Hudson Family Tree

RUSSELL HUDSON'S HOME PAGE

My Anglo-Irish Ancestors

My ancestors migrated from England and Ireland to Australia and New Zealand during the mid to late 1800s. They came from farming communities in Westmorland (Hudson), Hampshire (Goddard) and Derbyshire (Askew); from mining and farming families in Cornwall (Dunstan and Bolitho); from Cheshire via the textile mills of Russia (Clarke and Stelfox), from post-famine subsistence farming in Roscommon (Cuttle and Ekins), and from mills south of Londonderry (Douglas).

This site has been established to give descriptions of their lives in England and Ireland, to record the circumstances of their migration and describe their lives in the colonies, and to list their many hundreds of descendants. 

Descriptions are presented in four groups, under family headings: Hudson (comprising the immigrant families Hudson, Goddard and Askew), Dunstan (Dunstan, Priske and Bolitho), Clarke (Clarke and Stelfox) and Cuttle (Cuttle, Ekins and Douglas).

Recent Events, Amendments and Additions to the Site

What Holes and Which Rats?

My great-great grandmother Mary Askew (1820-1890) was the second daughter of Thomas Askew, the village blacksmith in the small Derbyshire market town of Higham. Her mother, Rebecca McNell/Askew, died in 1822 at the age of 26 years, leaving her daughters Mary, almost two years old, and Sarah, aged about three. Her father re-married and he and his second wife, Elizabeth, had a further six children, half-brothers and half-sisters to Mary and Sarah. In 1831, at the age of ten years, Mary Askew made the cross-stitch sampler illustrated on this page; it became one of her treasured possessions. "Click on the sampler" to see an enlarged image; click "back" to return to this page.

In 1852, Mary Askew, age 32 years, and her younger half-brother Thomas left England for Australia as assisted immigrants on the sailing ship “Sir Robert Sale”. Among her few belongings on the voyage was the sampler which, on arrival at Point Henry, near Geelong in Victoria, looked somewhat worse for wear, containing a number of ragged holes. The story passed down through her descendants was that “the holes was eaten by rats” during the three-month voyage to Australia.

Mary Askew was contracted to work for a James Riley near Pollocks Ford on the Barwon River, to the west of Geelong. Here she met her future husband James Goddard of Hampshire. In 1845, young James Goddard, at the time married and with two young children, received a ten-year sentence for stealing a clock. He had served two years of that sentence at Millbank and Pentonville, when he and other "good behaviour" inmates were selected to receive a Royal Pardon, conditional on being transported to Australia and remaining in the colony for the unexpired period of their sentences.

James and Mary set their wedding date for 6 January 1853, at Christ Church, Geelong, and were delighted to know that among the witnesses would be Mary's half-sister Ann Askew who, with her new husband William Siddall, had also decided to migrate from Derbyshire to Australia. Sadly, soon after the wedding .......... 

But, hang on, I'm into the story and I haven't even introduced myself!

Hello and Welcome to the Site

Thank you for visiting my family history site. My name is Russell Hudson and I am a descendant of English and Irish immigrants, all of whom made their way to Australia and New Zealand during the mid to late 1800s. I was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia in the year 1939, the first son of "goldfields-born" parents. Their parents (my grandparents) had been attracted by the employment opportunities generated by the discovery of rich gold deposits in and around Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, and arrived in the late 1890s and early 1900s. They left their immigrant parents and grandparents, and some of their brothers and sisters, in the Clunes district of Victoria, and in the Waihi and Dunedin districts of New Zealand, to make a new life for themselves and their families in Western Australia.

The story involving Mary Askew and the sampler is typical of the many incidents, adventures, triumphs and tragedies that affected the lives of immigrants to Australia and New Zealand during the nineteenth century. On this web site I have started to record some of the events in the lives of my forebears - before they left their communities in England or Ireland, during their long voyage to Australia or New Zealand, and through their years as early settlers to the colonies. I have also commenced the compilation of lists of many of the descendants of these settlers, an imposing list of Aussies and Kiwis with whom I share some common English and Irish ancestry. These descendants are now scattered throughout Australia and New Zealand and some, indeed, have even moved back "overseas”.

Proposed Contents of the Website

The Main Family Names Involved

Five of my great-great grandparents came to Australia or New Zealand as immigrants. James Goddard arrived in Australia in 1847. He was an “exile”, a convict transportee who received a conditional Royal Pardon on leaving England. He was followed by Mary Askew, an assisted immigrant who arrived in Australia in 1852, and later by Johannah Priske/Dunstan who in 1880 joined three of her sons in Clunes, Victoria after the death of her husband in Cornwall. John Cuttle and Ann Ekins/Cuttle and their family left County Roscommon, having survived the Irish potato famine, and arrived in New Zealand in 1877.

Seven of my eight great-grandparents arrived either as free settlers or as an assisted immigrants, many completing the long journey with their parents, their siblings and/or their children. The remaining one of my great grandparents was born in Australia, near Geelong in 1853. Her parents, my great-great grandparents were James Goddard and Mary Askew, described above.

In alphabetical order, the family names of my immigrant forebears are as follows:

• ASKEW of Higham, Derbyshire, England to Geelong, Victoria in 1852.

• BOLITHO of Trewavas, Cornwall, England to Port Lyttleton, NZ in ~1879; Clunes, Victoria in 1880.

• CLARKE of Northwich, Cheshire, England to Auckland, NZ in 1885; Coolgardie, WA in ~1902.

• CUTTLE of Estersnow, Roscommon, Ireland to Dunedin, NZ in 1877; Burbanks, WA in 1899.

