Family history
Mar. 6th, 2006 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seandcSo I was talking to Mum earlier, and the subject wound around to some of the family history, so thought I'd note it down before I forget again.
My grandmother, Dorothy Millicent Stubbs (1906 - 1986), was the eldest of seven children. Her family lived in Geraldton (slightly over 400 km north of Perth) during the 1920s and 30s, and left when she was accepted into art school in Perth. However, the Great Depression forced her to move back home. During this time she had a store in town where she sold (possibly handmade) art things. This didn't provide a livable wage but at least brought in a bit of cash. This store may have been part of her father's store.
Sometime during the 1930s her four-year-younger sister Marjorie (I'm assuming here, since Mum called her Aunty Marj) was married in Perth to a Carl Throssell Klem. It was here that Dorothy met her future husband Hardy Berwick Hanton, who was best man at the wedding. They married in 1939 after a two-year engagement, by which time Dorothy had moved back down to Perth. The Stubbs family also came to Perth at this time, and had a store in Banksia Avenue, South Perth (on or near the corner of Mill Point Road) by the time my mother was born in 1941. Although this store was no longer in the family it was still in business in the early 80s, I remember buying a pack of Humphrey Bear lollies there as a small child, when we lived further along Mill Point Road.
Dorothy went to work for Art Photo Engravers, a company that specialised in fashion drawings and graphic design - cards, brooches, etc - and would become Head Artist of the company, also painting in her spare time. In 1981 the illustrations for a children's book Billy Glitterbug and other Australian stories for children would come courtesy of Dorothy's brushes.
Berwick (1908 - 2000) and Carl had been friends since their school days. Carl was the first student listed on Wesley College's register when the school opened in South Perth in 1923. The Klems are said to have come from Norway, but may have also had German ancestry. At the time of their marriage Carl and Marge lived in the Cottesloe - Mount Lawley area. In the 80s Marj lived in Coolbinia/Mt Lawley, in a house Carl built surrounded by a huge garden (so very related to her sister and neice on that point!) opposite a large park.
Berwick spent at least some of his formative years in the town of Southern Cross (350km east of Perth), where his father was the bank manager. He would work for at least some time at the bank, before becoming a teacher at Wesley College (where he'd studied in 1924-25). After a stint in the Militia and the Army in World War II, the headmaster of Wesley asked him back to the school (although at least some time was also spent in the government schools). Berwick would remain involved with the Old Wesley Collegians' Association (the Old Boys) all his life and would be made an Honorary Life Member in 1979, as his father who wrote the school song had been in 1926. A quadrangle at the school was named the Berwick Hanton Quadrangle.
My grandparents were married in the original Wesley Chapel. The current chapel was built in the early 1960s and was considered rather daring due to it's circular design. It was in this chapel that Berwick's second funeral service was held, a gesture from the Chaplain who was an old friend and had performed the ceremony at Karrakatta Cemetery a few days previously.
After their marriage they rented a house in nearby Swan Street. Berwick was asked to be a
Housemaster, but Dorothy wouldn't have it as that would meant actually living at the school. I'm sure Grandpa wouldn't mind - when discussing with Mum the love that her father and grandfather had for the school, I just got this image of Mum, Grandma and Great-Grandma just sighing over the whole thing. Ok, so I never met my great-grandmother, and I have only a coulple of memories of my grandmother, but hey, dramatic licence. A few years later they would move to Mount Pleasant (a few miles further south on the other side of Canning Bridge), and by the time their daughters were in their teens they would be in Darlington up on the Darling Scarp overlooking the city from the east (since Mum went to Governor Stirling Senior High School).
Some other relatives further back:
Maternal grandparents:
Hardy Berwick Hanton and Dorothy Millicent Stubbs
Grandpa's parents:
Hardy Roach Hanton and Evangeline Fiveash
Grandma's parents:
Claude Henry Stubbs and Amelia Florence McMillan,
daughter of (unknown first name) McMillan and Elizabeth Owens,
daughter of an Owen Owens, a Welshman who ran a pub in London.
Claude Henry Stubbs (possibly Henry Claude, Mum wasn't 100% sure) was the son of John Henry Stubbs and Elizabeth U'Ren, travelling to Australia from New Zealand sometime in the 1860s or 1870s. Elizabeth is reported to be the first white child born in the Poverty Bay area (actually on a ship at anchor there) in the 1840s.
The U'Rens came from St. Just in Cornwall, and were descendants of 16th century French Huguenots. The Roach family came from a nearby part of Cornwall as well.
The Hantons are presumed to have some aristocratic ancestry. One member of the family married a French woman who escaped from the French Revolution.
