More Family Arrive

The Aussie Connection

In 1855 after a five year sojourn in Australia the 22 year Francis Rowe and his eldest brother John made the decision to move to New Zealand. He had, in 1850, as a 17 year old emigrated with his family to Adelaide, Australia from the village of St Agnes in Cornwall. As far as we know the rest of his family remainded in Australia.

Francis, along with his brother, began his working life in the goldmines of Australia. He was at Ballarat when some of the miners confronted Government forces at the Eureka stockade. He knew that the miners were going to protest, so on the advice of his mates he kept away. The day after the fight he went to the stockade and saw the charred bodies of the ten miners who had been killed. Many years later, in Auckland, he met one of the leaders of the miners, Peter Laelor.

Francis met Mary Trevarthen shortly after his arrival in Auckland and they were married in Mar 1857. They soon moved to Kawau Island when Francis got a job in the copper mines. For Mary it was a return to the place where she had lived 10 years earlier, as an 11 year old when her father William had worked in the same mines. There was a small chapel on the island, where the couple preached generally twice every Sunday.

Upon returning to town they purchased a property in Codrington St, Arch Hill. Francis began a forwarding agents business located at the wharf area in down town Auckland. The couple had thirteen children, although four of those died at birth or shortly there after. Mary, my Gr Grandmother, was their fourth child and born in 1863.

During the New Zealand Wars Frank, being a married man, served with the militia defending the boundaries of Auckland, from blockhouse to blockhouse on the "top belt" from Parnell to Arch Hill on the Gt North Road. It was arduous work in the dark, for if a man missed the blank he was sure to go up to his knees in the mud. There was also an element of risk (apart from being killed by a Maori), as on one occassion the rear rank man slipped into the mud and put a bayonet through the shoulder of his mate in front. The above picture is of my Gr Gr Grandparents Francis and Mary Rowe (nee Trevarthen) in their later years. It was Mary who came out on the Bolton when she was 4.

Francis Rowe died in Sep 1921 aged 88, and his death notice read, "A genial, good natured man, he made many friends who recongised his many sterling qualities".

Mary Rowe (nee Trevarthen), whom you have already met in a previous post, died in July 1920 at her home in Newton, she was 85. It was said of her, "she was most highly esteemed by the many friends she made during her long life in Auckland. As far as the Newton Congregational Church was concerned, she was a veritable 'Mother in Israel'.

Here is a photo of my Gr Grandmother Mary Hobson (nee Rowe) who married John George Hobson, in Australia in 1889.  It appears that they moved to Australia where they were married and had their first two children, William and Elizabeth, before returning to Auckland where Mary gave birth  to Francis and then finally my Grandfather Lancelot Trevarthen Hobson in Jan 1897.

                                                    Lancelot Trevarthen Hobson,  pictured in this photo is my grandfather, on Mum's side. He's pictured here in his First WW uniform and was probably 20 at the time. Thankfully the war ended before Lance was called overseas. His eldest brother William,  however, was killed in action seven days into the battle of the Somme and is buried at Armenttieres in France. Lance had two other sibblings Elizabeth and Frank, my Gr Aunty and Uncle,  pictured here in this photo. We had a lot to do with Aunty Cissy growing up, as we were her only living family. She lived in Grey Lynn and we spent many school holiday's staying with her and taking trolly bus trips into Karangahape Road to go shopping. It was a "respectible" place to go in those days.

Lance, was a draper by trade and owned a shop in Avondale. He married Hilda May Coulam in 1923 and Mum was born in Feb 1927. He was a kind and gentle man and although I was only three when he passed away in 1954, at the age of 57, I can still member him taking me up to the dairy in his Vauxhall car to buy me, and my cousin Philip, an ice cream.

The photo on the right is of my mum, taken on christmas day 1959, when she was 32.

Well thats the Trevarthen / Rowe / Hobson connection, the family of my mothers father. Now its time to get to know Mum's mothers family. 

The Coulam Clan

The Coulam family has it's rootes in France. They are from the town of Coulommiers 60km east of Paris, and moved to England in 1066 at the time of William the Conqueror.

The Coulams, with strong Protestant family rootes, come from a village called Brinkhill in the county of Lincolnshire in England.

