The parish of Lamplugh is situated in the old county of Cumberland, England, now the county of Cumbria. The parish has four townships in its midst, Murton, Lamplugh, Kelton and Winder.
The area around Lamplugh was predominantly upland, featuring rolling hills and valleys. The terrain was quite varied, with both gentle slopes and steeper inclines.
It was primarily used for farming. The parish would have been dotted with small farms, fields, and pastures. Agriculture was the mainstay of the local economy, with crops like wheat, barley, and oats being grown, alongside livestock such as sheep and cattle.
The first Lamplugh Branthwaites seem to appear in the Parish Registers with John Branthat 'of Whinney' (sometimes referred to in the parish registers as - Winnow, Whinnow, Whinnah, Whinnay, Whyney) in 1570 and confirms in the registers with later generations that the Branthwaites did in fact live and farm in the parish of Lamplugh.
At Whinnow, according to the Lamplugh Parish Registers, the many generations of the Branthwaite family seemed to have farmed.
The church held many Branthwaite family weddings, christenings and funerals and played a central role in the spiritual and social life of Lamplugh.
Having married Sarah Hoskins who was 11 years his junior in 1797, we find them in the 1839 Tithe Map and Schedule at Whinnow with a blacksmiths shop, garden and a house. It also tells us that a John Branthwaite farmed at Smaithwaite and farmed 'arable meadow' and 'plantation'.1
Life in Lamplugh, Cumberland, at this time was marked by pastoral simplicity and close community ties. Set in rolling hills, the village thrived on agriculture, with residents primarily farming and tending livestock. Stone cottages with thatched roofs dotted narrow lanes, and daily life centered around the seasons and local traditions. Community events like village fairs and church services were vital, weaving a tight-knit social fabric in this self-sufficient village.
One of their 11 children, John married Elizabeth Fletcher in 1829 and that same year Joshua was born. They are listed in the 1841 census as living in the village of Murton. Ten years later in the census the family is listed at Smithy Beck, close to Lamplugh and Kirkland where Joshua was now working as a blacksmith at age 22.
By 1861 John's eldest son Joshua had married Elizabeth Steele and was living nearby at Stoney Wath and helping his wife care for their newborn son, Fletcher. As the years passed they had more children, seven in total. Sadly Elizabeth died when Fletcher was 17 and a few years later the widowers Joshua and Mary Ann Carter were married and Mary Ann brought her daughter Ann to live at Stoney Wath.
Image details 1 & 2: Stony Wath photo from a recent sales marketing campaign
Fletcher lived at Stoney Wath until he was 30 and married Grace Willan. Grace was born in Orton, around 80 kilometres from Fletcher's birthplace of Kinniside. Her parents were Elizabeth Fallowfield Joel, known as Betsy, and Robert Willan who farmed at Beck Head in Crosby Ravensworth.
There were affairs and illicit children in Grace's family history. While they were not uncommon at that time, they were often met with social stigma and legal complications.
Grace's paternal grandfather William Fallowfield Joel was born out of wedlock to Isobel Joel and William Fallowfield. Her maternal grandmother, Ruth Whiteside, had an affair with her brother-in-law which produced a child. Mary Whiteside may have been adopted by her grandparents to allow Ruth to make a match, marrying Mark Willan six years later.
In June 1891 Fletcher and Grace were wed and a year later they welcomed their first son William John. While Fletcher was likely working as a farmer they made the decision to emigrate to New Zealand.
The combination of economic opportunity, government incentives, the appeal of a better quality of life, and the promise of new beginnings made New Zealand an attractive destination at the time.
Fletcher travelled to New Zealand a year ahead of his family. This record may show him having reached Lyttleton from Melbourne aboard the Rotomahana on 12 April 1894.
New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973", , FamilySearch
Fletcher and Grace bought Horseshoe Farm at Tai Tapu. Its name was owing to the shape of the farm. Tai Tapu village is situated on the main access road to Banks Peninsula about 10 minutes south from the outskirts of Christchurch.
The family grew with Grace, Harry, Robert and Thomas born over the next seven years.
According to Beekeeping in New Zealand 'In 1907 Mr Fletcher Branthwaite of Tai Tapu sold his farm and bees to return to England. He took some 10 tons of honey with him. After several years he still had not managed to sell it and ultimately had the remainder sent back to him after he returned to New Zealand. Honey was not considered a readily merchandisable article, even high quality clover honey.'
