Topic: Earning A Living.

My Great Great Aunt Susan Darchy (1857-1922) was born to a wealthy pioneering family in western NSW, Australia. She had a privileged childhood growing up on an outback cattle station, with a private tutor and a succession of governesses.

Her parents took her to England in 1873 when she was 17, possibly so she could make her debut at court. She was only 20 when her father died. She visited Europe again with her mother and younger sister Rose Ann at least twice and in 1885 was at Aix-les-Bains in the South of France staying at the same place as Queen Victoria of England. Susan, Rose and her brother Louis were all presented to the Queen on more than one occasion.

A bad recession hit Australia in the 1890s together with a drought and rabbit plague. The English Banks, with little knowledge or understanding of Australian conditions, foreclosed on a huge number of pastoral properties. The Darchy children had to earn a living! Susan wrote some years later: “I found myself in Sydney with 20 pounds in my pocket and facing the necessity of doing something to earn money before that was exhausted.” She began writing to newspapers, including those overseas.

Through her own courage, determination and energy she soon became a well-known journalist, being in charge of the Social and Fashion columns of an Australian daily newspaper. According to an article on the Lady Journalists of NSW, “A great deal of tact and discretion is required in one who has the control of the social department of a large daily paper, and during the times that Miss Darchy has managed that portion of the Telegraph she has exhibited those qualifications to the fullest extent…..The lady who supplies the social and fashion news to a big daily journal in a large city like Sydney has abundant work to do; but Miss Darchy is active and industrious, and by economy of time manages to (also) contribute regularly to a daily paper in Paris and to send a colonial letter periodically to the Sketch, an illustrated journal published in London. She also writes for several country papers in New South Wales….”

In 1899 Susan delivered a public lecture in Sydney’s School of Arts on “The Power of Thought”. She…“treated the subject in a general way, emphasising the importance of right thinking and showing that it could be taught by scientific methods. For the results of scientific thinking she claimed perfect health and happiness to the individual.” There must have been many other such lectures given. A small entrance fee would have been charged.

In 1900 Susan went overseas and gave a series of lectures on Australia in San Francisco and London. The San Francisco Chronicle published a very long article about her entitled “What Australian Women Are Doing”. Her lectures on the Australian Bush were very well received in London and she was mentioned several times in the Court Circular of The Times.

Susan tried to obtain finance for her lecture tours from the Australian Government, but was unsuccessful. A letter to the Prime Minister written in 1901 says: “My object in writing to you is to ask you if the Commonwealth could not help me to make my work of greater value to Australia.I (have) managed in three months to give twenty five lectures in London and various parts of England. So far, I have had everything to face single handed, this work has been enormous and the expenses very great. Those in the know here are amazed at the measure of success I have secured, for independent lectures of anyone who has not poisoned a few husbands or who has not become distinguished in South Africa are considered suicidal.” It would seem she knew the Prime Minister personally!

She continued “I was fortunate in getting work to do under the auspices of the British Empire League, through the influence of Sir Andrew Clarke and Mrs Copeland, but although the work done by the League is important I am able to touch another class of people than they do.
There are few women lecturers here, and I am the only one representing Australia and I find that the womans’ point of view and the womans’ presence counts for much. The secretaries tell me that my audiences come next to Winston Churchill’s, and I suppose that means something today.” Unfortunately her application was unsuccessful. Barton wrote:
“You work has my full sympathy, however, and I trust that your efforts may be attended by the success which they merit.”

She also went to Canada, from where she wrote a very long entertaining letter to her old newspaper, mainly about her travels.

An Australian newspaper said in 1901 that Susan was “waking things up at Home” (ie England). (Sydney Stock and Station Journal, 26 Feb 1901 p.8)

Returning to Australia, Susan set up a high fashion dressmaking business known as “D’Archy et Cie” .(By that itme the spelling of the surname had changed slightly). A Melbourne newspaper reported in 1903: “Good work, fair prices and an admirable cut have brought D’Archy et Cie of Collins St. into prominence, so much so that another dressmaker has been engaged….. Susan was described as a clever designer, whose forte was evening and race gowns. By 1907 the competition for quality staff particularly apprentices, bodice hands and improvers, was increasing, as evidenced by the number of similar advertisements in the main Melbourne newspaper. The business was still going in 1909 but cannot be found after that.

It would appear that Susan returned to England again and did much work for the Australian War effort. The Sydney Morning Herald of October 6 1915 reported regarding a very patriotic song:

Indeed several of Susan’s brothers including my own GGGFather enlisted … (for American readers – Australia’s experiences in World War I were VERY different to that of your country.)

Topic: Influencer.

My 3rd cousin Dr. Patricia Ann Prendergast (“AnnieP”) did not come into my life until I was in my fifties, but I still consider her a major influencer in the rest of my life, particularly as regards my genealogical work.

In 1987 AnnieP published a study leave project “The Search for Thomas and Susan d’Archy” – it led to a PhD. As she explained in her background to the project, “I first came across the name d’Archy when I was putting together a history of my family who settled in what is now called the Western Riverina (of what became the state of NSW) in the early 1850s. My GGG Aunt Margaret married as her second husband Francis, son of Thomas d’Archy squatter of Oxley Station, Hay and his wife Susan nee Byrne. … The next step in my search for Thomas d’Archy was to try and trace his descendants …. I began by looking through phone directories and the only entries for what is a very unusual name were two in Sydney and one in Queensland. Miss Nancy Elizabeth d’Archy of Kings Cross is a GG Daughter of Thomas ….”.

