese pirate junks in Sama Bay from The Illustrated London News of 29 September 1866, page 313, retrieved from the genealogist.co.uk

The attack on the pirates was reported in The Illustrated London News of 22 September 1866 and followed up with an illustration the following week.


"Piracy in the Chinese Seas" from The Illustrated London News 22 September 1866 page  291 retrieved from the genealogist.co.uk (click on image to enlarge)



The 1866 engagement with the pirates was widely reported. The following account is from the Melbourne Leader.


DESTRUCTION OF A PIRATICAL FLEET BY H. M. SHIPS OPOSSUM AND OSPREY. (1866, September 29). Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), p. 17. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196560667





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Wednesday, 26 April 2017

W is for Williamstown: funeral of Augustus Dana

Augustus Pulteney Dana, my first cousin four times removed,  born 1 February 1851 at Dandenong, was the son of of Henry Edward Pulteney Dana (1817-1852),and Sophia Cole Hamilton née Walsh (1827-1860). At the time Henry Dana was commandant of the Victorian Native Police.

Augustus was their youngest child. His brothers and sisters were:
  • Cecile Sophia (1845-1908), who married James Colles in 1866 and had children (with present day descendants)
  • William Henry Pulteney (1845-died before 1852)
  • Harry (1843-1854) 
  • Charlotte Elizabeth Kinnaird (1848-1848)
  • George Kinnaird Dana (1849-1872)
In 1852, when Augustus was only one, his father Henry died. Four years later his mother Sophia married his father's brother William Dana. They had one child, who died as an infant. Sophia died in 1860 and her second husband, Augustus's uncle and step-father William Dana, died in 1866.

1851: born
1852: father dies
1854: death of brother William who was aged 11, from scarlet fever in Launceston, Tasmania
1856: mother marries uncle
1860: mother dies
1866: uncle, who is also his step father dies.

In November 1867 Augustus, sixteen years old and said to have been 'uncontrollable', became a 'ward of the state', the term used to describe a child under the guardianship of a State child welfare authority.*

His legal guardian was a police magistrate, Mr Sturt, a former colleague of his father and uncle. Sturt paid 10 shillings a week towards Augustus's keep.

In January 1868 Augustus absconded but was brought back a day later. In February he was sent to live on a hulk at Williamstown called the Nelson.** This vessel, described as a 'training ship', was in fact a floating reformatory for refractory boys.

HMVS Nelson, Williamstown, Victoria, Apr 1898. Image from Find and Connect, originally from Museum Victoria.


A few months later, on 30 May 1868, Augustus died there of scarletina (scarlet fever) after an illness of 3 days. On his death certificate 'occupation' was recorded, stretching the truth a little, as 'ordinary seaman'. His father was given as George Dana, inspector of police, with mother not known. Clearly the informant knew very little about Augustus's family.

Augustus was sent off with an impressive funeral in naval style at Williamstown cemetery, probably at least in part intended as a contribution to the moral education of his fellows. His grave is unmarked.


NEWS AND NOTES. (1868, June 3). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924), p. 2. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113844671





results from deceased search on Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries website http://www.gmct.com.au/deceased-search/
I believe this is the site of the grave of Augustus Dana - photographed October 2016


Notes

* see: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/vic/E000214. 'Victorian Former Wards of the State are people who were removed from their families and placed in government or church operated orphanages, children's homes or foster care as children. The Victorian government took legal responsibility for their care." See: http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/for-individuals/applying-for-documents-and-records/adoption-ward-and-care-leaver-records/former-victorian-state-wards-and-care-leavers

** "The Nelson was a hulk (ship) anchored off Williamstown, Hobson Bay. From 1868, it housed boys aged ten who had been sentenced under the Neglected and Criminal Children's Act of 1864. By 1872, the vessel housed 383 boys. It was abandoned in 1876 when the boys were transferred to the Bendigo Benevolent Asylum Industrial School, Sandhurst, and later to Sunbury Industrial School." See: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/vic/biogs/E000318b.htm



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V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen's Land

The first of my forebears to migrate to Australia was my fifth  great grandfather George Taylor (1758 - 1828), who arrived in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, in 1823. With him was his wife Mary née Low (1765 -1850) and some of his family. My fourth great grandmother, his daughter, Isabella Hutcheson née Taylor (1794-1876), followed ten years later, arriving about 1833.