Samuel and Anne Coulam (nee Solden), my Gr Gr Gr Grandparents, we think, emigrated from Lincolnshire, via Liverpool on the "James Booth" to Melbourne in 1861, and then onto Auckland, however we have no passenger list to prove that. They followed a number of their children, who had come out a few years earlier.

The Williams Connection

Henry Williams the CMS missionary, and later of the Treaty of Waitangi and "land jobbing" fame, was married to Marianne Coldham. Marianne was a cousin of the Coulam family and apparently a prolific writer of letters back home to her family.

It is believed that her letters may have convinced the Coulams that New Zealand was, if not Utopia, then at least a place of opportunity. Marianne was the same age as Samuel Coulam (Snr), mentioned above.

My Gr Gr Grandmother Mary Coulam (nee Taylor) was a friend of Esther and Elisa Coulam, and the three young girls, along with Esthers new husband Joseph Phillips, came to New Zealand from London at 21 years of age on the "Whirlwind" in Apr 1859, arriving in Auckland July 1859. The picture here is of Hainton Hall, Mary's family home in Lincolnshire.

We cannot find the date or ship that my Gr Gr Grandfather George came out on, but it is thought to have been 1863 as his death certificate in 1907 states that he had been in NZ for 44 years.

His parents came here in 1861 and his sisters and future wife in 1859. George and Mary Coulam my Gr Gr Grandparents were married in Auckland in 1865. George's occupantion at the time of his marriage was given as a farmer and at the time of his death, a gardener. Mary died of bronchitis in 1875, the year after the photo above  was taken. At the time of Mary's death George was a carter. She left a young family of six children and George then remarried. The young boy sitting in this photo is of my Gr Grandfather Samuel who was born in Auckland in 1869 .   This picture to the left is of Esther and Elisa Coulam, Mary's friends and Georges sisters.

The McDonnells from Ireland

Thomas and Briget McDonnell (nee Ryan), my Gr Gr Grandparents emmigrated from Ireland, via Gravesend, in  Nov 1873 on the "Queen of the Age" with their family. They arrived in Auckland in Mar 1874. My Gr Grandmother Mary was 5 years old at the time and had a brother John and a sister Julia.

The McDonnell's are a Catholic family from Tipperary in Ireland, although Mary McDonnell, who became Samuel Coulam's wife, was born in Waterford in Ireland. Thomas's occupantion was noted as a farm labourer. They lived in the barricks at the top of Shortland St, and later opposite St Matthews church in Wellesley St. This picture is of my Gr Grandmother Mary Coulam (nee McDonnell)

Samuel and Mary Coulam (nee McDonnell) were married in 1888 and had 16 children, four dying at birth or very young. They farmed in Taranaki at the end of the NZ wars and then in Warkworth, before settling in John St in Ponsonby. Samuel then worked at Le Roy's as a Sailmaker.

Mary has passed on the story that while living in Taranaki, at a time when Samuel was away working in the bush, she was at home on the farm. She was looking after the children at the time, when she looked outside and saw a Maori with a feather in his headress, carrying a tomahawk, creeping around the house. She lived to tell the tale.  Hilda May Hobson (Nee Coulam), my Grandmother was born in Jun 1901. This photo is of Nana's family, she is standing, third from the left.

We picked up from Nana, during her later years that Samuel and Mary's Protestant / Cathloic marriage caused quite a bit of friction within the family. this may well have been linked to what was happening in New Zealand at the time, when there was a lot of religious tension, one of the negative things imported from the UK.

Following Mary's death in 1935 at, the age of 66, Samuel lived with Nana's family in Avondale and died in 1947 aged 78.

Francis Coulam (Nana's brother), fought in Galipolli, Egypt and the Western front during the 1st WW and died on Armisters Day of the Flu in Auckland in Nov 1918. The above photo is of my Gr Gandfather and Gr Grandmother Coulam, with Nana and Mum on the right,

This photo is of my Grandparents Lancelot and Hilda Hobson (nee Coulam) on their wedding day in Feb 1924.

And now you have met them all, the Trevarthen, Rowes, Hobsons, Coulams and McDonnells, the ancestors on my Mum's side of the family, and your Grandmother.

Source material and additional reading:

The Eureka Rebellion
Marianne Williams
Queen of The Age
Whirlwind