Henry Wagstaff (1835/36 – 1911)

The Brewer of Mangatainoka.

Hill Top Farm

Aldwark is a small village lying at the southern end of the Derbyshire Dales, about 9 miles south of Bakewell and a similar distance north of Ashbourne, in the parish of Bradbourne which is itself no less than 5 miles away. This will give as good an indication of its isolation as one needs and this is coupled with its situation which is high up, somewhere around 1000 feet, and somewhat bleak. On a fine day it must have considerable charm but in the depths of winter one can imagine life being extremely hard, particularly before modern transport and heating were available. In the decade before Henry’s birth it was said to contain 15 houses, 15 families and 92 inhabitants.¹

The farm came into the Wagstaff family with the marriage of Francis Wagstaff (1) to Sarah Caldwell in 1758² and, assuming it did not change greatly was 100 acres³ and presumably also always a mixed farm.⁴ The house itself has been added to during the course of the last 100 years or so though the front elevation would appear to be unchanged and when I visited it in the 1990s I was able to see the extension at the back and other alterations which made it a 3 bedroomed property with 2 reception rooms, kitchen and bathroom. It was however, easy enough to see that at the start of the 19th century it would have been a two up and two down farmhouse.

Family Background

When Francis (1) died the farm passed to Francis (2) who married Elizabeth Booth in 1792. Of their four children the only son Francis (3) was born in 1796. Interestingly, in the light of subsequent developments, their eldest daughter Sarah is believed to have been the mother of Hannah Wagstaff in 1811 and she was still unmarried at the time her father made his will.⁵

Francis (3) married Elizabeth Taylor, who had been born at Austrey, Warwickshire, in 1800,⁶ at St Alkmund’s, Derby, 9.6.1817. They proceeded to have a very large family who were almost all born at Aldwark the early exception being Matilda who was born, 5.12.1817 at Wirksworth⁷ where her mother had come from and had presumably returned for the purpose of having her first child under the supervision of her own mother. Francis effectively retired from the farm, leaving it in the hands of Francis (4) while he was still single, by moving to Solihull though he continued to work as an agricultural labourer.⁸

I think some purpose is served by giving the family in full as a good many of them feature either directly or indirectly in Henry’s story.⁹

Matilda 1817 - 1886; Francis (4) 1819 - 1892; Mary 1820 - ?; Elizabeth 1822 -1824; Jane 1823 -?;

Thomas 1825 - ?; Sarah 1826 - 1886¹⁰; Elizabeth Ann 1828 - ?; Lucy 1829 - ?; Georgiana 1831- ?;

Hannah 1832 - died inf.; John 1834 - ?; Henry 1836 - 1911; Margaret 1837 - ?; Caroline 1838 - ?;

Hannah 1839 - ?; Emma 1841 - ?

Equally the few details of those of them about whom something is known are worth giving.

Matilda never married.¹¹ The Wagstaff Society family tree lists four daughters, Martha, Emma, Mary (Polly), and Sarah. I have verified Martha,¹² and Polly was already known about,¹³ but the recent availability of the 1871 Census confirms the other two,¹⁴ while the 1861 gives a fifth daughter, Caroline. Ironically, given the circumstances, Matilda became a midwife in due course having been a dressmaker in both 1851 and 1861.¹⁵

Francis (4)¹⁶ married Ann Gregory née Marshall at Duffield in 1867 and had five children, the youngest of whom, Jane, married John James and they were farming at Aldwark in the 1940s. A grand-daughter of her elder brother Henry, Sue McDiarmid, now lives in Auckland. With the birth of their eldest son Francis in 1870 there were then at least four cousins of the same name.

Mary was the mother of Daniel Wagstaff,¹⁷ previously wrongly attributed as the youngest child of Francis (3) and Elizabeth. Leo Berry, though unaware of the parentage, refers to a nephew of Henry’s of this name, who was resident at Aldwark in 1851 though later living in Manchester.¹⁸ Mary eventually married a Mr. McDonald of Chorlton-on-Medlock¹⁹ and they had two daughters. Daniel, who became a policeman, lived at Chorlton-on-Medlock for most of his life.²⁰

Jane married Joseph Else, a miller, and there was one unmarried daughter, Margaret, living with them at Solihull Lodge, Solihull, in 1881 where Francis (3) had been living in 1861. They had been there on their own ten years earlier.

Thomas married Jane and had three children, Matilda, Francis, born 1859 and Jervis. He was a miller at Bonsall.²¹

Sarah was the mother of Emma Eliza,²² born Salford 17.6.1845. She married Jonas Moult in 1847 the assumption having been that he was Emma’s father.²³

Lucy married William Potter and by 1851 had two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary and living at Combs Edge. Brothers John, described as a Farmers Man, and Henry, a Barytes Grinder²⁴ like her husband, were living with them.

Georgiana married John Haslam, a lead miner, at Bonsall 23.7.1849.²⁵ There were no children at home in 1861.

John moved around having some variety in his occupation. He married Elizabeth Barnsley 21.8.1859²⁶ and had a number of children, not yet quantified, though including twin sons, John and Francis, born 1859.

Margaret married Herbert Holland 26.12.1857.²⁷ For quite a long time this was supposition but an e-mail from Bob Shipley²⁸ confirms this and states they had eight children including his great grandmother, Louisa, who was the eldest having been born in 1859.

Hannah married Elias Wright, a stone mason, and they were living with her parents in Solihull in 1861.

Emma married Thomas Bainbridge²⁹ at Brassington 7.2.1860 and they proceeded to have 19 children including three sets of twins.³⁰

Birth

He was born at Hill Top Farm probably in either late 1835 or early 1836. He was too early by a matter of 18 months or less, for the general civil registration that came in in 1837 with the result that we cannot obtain a birth certificate. Instead we have a baptismal date of 22.5.1836³¹ which appears to be confirmed by his age, 45, given in the 1881 Census transcript. Equally it does not invalidate late 1835 which tends to be suggested by his age being given as 76 at the time of his death. However, I am not prepared to make that categorical as the information regarding the English phase of his life is sloppy and inaccurate and the death certificate lacks the name of the informant, knowledge of which might have helped, though we may assume it would have been his niece Mary, but it cannot be guaranteed she would have known his exact details.

Marriage and children

He married Caroline Baggaley³² at St. Peter’s Church, Derby on 13.2.1860. They had two children, it being unlikely there were any more, principally on account of her age. The elder boy, Francis Henry, was my grandfather and was born 5.6.1862 at Duffield. The younger, Albert Edward, was baptised 5.6.1868, his elder brother’s sixth birthday, also at Duffield, probably just before he died.³³

Caroline’s age is not given on the marriage certificate, the two of them being simply described as being of full age, their fathers, Francis and Nathaniel, being respectively described as ‘Farmer’ and ‘Joiner’. What this masks is, I believe, quite pertinent to much else that follows. We are prepared for her being older than him by the 1881 Census transcript giving her as 51 to his 45.³⁴ This is though, a considerable understatement of the truth suggesting that Henry was rather sensitive on this subject. Again the IGI is enlightening and yields the information that a Caroline Baggerley (sic), the daughter of Nathaniel and Harriet Baggerley,³⁵ was baptised at St. Peter’s, Derby on 17.11.1822, a year finally admitted to in the 1901 Census, when she was living with Francis Henry in Duffield, when it was given as 78 and showing that she was already 40 at the time of his birth. She died of senile decay, aged 86, on 24 April 1909, at 26 Chaucer Street, Leicester, the widow (sic) of Henry Wagstaff, Wine Merchant. So although it was now perfectly acceptable to be honest about her age it was also acceptable to misrepresent the facts about her domestic circumstances.