"Valleyfield" Epping Tas. The "Taylors" have lived here for over 100 years. , about 1914 - about 1941 Photograph in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. Accession number H22546. A.C. Dreier postcard collection. Retrieved from 
https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab47005

The Taylor family's arrival in Hobart on the Princess Charlotte on 10 January 1823 was reported in the Sydney Gazette. George Taylor's son, Robert, wrote a diary about their four-month voyage, mostly concerned with the weather. (Helen Hudson, a Taylor family descendant, covers the Taylor's voyage in her family history book Cherry Stones, basing her account on Robert's diary.)

MAGISTRATE FOR THE WEEK—JOHN PIPER, Esq. (1823, February 13). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2181641


George Taylor received a grant of land about 30 miles south of Launceston on the Macquarie River. He named his property 'Valley-Field'. Three of his sons, George, David, and Robert, received grants of land nearby.



The land grant to George Taylor senior signed 30 June 1823 by Governor Brisbane. Image retrieved from ancestry.com (Copies of land grants issued 1804-1823. LSD354. Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, Tasmania, Australia.)



In January 1923 and January 1973 there were large family reunions to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the Taylor family in Australia.

After 182 years in the Taylor family the Valleyfield property was sold in 2005.

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Tuesday, 25 April 2017

U is for Unibic biscuit tin

My great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952) served as a doctor in World War 1.

In 1917 he was in charge of the 1st Australian General Hospital in Rouen which dealt with general battle casualties. On 9 July 1917 Her Majesty Queen Mary visited the hospital. She was photographed with my great grandfather inspecting an honour guard of nurses.

Rouen, France. 9 July 1917. Her Majesty Queen Mary visiting No. 1 Australian General Hospital (1AGH). HM is accompanied through a guard of honour of nurses of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) by the hospital's commanding officer, Colonel Trent Champion de Crespigny DSO. Temporary wards and tents are on both sides of the path and patients in hospital uniform look on. Australian War Memorial photograph id K00019


That photograph has been reproduced on a biscuit tin a hundred years later 'in honour of ANZAC Day and in remembrance of the nurses who served in the war.'

photograph taken in Woolworths supermarket, Ballarat April 2017

The tins are filled with Anzac biscuits. The biscuit company promises that from the sale of the tins, which 'celebrate the origin of Anzac biscuits, reminding us of the packages of love and care from home that helped buoy the Anzac Spirit in the trenches of Gallipoli', will go towards service organisations such as the Returned and Services League (RSL).

Dr de Crespigny on behalf of the hospital at Lemnos dealing with the sick and wounded from Gallipoli, received tins of biscuits from Australia. The biscuits were probably not the Anzac biscuits we know today.

WATTLE DAY LEAGUE WAR EXTENSION WORK. (1915, November 18). The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59989826

One of the earliest Anzac biscuit recipes was in a 1916 newspaper, winning 4th prize in a Western Australian recipe contest; 4th prize was an electroplated butter knife with an engraved handle.

Fourth Prize (1916, June 4). Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954), p. 7 (Second Section). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58013699


This 1920 recipe from the Argus is much closer to the recipe I have made. I don't know about eating the biscuits with a spoon though.


KITCHEN AND PANTRY. (1920, September 15). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4583769


the bought biscuits, not bad, but I normally associate Anzac biscuits with being home-made

The Unibic factory is in Broadmeadows, a suburb of Melbourne. The biscuit factory is over 60 years old and employs 170 people. In 2012 Unibic got into financial difficulties. The factory was threatened with closure but was rescued by a consortium of investors. The production of Anzac biscuits and the support of the Returned and Services League helped the company survive. ("Anzac Biscuits Factory Looking Forward To A New Future | Australian Food News". Ausfoodnews.com.au. 2012. )



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