Charles Southwell Shayle George 1849 – 97

CSSG was born 25-Sep-1849 in Newport, Monmouthshire, UK; lived most of his life in Auckland, New Zealand, where he was a solicitor, and died in Coolgardie, Western Australia, 5-Jan-1897. His fate is nearly as mysterious as his father’s.


Parents
His father was Thomas Shayle George, a solicitor from Monmouth in Wales; his mother was Frances (Southwell) Shayle George, who is listed in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography as an early educator of girls. His mother’s family lived in Clifton, Gloucestershire, a well-to-do area of Bristol, just across the Severn river from Monmouth. Thomas and Frances took him to New Zealand on the Sir Edmund Paget when Charles was a baby, arriving in Auckland on 18th December, 1850. They then had another boy and three more girls. His father died in mystery in Rock Island Illinois when Charles was 18; his mother was running girls’ schools by that time.


Family
His met his future wife through his mother - Mary Anne Hughes was a pupil at his mother's school, where she was awarded a top prize in 1870. They married on 26th April 1876, when he was 26 and she was 21. They had seven children, one of whom died on the day of birth.

Mary’s father made valuable investments, including South British Insurance (later NZI) – I believe some of those shares remained in the Hughes/Shayle George families for well over a century.

He was a solicitor like his father. There was a story in the family that Charles was treasurer of the Auckland Law Society. Unconfirmed. However, he was a solicitor in partnership with his father-in-law, Stephen Edward Hughes senior [newspaper clipping, 14/8/1929], and was said by his daughter Hinemoa to work in the Maori Land Courts.

An 1882 register of NZ land holdings indicated Charles held £1600 worth of land in Hobson, Auckland, plus another £60 jointly with his mother. His mother owned another £700, while his parents-in-law held £7,000 worth.
Sounds like they were doing reasonably well financially.


Leaving Auckland
Charles left his family soon after the youngest (Hinemoa, my grandmother) was born. He travelled to Sydney, having been there at least once before, for a few weeks in 1889. He wrote letters to his family both times, both with return address ‘Grand Central Coffee Palace’.

Grand Central Coffee Palace, Clarence St, Sydney, 1892

As he had originally intended, he travelled by ship to Western Australia. From Perth, he continued inland to Coolgardie, at the time a rising goldrush town, a few years before its zenith. He apparently tried his hand at gold mining, as well as practicing as a solicitor - neither of which seems to have met with great success. He wrote many, repetitive letters to his wife and family. He was frequently asking forgiveness of his wife.
The latest letter I saw was to Mary Ann from a friend of Charles' in Coolgardie in 1897. The friend wrote that his wife had been pressing him to write to Charles' wife to let her know how he had died. Charles was unconscious in hospital for a few weeks before he died (was it pneumonia?), and he's buried at Coolgardie Anglican Cemetery. Oh, and here's the undertaker's bill.

Note that to date, the nearest thing I have to a gravestone inscription refers to "Chas Seymour George, 1849 - 6 Jan 1897". My belief is that this is him, with a few details mangled. IGI and probate evidence both give 5 January; 6th may be the burial date.

What happened?
This is up for debate. The only clue is contained in the letter he wrote to his wife from Sydney, dated 31st October, 1894. Inter alia:

“It is no use going to Perth until I am better so shall stop here in the meantime.
Tell me what has been done in the office and how you are getting on and the dear children and what you are doing yourself. You can say to everyone that I was unable to complete my business and cannot return till next steamer.”

He also said that he was missing his wife, “fretting most terribly”, and had “a horror of going to Perth”.

So he was overseas quite reluctantly (the tone of his other letters confirms this), was still attached to his wife, and wanted her to mislead others on his travel plans. According to my grandmother (his daughter Hinemoa), he “left Auckland in a hurry, having been guarantor for some deal that had gone horribly wrong and seen as owing a considerable sum of money” [CM].


The family curse

Hinemoa apparently said it was a curse of the family that the men were destined to die in foreign lands. That was certainly the case for her father and her father’s father. And according to her handwritten notes, her great grandfather was Lt-Col George, who died in Sierra Leone.
Interestingly, this fate continues at least in part. Separately, her husband Freddie and son Robin (my father) settled in England where they died, and I’ve settled in Sydney permanently. That would make five generations of men who lived in New Zealand but didn’t die there.

