Colourful

I'm back after a holiday break! This week's theme is "colorful" - but let's go with "colourful". The prompt describes "it seems that in every family tree, there's at least one person who is a bit larger than life, someone bold and different..."colourful".

I've referred to my most colourful relative in this post is Arthur John Hardwick Jnr, my maternal Great Grandfather. He was born on 18 October, 1888 in Melbourne "near the Union Hotel" Spencer St, Melbourne, which we know from his birth certificate:


We are not sure why his parents Arthur John Hardwick Snr and Effie Clara Broome were living in Melbourne at the time, but we think they may have been on the way to visit relatives in South Australia (his sister Effie Maud Hardwick was born in Gawler, South Australia in 1893, but only lived one month). But whatever the reason, he was born in a hotel in Melbourne, and possibly set the tone for much of his life!

By 1897, his mother had remarried and moved back to Canterbury, Sydney. I have been unable to find what happened to his father, perhaps we can presume he died before then.

The next information I have for him is his marriage to Emma Ivanhoe Morton on 9 December 1908 in Manly, NSW. 


His marriage certificate lists his occupation at the time as  "drayman", which is hauling by a dray or horse. Mostly that is beer to pubs, but it is also a nicer way of saying "shit carter", which is what he was (emptying full dunny cans and replacing them with empty ones). 


On 8 June, 1910, his son, George Arthur Hardwick was born in Manly and in the 1913 Electoral Rolls, he was listed as living in Ozone St, Brookvale (North Manly) and recorded as being a carter.

The First World War broke out in 1914, but Arthur waited until 6 August, 1917 to enlist, as a Sapper, Engineer enlistments. He did this for 45 days until he was discharged "no longer required" as his wife, Emma requested that he come home. George would have been 7 years old.

But Arthur took this journey into the military a little further, wearing a returned soldier's badge, stolen from a man called Morrisey, and claiming he had served in Palestine. He was charged and fined £5 in default of two months jail. He was described as being a train conductor at this time:


Life continued for a couple of years, when things must have got a bit boring for Arthur, and he was charged with wife desertion in January 1920 (when he was 31 and George would have been 9). 


They even tried finding him via George on 20 March 1920:



By this stage, he is listed as being a labourer (maybe the trains people didn't like imposters?), but he had run away with Lily Shaw. Emma continued to live with her son George until he got married (briefly, to my grandmother) and then he moved back in with her after his divorce until she died.

We don't hear much of him for many years. My mum 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First

Image
FIRST - a new year and another attempt at recording some of my family history via the 52 Ancestors prompts! This week, the prompt is "First" and I'm delving deeper into my first Ancestor to arrive in Australia - Samuel Freeman. He was my 4th Greatfather and his offspring eventually led to my maternal Grandmother and my Dad. I think he was born about 1799 in Hertfordshire, England, but I have no definitive records of that (more research to do - Freeman is a very common name!). At age 21, he was working as a millwright (a high-precision craftsman or tradesman who installs, dismantles, repairs, reassembles and moves machinery in corn mills). At about 5pm on 10 October 1799, he was caught stealing out of the chamber room of Thomas Bigg of Kimpton Mill. He stole a "scarlet printed Kersymere waistcoat (worth 10 shillings) and one pair of dark-coloured breeches (worth 15 shillings). He also stole from the sleeping room of Joseph Bigg one Bank of England note of 20
Read more

Lucky

Image
For this week's #52ancestors, the theme is Lucky. So today, being St Patrick's Day and all, we will discover William Buckley, who is Andrew's father's mother's mother's father (so his 2nd great grandfather).  William was born in Ferbane, Offaly County (formerly Kings County), Ireland in about 1834 (I haven't been able to find a reliable record of this - it is estimated from other documents). His father was Carson (or perhaps William) Buckley and his mother was Julie Doyle. I think he came to Australia as a free settler in April 1857 on the FitzJames . He married an Irish lass Margaret McBrien when he was 25 in Parramatta, NSW in January 1859. They had 13(!!!) children, one of whom was Julia Catherine Buckley born in 1873, who went on to have Sabina Langdon in 1893, who was Andrew's paternal grandmother. William worked as a labourer and died in October 1918 in Toongabbie, aged 84. In Australia, there was another famous William Buckley, who was
Read more

Water

Image
Long time no blog about dead people! With this lockdown-living because of COVID-19, I've had more time to sit on the laptop and keep researching. So, I decided to tackle another " 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks " challenge and this week's theme is Water. I've decided to interpret this theme with some amazing photos I found, whilst double-checking my Dad's records for my tree! My grandmother was Cora Parsons (who married Joseph Sedgwick). Her generation is the first one with lots of photographs. They lived in southern Sydney (Jannali), but I have a few amazing photos of her and her siblings enjoying seaside vacations in Middle Harbour and the Central Coast. This is Cora in January 1926, aged 25, at Middle Harbour. Cora, in the same outfit with umbrella, so presumably, somewhere also near Middle Harbour. I can't tell from Google Maps where this might be - so if you recognise that spot, let me know! This is Cora in March 1926, aged 26, at the E
Read more