Henry’s notoriety within the family stems from the fact that this is not the end of the story with regard to his children. How much my father actually knew of the details before Leo Berry wrote to him out of the blue in 1940 I really do not know. It was never a subject on which he was forthcoming for reasons not just of morality, but also, I am sure, from opinions absorbed from his own father who was apparently unable to forgive Henry for abandoning the family.³⁶ This gets ahead of the story somewhat and will be looked at more fully later. It is therefore sufficient to say that even if the name of another child had been unknown there was the knowledge something reprehensible lay behind Henry’s flight. The news was actually broken, it appears, in a letter of 14 November 1940 though it is clear this was not the first letter and unfortunately that has not survived. Leo Berry wrote ‘It will, I think, explain my desire to get in touch with you when I say that your grandfather – and mine – the late Henry Wagstaff, had a daughter (your late father’s half-sister) whose only surviving son I am.’

The daughter, Henrietta, had married a schoolmaster,³⁷ Thomas Berry, and not much more was known. It was generally accepted that Henrietta’s mother was a barmaid, a point confirmed by Leonie Neil.³⁸ At this stage I undertook some further research, much assisted by all that is available on the internet, and quickly found her in the 1901 Census, aged 34 and living in Stone, where Leo had been born. She gave her place of birth as Calow, which turned out to be a few miles due east of Chesterfield. So she was a real, rather than a mythical person at last. Whatever purists may think of the Mormon on-line data bases they have at least one virtue over most others. Armed with that information I was able to search the 1881 Census for all Derbyshire entries for girls called Henrietta born around 1867, and I had the very good fortune to find something that looked promising in one Henrietta Cantrell, having first eliminated a number of other candidates. Henrietta Cantrell, aged 14, was living in Woodthorpe, with Samuel and Emma Elliott, a coal miner and his wife. He was 29 and she 31, and Henrietta was described as ‘sister-in-law’, in other words, she was the younger sister by 17 years, of Emma Elliott. While that was possible of course, so was the alternative, namely that Henrietta was being passed off as a younger sister while in reality being Emma’s daughter, the fiction being maintained until her marriage. She was described as a ‘Pupil Teacher’ the exact words used to describe Thomas Berry, aged 15, in the same Census thereby giving us a good idea as to how they eventually met. The place of birth, Brimington, at first floored me but examination of various Derbyshire maps showed this to be the next village to the east of Calow. Curiously, her birth does not seem to have been registered, perhaps as a means of playing down her irregular parentage. After that I hoped to see if a baptism for Henrietta Cantrell could be found, but having drawn a blank there I had the satisfaction of knowing I was not mistaken when the IGI duly supplied a baptism for Emma Cantrell, daughter of Thomas and Maria Cantrell, baptised 4.12.1849 at Duckmanton, tying in nicely with the 1881 Census entry for Emma Elliott.³⁹

So I am confident that after all this time the identity of Henrietta’s mother is known. How long her entanglement with Henry had been going on when she found herself pregnant cannot of course be ascertained. Indeed there was always the likelihood that she, a barmaid aged 16 or 17 had been tumbled in a casual encounter by the 30 year old Henry and that it was in short, a misadventure from a very brief liaison. Reflection, and Leo Berry’s letters, have made me think otherwise. Firstly, the child was called Henrietta, clearly named after her father, suggesting at the least a fondness on Emma’s part for Henry. Then we have the evidence that, at 14, Henrietta Cantrell was a Pupil Teacher, a fairly middle class aspiration for a daughter being brought up in the household of a coal miner. No doubt such things did occur in households where they were striving to better themselves,⁴⁰ but I think it is highly likely that Henry had supported the child. Additionally Leo Berry wrote, ‘It is nevertheless a fact that my mother had a great affection for her father and has very much idealised his memory.’⁴¹ So perhaps there was a love story, made more poignant by virtue of the fact that divorce was virtually unattainable for ordinary people and carried with it a tremendous stigma at such a time, denying Henry and Emma a longer relationship.

As to Henrietta herself we now have a photograph of her in her late 60s thanks to Leonie Neil who has also provided one or two memories. Fairly frequent contact was kept when Henrietta’s husband Thomas Berry was Director of Religious Education in Manchester and they would go over to Manchester at Christmas and be taken to the pantomime. He retired following a stroke when they went to live in Somerset and Leonie writes of a pre-war visit when her grandfather played the piano accompanying her grandmother who sang. She had apparently had her voice trained. As a youngster Leonie formed the impression that Henrietta was very able at many things and intelligent.⁴² In a later letter,⁴³ Leonie has added that she seemed good at controlling people and was herself, good-looking. She recalls a Christmas visit to see her grandparents in Bournemouth, where Henrietta, she was told, was running a hotel. The visit was sometime during the 1920s and so presumably before they settled in Somerset.

There are a few final observations. Henry was 30 or perhaps 31 when Henrietta was conceived. By this time Caroline was 44. We have a photograph of Caroline and clearly she was no beauty and even if the 16 or 17 year old was not a beauty, and that we shall never know, she would have represented something infinitely more exciting than the middle aged Caroline. While inexcusable, strictly speaking, it is quite understandable and I cannot find it in myself to be as severe on him as his immediate family were. As will have been noted earlier, the Wagstaffs’ record was not particularly good at this sort of thing. There was quite a difference between the moral climate of the Regency and the time of William IV and that of the mid to late Victorian period. Henry, born when William IV was still on the throne, had his upbringing immediately following that earlier period and inevitability accepted notions did not adjust, just like that, with the change of monarch. Note also the undoubted lustiness of his sire, recall too the two up and two down small farmhouse, the immediacy of a doubtless active farmyard, and not least that three of his older sisters produced seven children out of wedlock between them, and we have a background whereby the act of procreation, and its consequences, would have been so thoroughly normal to Henry that it is hardly surprising in his somewhat unusual circumstances. Indeed, if my grandfather’s feelings have been accurately passed on, the infidelity was not necessarily the primary reason for his status as black sheep and it is quite likely that he was unaware of it until Henry’s will was finally known. But before leaving this topic, a word has to be entered in Caroline’s favour. In one of her letters Joan Taylor remarked that everyone described her as ‘kindly’,⁴⁴ a view that at the very least she must have received from her mother, Gladys.

That Emma Cantrell represented Henry’s only straying from the path of rectitude is, though, unlikely. We have one other name and no timetable. Joan Taylor⁴⁵ mentions a Miss de Ville, while W. E. Moult wrote ‘I believe there was a little trouble in the family & it was the reason of him coming to N.Z. However I don’t know much about that, but think I can find some details later.’⁴⁶ Unfortunately there is nothing to suggest he ever did.

