Joseph Hundleby (1853-1923)

This article on the life of Joseph was written by Evelyn. I’ve added a few thoughts of my own in italics.

Joseph Hundleby was born on 26 June 1853 in Bilsby, Lincolnshire, the son of John and Ann Hundleby (née Jarvis). His father died in August 1857 and his mother remarried, to a Henry Brough.

From Joseph’s short account of his life, written around the 1920’s, we know that his father was a farmer and this was the occupation that he followed ‘in my boyhood’. As time went on, farming became a less profitable business and there were too many men chasing too few jobs on the land. The 1870’s saw many people leave Lincolnshire for greener pastures, and Joseph was one of those people.

He sailed from London on 24 September 1874 aboard The Clarence, a barque of 1105 tons. Captain Emmett was in charge and the Surgeon Superintendent was W D Murphy. Joseph is shown on the passenger list with the occupation ‘shepherd’. He states that the voyage was ‘a very rough experience, the ship at times almost going under but always happened to come up again.’

How scary was that! Looking at the passenger list we see that there were 350 migrants on board and that there were 21 deaths during the voyage. Children were born on the ship and died before it reached port. One passenger, Hugh Spence of Armagh, labourer, was lost overboard, probably during a storm. The Clarence arrived in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, on 5 January 1875.

Scary indeed. A journey of about 100 days - a clipper could do it in less than 30 - with the ship going as far south towards Antarctica as it dared to make use of the shorter 'great circle' and the stronger winds.

The first job Joseph got was that of installing sheep-shearing machinery for John Ormond, possibly the first such machinery in New Zealand. He worked continuously for him for 20 years; then for a man named Henry White for 12 years; and finally six years for John Canning. In all of these jobs he did farm work.

At the age of 60, Joseph gave up farming and started up on his own as a contractor for the extermination of rabbits. Which sounds like a good steady job.

In 1888 he had married Mary McKinney, cook on the station of Henry White. They had two boys by the marriage: Edward Grant (Alexander Grant ‘Edward’, b. 2 Sept 1899) and Basil (b.17 July 1901). Today there are Hundlebys, Joseph’s descendants, in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Solomon Islands, home of Corinne Hundleby, who is the 7th cousin of my own children, one of whom by strange coincidence is also called Corinne.

The picture of Joseph was taken at Porangahau Post Office in about 1916. Porangahau is a small township close to the Pacific coast of the south-eastern North Island of New Zealand. It is in the southernmost part of Hawkes Bay, 45 km south of Waipukarau, and close to the mouth of the Porangahau River.

The township is close to a famed insubstantial hill with a substantial name:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwheuakitanatahu – did I transcribe that correctly? (19 Aug 2009 - this was described on Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz as the longest geographical name in the world, longer even than that Welsh railway station).

Joseph passed away on 9 April 1923 at Waipukarau.

More information on Josph's life, his antecedents and descendants, is available in Hundlebys in the Antipodes, published by his grandson Joseph Grant.

Charles Ernest Hundleby (1903-1986)

In a recent post Evelyn wrote about Cornelius Bradley Hundleby. Charles Ernest (pictured) was Cornelius' grandson, the eldest son of Cornelius junior.

Evelyn writes:

Charles Ernest Hundleby was born on 21 April 1903 in West Ashby, the son of Cornelius and Lucy Ann Hundleby.

He attended Horncastle Grammar School and then went on to qualify as a teacher at Westminster College, London, in 1923.

While in London he met his future wife, Constance (Connie) Parker, who was also studying to be a teacher at Whitelands College.

One of his friends at college persuaded him to emigrate to South Africa, and he travelled to teach at the Clarkebury Institution in the Transkei, Eastern Cape. The Institution had been founded in 1835 and it was there that Nelson Mandela received training in the 1930s

On 15 December 1928, Charles and Connie were married at Cambridge, East London.

The same year saw Charles appointed as Assistant at St Matthews Teachers' Training College near Keiskama Hoek in the the Eastern Cape. He was appointed Principal at st Matthews in 1939 and continued to teach there until 1968. Connie also taught there for many years.

In 1962 Charles received his doctorate from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, his subject 'The Phonetics of the Xhosa Language'.

After his 'retirement' Charles was still in demand as a teacher and filled many other posts until 1986. In all he was a teacher for 63 years.

Both Connie and Charles were staunch Anglicans. He was admitted to the Order of Simon of Cyrene by the Anglican Church of South Africa for his lifetime of service to education. The Order was established in 1960 and takes its name from the North African saint who carried the cross for Jesus at his crucifixion. The honour is awarded by the Archbishop of Capetown to distinguished laypersons for exceptional service to the Church and is limited to 60 members at any one time.

