Topic: Me, Myself and I

I was christened Nancy Vada Johnston – Nancy for my mother’s sister Nancy Elizabeth d’Archy (always known as Betty) and Vada for my mother Lillian Vada d’Archy (always known as Vada).

Where did Auntie Bet as we all called her, get her names? Elizabeth for one of her own aunts, also a Great Aunt, but Nancy??

Where did my mother get her names? Lillian from her mother Edith Lillian Hunt (always known as Lily) and Vada from her mother’s great friend, the concert pianist Vada Jefferies.

It was not until I became fascinated by genealogy that I finally tracked down the Nancy – my great great grandmother Nancy Welding (also known as Ann) who was born in Upton-St-Leonard, Gloucestershire in 1789 and married Thomas Hunt. He signed his name with a cross; she wrote hers. Family legend had it that she was a governess or lady’s maid. Did my grandmother Lily Hunt actually know her mother’s name? Probably.…

So that dealt with one mystery – my name.

Where do my love of country life and horses come from?? I always said I ‘wanted to marry a farmer”. (But ended up marrying an engineer and living on a boat…). From my mother’s father’s family who were all “on the land” – early Australian pioneers who hit hard times during the 1890s depressions and were forced to give up their stock and huge land leases and go droving. Grandfather d’Archy was a successful station manager but never owned his own property, and never adapted to city life .. so my mother and aunt rarely saw him.

Enthusiasm for Sailing? My father and grandfather Johnston were experienced small-boat sailors. Great Uncle George Johnston was an ocean-going merchant seaman officer who drowned aged 29 after switching to a coastal steamer which ran aground .. (His mother was heavily pregnant when they arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1855).

Love of adventure: all the above.

Journalism? Granddad was a front page reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald; and a egular weekly contributor to the Sydney Mail .. he published two books.

Scientist? – Great Aunt Fanny Hunt was the first woman Science graduate from Sydney University in the late 1880s. I wore her academical hood at my own graduation.

Artist? Nooooo – I like design but did not inherit Granddad’s ability.

And finally I have one characteristic which I definitely did not inherit from anyone – I’m totally deaf – the result of meningitis when I was six years old.

Topic: Cousins!

Most people seem to have a number of first cousins and many seconds and thirds, but my father Warwick Johnston had a lone brother who died as a baby, and my mother Vada d’Archy had one sister who never married. Consequently I have no first cousins.

My maternal grandmother Lily Hunt 1876-1946 came from a family of ten and only five of them had children surviving childhood. Her mother Margaret Morgan 1838-1920 had 5 siblings yet no known nephews/nieces. The Hunts were my only known distant cousins for many years – mainly one family – mostly I only saw them at Christmas but our friendships have developed as adults and with the help of e-mail.

On the other hand My paternal grandmother Bertha Wade 1874-1947, born in New Zealand, had 6 siblings and 3 had children. Her mother was a Macloskey. My Paternal grandfather Alexander Johnston had 3 siblings; 2 had children.

Growing up I did not know of any Johnston, Macloskey or Wade cousins. Or any d’Archys.

This all changed gradually when my Aunt Betty d’Archy was approached by a family historian Dr. Ann Prendergast who was interested in the d’Archys even though only related to them through marriage – her great great Aunt Margaret Prendergast 1844-1915 married my great grandfather Francis d’Archy 1854-1925. She did tell my Aunt there were a few d’Archys around but my Aunt was not much interested (“I’m too old!”). But she DID tell me ….

This started my interested in genealogy but it was some years before I could find the time to do anything. When the internet and e-mail started suddenly records became far more accessible.

The d’Archy researcher was very forthcoming and became a good friend – I visited her whenever I could and she was very generous with sharing all her research. Through her I made contact with several d’Archy second and third cousins.

Then I decided to look for some Johnston second cousins. I did track down two, descendants of my granddad’s brother Charles – one of whom, it turned out, once worked at the same university as I did in an associated department. It was quite possible that our paths crossed more than once but I did not know his surname and never made the connection until years after his death. I do have several friends who were his students so know a little more about him that I would otherwise have discovered (!). His widow had a huge old Johnston family bible which went a long way to solving one family puzzle and to confirm the names of my GGG Grandmother Mary Cochrane’s siblings, often missnamed or missed in online trees.