We also find him mentioned in newspaper coverage of an attempted murder in November 1898.
John Bruns, an elderly man, was charged with attempted murder for shooting William Pascoe in the back on November 6 at Tai Tapu. The incident occurred after ongoing disputes between them. Pascoe, who sought help from nearby Fletcher Branthwaite after being shot, described seeing Bruns with the revolver. Branthwaite reported that Bruns admitted to the shooting and expected severe consequences. Despite a wound found on Pascoe, no bullet was recovered, but Bruns was found with the revolver. He was committed to stand trial at the next Supreme Court sessions, with no bail due to his age.
Fletcher passed away in 1911 at the age of 50 from a 'lingering illness' and left Grace a widow.
The eldest boy, John William, enlisted in the First World War in 1916 and was shipped out in 1918 after a local event in which he was given an inscribed gold medal as a gift from the residents of the district. John William arrived home safely after the war.
In 1921 Grace's son Harry, working as a land agent, brokered a deal whereby Grace received £80 per acre for Horseshoe Farm from Sir R Heaton Rhodes. The land was subsequently donated back to the Tai Tapu district as a gift and turned into Rhodes Park. It is used by various sports clubs and also has a memorial gate that features John's name on a plaque.
He met Eva May Young in Hawera and they married on a Tuesday at the Hawera Methodist Church in June 1923.
The Youngs were originally from Cambridgeshire in the south of England where Eva’s paternal grandparents, Nathan and Susan Cox, met and married. They were wed in 1848 at St Andrews the Great Church in Cambridge. It had only just been rebuilt a few years before to meet the needs of a growing congregation.
That same year they emigrated to Australia. They began their family and spent around 10 years on the diggings in Victoria.
Growing up on the goldfields may not have been much fun. Schools were set up in a large tent for diggers’ children, but many did not attend regularly because it was too expensive for their parents to send them.
There were often a lot of responsibilities and pressures on children on the diggings; children’s chores commonly included looking after younger siblings, gathering firewood, getting water from the creek, washing clothes, cooking, taking care of horses and even searching for gold. 2
Gabriel Read, a prospector, gained fame and fortune when he found gold near the Tuapeka River, a tributary of the Clutha River in Otago.
Great reports were received in Australia. Nathan Charles, Eva’s father, was born just before the family left Australia in 1861 and they arrived in Dunedin in 1862.
Taken in 1862, the year after Gabriel Read discovered gold, this photograph shows a moonscape of pitted earth. Miners dug down to 4 metres and raised up the gold-bearing gravels using devices called whips – a counterbalanced mānuka pole with a bucket on the end. The miners’ calico tents hug the sides of the hill away from the claims. It was Read’s discovery that led to the great Otago gold rushes of the 1860s.
They were on the Otago goldfields with a family of nine children, the eldest was Joseph. The Otago gold rush peaked in the mid-1860s, after which miners left in large numbers for the new West Coast goldfields. The Youngs stayed in Otago.
In 1868 Nathan and his son, Joseph, were out duck hunting with two others, McKenzie and Sperry. Here is the story of what happened in Joseph's words:
"We had a double barrelled gun and a single-barrelled gun. We had been out from ten-o-clock, and when it was getting dusk we came to some lagoons near the All-day Creek, and between the Creek and the sea beach. I was carrying the single barrelled gun, and Sperry was carrying the four ducks that I had shot in the earlier part of the day, and some Maori hens.I proposed to Sperry to give him a spell, and he took my single-barrelled gun and gave me the birds to carry. We all then went to a lagoon and expecting to find some ducks there we went on our hands and knees - my father went first, with the double barreled gun, Sperry close behind. McKenzie and myself were about thirty to forty yards behind, talking together.In about five or ten minutes after my father and Sperry had gone on I heard a report and immediately after my father cried out. "Oh my God Tom, you've shot me! My God I'm shot! My God I'm shot! Joe! Joe!"
I instantly ran up and saw my father run like in a half circle, and Sperry got up from his hands and knees and ran toward my father and we reached him just in time to catch him in our arms as he was falling. He never said another word and died in about 10 minutes."