This is perhaps also the place to dispose of a minor complication. On 31 January 1909 a three day old girl, Anna Marie Wagstaff (sic) was buried in the Pahiatua cemetery. This gave rise to the canard that Mrs. Wagstaff had been buried there with him, it being a while before the writer, the Post Master of Pahiatua, noticed the age of the deceased and corrected his mistake.⁴⁷ But the circumstances of Henry’s departure coupled with the photograph of a family grouping involving a very small child, gave rise also to the erroneous idea that the child was a ‘sin of his old age’, her very short life not being appreciated, until, during the course of our 1997 visit to New Zealand I obtained her birth and death certificates. The child, Hannah Maria, proved to be the daughter of an Ernest Wagstaff from Lincolnshire and his New Zealand born wife. With Wagstaffs not being exactly ten a penny in Pahiatua it had been perhaps an understandable mistake.

Descendants

Francis Henry had five children by his first wife, Edith Merchant, who died in 1896. Two survived into adulthood apart from Alvyn who died at 21, Gladys, who married Frederick Smythe and had two children, Peter and Joan, now Joan Taylor, and Ethel who had no children but whose relationships with two men were thought to be irregular, though she may or may not have married each of them eventually.⁴⁸ Ethel was unfortunately rarely if ever spoken of for this reason.

In 1899 he remarried, and by his second wife, Eleanor Banks, he had three more children, Francis Herbert, my father, Dorothy (Dolly) who married Martin Lavender but had no children and Katie Lilian (Kitty) who married Leslie Jones and had two sons, Trevor and Barry. Elaine Trippett is Trevor’s daughter.

Henrietta and her husband, Thomas Berry had had five children by the time of the 1901 Census. Of these the eldest, Tom, was killed in action in the First World War, while Leo’s twin brother Francis died in infancy. Twin daughters were born in 1900, Aldyth and Henrietta, and this seems to have been the extent of their family. It seems that Aldyth never married but that Henrietta married a school master, Ivan Watkin Williams, their son Michael Williams being remembered in the Moult family for a visit paid to them in New Zealand around 1974,⁴⁹ when he met her brother Eric.

Leo Berry married Dorothea and had two children, Leonie, now Neil, and Mark.

Occupation/Employment in England

In one of his letters to my father,⁵⁰ Leo Berry pointed out some of the differences between Henry and the rest of his family. One remark was that they were farmers and Henry was not. In one sense I wish to take issue with that. To me it is inconceivable that in the late 1840s, a farmer’s son, before he went out into the world for whatever purpose, had not been fully indoctrinated into the yearly round of life on the farm, hay making, harvesting, lambing, calving and so on. That he didn’t pursue a career in it doesn’t necessarily mean he had no inclination, it just has to be remembered that it was not an over large farm and he was not the eldest son. Indeed I noted above how his immediately older brothers, Thomas and John, had become respectively a miller and a gardener, indicating that there was no room at the farm for him. So, regardless of his preferences, Henry had to seek a livelihood elsewhere. I am convinced however, that before he set off in another direction he would have developed the wide variety of practical skills that an unmechanised 19th century farm would have required. As already noted, what may well have been his first employment was as a ‘Barytes Grinder’ in a mill or quarry at Combs Edge which seems likely to be on the edge of the High Peak, on the borders of Derbyshire and Cheshire, near Chapel-en-le-Frith. Interestingly however, the last entry concerning him on the Pahiatua electoral roll for 1911 gives his occupation as ‘retired farmer’, not brewer or settler as had appeared previously, and one wonders whether some long held subconscious desire was being manifested at this late stage.⁵¹

Otherwise the first definite news comes from his marriage certificate, where he is said to be a Sergeant of Police living in Bolsover. At the age of broadly 25 that might well be considered good going. At this same time Caroline was described as a draper. This is perhaps ambiguous as it tends to suggest she was self-employed rather than an employee which is what one might actually have expected. My point here is simply that we do not know whether Caroline brought any money with her into the marriage, which she may well have done if running her own business and which might have been the attraction to Henry of this particular older bride. At some point very soon after his marriage Henry became a ‘Publican and Grocer’,⁵² though it was the latter in the form of ‘Master Grocer’ that was the occupation shown on my grandfather’s birth certificate in 1862. The supposition has to be that this grocery business, or indeed these businesses, remained constantly in my great-grandfather’s or great-grandmother’s possession for the next thirty or so years.⁵³

That he should have acquired two new businesses so quickly tends to suggest that Caroline had indeed had means of her own. The Census shows them to be living in Town Street, Duffield so that we get no pointers to the identity of the pub or hotel concerned. But the dual occupation continued for a good ten years or more as is clear from the anecdotal evidence as well as Census information. One was apparently called The Albert, named after his deceased infant son.⁵⁴ The pub or hotel ownership however ties in with a story I recall hearing from my mother, in disapproving tones, that Henry would take his son [Francis Henry] with him when he went to visit the hotel(s?) but late in the day under the influence of inebriation and/or infatuation, would put the boy back on his horse,⁵⁵ which then proceeded to find the way home with Henry returning the following day. This may though have been a single incident, which, in Joan Taylor’s version of the story occurred when Henry was four.⁵⁶ However, Henrietta’s age makes it more than likely that her conception followed such an incident and that, unthinkable as it may be to us, a very small boy was indeed returned home unaccompanied.

Although it would not have been an employment as such, it is probable from something Leo Berry wrote that Henry was involved in the Yeomanry.⁵⁷ Unfortunately the photograph, dating he thought from the 1880s and taken in Derby, was lost before the date of the letter but it apparently showed Henry in a uniform, assumed to be that of the Yeomanry, mounted on a fine horse and making a handsome sight. It was understandably for Henrietta, a treasured memento of her father.

Emigration

We do not know exactly when, or on what boat Henry left England for New Zealand. It is though necessary to spend a little time on what we now know wasn’t him. In July 1884 the RMS Ruapehu arrived in Wellington, with 19 passengers,⁵⁸ two of whom were ‘Messrs H and F Wagstaff. This raised all sorts of questions which fortunately we need no longer stop to consider.

Attempts to identify them from extant New Zealand sources have been unsuccessful. The Department of Immigration maintained a card index with basic details of settlers but I am reliably informed that this appears to have been restricted to those who were Assisted Emigrants and that H and F Wagstaff do not appear in it. The Passenger Index, Port of Wellington 1856-1887 shows precisely the same information as the internet transcript.⁵⁹ Most frustratingly the mystery will remain. Census information for the period has been destroyed and there would not appear to be any other sources to explore. By 1893 the only F. Wagstaff living in New Zealand was a Frederick Roe Wagstaff, a storekeeper at Pihama, Egmont Electorate.⁶⁰

During the course of other detective work Heather Sykes has come up with a persuasive mention in a Wanganui newspaper the previous year. It can now be said with some confidence that he arrived in Wanganui on 8.4.1883 from Wellington on the S S Huia.⁶¹ There are grounds for thinking he would have come almost directly from his boat from England but the problem is that there are at least three boats which he could have been on and the internet passenger transcripts are either incomplete or non-existent.⁶²

We do not now know what triggered his departure though, as I have speculated above, on the basis of W. E. Moult’s letter, there may have been another drama. However, it wasn’t necessarily so and perhaps he had been contemplating it for some time. He had, by 1883, both the family of his late niece, Emma Eliza Leatherland, and his nephew, Edwin Moult and family, already in New Zealand and the latter was well established in Wanganui running a store specialising in china and glass and stationery.⁶³ So he would have known people there and if he had kept in touch he would have had reports of conditions and opportunities there. At any rate I feel it accounts for the choice of New Zealand as the destination for his escape even if it doesn’t bring us any closer to the reason for the timing.