Paternal grandparents: John Fraser Banks and Isabel Ross - until now I didn't know my grandmother's name.
My grandmother, Dorothy Millicent Stubbs (1906 - 1986), was the eldest of seven children. Her family lived in Geraldton (slightly over 400 km north of Perth) during the 1920s and 30s, and left when she was accepted into art school in Perth. However, the Great Depression forced her to move back home. During this time she had a store in town where she sold (possibly handmade) art things. This didn't provide a livable wage but at least brought in a bit of cash. This store may have been part of her father's store.
Sometime during the 1930s her four-year-younger sister Marjorie (I'm assuming here, since Mum called her Aunty Marj) was married in Perth to a Carl Throssell Klem. It was here that Dorothy met her future husband Hardy Berwick Hanton, who was best man at the wedding. They married in 1939 after a two-year engagement, by which time Dorothy had moved back down to Perth. The Stubbs family also came to Perth at this time, and had a store in Banksia Avenue, South Perth (on or near the corner of Mill Point Road) by the time my mother was born in 1941. Although this store was no longer in the family it was still in business in the early 80s, I remember buying a pack of Humphrey Bear lollies there as a small child, when we lived further along Mill Point Road.
Dorothy went to work for Art Photo Engravers, a company that specialised in fashion drawings and graphic design - cards, brooches, etc - and would become Head Artist of the company, also painting in her spare time. In 1981 the illustrations for a children's book Billy Glitterbug and other Australian stories for children would come courtesy of Dorothy's brushes.
Berwick (1908 - 2000) and Carl had been friends since their school days. Carl was the first student listed on Wesley College's register when the school opened in South Perth in 1923. The Klems are said to have come from Norway, but may have also had German ancestry. At the time of their marriage Carl and Marge lived in the Cottesloe - Mount Lawley area. In the 80s Marj lived in Coolbinia/Mt Lawley, in a house Carl built surrounded by a huge garden (so very related to her sister and neice on that point!) opposite a large park.
Berwick spent at least some of his formative years in the town of Southern Cross (350km east of Perth), where his father was the bank manager. He would work for at least some time at the bank, before becoming a teacher at Wesley College (where he'd studied in 1924-25). After a stint in the Militia and the Army in World War II, the headmaster of Wesley asked him back to the school (although at least some time was also spent in the government schools). Berwick would remain involved with the Old Wesley Collegians' Association (the Old Boys) all his life and would be made an Honorary Life Member in 1979, as his father who wrote the school song had been in 1926. A quadrangle at the school was named the Berwick Hanton Quadrangle.
My grandparents were married in the original Wesley Chapel. The current chapel was built in the early 1960s and was considered rather daring due to it's circular design. It was in this chapel that Berwick's second funeral service was held, a gesture from the Chaplain who was an old friend and had performed the ceremony at Karrakatta Cemetery a few days previously.
After their marriage they rented a house in nearby Swan Street. Berwick was asked to be a
Housemaster, but Dorothy wouldn't have it as that would meant actually living at the school. I'm sure Grandpa wouldn't mind - when discussing with Mum the love that her father and grandfather had for the school, I just got this image of Mum, Grandma and Great-Grandma just sighing over the whole thing. Ok, so I never met my great-grandmother, and I have only a coulple of memories of my grandmother, but hey, dramatic licence. A few years later they would move to Mount Pleasant (a few miles further south on the other side of Canning Bridge), and by the time their daughters were in their teens they would be in Darlington up on the Darling Scarp overlooking the city from the east (since Mum went to Governor Stirling Senior High School).
Some other relatives further back:
Maternal grandparents:
Hardy Berwick Hanton and Dorothy Millicent Stubbs
Grandpa's parents:
Hardy Roach Hanton and Evangeline Fiveash
Grandma's parents:
Claude Henry Stubbs and Amelia Florence McMillan,
daughter of (unknown first name) McMillan and Elizabeth Owens,
daughter of an Owen Owens, a Welshman who ran a pub in London.
Claude Henry Stubbs (possibly Henry Claude, Mum wasn't 100% sure) was the son of John Henry Stubbs and Elizabeth U'Ren, travelling to Australia from New Zealand sometime in the 1860s or 1870s. Elizabeth is reported to be the first white child born in the Poverty Bay area (actually on a ship at anchor there) in the 1840s.
The U'Rens came from St. Just in Cornwall, and were descendants of 16th century French Huguenots. The Roach family came from a nearby part of Cornwall as well.
The Hantons are presumed to have some aristocratic ancestry. One member of the family married a French woman who escaped from the French Revolution.
Paternal grandparents: John Fraser Banks and Isabel Ross - until now I didn't know my grandmother's name.