Chronology
1849 Born in Monmouthshire
1850 Migrated to New Zealand
1868 Father died in Illinois
1876-Apr-26 Married Mary Ann Hughes
1877 Daughter Frances (“Frank”) born
1879-May-17 Daughter Muriel born
1880-Jun-24 Son Charles (“Neville”) born
1882 Listed as solicitor
1883-Aug-25 Son Stephen Edward (“Tup”) born
1884-May-25 Daughter Millicent (“Milla”) born
1885 Son Thomas born and died
1889 Visits Sydney
1893 Daughter Hinemoa (“Hine”) born
1894 Leaves Auckland for Sydney, then Perth
1897-Jan-5 Dies in Coolgardie

John Southwell d.1841

John Southwell was born approx 1784, and lived and died in Bristol, England (just south of Wales). Bristol was part of Somerset until the early 19th Century, when it became part of Gloucestershire.

His significance is:
a) He is the earliest that can be positively traced of the Southwell line, which merged with Shayle George (and Simmonds).
b) His daughter Frances is listed in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography as Frances Shayle George.
c) There is an apocryphal reference of a connection to the Barons “Southwell de Clifford”.

CM (Caroline) has done extensive research on John, and I’ll reproduce her chronology below.

Although DNZB listed him as a solicitor, all official documents show he was an accountant. In any case, he was a professional at a time (beginning of 19th Century) when education wasn’t the norm. Further, most references place him in Clifton, which was a particularly well-to-do area at the time (once a village, by then part of Bristol).

Origins
Nothing is known for certain about this. CM: “his death certificate … gives no helpful clues as to parentage. He has been consistently listed in various documents as an Accountant. ( I suspect he was illegitimate, and a suitable romantic story was invented to cover this fact up)."

Family

John first married in 1803, to Hannah Weston. He was apparently about 19 and she was about 26. They had a son, George Southwell. After Hannah died, John remarried Martha Farmer. About this time, George went to Cambridge university. George subsequently became a priest. S0, there was a good chance he was illegitimate, yet he was a professional, lived in a very good area, and could send his son to Cambridge.

Did the money come from his parents? (Or perhaps Hannah's parents?)

Hon. Southwell de Clifford?
Hinemoa’s notes indicated he was descended from “Hon. Southwell de Clifford” and “Duke of Beaufort”. My two-volume Oxford dictionary says “The prefix ‘Honourable’ (Hon.) is given to … sons and daughters of peers below the rank of Marquess”. The line of Barons de Clifford had passed several times through the female line, so had various surnames.
There were two De Clifford Barons with the surname Southwell [apart from Walter Southwell de Clifford in the 12th Century, which is too much of a stretch].
Edward Southwell, 20th Baron de Clifford (1738–1777)
Edward Southwell, 21st Baron de Clifford (1767–1832)
The 21st baron died in his 60s, unmarried, but when he was about 17, John Southwell was born.
On the other side, the 5th Duke of Beaufort (Sir Henry Somerset) was born 1744, but there are no legitimate candidates for the mother.
So if the story were true, my best guess would be that John Southwell’s parents were: maybe the 21st Baron de Clifford and an illegitimate daughter of the 5th Duke.
It might make a good story, but it wouldn't pass muster as any more than that.

Further research into those characters could disprove (or possibly prove) this. The alternative is CM’s idea of a story to cover John Southwell’s birth. Given the above, I’d tend to agree with her, because of the lack of a conclusive “Hon. Southwell de Clifford” at that time.

The final word on this is a bizarre note: the Duke of Somerset, Cardinal Beaufort, Lord Clifford, and John Southwell (priest) were characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VI pt. 2. (The Duke of Beaufort being in part 1!)


John’s wife, MarthaJohn died nine years before his daughter Frances left for New Zealand. Martha (Farmer) Southwell was born in Clifton in Bristol, and died at Clifton House, Alten Rd, Auckland. She arrived in Auckland on the Portland in 22-Jul-1863, probably to be with her daughter and her family. It was the year Frances' last child was born, but I don't know whether she arrived with the knowledge of that new baby.

Pigots [a sort of business directory] for Bristol in 1830 lists one Farmer:
FARMER Edward, Accountant, 29 St Michael's Hill, Bristol.
This is not to say they were related, but no other records with relevance to Martha Farmer have yet been found. Interesting to note the accountancy connection, though.