Miss N E d’Archy was my Aunt Betty, my mother’s sister. When I was visiting her one day she told me about Annie P interviewing her and showed me what had been sent as a result. As a researcher myself, albeit in a different field, I was immediately interested and impressed by what she had discovered. Until then apart from my mother’s English family I had only a vague idea of my maternal grandfather’s origins and a single badly drawn tree in a bible was the only source of information about my paternal side.

Over the following years I came to know AnnieP well, corresponding often and staying with her on several occasions. I was always impressed by the depth of her research and knowledge, her organisational skills and her boundless enthusiasm, even when in her later years she developed various medical challenges. She organised a special weekend for descendants of the early Australian settlers and convicts who arrived on the same ship, the “Tellicherry”, as Susan Byrne d’Archy’s grandparents. That was where I met a number of d’Archy relatives who AnnieP had tracked down, for the first time.

AnnieP was very generous in sharing all her materials and indeed without her early research, particularly in locating some records in Neuchatel, Switzerland, the early history of the d’Archys would be a mystery indeed. It still is in some ways …

Topic: Witness to History.

In 1885 Queen Victoria of England and her daughter Princess Beatrice spent some time at Aix-Les-Bains, a thermal spa town on Lake Bourget in the Savoie, eastern France. On April 14 it was Princess Beatrice’s birthday; the town was gaily decorated with flags and the previous evening there was a display of fireworks on the hill.

In the morning, the band of the 4th Regiment of Dragoons played a selection of music and various people presented the Princess with bouquets. Among them were two of my Great Grandfather’s sisters – Miss Susan Darchy (1857-1922) and Miss Rose-Ann Darchy (1866-1930), representing the people of New South Wales, Australia. (The Times, 17 April 1885).

Four days later Susan and her brother Louis Darchy (1860-1910) were again presented to the Queen, according to The Times’ Court Circular of April 18th:

Louis was to have yet another meeting with Queen Victoria (The Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, May 09, 1885):

This was reported again at a later date in the Riverine Grazier, a country NSW newspaper, on 12 January 1894, which gives the explanation:

Topic: Favorite Photo.

This photo is of my late mother in law, Joy Hoffmann, and our beloved cat Minou who lived to 19. Take on board our boat in Pittwater, NSW, Australia, about 1975. Although the following story is a sad one, I still love this photo for the peaceful happy time it represents.

Joy was visiting us from England. About 23 years earlier her husband Squadron leader Bill Hoffmann AFC was drowned when aged only 39, while trying to rescue a woman in difficulties. So his widow had every reason to hate the sea and anything to do with it. But her son Geoff, my first husband, wanted to show her his boat ….

Less than 20 years later Geoff himself died from melanoma and eight months later Joy herself died, her friends said of a “broken heart” – certainly it would have contributed. It is a lasting regret that I didn’t get to know her better.

And Minou? In cat years, she outlived everyone. She also outlived at least twice the normal number of cat lives (9 x 2) and had a string of adventures anyone would envy … lived in various houses all over two Australian states, caught a snake, got stuck in a chimney and had to be hauled out by her tail, was resident mouse catcher on a tomato farm, lived on a boat for some years and fell overboard several times, flew in a plane, went on long car trips and almost got lost in the bush, once spent an afternoon in a parrot cage at an airport ….

Theme: Origins. (“Genealogists often get the question, “Where is your family from?” With this week’s theme, you could explore an immigrant ancestor, but you could also think about the origin of other aspects of your family. Who was the first person in your family to settle in a particular town? If you have a long line of people with the same occupation, talent, etc, who was the first person you know who did it?”).

My GGrandfather Frederick Wentworth Wade (1838-1912), born in Dublin, was the first of his family to settle in New Zealand, and the first and as far as is known only person in the family to profess Law.

He was one of the first settlers in the southern NZ town of Invercargill, was on the Committee formed in 1869 to investigate formation of the first Borough Council, and served on the early Invercargill Council to 1878.

One of his obituaries described Frederick as having been associated with most of the enterprises which had made for the advancement of the town from the time it was in its embryo stage. “Not only was he actively associated with social, municipal and parliamentary activities, but in the realm of sport he was at one time a most prominent figure…” The list included turf interests, rowing, coursing, cricket and football. He was also Sergeant-Major in the first Volunteer company formed in Invercargill, ultimately becoming Captain.
Frederick was a founder, office bearer or early member of various prominent Invercargill institutions – the Invercargill Club, Irish Athletics Society, Fire Brigade, Bowls Club, Coursing Club, Turf Club, Southland Racing Club, the Athenaeum, the Hospital Trust, the Chamber of Commerce and the Southland Caledonian Society. He became a Trustee of the Savings Bank in 1872 together with his brother in law James Blacklock (NZ Gazette)
“… and up to his last illness had not missed a meeting…” according to an obituary in the Southland Daily News.

Disappointingly none of these institutions or their successors have a photograph of Frederick.

He was said by his fellow members of the Bar to be endowed with fine intellectual talents and was a particularly strong advocate who took a keen interest and part in public matters, with a genial manner which endeared him to many, and he always conducted his cases in a fair and honourable way. The Supreme Court adjourned for one afternoon to allow members of the profession to attend his funeral.

One obituary said he experienced to the full ups and downs “…such as seldom come to the lot of one man…” and predicted that Wade’s passing would prompt many old identities to let loose a flood of reminiscences “… which perhaps have never been unearthed previously”.

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.