Never having known my grandfather, Francis Henry, nor having had any opportunity to discuss the event with my father, what I am about to suggest may be far too simple and would probably not have been admitted to. With the several infidelities that had occurred and the considerable reverse age gap it is more likely than not that the day to day functioning of his marriage to Caroline was not easy for either party. By the time he departed, Caroline would appear to have been financially secure as she was left with two well established shops, while Francis Henry was 21 and settled in the career that was to last the whole of his working life. So I am suggesting that the feeling of abandonment is something of an over-reaction. Henrietta too, was 16 and either qualified as a teacher or very nearly so, while her mother, Emma, had been married for a good few years. Yes, he went, but not until his primary responsibilities had been taken care of. More likely, given the Victorian preoccupation with ‘appearances’, Caroline, and in sympathy with his mother, Francis Henry, felt a stigma attaching to themselves and this, rather than the abandonment per se, created the unrelentingly bitter legacy. The description on Caroline’s death certificate tends to bear this out.

The effect on the second family, specifically Henrietta, would clearly have been different. Leo Berry said that Henry had managed to see her from time to time until he left for New Zealand. Then, apparently around 1886, he asked her to go out and join him and keep house for him. She didn’t accept the invitation and Berry remarks that ‘She was, I think, rather persuaded to refuse.’⁶⁴

Elsewhere among the vast sweep of close relations it is likely the effect would have been small. One can only comment on what one knows and the absence of other knowledge cannot be interpreted one way or another, so the lack of evidence of contact by the majority is not proof of opprobrium. The little we do know is that the Moult family had regular contact, while his niece Polly, the daughter of his eldest sister Matilda, answered the call for a housekeeper and spent roughly twenty years looking after him up to the time of his death. Confirmation of this comes, with a funny twist, via the 1893 Electoral Roll, one of the few sources of historical information to have survived some fairly drastic pruning by the New Zealand bureaucracy. They were resident in Pahiatua as we might have supposed, with numbers 3420 and 3421 on the roll for the Waipawa Electorate, Henry being described as ‘Settler’ and Mary as ‘Wife of H. Wagstaff’.⁶⁵ I surmise, rightly or wrongly, that the roll was completed by an official rather than from filled in forms. What he saw was a mature female with the same surname as the head of the household and not bothering to enquire as to the relationship put two and two together with the wrong result.⁶⁶

Employment in New Zealand

The chronology of his activities down under is gradually coming to light and it seems likely it was broadly as it came originally from the various sources, of which there are two. The first of these quotes, that ‘from an old settler, who knew the late Mr. Wagstaff very well we have learned the following – That at Wanganui, North Island, New Zealand, Mr. Wagstaff was a Truant Inspector.’⁶⁷ In 1945, W. E. Moult, wrote, ‘He was I believe a school Inspector for a few years…’⁶⁸ However, Leo Berry, thorough in his researches, corresponded with the Registrar-General’s Office, Wellington, who replied, ‘I have also communicated with the Education Department, Wellington, and the Education Board, Auckland, and no record of a “Henry Wagstaff” can be found in the records of either of these Departments.’⁶⁹ That rather called into question the accuracy of these sources but Heather Sykes, once more unearthing valuable information, has demonstrated, with cuttings from both the Wanganui Herald and the Wanganui Chronicle that the Wanganui Education Board decided on 27.3.1883 to appoint a truant inspector ‘for 6 months at a salary of £100, including travelling expenses’. Four weeks later it was reported ‘… had examined the applications for the position of Truant Inspector, and they had fixed upon a man who they thought would suit. There were five applications, and out of these they had selected a Mr. Wagstaff, a gentleman lately out from Home, and who has had considerable experience in the business.’ Presumably he considered his time as a police sergeant gave him the ‘considerable experience’ alluded to.⁷⁰

Early in the history we find that poor attendance extended to the teachers as well as the pupils which had presumably been among the first of his discoveries judging from a report in the Wanganui Herald, on 29.5.1883, while four weeks later both it and the Chronicle reported he had found ‘great laxity of attendance at Bulls, Foxton, Halcombe and Palmerston North’ suggesting that those were the actual words of his report. The Chronicle went on, ‘In the latter township there were 86 scholars on the books who only averaged half time.’ Schools in nine other places had been visited in addition to those already mentioned. So he had got around the district fairly thoroughly and at the end of six months he was reappointed for a further period of six months at a salary of £200 per annum. A very full report makes it clear that his efforts made an impact and they wished to reappoint him for a further six months but, unfortunately for him, a lack of funds resulted in a major disagreement among the various officials and local politicians the consequence of which was that he was not reappointed at the conclusion of this second term.

Next, if the old settler got things in the right order, he became a cheese maker and in language that makes it easy to visualise the old boy talking he is quoted as follows, ‘A cheese maker was advertised for in Woodville, Hawkes Bay. He gave a Wanganui firm £20 to learn him to make cheese. (Woodville is 10 miles from Pahiatua) He secured the position. The batches of cheese allegedly ranged from good to bad, very bad, and he received notice to quit, which he refused to do. Mr. Chas. Hall ex M. P. and Mr. John Monteith brought the police, so the story goes, to eject Mr. Wagstaff.’

What initially threw the chronology into doubt is that in 1886 he apparently filed for bankruptcy having tried his hand at running a saw mills.⁷¹ Before the 1883 date was established for his truant inspector duties, the time available had seemed insufficient for the number of occupations involved but with a clear timescale now for that it begins to look possible that the three jobs could have been fitted into the pre-1886 period. It is highly likely from the bare bones of the cheese-making venture that it was quite short lived. With no information at all concerning the saw-mills attention turns as to how he stumbled across Mangatainoka. It is clear enough, even from a small scale map that the area he had covered for the Wanganui Education Board was quite large, especially when considered that it would have been covered almost entirely if not totally, on horseback. However, while Palmerston North is south of Pahiatua it is somewhat to the west and there is nothing to show he would have ventured as far to the east in the course of his duties. However, Woodville is not a great distance from Pahiatua so that it is more likely he would have come across it during his cheese-making days. At least I have a recollection of reading something about his stopping on one of his trips to make himself a brew of tea, which was so good he realised that a great deal was due to the quality of the water, and that it was ideal for beer.⁷² The place was of course Mangatainoka. Questions inevitably arise. How much before 1889 had the discovery taken place? Sufficiently well before to enable him to acquire land there whilst still solvent? If later, given his impecunious state, how did he raise the funds for what was to happen next? And how did he support himself during this three year interval? Unfortunately it is extremely doubtful that we shall ever know.

