This is my fourth year participating in the A to Z blogging challenge. This year I wrote mostly about places associated with my family history.
The places were mainly in England and southeastern Australia. Maps compiled using mapalist.com. |
- A is for letter from Anzac : my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952) was a doctor on Lemnos near Gallipoli. He was mentioned in a 1915 letter from the journalist Keith Murdoch to the Australian prime minister bout conditions at Gallipoli.
- B is for Borneo : my third cousin four times removed, Claude Augustus Champion de Crespigny (1829-1884), spent much of his life working in Borneo and researching its natural history and geography.
- C is for caught in Caen during the Reign of Terror : In 1792 my 6th great grandparents Constantine Phipps (1746-1797) and Elizabeth Phipps née Tierney (1749-1832) were living in Caen, France. That year they took a trip to back to England and left six of their children behind. The parents were unable to return to France and the family was separated for more than five years because of hostilities between he two countries.
- D is for Dartmouth: Guy Mainwaring and the beagle pack : In 1878 while serving as a lieutenant at Dartmouth in Devon my 4th great uncle Guy Mainwaring (1847-1909) founded a hunting pack of dogs. The pack still exists.
- E is for Eden Park, home of Wentworth Cavenagh : ‘Eden Park’ was the Adelaide home from 1867-1892 of my great great grandparents Wentworth Cavenagh (1822-1895) and his wife Ellen Jane Cavenagh née Mainwaring later Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1845-1920).
- F is for Faringdon, Berkshire: Cavaliers and Roundheads – the Pye family on opposite sides : My 9th great grandfather, Robert Pye (1620-1701), fought against his father, Robert Pye (1585-1662) during the English Civil War .
- G is for Gretna Green : in 1804 Eliza Champion Crespigny (1784-1831), my 5th great aunt, was married at Gretna Green over the border in Scotlandto Richard Hussey Vivian (1775-1842)
- H is for the Cudmore family’s arrival in Hobart in 1835 : my 3rd great grandparents Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore (1811 – 1891) and his wife Mary Cudmore née Nihill (1811-1893) arrived in Tasmania with other members of the Nihill family.
- I is for Ipswich: Hintlesham Hall and the Crespigny family : from about 1783 to 1790 Philip Crespigny (1738-1803), my fifth great grandfather, lived at Hintlesham Hall near Ipswich, Suffolk.
- J is for jail: Bankruptcy of William Pulteney Dana : William Pulteney Dana (1776-1861), my fourth great grandfather, was jailed for bankruptcy in 1840. The prison was known as the Dana, after his father the Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823). It is still called the Dana.
- K is for Kherson, death place of John Howard prison reformer : my 5th great grandfather Philip Champion Crespigny (1738-1803 and at least two of my sixth great uncles on two different branches of my family tree, subscribed to a monument to honour the prison reformer John Howard (1726-1790)
- L is for Never Surrender Lodge No. 187 I. O. G. T. Lamplough : my husband’s 3rd great grandfather George Young (1826-1890) and a number of his children became members of a temperance organisation.
- M is for Arrival in Melbourne of the Persian in 1854: Ellen Murray (1837 – 1901) and Margaret Smyth (1834 – 1897), two of my husband’s great grandmothers, came to Australia on the same ship and remained friends in the new colony.
- N is for the Labour candidate for Newark in 1945 : my great great uncle Hugh Vivian Champion de Crespigny stood for the Labour party in England in 1945.
- O is for Oakleigh, a suburb of Melbourne, where my mother-in-law Marjorie Sullivan was born in 1920.
- P is for Plaue, Germany : the death place of my great great grandfather Karl Bertz (1854-1932)
- Q is for Queenscliff in 1882 : the birthplace of my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny in 1882. His mother, Annie Frances Champion de Crespigny née Chauncy (1857-1883) died there after his birth.
- R is for Rosydyon Tower the seat of Sir W. de Crespigny Bt : Mary Catherine Champion de Crespigny (1810-1858) drew a picture of her father’s Welsh house
- S is for the Snowy : some photos of my husband Greg working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme
- T is for Talbot in 1869 : my three times great grandfather Philip Champion Crespigny (1817-1889) sold his farm near Talbot, Victoria
- U is for Unibic biscuit tin : On a biscuit tin commemorating World War I is a 1917 photograph of my great grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952) escorting Queen Mary on a visit to the war hospital he commanded.
- V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen’s Land : the Taylor family arrived in Tasmania in 1823. The Taylors are the earliest of my forebears to arrive in Australia
- W is for Williamstown: funeral of Augustus Dana : Augustus Dana (1851-1868), my first cousin four times removed, died while he was a state ward. He was given an elaborate funeral but his grave is unmarked.
- X is for destruction of a piratical fleet near Xiānggǎng (Hong Kong) : fourth great uncle Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring (1837-1906) was in charge of a British naval ship which pursued pirates and destroyed their fleet.
- Y is for football at Yarra Park: G. Dana footballer : In the late 1860s in Melbourne my first cousin four times removed, George Kinnaird Dana (1849-1872), played the football game that was to become Australian Rules Football.
- Z is for Zehlendorf the district of Berlin where my grandparents Hans Boltz (1910-1992) and Charlotte Boltz née Manock (1912-1988) first lived when they were married in 1937.
- 2014 A to Z wrap up
- A to Z 2015 reflections – in 2015 I focussed on my family’s military history
- 2016 A to Z wrap up