Granddad Alexander and his brother Charles Johnston had another brother who was drowned and a sister Margaret who in 1886 married FJA Huxtable, who came from a HUGE family. Eventually I made contact with one of Margaret (Johnston) Huxtable’s sons and through him the descendants of a granddaughter. To say that that contact opened the Johnston family floodgates is an understatement! Best of all, one of the third cousins lives in my adopted country New Zealand and even in the same city (I am Australian and almost all other cousins are in that country). Myke and I see each other occasionally when his work allows and I have collaborated with one of his brothers to produce several family histories.

DNA opened still more doors. A small match with a Prendergast distant cousin developed into an on-line friendship and when I mentioned where I lived in NZ she said “Oh but my sister lives there!” So now I have another distant cousin living in the same city, who I see often. I have also discovered a couple of Macloskey third cousins, three of them living in New Zealand. I see them occasionally as they live in other parts of the country.

I made DNA-match contact with several distant Hunt cousins in England and through them the Hunt family tree has also expanded hugely. My great grandfather Edwin Hunt 1837-1895 and two of his sisters emigrated to Australia; one did not marry but the other has hundreds of descendants with whom I also find occasional DNA matches. Also with some distant Johnston cousins. the latter contact was invaluable as it ‘proved’ the identity of my GGG Grand Aunt Margaret Cochrane, who definitely married a Donald in 1780 and not someone else as a number of on-line trees assert.

So although I do not have any first cousins, I feel far from alone!!

Topic: “You Wouldn’t Believe it”

Just once this year I’m writing about my husband’s family instead of my own. One of their surnames is Arkle, which always fascinated me. Christopher Arkle 1816-1896 and most of his family arrived in NZ from Northumberland in 1861 but nothing was known about his antecedents.

One Christmas after dithering over several genealogical magazines in a shop, I bought one for something to read over the holiday. Driving home with my husband, I idly leafed through the magazine and suddenly the surname Arkle leapt out at me. (I probably exclaimed and my husband swerved…)

It was a story called “My Ancestor Froze to Death” and a little research soon showed that Eleanor Arkle Heron was the sister of the Christopher who came to NZ. The story of Eleanor’s unfortunate death had probably never reached her brother.

Eleanor Arkle aged 50, who had married into the border Heron family, lived in Hartside in the Ingram Valley, still a relatively lonely spot today, and one winter’s day in 1863 “went visiting”. Despite a fierce snowstorm, she decided to make her way home 4 miles across the Cheviot moors on foot and never made it. An account of her death in the regional newspaper on Monday 7 December 1863 was headlined “Snow storms on the Cheviots and loss of life”. Apparently it had been one of the most violent snowstorms northern Northumberland had ever experienced.

My story doesn’t quite end here. I got in touch with the author of the article who in turn put me in touch with distant Arkle relatives. They did not know anything about the NZ Christopher’s family; he had simply “disappeared”. I have been able to greatly expand the Arkle family tree back to an early Christopher of the late 17th Century who together with several later generations lived near Alwinton, Northumberland.

One of my husband’s distant relatives, in telling me of this, added this charming story:

“Alwinton church is really special. It is built out of the village on a very hilly site. How they dug some of the graves I do not know. They must have had a struggle getting the coffins up too. Inside, the church is split level with the altar about ten steps higher than the body of the church. When I was young we used to go to Alwinton Show every year. It was usually held in October, and the highlight was the sheep dog trails and the Cumberland wrestling. The men taking part were nearly all sheepherders, and real characters. There is a track that goes from Alwinton over the hills to Scotland, and this was used by the whisky smugglers in days gone by. There are many stories of the excise men trying to catch the smugglers, who did not pay tax on this black market spirit.”

Wikipedia tells me the church goes back to the 9th century. There are some beautiful photos at https://fabulousnorth.com/st-michael-and-all-angels-church-low-alwinton/

Topic: Family Recipe

I have in my possession a wonderful old cookery book, hand-written with hundreds of recipes and household hints and also knitting patterns. It has marbled end papers and would at one time have been a handsome book but is now falling to pieces. It belonged to my maternal grandmother.

Edith Lillian “Lily” Hunt was born in 1876 in Reading, Berkshire to schoolteachers Edwin and Margaret (Morgan) Hunt.

She was the youngest of their ten children. When she was aged 2 the whole family emigrated to Australia on an early steamship the “Aconcagua”which would have certainly shaved off the days a sailing ship would have taken, but nevertheless took 49 days. They travelled in the equivalent of first class and must have had a mountain of luggage including linen and silver – some still in my possession. Eventually they settled in a large house in Sydney.