The Brewery

Work first started in summer 1889, when Henry himself began digging a cellar on his section at the corner of Main Road and the North Tiraumea Road near the Mangatainoka River. Having dug the cellar and cleared the ground around of stumps for an area large enough to take a small building, he put that up in time to have a first brew ready by the end of April. This was an impressive achievement. He was in his mid-fifties and the physical effort required to excavate the cellar, which is quite large when considered in terms of one man and a spade, and complete the overground works in approximately four months, must have been considerable.

The area nearby became at once a popular picnic site suggesting the beer was a success. By September he was supplying several hotels and it was at this time that people began to use the expression ‘Make mine a Wagstaff’ when asked what they wanted to drink. At much the same time he began to brew stout from which I infer his original brew would have been East India Pale Ale, naturally conditioned in the bottle, acquiring CO₂ in the process to give it its fizz and having a yeasty sediment, a ‘real ale’ in today’s jargon. It seems more than likely his experiences as a publican were standing him in good stead, it being possible The Albert or the Telegraph Inn had brewed its own, as many 19th century pubs did.

As he expanded, he employed a brewer and progress appears to have been rapid. The Pahiatua Star reported ‘Some years ago Wagstaff was bankrupt: now he is fast paying off his old debts.’ By late 1893 he was putting up a large brick-built extension and had renamed the whole, ‘The North Island Brewery’. One section was large enough to be used as a social hall suitable for all sorts of meetings, dances and band practices.

Things went well for several more years but apparent laxity in his recording the gallonage brewed and sold resulted in his being taken to Court by the Collector of Customs in January 1896. He lost the case and the local policeman, Constable Watty, proceeded to the brewery and seized the plant. Furthermore he was fined £75 for a breach of the Beer Duty Act. For once he was lucky, very lucky. The Governor-in-Council had power to quash the order and though no reasons have been passed down, the order must have been rescinded as by April he was making further extensions to the brewery with a view to selling up. Angelini ventures that it was possible he was forced to sell following the seizure.

The Pahiatua Herald reporting on the sale, commented ‘Few of those who saw a few years ago Mr Wagstaff by his own labour excavating a cellar for a then non-existant (sic) brewery would have believed that in so brief a period of time there would be on the spot such extensive premises that now exist. The brewery is now able to bear comparison with any in New Zealand and the liquor turned out by Mr Wagstaff has earned for itself an excellent reputation.’ Though not mentioned in the article, we learn later he obtained £600 for the business. The purchaser, Mr J. C. R. Isherwood of Palmerston North had apparently been the first violinist of the Wellington Orchestra. His forte however, was not book-keeping and he was insolvent by 1897. It was amusingly said that his three sons preferred using pockets to cash boxes.

The brewery appears to have been lying idle for a while and the circumstances in which Henry regained control are not noted, neither is the precise timing. The Pahiatua Herald reported 13 December 1899 that ‘Work at the old Mangatainoka Brewery is being pushed ahead by Mr H. Wagstaff’s staff’. He hadn’t been inactive during that period either. The DB Central Centennial brochure carries a photo of a label for Genuine Extra Stout brewed and bottled by H. Wagstaff at the Victoria Brewery, Paeroa, a business he established in 1897 and ran until he bought back the North Island Brewery in 1899. Although it may have been a little later, it is to this period that I think we can attribute a very nice photograph supplied by Mrs. Jean Tough, a daughter of W. E. Moult, showing Henry with a pony and trap against a background of the North Island Brewery. He disposed of it finally to a Mr. Henry Cowan in 1903 for an undisclosed sum though W. E. Moult commented ‘Unfortunately he sold out at the wrong time and Mary Wagstaff who kept house for him had many shares which she disposed of for about £1 each. They were worth £40 each a few years later.’⁷³ In case anyone should read that as a slur on my great-grandfather’s business acumen it is worth saying that at about 68 he must have felt it was time to retire properly, while, secondly, there is nothing to show that the increase in value wasn’t down to the natural growth in the business in the years following or in improvements made subsequently by the new proprietor.

The last few years

It is said that the other thing for which he was well known in Pahiatua, his house, was not built until after his retirement.⁷⁴ The writer described it as ‘a large residence in Wakeman Street, (…) of unusual design, known as Seddon Castle.’⁷⁵ It is of some sadness to us that it burnt down 22 May 1991 making the front page of at least one newspaper there under the headline ‘Fire destroys historic landmark’.⁷⁶ When I visited the site in 1997 nothing remained but it was still empty and the next door neighbour to whom I spoke indicated that it was widely thought there was something funny about the blaze with the result that there was a stalemate between the owner and the insurers. One or two photos exist of it but mostly not good enough for reproduction. The best, of which several copies exist including one at the brewery, shows him sitting outside the front with a family group. The brewery have had this incorrectly captioned up until now saying that the group includes his son Francis Henry and his grandson Francis Herbert. The child is very small and it is unlikely in any event that a social trip to the other side of the world would have been taken, in say 1901, with such a small child. When I raised the matter with my mother she was adamant no such visit ever occurred, citing the well known distaste of my grandfather for his father. In any case, if the building of the house was begun after 1903, my father would have been too large for the child in the picture. Thanks to Elaine Trippett’s correspondence with Rita MacLeod new candidates have come forward, more plausible in that they were New Zealand residents. Jean Tough, apparently gave the brewery the photograph and the other figures are said to be William Edwin Moult (1880 - 1968), his wife Grace, née Rogers, and their daughter Muriel (1906 – 1967), the photo being attributed to 1907.⁷⁷

Reading the correspondence from Leo Berry to my father presents problems from time to time as he writes in answer or observation to matters raised by my father. One instance where this is particularly irksome is with regard to Henry’s visit to this country in 1907. He remarked that he had read ‘with interest & surprise of Henry Wagstaff’s visit to this country and to Manchester in 1907. I am glad my mother does not know of it, for he certainly never visited us, sought us out or even told us of his coming to England. He had lost touch with my mother, or she with him, before that date. (…) one’s curiosity is inevitably roused by the incident of this journey to England – and back to New Zealand. It was a big undertaking for a man of 73 and must have been very costly. He may, of course, have done it for pleasure, a desire to see England again before he died; but I know he was not wealthy enough to afford such a voyage for pleasure. As you surmise, business reasons may have made it necessary. If so, they must have been very urgent &, I suppose, such as could only be dealt with by him in person. It was evidently not a desire to see his wife, their son and grandchildren, still less to see my mother and his other grandchildren.’⁷⁸ However, it would seem that despite that an attempt was made to see his family and it makes me wonder what my father had actually written to Leo and what he knew about it. Elaine Trippett recalls being told by her grandmother Kitty, that she had met her grandfather as a very small girl. She would have been about three and a half at the time but she remembered a knock at the door at the house in Leicester which Granny Caroline answered. Kitty, hanging on to her grandmother’s skirts, got a glimpse of a man before the door was slammed in his face and learnt that it was her grandfather who had been turned away. Somewhat more difficult to credit is that she recalled meeting him several times. Elaine is understandably sceptical about the accuracy of her grandmother’s memory over such a long period but the detail of the main incident seems real enough and I remember Kitty telling me how she liked the twinkle in his eye. She also remembered being given a fez as a present.⁷⁹ Barry Jones gives almost exactly the same account referring to visits in the plural and also recounting the gift of the fez.⁸⁰ Joan Taylor also comes up with a story that may well be part of the same extended drama. Gladys, her mother, one day opened the door to a man she was sure was her grandfather and who had asked to see Caroline. When he left some time later Caroline told Gladys he was not her grandfather but gave no other explanation. Gladys however remained convinced that it was and it should be remembered that by this time she was in her mid-teens and may well have seen his likeness at some time or other (which is to say that we don’t know where the portrait photo was kept).