At the age of 14 Nathan Charles moved to Whanganui to seek opportunities, he also spent time in Patea. He met Eliza Matilda Collingwood in Whanganui where they married on 13 June 1885.
The Collingwoods were from England originally and Eva’s maternal grandparents emigrated to NZ in about 1880. William was born in Cheshire, while Eliza (senior) was born in Durham.
The family came to New Zealand from England around 1880. This photograph was taken before this time when they were still in England.
William and Eliza (senior) had five children and it is noted in William’s obituary that he devoted considerable time to the cause of temperance and often gave lectures to the “working-man” in England.
The temperance movement in the UK had been growing since the early 19th century, largely as a response to the perceived social and health issues caused by alcohol consumption. By the 1870s, it was becoming a major social movement with the goal of reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption.
In 1880 Eva’s mother, Eliza Matilda, was 15 years old when the family traveled to New Zealand and then from Wellington to Whanganui in a cabin on the coastal steamer Rangatira.3
William and Eliza (senior) settled in Whanganui where they lived for 25 years. The Manawatu Standard reports him as being a well known and respected citizen of the town. His son, W H Collingwood became Town Clerk in Palmerston North in 1907.
Below is W H Collingwood’s residence on Church Street. W H Collingwood was Town Clerk of the Palmerston North Borough Council. On the same section at left is the house built by W.H. Collingwood for his parents. This was later moved around the corner to Victoria Avenue near Ferguson Street.
His wife Eliza, lived to be 97. Both Eva’s grandparents are buried at Terrace End Cemetery in Palmerston North.
Back in 1893 we find Eva’s parents, Nathan and Eliza Matilda Young living in Manaia, a rural town in South Taranaki District, where Eva was born and her father, Nathan, was a butcher.
Nathan was a keen pig hunter and fisherman and was described by a friend in a tribute at his passing as:
"a man of sterling nature, quiet and ever ready to lend a helping hand to one in need. As a pig hunter he had few equals, and many a time he has started out at 3 'o' clock in the morning to hunt all day and not return till dark, nearly as fit as when he started. Wherever he was known, he was liked."
In 1915 Nathan suffered an accident that made it impossible for him to continue working and he was an invalid for the remaining 12 years of his life. As a widow, Eliza Matilda went to live with her daughter Eva in 1927.
The 1925 census lists Bob and Eva living at Ararata Road in Hawera with Bob working as a sharemilker. Bob was possibly sharemilking in Tawhiti Road.
Eva had just had her first child, Nancy, on the 31st of January. Two more children were born in Hawera, Murray Nathan in 1928 and Clifford in 1933, before they bought their own farm in Howden’s Road in Whatawhata. They moved to the Waikato in 1933 and were farewelled with a party and gifts.
In Whatawhata they made friends with neighbours and are mentioned in local newspaper articles detailing a number of nice social events in the area. Eva performed musical items, being a talented singer, such as mentioned in this article from the Waikato Times in 1934.
Their final child, Joan, was born in Hamilton in 1934. In an interview with her grandaughter in 2016 Nancy described the house in Whatawhata as follows:
My mother could cook beautiful food in it. And the walls were wallpapered but only up to a certain height and then it was all matchlining. That was the kitchen. That’s about all I can tell you. The tubs were made of kauri and we had a wringer and a copper and the clothes were boiled in the copper. Then my father built a rotary clothesline. It was a thing to behold in the backyard because it was made of wood timber. But it went round. Then he built a bach, if you like, out the back for the two boys. They had to sleep out there, Murray and Clifford. Joan and I shared the other bedroom.”
As she got a little older, Nancy began to work in a bookshop and tried to lend a hand on the farm when she could.
Here’s an example from the Whanganui Chronicle of the kind of ad Nancy might have responded to.
Bob remarried and he continued to live in St Paul’s Road with Rose and his son Clifford until his death in 1975 at the age of 76. His grandchildren remember visiting him in Hamilton where he had woodworking tools set up in the garage and would give the kids sweets - though there were occasions he split one lolly between multiple children!
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1 https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~branthwaite/genealogy/julie.htm
2 https://www.sbs.com.au/gold/daily-life-on-the-diggings/
3 Past Papers New Zealand Times 6 May 1880 Page 2