SOUTHWELL CHRONOLOGY
1784 - 1861

1784 John Southwell born circa 1784 (parents not established)
1803 John marries Hannah Weston (1777 - 1824) by bans @ St John’s Bedminster Somerset (4th November) aged 19.
1808 Son George Southwell born circa 1808 in Bristol Somerset.
1815 George is baptised aged 7 @ St Philips & Jacob Church on 05-02-1815. Father listed as Accountant living in Castle Precincts, Bristol.
1824 Hannah Southwell dies aged 47 & is interred @ St Thomas’ Church 09-11-1824. Listed as of St Michael’s Parish.
1825 John’s address Rectory House, Church Lane, St Michael’s Parish, listed as Accountant, source Matthew’s Street Directory. John marries Martha Farmer 09-05-1827 by bans @ St Andrews Church, in the Parish of Clifton. Profession listed as Accountant.
1827 Remarries, to Martha Farmer

1828 Daughter Frances is born 20th September, at Charlotte St, Clifton, Gloucestershire.
1828 Frances baptised 27-09-1829 @ St Augustine’s Church, Bristol. Father listed as Accountant.
1832 George Southwell graduates from Cambridge University & marries Mary Ann Trustan Price 11/12/1832 by licence @ St Andrew’s Church, Clifton. George is listed as “of Westbury
on Trym Parish, Gloucestershire”.
1833 George Bull Southwell, John’s grandson is born circa 1833 to George Southwell & Mary Ann Trustan Southwell in Clifton Bristol, & privately baptised 29-09-1833. (Mary Anne also born Bristol Somerset).
1838 George Southwell is ordained Priest @ Gloucester.
1841 Census lists John, Martha & Frances living @ Michael’s Hill , Bristol.

1841 John Southwell dies and is buried 6th July (1 month after Census) @ St Thomas’ Church, aged 57, listed as Accountant of Michael’s Hill.
1842 George is Curate @ Boyton, Wiltshire from 1842-1849.
1848 Frances marries Thomas Shayle George at Boyton, Wiltshire, 24-10-1848, aged 20.
1849 Charles Southwell Shayle George born to Frances & Thomas in the City of Newport, Monmouthshire.
1850 Frances, Thomas and son arrive in Auckland NZ on the “Sir Edward Paget” in December.
1857 George's son George Bull Southwell is ordained deacon at Salisbury.
1858 George Bull is made Priest.
1861 Census records George and George Bull Southwell as Vicar and Curate of Yetminster, Dorset respectively.

1863 John’s widow Martha emigrates to New Zealand
1873 Martha dies in Auckland.

Thomas Shayle George d.1868

Born between about 1812 and 1818 in Wales; raised a family in Auckland, New Zealand; died 1868, Illinois, USA.

Thomas Shayle George:
- was the first Shayle George;
- practiced as a solicitor in Wales and in New Zealand
- migrated to New Zealand;
- married Frances Southwell [Shayle George], who is listed in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography as an early educator of girls.
Note that some of the following narrative has been inferred from circumstantial evidence. Anything particularly questionable is flagged as such.

Origins
Thomas was born in Monmouth, which is in the south of Wales: north of Newport and close to the border of England. His father, Thomas George, married Mary Shayle on 20th November 1811; they had a daughter, Eleanor, christened on the 18th of December that year. Mary Shayle's parents were William Shayle (an Ironmonger) and Margaret Rudge, married 20th November 1792. Shayle is an unusual surname, largely confined to Hereford, an English county bordering Monmouthshire.
According to Thomas' granddaughter Hinemoa Shayle George [Simmonds], my grandmother, "the Georges were definitely Welsh. both parents died early and they ie Thomas & Eleanor the children, were brought up in the Shayle household; the Shayles paid for their education as one of their own." Also: "they adopted the Shayle name in honour of the family that sponsored/adopted both his sister and himself". (source: CM)

Early years
The first documentary mention of Thomas is in the will of Sarah Shayle, who died in Monmouth, 1820. It looks like Sarah was Thomas' aunt. Amongst others, she bequeathed to her father William Shayle of Monmouth, Ironmonger (probably Thomas’ grandfather), and to brother and sister Thomas Shayle George and Eleanor George – when they come of age.
Sarah died before her father; it looks like she made the will when it was apparent she might die.
The Shayles must have been well-off, since Sarah also made bequests to servants.