Several things strike one about this. From the reference to Manchester Leo comes to the conclusion he must have stayed with his nephew Daniel which may well be the most likely explanation given the circumstances. What caused my father firstly to give Leo the impression that no arrangements had been made to see his family when two other members make it pretty clear that he did visit? Was it that the visits were unarranged and had taken place when my father was at school and was unaware they had taken place? Why should he surmise that business matters were the prime reason? Were the grocers and tobacconists, despite their having been run by Caroline, still in his name as far as title deeds went and that disposal on her wishing to give them up, she was after all 83, necessitated his signatures? Even so one would have thought Duffield was the place for such business.

It was the same year, 1907, that he made his will dated 8 August, which one would imagine was prior to his undertaking this long and taxing journey. The details are simple enough; he left £300 to his niece Mary, £100 to Henrietta and the residue to Francis Henry. The executors were Edwin Moult and William E. Moult. The solicitors who wound up the estate were Hadfield and Peacock of Wellington who sent my grandfather a money order for £1/1/0 having deducted their costs of £3/5/6 and the 5d cost of the money order from the net estate of £4/6/11! In the same letter Leo Berry said, ‘Your father certainly had a long difficult and thankless task in his association with our grandfather’s estate. Perhaps one should try charitably to assume that Henry Wagstaff believed he was leaving more to his son as residuary legatee than the two bequests contained in the will.’ In an earlier letter⁸¹ Leo had felt it was rather humiliating that their grandfather’s grave had no headstone and felt the administrators in New Zealand had been negligent. My father must have supplied the answer from the papers he had inherited from Francis Henry. It was quite simple, there wasn’t enough in the estate. There was in fact one modest item besides the cash, which was passed down to my grandfather.

Given that he had been virtually bankrupt just over twenty years earlier that he had any assets at all must have been due almost entirely to his success with the brewery. The estate almost certainly comprised property and not much else and of this Seddon Castle would have been far and away the most valuable. We have the newspaper advertisement placed by Peter Tulloch, the Estate Agent, referring to five separate lots, in the sense of plots of land, as this was not an auction. Seddon Castle was of course the first mentioned but the lot that the coachhouse and stable were built on was separate in legal terms, even though they were being sold together. There is nothing to indicate there were any buildings on two of the remaining three, one in Albert Street, one on the corner of Korora and Puketoi Streets, Makuri and one in Mangatainoka with a cottage. The one in Makuri failed to sell and my father finally sold it in late 1960 as executor for his late father, for the sum of £30. Stamp duty and other fees and legal expenses in New Zealand saw £10/6/8 disappear while the Chichester solicitors deducted a further £5/5/0 leaving the princely sum of £14/8/4.⁸² History had effectively repeated itself.

His Nature, Personality and Character

While we may draw what conclusions we wish about his character in terms of his behaviour towards and treatment of his family, there is very little more to be said than has already been said. Francis Henry and Francis Herbert maintained a solid disapproval and in another of those instances where we would like to know what he had said to Leo Berry, my father had clearly passed on a negative report. ‘Firstly let me say that my mother is still alive, although an old lady now. I have not mentioned our correspondence – the subject is a difficult one for her – I am sure that she is & has been as unaware that she had a half brother as your father was of her existence, except perhaps as a name in a will. Circumstances were such that my mother had no contact with her father’s people. Her father would have obvious reasons for seeing that it was so and my mother, too, for not seeking such contact when she grew up & could do so. The little that our grandfather chose to tell my mother is proved to be quite misleading! (…) It would cause her nothing but pain to know of his faults and failings.’⁸³ So, although we don’t have the details we may imagine the general line that had been taken. Henrietta’s affection for her father, which is a counterbalance, has been noted previously as also the supposition that he provided for her until she had completed her education.

Elsewhere in the same long and informative letter Berry pointed out some of the differences between Henry and the rest of the family. They were apparently Conservatives whereas he had voted Liberal. The Poll Books for 1868 – 1869 show that he had exercised his right to vote in three places; the Derby Polling District in respect of property in St. Alkmund’s parish; in the Belper Polling District in respect of his residential qualification at Duffield; and also in the Polling District in respect of a similar qualification at Baslow. This indicates he had done quite well for himself by his mid 30s and one wonders too whether the St. Alkmund’s property might have been The Albert Hotel.

Religious beliefs were also referred to. The family were church people by which I take Leo Berry to mean Church of England. Henry’s religion is apparently given in the cemetery records as Presbyterian. Leo Berry wryly comments ‘Perhaps there was no Presbyterian church there & so it was a safe thing to be!’

We have to turn to W. E. Moult, his great nephew, for a quite different picture. Moult had been born in 1880 and had known Henry from childhood until the end of his life. By 1945 when he was writing it is unlikely there was anyone else alive who could have provided a better sketch. ‘In reference to Henry Wagstaff my impressions of him was the happiest man I ever met, he had what I call Laughing Eyes. A very big man about 20 stone weight and always full of fun. I stayed with him with my wife on one occasion he always went to bed with the birds and got up with them about 4am and everyone around him had to do the same. He would come and stay at our house in Wanganui and took a great delight in getting us boys out on the Verandah and taught us drill of course much to the annoyance of my dad who always slept in till 9am.’ Kitty’s childhood memories, referred to earlier, are very much in line with those of Moult.

I have also to return to the breadth of his experience, which is also to say to some extent, considering he was successful at the majority of his occupations, that their diversity is remarkable and with it, we must assume, his self confidence must have been well nigh boundless. Even without the marital and extra-marital considerations, the contrast between his really rather adventurous life and the solid single career lives of his son, grandson and great-grandson, could not be greater.

He died at Pahiatua 19 October 1911 from hepatitis which he had had for about three months and heart disease which he had had for three years. A further term appears on the Death Certificate, syncope, which is defined as ‘a fainting fit from sudden anaemia of the brain’. He was buried the following day in Pahiatua cemetery where his grave still has no headstone.