• DOUGLAS of Clondermot, Londonderry, Ireland to Dunedin, NZ in 1877; Burbanks WA in 1899.

• DUNSTAN of Porkellis, Cornwall, England to Port Lyttleton, NZ in ~1879; Clunes, Victoria in 1880.

• EKINS of Estersnow, Roscommon, Ireland to Dunedin, NZ in 1877.

• GODDARD of Hawley, Hampshire, England to Geelong, Victoria in 1847.

• HUDSON of Longsleddale, Westmorland, England to Clunes, Victoria in 1861.

• PRISKE of Wendron, Cornwall, England to Clunes, Victoria in ~1880

• STELFOXof Northwich, Cheshire, England to Auckland, NZ in 1885.

Descriptions within Family Groups

The descriptions on this website are arranged in four Family Groups - Hudson, Dunstan, Clarke and Cuttle. The groups comprise the following immigrants and their descendants.

HUDSON - this group includes my great-great grandparents James Goddard (Hampshire) and Mary Askew (Derbyshire), and their daughter Mary Jane Goddard (born in Australia), and my great grandfather William Hudson (Westmorland); there are an estimated thousand descendants from these immigrants.

DUNSTAN - including my great-great grandmother Johannah Priske/Dunstan (Cornwall) and my great grandparents William Dunstan (Cornwall) and Eliza Jane Bolitho (Cornwall);

CLARKE - including my great grandparents Thomas Plummer Clarke (Cheshire) and Frances Stelfox (Cheshire); and

CUTTLE - including my great-great grandparents John Cuttle (Roscommon) and Ann Ekins (Roscommon), and my great grandfather William Douglas (Londonderry).

I have made a start by posting some detail of members of the Hudson Family, and as time permits I will add descriptions of my other forebears under the headings of Dunstan, Clarke and Cuttle Families.

I have also gathered some information on related family groups in England and Ireland. These include:

• PURDUE of Roscommon, Ireland (Cuttle Family Group)

• DUNBAR of Londonderry, Ireland (Cuttle Family Group)

• RAY and PLUMMER of Cheshire, England (Clarke Family Group)

• WEARNE of Wendron, Cornwall, England (Dunstan Family Group)

• GREEN of Bampton, Westmorland, England (Hudson Family Group)

Descriptions of English and Irish Origins

Most of my ancestors came from small English and Irish villages and towns where, after limited schooling, they worked as farmers, farm labourers, blacksmiths, tin miners, cooks, and domestics. There are descriptions of the towns and countryside in which they lived, and their major work activities. My great-grandfather Thomas Plummer Clarke, however, was the first of my ancestors to move away from the traditional agricultural, mining and domestic spheres of employment to take up work in the new industrial age. He was apprenticed to a steam-engine manufacturing business and became an important engineer in Russia, where he represented English steam engine manufacturers and advised Russian textile companies for some 20 years. In 1885, he took his English wife and Russian-born children to New Zealand, where he continued his engineering profession in the timber industry at Auckland and, later, in underground gold mining at the Martha Mine, Waihi, on the southern end of the Coromandel Range.

 What the Relies Did in the Antipodes

I have made notes on places where my forebears settled, what they did, and what was happening in their community. This is a mixed bag of historical, cultural and social information, focussed mainly on the farming and mining districts near Clunes in Victoria and the mining districts in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia.

 Descendant Databases

The list of descendants commenced as a stack of cards – one for each individual family member - and evolved progressively during the 1980s as computers came into common use. Most of the BM&D information is now on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, from which I have extracted lists of descendants for inclusion on this site. The information is neither comprehensive nor up-to-date, and I would welcome any additions and modifications to the database. I have chosen to commence the descendant database from those who were first to arrive in Australia-New Zealand, so that my great-great grandparents James Goddard (arrived 1847) and Mary Askew (arrived 1852) are at level 1, my four pairs of great grandparents are at level 2, my two pairs of grandparents at level 3, my parents at level four, and I am at level 5. The most recent “new shoots” are at levels 7 and 8.

Credits and Links

Like many family history sites this remains a work in progress - a jigsaw commenced in the late 1970s and still incomplete some twenty-five years on. And it hasn’t been through lack of support - countless relatives, friends, librarians, records officers, shire officials, church worthies, genealogical societies, and web-mates have done their utmost to help me, and their valued contributions are gratefully acknowledged. By having a page of acknowledgements I have tried to give credit to the many people who, over the past twenty five years, have provided me with much of data reported on this site.

I have also sought to provide links to relevant data that are already available on the web. Firstly, to give credit to the compilers of the databases, but also to provide a source of additional information to the reader and to minimise unnecessary repetition on these pages. Where sources of information are not available on the web I have given references to data sources and some published works.

Feedback and Additions Welcome

 I have started this website by posting information on the proposed structure and contents, and by providing details of the Hudson Family Group, including descriptions of my Goddard and Askew forebears. Very brief introductions to each of the Dunstan, Clarke and Cuttle Family Groups have also been included. More detailed information will be added to the website as time permits.

Why did I decide to create this website? Mainly because I was becoming submerged in accumulated files, photos, birth certificates and correspondence. Not getting any younger, I thought it time to “clear the decks”, to let other interested relatives see the information I have gathered. Having seen it, my hope is that relatives and others will add to it and amend it. Pick up the baton and run with it. Go, you good things!

I welcome comments, suggestions, corrections, and additions to the site.

Please contact me at my email address: george.robertson (at) live.com.au

Other Information

Website Design: Russell Hudson

Software Used: Microsoft FrontPage Express 2 and Microsoft FrontPage 2000

Site Search: Not installed

Visitor Counter: Not installed