Charles passed away on 6 January 1986 following surgery at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Capetown.

The following is a sonnet written by Charles about the place of his birth. For many Hundleby people who have found their life's work in many different countries around the world, the poem surely expresses their heartfelt feelings for Lincolnshire:

The Wolds of Lincolnshire

Oh well remembered in deep summer haze,

The swelling wolds made golden with their wheat

That gentle winds caressed. On willing feet

I strode among the richness, used my days

To blend my spirit with the ancient ways

Of those ancestral Danes come with the fleet

From long lone shores where cold waves ever beat

Against the solid walls of Ness and Naze.

I heard them call; I saw their plaited hair;

Their fires burned; their gods around them shed

An old eternal essence, everywhere

An ancient benison came from the dead.

The dead! To me they live forever here,

On this rich sacred soil of Lincolnshire.

Cornelius Bradley Hundleby (1830-1897)

Evelyn writes:

Cornelius Bradley Hundleby was born on 27 May 1830 in Ashby by Partney, Lincolnshire, and was christened 26 December at St Helen’s Anglican church.

He was the son of Ruth (née) Bradley and Thomas Hundleby, and followed in his father’s footsteps by ‘staying on the land’. By 1851 he was living in the village of Grebby, in the civil parish of Scremby, working as a ‘farm servant’ to Joseph Kime, a widower of 69, who was farming 90 acres.

(He was the younger brother of my own great-great-grandmother, Sarah (1822-1839) - Roger)

In 1858 he married Rebecca Rysdale, who was christened on 11 March 1834 at St Peter’s, Nottingham. She was the daughter of William, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Frances, of Great Sturton, Lincolnshire. William had been a grocer at Greyfriar Gate, Nottingham.

Cornelius worked in Revesby and Butterwick before settling in West Ashby, two miles north of Horncastle, in 1863.

His younger brother, Samuel, states in his journal that Cornelius was a local Methodist preacher working on the Horncastle Circuit. According to the Directories of the time, a Wesleyan chapel was not built there until 1878, and it is quite possible that Cornelius preached from his own or a neighbour’s house before then.

By 1871, still in West Ashby Cornelius was a Working Foreman and Farm Bailiff. He had two servants, Thomas and Steven Wattam, and a lodger, George Hodson, who was a labourer.

In 1872 another ‘Revolt of the Fields’ broke out. From the early years of restriction of Trades Unionism through various pieces of legislation, it was now legal for men to belong to Associations and Unions. The 1867 Report on Agriculture highlighted the hard times that the farm workers were still experiencing. A certain John Kinswood of Ludford had said, ‘I don’t like the lasses to go out to work so much; nor boys nor women. There’s lots of men out of work, when women and boys can get it. It’s because they’re cheaper. At weeding time it is so, and at turnip-dragging time in winter; women do it.

There was a Labourers’ Association conference in Grantham on May 3 1872. One of the delegates was George Wilson, who represented the Spilsby Amalgamated Society of 181 men. Agricultural labourers were asking for two things: a nine-hour workday (7am – 5pm, not including lunch), and a raise in pay from 2/6 (two shillings and sixpence or about 12 pence) to 3/0 (three shillings or 15 pence) per day.

Moses Elmhirst, of West Ashby, was a Justice of the Peace, and on Feb 20 1872 he had a labourer from Hagworthingham, Tom Jeffery, brought before him in this regard. It must have been a very hard time for Cornelius, trying to keep everything running and yet feeling sympathy for the men he supervised.

The Golden Age of Farming, or High Farming as it was called, was almost over and by 1879, when a very bad harvest was experienced, an agricultural depression was well underway which was to last until World War I. By 1891 we find Cornelius once more an agricultural labourer.

He died on 6 April 1897 and was buried on the ninth in the churchyard of All Saints, West Ashby. By his epitaph we know that he was well-love and respected during his lifetime:

‘His life was a life of truth

and his heart was the law of kindness.’

His wife Rebecca stayed in the farmhouse in west Ashby with her sons until some time after 1901 and then went to live with her daughter, Susan Squires, until her death in May 1918.

This is one of several articles written by Evelyn for the May 2007 Convention. More will be posted in due course.