Glover’s History of the County of Derby 1829 in a hand written extract by Leo Berry.
Transcript of the Will of Francis Wagstaff (1) dated 26.5.1800 provided by Joan Measham.
LDS 1881 Census transcript.
Letters from Jane James to Leo Berry in the 1940s speak of over 100 acres, hay, corn, green crops and potatoes.
Transcript of the Will of Francis Wagstaff (2) dated 7.3.1817 provided by Joan Measham.
From the Pedigree prepared by Leo Berry.
IGI and LDS 1881 Census transcript. Variations occur from time to time and the 1861 Census gives Aldwark.
1861 Census, though still at the farm in 1851.
Much of this information is taken from the Wagstaff Society Derby Group family tree though amendments have been made to that in the light of material that has recently come to hand. The first date is of baptism not birth in all cases.
Letter from W. E. Moult to Leo Berry 20.9.1945.
LDS 1881 Census transcript when she was with her widowed mother at Bonsall.
IGI Baptism 24.6.1853 Bonsall
Letter from Jane James to Leo Berry 16.10.1941.
There are two very similar entries of Matilda, one in Bonsall and one in Aldwark. The ages differ by a year while the place of birth is Wirksworth in one and Aldwark in the other. I am convinced however they are one and the same person. The Bonsall entry describing her as a Nurse is of course the one we can be sure of though age 52 is a year out. It was presumably completed in her absence it being assumed she was born in Aldwark like the rest of the family. The Aldwark entry, describes her as Visitor as she is staying with her brother Francis (4) and, as she was presumably consulted, her place of birth is correctly given as Wirksworth and for the same reason her age, 53, is also given correctly.
Dates of birth are roughly as follows; Mary 1849, Sarah 1852, Martha 1853, Caroline 1855, Emma 1857. The identity of the father, assuming him to be the same in each instance, was surely known at the time and would be of interest. Martha does not feature in the Census returns and presumably died in infancy. Caroline is missing from 1871. It is now known Caroline married German Land 6.9.1873 at Bonsall. Her 2xgreat grandson, Ian Land, in an e-mail dated 7.5.2006 gives the names of 10 children. An attempt to trace their burials as well as that of their mother, came to nothing, as the Bonsall memorial inscriptions, by all accounts a comprehensive document, contains no reference under any of the Parish Church of St. James, The Baptist Chapel or the Ebenezer Wesleyan Reform Chapel. Letter from Margaret Fellows 16.8.2005. However Caroline Land was buried there in 1929 and two grandsons are still living at Bonsall.
In 1861 he was running the farm on his own the only other resident being a carter, Stephen Booth who may conceivably have been a cousin.
IGI 15.5.1842 Bradbourne. He was at Aldwark at the time of the 1851 Census described quite openly as a grandson of Francis and Elizabeth. I take the Chorlton-on-Medlock connection not only to support Mary as the mother, but also to suggest that McDonald may very likely have been Daniel’s father.
Letter continuation 23.2.1941 from Leo Berry to my father.
W. E. Moult 20.9.1945.
LDS 1881 Census transcript. A letter to Leo Berry, 23.6.1941 from Manchester Public Libraries states that the Manchester Directories for the years 1907-1911 show there was a Daniel Wagstaff of 14 Percival Street, the same address as given by the Census.
Elaine Trippett, e-mail 23.2.2005 confirmed by the 1861 Census.
Elaine Trippett, e-mail 16.2.2005. Her source was Rita MacLeod who lives in Auckland. Emma married John Leatherland and emigrated to NZ, on the Taranaki, in 1879 where she died on 4 May the same year, shortly after the birth of her fourth child. An older daughter, Violetta married a Mr. Benfield, their daughter Gwendolyn being Rita MacLeod’s mother.
The parentage of this daughter has caused a little confusion. W. E. Moult, in the same letter of 1945 already quoted from, mentioned that ‘a sister’ of his dad’s had married a Mr. Leatherland. Once again an illegitimate child is being passed off as the younger sister, in this instance being wrongly ascribed to the father’s side, from which we gather she must have been known as Moult. Heather Sykes in an e-mail dated 12.5.2005 gives what must be the definitive version showing exactly how different opinions were able to be formed. She states that Emma Eliza’s birth certificate gives the date as 17.6.1845, her father being Maurice Lane, a butler. Her marriage certificate gave her father as Frank Wagstaff deceased though both her grandfather and uncle of that name were still alive at the time (1873). It was clearly a ploy to cover the fact that her mother’s surname was Wagstaff. Her death certificate as Emma Eliza Leatherland gives her age as 32 as at 4.5.1879 rather than the 34 it should have been, and her father as Jonas Moult, showing she was indeed known as Moult after her mother’s marriage to Jonas in Manchester Cathedral on 31.10.1847. Heather Sykes’ descent is from their first child John, born 11.12.1847.
The enumerator’s writing is not particularly clear but this would appear to be the word which appears three more times on the same page. Chambers dictionary defines this as ‘heavy spar, barium sulphate’ and was presumably mined or quarried in the locality.
IGI
IGI and 1881 Census transcript which shows a 13 year old son Albert when he worked as a Domestic Gardener. Earlier, in 1861 there were twin boys, John and Francis, aged 2 and a 9 month old daughter, Elizabeth Jane when he was a Porter living in Birmingham. It is likely therefore that there several more children.
IGI place of baptism is Wirksworth while the marriage gives Darley Dale as the place of birth. There is unfortunately no Census transcript to confirm this is the same.
Bob Shipley e-mail 27.4.2006.
IGI
Letter from Joan Measham 25.9.1988. Mrs. Measham was the mother-in-law of a great-grandson of Emma and Thomas.
From the Pedigree prepared by Leo Berry.
I have been much confused by the spelling of this name as there are a good many variants appearing in the IGI. The writing on the marriage certificate is sufficiently cramped to allow of several interpretations including one that fits the 1871 Census entry for her widowed mother, Harriet, still living aged 78 in St. Peter’s, Derby with an unmarried daughter, Louise. I am therefore treating that as standard.
Albert Edward’s baptism is taken from the IGI. However, it looks very much as though he was baptised as he was dying as we know that his birth was registered at Belper during the June quarter of 1864, reference 7G 428, while his death was also registered at Belper, in the June quarter of 1868, the reference being 7G 282. All other details in this and the following paragraph come from the relevant marriage, birth or death certificate.
The same fiction was employed in the 1861 and 1871 Censuses though their ages are quite cavalierly inconsistent. In the former the gap was 6 years with Henry’s age over-stated by about 4 years while in the latter it was incorrectly stated as 33, an increase of just three years over the earlier one! The difference had increased to 7 years.
Because the name Maud Peat is recalled by several members of the family it is worth saying at this point that her status as cousin to my grandfather, Francis Henry, is through the Baggaleys and not the Wagstaffs. Caroline’s elder sister, Emily, born in 1820 married Samuel Eyre 24.6.1845 at St. Alkmund’s, Derby and a daughter, Emily Constance Eyre, baptised 2.4.1850 at Duffield, married Reuben Peat there 14.3.1872. Maud was their younger daughter and was therefore his first cousin once removed though she was only ten years younger.
Ruth Wagstaff during the course of some discussion on the topic after my father’s death.