When Lily was aged 32, about a year after visiting an elder sister who lived in a small remote town in northern Queensland, she married Dick d’Archy, Manager of an even more remote cattle station in the Australian outback. It must have been quite a change in lifestyle for a gently-bred English girl – she would have had to deal with loneliness, heat, drought, ants, snakes, limited water and basic food supplies … very different from her sheltered early life in Sydney.

When World War I broke out, Dick enlisted in the Light Horse. Lily, by then with two little girls, moved to southern Queensland to live with her mother and two sisters in a large family home, always full of visiting relatives. The photo was taken about 1915; the little girl being held is my mother. Lily is on her left.

Later the family moved to a large house in Sydney which they again shared with various relatives at different times. It can be surmised that Lily and her aged mother probably shared or at least supervised all the cooking. When Dick returned from the War he was very restless, and being a countryman through and through spent most of his time in the outback and rarely visited his city-based family.

When did Lily start her recipe book? It contains not only recipes and knitting patterns but many household hints, probably dating to the years of the Second World War. Possibly back to when Lily first got married, but more likely after some years when butter and eggs were again readily available, as many recipes include them. Perhaps it was a ‘new’ recipe book made from an old one. The first numbered page contains recipes for Sponge Gingerbread, Sand Cake, Soap Recipe, Lemon Syrup, Blue Transfer Ink and Coffee (!) Over the years more and more recipes have been added, some in my Aunt (Lily’s eldest daughter)’s handwriting, some in unknown hands. Many have the name of the person who contributed the recipe, hint or pattern – a custom I have continued.I am reasonably certain my Aunt continued to use the book for many years.

The book is so fragile I have not attempted to scan any more pages.

Theme: Troublemaker.

One definition of Troublemaker is ‘Someone who thrives on conflict’. That would be my Great grandfather Frederick Wentworth Wade, a barrister and solicitor. He was born in Dublin, Ireland on 23 September 1838 to schoolteacher Robert Wentworth Wade and his wife Annie Gibbons, who were married clandestinely (without parental approval) in Dublin by a German Lutheran priest (Oh the joy when I finally found their marriage!)

Frederick was the 5th of nine children and probably left home at an early age to seek fame and fortune. It is thought that he joined the navy or merchant navy but no specific record can be found. He turned up in Melbourne, Australia about 1859, working for a firm of accountants. He was said to have had a remarkable faculty for dealing with figures. In 1862 he went to Invercargill at the bottom of New Zealand, initially working as a clerk and then partner/ accountant, but very soon he was a law clerk and eventually gained his creditations as a barrister and solicitor in 1869. He set up a practice in Invercargill and remained there to the end of his days.

One of his obituaries described him as having been associated with most of the enterprises which made for the advancement of the town from the time it was in its embryo stage.

He made the news every now and then and was not free from litigation himself. Some of his cases attracted much attention. One of his last cases in 1909 involved a sad tale about the spread of scarlet fever. This case was eerily prescient of the spread of Covid in 2020 – he defended the charge that a man had failed to give notice to the District Health Officer that his daughter was sick with an infectious disease – scarlet fever. Wade explained that while his client admitted the facts, there were mitigating factors. The man’s daughter had been ill a few days previously with a cold and when she became ill again it was thought the cold had returned; it was actually scarlet fever but the man had no medical knowledge. The man’s two daughters had continued to work in a milk factory as did their father, and a man employed to taste the milk became ill. The man’s son continued to attend school and a boy sitting next to him caught the fever and died. Result: the man was Fined one pound and ordered to pay costs of one pound 18 shillings.

In 1878 he defended a notorious wife murderer; an account of the trial said he ably defended the murderer but it was a hopeless case. (Many years later a film was made about it).

He was once charged with using insulting language to the Licensing Bench – “Before you separate, gentlemen, I would like to tell you, you have been guilty of wilfully, wantonly and deliberately inflicting gross injustice, and those of you who are in private business will particularly and individually suffer”. The defence said the words were used after the business of the committee had closed, and he was dealt with leniently, with a fine in default of 24 hrs imprisonment.

In another case he brought a charge against the local police Sergeant who called him a “pettifogging lawyer” while acting for an accused man. It was concluded the remarks were not addressed to the Bench and the case was dismissed with costs.

When Frederick died aged 73 in August 1912, one of the oldest practitioners of Law in the town, many fullsome obituaries appeared in the local newspapers.