Thomas became a solicitor, probably with the financial help of the Shayles.
The next mention of him is a vellum document [in possession of RWS]. Dated 5 October, 1839, it sets up an ironmonger partnership between Thomas Dyke and Frederick Kinsey Taylor, and it was witnessed by (signed in the presence of) Thomas Shayle George, Solicitor, Monmouth.


Hinemoa’s stories
She has indicated variously that "Thomas' father was a sea captain"; Thomas was descended from “Captain William Shayle of Monmouth”, “Lord High Sheriff of Monmouth”, “Lt-Col George” [who died in Sierra Leone] and “Eleanor Shayle”.
If there is truth to all of this, they may be referring to several different forebears.

Note that he definitely had a sister Eleanor, but Eleanor has also been variously stated as his wife’s [Frances Southwell] sister’s name.


What did he do in Auckland?
Within the first year or so, they paid forty pounds for a small house with five acres of land, about two miles out of town. He was admitted to the New Zealand bar on 10 February 1851. He was first recorded practicing as a barrister in March 1851. But according to DNZB, because his wife started the school later that year, it "seems doubtful that Thomas's professional career flourished in New Zealand".

He had one more son in Auckland - William - and three daughters, the last in 1863. No further word from him subsequent to that, apart from a terse obituary in the New Zealander in 1868, which made no mention of family.
FSG was quite active in education before Thomas died, “Arguing that girls should be educated so that they could, if necessary, support themselves and their dependants” [DNZB]. Possibly influenced by her personal experience - she was well-educated herself.


Then to America
We know is that he died in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1868. This is about 120 miles west of Chicago, near the border with Iowa and running into the Iowa city Davenport. During the Civil War, Rock Island held confederate prisoners-of-war. Thomas had a photo taken (below) in military regalia. The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865, and that and the uniform might suggest his departure was related to the war, except that a) he didn't return after it ended; and b) I cannot identify the uniform as being from the civil war.

Thomas Shayle George, Moline, Illinois

(photographer Charles Peal)

What was he doing there in the first place? It's possible he was visiting his sister Eleanor, who seems to have married a Phillips. Thomas' son William was in Rock Island five years later, and wrote of a relative, Mrs Phillips "about 18 hundred miles from here, in Montana territory, Virginia City". Virginia City, then a gold town, is now a ghost town.

Surname: George or Shayle George?
Although his wife styled herself Frances Shayle George upon marriage, the surname seems to have been simply George right through his children's generation.

However, his son Charles' children all had Shayle in their name, and may have treated the surname variously as George, Shayle George, or Shayle-George. Charles’ son Stephen Edward (Tup) hyphenated his name – thus Shayle-George lived on through Tup's three successive generations - one son per generation, with variously one or two daughters.


Another possible link
I’ve seen mention of one other unidentified person with that name: “Barry Shayle George” was mentioned as one of many sponsors of “Amigos Bravos” – Friends of the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, USA. That latter name could be either a coincidence, or a descendant of Thomas’ son William. Nothing was heard of William subsequent to the 1873 letters from Illinois.

Chronology
1811 Parents married in Monmouth.
1820 Bequeathed by Sarah Shayle (to be paid on majority).
1839 Witnessed document as solicitor, still in Monmouth.
1848-Oct-24: married Frances Southwell, officiated by FS’ half-brother George Southwell (an anglican priest) in his parish in Boyton Wiltshire.
1849-Sep-25: Son born in Newport, Monmouthshire
1850-Aug: The family of three left UK on Sir Edward Paget
1850-Dec-18: arrived in Auckland
1851: Bought house and land in Auckland, admitted to bar.
1851-Sep-21: son William ("Will") born
1852-Oct: wife opened co-ed primary school
1858-Oct-8: daughter Frances (“Minnie”) born (married Leonard Marshall 1902)
1861-May-19: daughter Helena born (married E W Klingender)
1863: daughter Evelyne (“Eva”) born (married Cecil Gardener 1882)
1863-Jul-22: Mother-in-law Martha (Farmer) Southwell arrives from England on the Portland.
1868-Apr: Died in Rock Island, Illinois.
1873: 2nd son William wrote letters from Illinois

Overview and site map

Introduction
This blog is an attempt to preserve some of the narratives of my direct ancestors. They’re a fairly homogeneous bunch: all came from southern England (save one born in Wales) and migrated to New Zealand between 1842 and 1926. Half these ancestors came from Devon/Cornwall (the southwest corner of England), one eighth from Surrey, one sixteenth from Wales, and the rest from Gloucestershire (Bristol), Dorset, Hampshire, Kent and Sussex. That covers most of the southern counties.