At St. Luke’s Shireoaks, on the Debryshire border of Notts, on 21 March 1889. Her age is given as 22 and her father as ‘late Thomas Cantrell’. There are no obvious members of the family among the witnesses.
Phone conversation 15.2.2005.
The 1871 Census nearly upset the applecart as neither Emma nor daughter Henrietta could be found under Cantrell. However, all eventually was well as a search of 21 year old Emmas in Derbyshire threw up an Emma Cantret living with her widowed father Thomas in Brimington with a four year old ‘sister’, Henrietta, the places of birth of both conforming to the rest of our information. With the 1881 Census spelling and the IGI baptism agreeing I am assuming the 1871 Census to be an enumerators error.
That this was in fact the case here is pretty certain. By 1891 Samuel Elliott is being described as employed as a Confectionary Salesman. This ties in with Leonie Neil’s recollections of a visit to their Elliott ‘cousins’ who lived in a Georgian house adjacent to their toffee factory in Chesterfield, this by then being the 1940s if not actually the 1950s.
Letter from Leo Berry to my father 20.2.1941.
Letter 13.4.2005. In an earlier letter 7.4.2005, Leonie says one reason for the less frequent contact later was that her mother and grandmother didn’t get on very well together.
19.1.2006.
Letter 8.5.1989 from Joan Taylor.
Letter from Joan Taylor, whose mother Gladys was brought up in the 1890s and early 1900s with Caroline Wagstaff, her grandmother, wrote 8.5.1989 ‘I wonder if Henrietta Berry’s mother was a Miss de Ville, who was one of Henry’s lady loves. According to mother, great gran Caroline always referred to her as ‘Miss Devil’. Despite the unusual surname there is more than one candidate in the 1881 Census. There are a 24 year old organist, Minnie living in Doveridge or two sisters from Chaddesden, Mary aged 35 or her younger sister Eliza, 32. This discounts two married women of the same name.
W. E. Moult to Leo Berry in 1945 in the letter of 20.9.1945.
Letters to Leo Berry 20.9.1937 and 3.3.1938.
In notes accompanying a letter dated 8.4.2005 Joan Taylor states that Ethel married her first husband, William Davis by 1930 and he turned out to be a bad lot and she obtained a legal separation. By 1933 she went to live with Albert Leslie Turner whom she went on to marry c1943/5 after her first husband had died.
The details for this come from an e-mail from Jean Tough 19.6.2005 and a letter from Leonie Neil 16.6.2005. Jean is a daughter of W. E. Moult, one of Henry’s executors.
20.2.1941.
Elaine Bell, e-mail 17.5.2005.
1861 Census.
LDS 1881 Census transcript gives Henry as ‘Grocer’. Joan Taylor shows the continuing nature of the business however in a letter dated 17.2.1989 writing ‘Gt-Granny Wagstaff kept two shops in Duffield. One a tobacconists opposite the (?) Castle Hotel on the main road and one at the bottom of the road where ‘Alvyn Terrace’ was. [This was the terrace built by my grandfather and named after his eldest son who died about 1910. It is worth mentioning too that terrace was actually built around 1890/91, Joan Taylor believing our grandfather had the means to do so via his first wife, Edith Merchant, who was apparently from a quite well-to-do family.] I remember one ancient inhabitant telling me of the smacking he’d received from his mother for turning on the tap of the treacle barrel in grannies shop. The tobacconists went to a niece of Gt-Gran’s named Peat…’ However, the 1881 Census transcript gives his cousin Emily Constance Eyre as a grocer in Duffield making it likely this was a shop quite independent of Henry and Caroline’s though whether the businesses were of Baggaley origin is not known though it is of course a possibility.
Joan Taylor actually wrote 17.2.1989, ‘I seem to remember that Gt. Grandfather W. had a hotel in Derby named ‘The Albert’ which was named, not after the Prince Consort but after his son who had died.’ However, Heather Sykes, e-mail 12 .5.2005, shows there were at least two pubs called the Albert Inn in 1874, one of which is in Albert Street. It is more likely therefore, if Joan Taylor’s story is correct, that Henry’s pub would have been the one in Whitecross Street.
There may indeed have been two separate licensed premises at one time or another. Clearly the horse story tells us one was some distance from home while the 1871 Census shows him living at 3 Morledge Road, Derby to which has been added underneath in brackets ‘Telegraph Inn’. As this was after the death of Albert Edward and had not been renamed it is therefore presumably a different establishment. He was described as Grocer and Publican confirming too that both occupations continued to run concurrently.
Phone conversation 1.3.2005.
Letter continuation 23.2.1941 from Leo Berry to my father.
Letter from Sue McDiarmid 24.6.1991 quoting details from the Wellington Evening Post giving just H and understandably assuming this to be Henry. Sue gave the figure of passengers as 15 and may not have been aware of the F though the passenger list now available in an on-line transcription gives the larger figure of which F is one.
Elaine Bell, Society of Genealogists NZ, e-mail 28.4.2005.
Ibid. Both Elaine Bell, e-mail 17.5.2005 and Heather Sykes trace Frederick Roe Wagstaff to a Worcestershire birth and have noted a younger brother Henry/Harry. Despite Frederick Roe being a patient in an asylum in 1871 these two brothers are the likeliest candidates to have been the Ruapehu passengers.
Heather Sykes, e-mail 14.5.2005, enclosing cutting from a Wanganui paper listing the passengers on the Huia.
The three arrivals were Montrose, 4.3.1883, Closeburn, 18.3.1883, and S S British King, 19.3.1883.
Heather Sykes, e-mail 14.5.2005.
Letter to my father 20.2.1941.
Elaine Bell, Society of Genealogists NZ, e-mail 28.4.2005.
Elaine Bell, e-mail 17.5.2005, gives details of the 1905 and 1911 electoral rolls where Mary is simply described as ‘married’ rather than ‘wife of…’
Letter to Leo Berry from the manager of The Pahiatua Herald 19.12.1929.
Letter 20.9.1945
Letter to Leo Berry 19.10.1928.
Heather Sykes, e-mail 14.5.2005, in which press cuttings sketch the history of the truant inspector experiment for the full duration of its existence.
Mangatainoka Memories by Henry J. Angelini p. 96. This appears to be the source of the material used by the writer of the DB Central Centennial Brochure produced in 1989 of which I have a copy. I am indebted to Sue McDiarmid who provided me with it and also with photocopies of the relevant pages of Mangatainoka Memories. Unless otherwise acknowledged all the information for the following section is from this source pp. 96-98.
I have unfortunately been able to track down the source of this remembered fragment but it fits sufficiently well to be undoubtedly accurate.
Letter to Leo Berry 20.9.1945.
Letter to Leo Berry 19.12.1929
Seddon was, I believe, the first prime minister of New Zealand. Heather Sykes, e-mail 12.5.2005, makes an interesting observation on the choice of name for his house. Henry had of course been a brewer. There was at the time a conflict within the New Zealand political scene between prohibitionists and those of a more tolerant disposition of whom the most prominent was Seddon. There was apparently sufficient local pressure so as to force his hand but he succeeded in introducing the legislation in such a way as to make it virtually unenforceable.
Bush Telegraph 28.5.1991, photocopy supplied by Sue McDiarmid.
Dates taken from Elaine Trippett, e-mail 16.2.2005, with the exception of W.E.M. date of birth which has been amended to that given in family details in his own hand in 1945.
Letter from Leo Berry to my father 20.2.1941.
Elaine Trippett, e-mail 3.4.2005.
Letter 9.4.2005.
Leo Berry to my father 14.11.1940.
Wannop and Falconer’s account 5.1.1961.
Leo Berry to my father 20.2.1941.