A Hildred Connection

It was very interesting to see you mention the name Hildred, Roger as a Hildred did marry into the Hundelby family. Matilda (Tillie) Hundleby of Hemingby, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth, married James Hildren on Oct. 8, 1898. He was 24 years old, living at 75 Burgfield Street, London and was was a Porter with the GN Railway. His father, Thomas, was deceased. He and Tillie lived at 25 New End Road, Hemingby and Mildred's parents lived at #10 and her brother, John at #19. My Dad remembered Aunt Tille and Uncle Jim and evidently he was a very jolly sort of person (at least to an 8 or 9 year old boy)

Canadian Connections

How did Hundleby members get to Canada and why.

Ellen Hundleby, daughter of Samuel the Preacher was born in Hemingby 14 May 1879. She married Valentine Edmund Mackinder on Dec. 25, 1899 at Horncastle. They had the following children: Frederick and Edmund, identical twins born Oct. 23, 1900 at 41 North Street, Horncastle; Nellie born 3 March 1903; Grace born 4 March 1906 died 22 Oct. 1906; Kathleen born 3 Feb. 1908.

Ellen was not that healthy a person and in 1909 the Doctor recommended that they find a drier climate. As Valentine had a friend, Joe Walkey, who had been an apprentice butcher with him, they decided to come to Canada to Cranbrook, British Columbia where Joe lived. They had considered South Africa and Australia but chose the wettest and dampest place!

After a very stormy 8-day crossing on the S.S. Laurentic, the family arrived in Quebec City on Oct. 23, 1910 the twins' 10th birthday. They then took a 5 day trip across Canada by train. Life was not easy for them, and their daughter, Kathleen, died 15 Nov. 1910 in Jaffray, B.C. The doctor listed her death as from Marasmus, which was basically malnutrition due to a protein difficiency in the diet.

They then moved to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, becoming part of the group of first homesteaders on the townsite, Valentine building his Butcher Shop on 2nd Ave and homesteading 5 acres further out. They lived in a tent. Ellen, however, was diagnosed with T.B., so they moved again to Kamloops in the interior of the Province in the year 1918. This is a very dry semi-arid desert area. However, it was to be too late for the improvement of her health. Ellen died in Kamloops 17 Dec. 1922.

Childhood in B.C.

Hello again from Evelyn. I guess I am 5 years older than you - born in 1944. Used to tease Dad that I was a furlough baby which made him blush. Dad and his brother, Fred and Ed were the twin sons of Ellen Hundleby and Valentine Mackinder. They were born in 1900 and lied about their age in order to join WWII. However, both remained in Canada, my Dad being a Heavy Duty Mechanic and Bandsman.

We always had central heating, Roger, but when I grew old enough and the others had left home I happily went to the basement bedrooms which Dad had built for the older ones and which were not heated. We lived in Cranbrook in the East Kootenays where the temperatures could go to -25F and I used to wake up with frost on the quilt from my breath. It was a mad dash up the stairs, across the enclosed sun porch and into the warm kitchen where Dad had the pot of porridge bubbling on the stove before he left for work.

Anyway, what more news from the two contacts you had from the publicity. The graves in Hemingby will be my Great-grandfather Samuel, his wife Elizabeth and probably some of his children who stayed there in the agricultural machinery business and threshing. I would love to go there when I come in April/May.

We had winds of up to 157kph last night. We are fine, but two trees at our old house blew over and put a large hole in the neighbour's roof. Glad we don't have to pay.

Evelyn

Hundleby B.C. connection

Hello Roger: What a great idea. This is my first time as a 'blogger'. I read the newspaper article on-line and the 5 W's were there, so from that point of view, it was a success. I used to deal with the Press a great deal in my working life and always found it useful to give them a one-page sheet summarizing the details which they could then refer back to as they wrote the article. It would be useful, if you are doing any more papers, to mention descendants from both the male and female lines of the Hundleby name, as, of course, we are all not Hundlebys now.

Regarding the Convention next May, I was thinking of going to Lincoln for 3 or 4 days before the date to do some research at the Archives. My sister and I were in Lincoln for 4 days last September and stayed at the Carline Guest House on Carline Road. What a shame we did not know of each other's existence. I do now have a much better idea of what I wish to search for. I will then take the train from Lincoln to Spalding and stay with Janet and Brian for the Convention Weekend.

Our weather on the idyllic West Coast has been anything but this last month and a half. We had a windstorm on Monday which tore off 4 or 5 shingles from the roof. That has now been repaired but we have another storm on the way which is supposed to be packing 100kph winds with it. This is not our usual weather at all!

Hope this gets on the site O.K.

Evelyn