At some point, I may include my wife’s family. As often happens, it’s just a matter of tracking down the information from family historians – those in the family that end up acting as repositories of information. In her case, the Dworjanyns are Ukrainian catholics, while her mother’s side – Devenish – are Irish who apparently originate in Devon.

My mothers parents, Gwendolen Rowling and Murray Hicks, each had research done on their behalf to trace their ancestors. Nearly all their forebears came from Devon and Cornwall. One source upon which I’m heavily reliant is a large photocopied tree of my grandmother’s Rawlings/Rowling ancestors. Unfortunately, despite having inherited their documentation, source information is mostly lacking. On the other hand, where I’ve found connections with other trees published on the net, the information generally tallies.

The family of my father’s father (Frederick Simmonds) are strongly rooted in Surrey, just south of London. The family of my father’s mother (Hinemoa Shayle George) came from opposite sides of the Bristol Channel (ie Monmouth and Clifton, now a suburb of Bristol). Their narratives are the most colourful (and incomplete), not the least because of the difficulty verifying the stories Hinemoa would tell. So far most of them seem to have proven correct, but that is no guarantee. One of the biggest pitfalls of a genealogist is the stories told and connections made by people with a vested interest in raising the profile of their family.

Beyond a certain point in the past, the only records remaining will be those for significant families. And I suspect that in general, people will find common ancestors if they (can) trace back far enough. So, any trees traced back beyond say 1600, are likely to be linked up to prominent families. In our case, connection is made from the Rowlings to the Courtenays (see Sir Hugh Courtenay of Boconnoc b1421), Earls of Devon (although even that is fraught, as will be detailed in a later entry). As with most people, the trail for the vast bulk of my ancestors peters out because they are farming or working class people. Of course, sometimes the trail is deliberately obscured. John Southwell, for example, curiously left his birth details off several official records. Was this because, as Hinemoa said, he was the illegitimate son of titled family, or was that story created sometime to cover his illegitimacy?


Migrations
Sometimes the following represents family migrations; in other cases, individuals migrated then married in New Zealand.

Simmonds migrated from Surrey 1926
Cole migrated from Devon approx 1889
Hicks migrated from Devon between 1854 and 1885
(Shayle) George migrated from Wales/Bristol/Wiltshire 1850
Rowling migrated from Cornwall 1842
Lodder migrated 1842
Batten migrated from Hampshire between 1836 and 1856
Cheetham migrated from Kent between 1830 and 1851
Jupp migrated from Sussex between 1828 and 1856
Hughes migrated from Kent between 1821 and 1851


Structure
In the following list, italics indicate the person was born somewhere other than New Zealand – all England, bar Shayle George (Wales).

Generation 2
Simmonds m Hicks

Generation 3
Frederick William Simmonds b1901 m Hinemoa (Shayle) George b1893
Murray Hicks b1913 m Gwendolen Rowling b1910

Generation 4
William J Simmonds b1870 m Amy Rose Robins b1872
Charles Southwell Shayle George b1849 m Mary Ann Hughes b1852
Harold George Hicks b1885 m Hilda Cole b1885
Valentine Rowling b1876 m Ada E Coombe b1877

Generation 5
Christopher Simmonds b1838 m Harriet Peacock b1839
Alfred Robins b1840 m Christian Emma Rose b1840
Thomas Shayle George b1816 m Frances Southwell b1828
Stephen Edward Hughes b1821 m Mercy Cheetham b1830
Richard Thomas Hicks b1854 m Mary A Jupp b1858
John Squire Cole b1852 m Mary J Cole b1860
Edward Rowling b1843 m Lucy Lodder b1848
(Frederick) John Coombe b1853 m Elizabeth Drown b1842

Generation 6 (selected)
Thomas Rowling b1817 m Elizabeth Pascoe b1817
John Southwell b1784 m Martha Farmer b1789