A Passionate Conviction

‘Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops” Kate Sheppard

The phrase
The ‘Whakatū Wāhine’ phrase represents women — and all people — standing for the rights of women. It was central to the Suffrage Centenary celebrations in 1993 and remains relevant today as we continue to take a stand for gender equality.
The symbol
The Suffrage 125 symbol draws on historical colours and icons adopted by women’s suffrage petitioners and presents them in a contemporary form. Violet represented dignity and self-respect and the white camellia was worn by people supporting women’s right to vote in New Zealand. The ‘125’ contains a koru as a link to our distinct New Zealand culture.

This week on the 19 September 2018 marks a special occasion in New Zealand and World history: it will be 125 years since Women’s Suffrage was granted. This was to change the face of politics in New Zealand, and paved the way for further emancipation around the world.

In honour of the three women from our family: Dinah Hansen, Rachel Lawn and Ida Hart who were signatories on the Suffrage Petition I have submitted short biographies on-line that can be viewed here:

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/suffragist/d-hansen
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/suffragist/i-l-hart
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/suffragist/r-c-lawn

To see if any of your family signed the petition, search here.

Dinah Hansen née Nathan, wearing her Temperance white ribbon c1892 (courtesy P. Caignou)

Rachel Lawn née Hart  c. 1902 (courtesy Owen Lawn)

Ida Lillian Hart née Ball, c. 1910 (courtesy Grace Hanley)

Viewing women’s signatures on the long scrolls what stands out is the wide variety of handwriting: some neat and with a flourish, others scrawl and stab at the paper, leaving ink blotches. Most are written in black ink, some blue and even a few are in red ink. The signatories include Dinah Hansen, who was the second woman to sign the first Greymouth sheet 246 (WCTU president F. Brooke was the first), Dinah’s daughter-in-law Ida Hart later signed the same sheet in Greymouth, and Rachel Lawn signed sheet number 251 along with her friends at the little Methodist Church at Black’s Point, just out of Reefton. Interestingly, Sarah Lawn, who was also involved in the Methodist Church for many years and the WCTU almost certainly supported the cause did not sign the petition.

Progressive, or another agenda?

It is interesting to study the political and social background to this momentous event. Although on the face of it New Zealand could be seen as progressive, the motivation behind granting the Women’s Franchise was because of the unique nature of New Zealand politics at the time. Traditionally political power had been held in the hands of the wealthy few – in order to vote, you had to be white, male, upper-class landowners. The balance of power was threatened by universal male suffrage; there was concern from the traditional, conservative men that their influence would be weakened by having a large number of ‘uneducated’ working-class men casting votes. Despite being the vast majority of voters in New Zealand, men who laboured in farming, fishing, freezing works, railways, factories and mines were seen as a threat to the established order.

Personal and political

Women like Dinah Hansen who had struggled when her husband had left her virtually destitute with a young family, and who had fought to gain and hold onto her little piece of land in Greymouth, also wanted greater economic independence; to be recognised as equal in marriage and their opinions valued and heard in political life. For Dinah, behind the motivation for change in society was a personal reason: the abhorrence of hard drink. Family anecdote suggests that this had something to do with Nathaniel Hart and perhaps his disappearance in Australia. Whether this was just because he got into trouble in their early days in Christchurch by selling alcohol to the gold diggers, or whether he himself liked to drink and it affected the family, is unknown. By the time of the late 1880s it was clear that Dinah and her family, now deeply involved with the Methodist faith, decided to seek a temperate lifestyle and even to push for prohibition.

Bills for Women’s Franchise were introduced to the New Zealand Parliament in 1880 and 1881. A major vehicle for change was spear-headed in New Zealand by the Womens Christian Temperance Union, a movement that had begun in America but soon spread in popularity. By the beginning of 1886 there were 15 branches of the WCTU in New Zealand. Their first convention, held later that year, decided that they would work for women’s suffrage. In 1887 Kate Sheppard, of Christchurch was appointed the national WCTU superintendent for franchise and legislation. Under her steerage the Union worked with intense determination to achieve their goal. By May 1892 Greymouth had formed its own chapter of the WCTU with members pledging to work for “For God, for home and humanity” and Dinah Hansen was the first secretary.

 A meeting of the newly organised Women’s Christian Temperance Union was held in the Town Hall, Gresson street, on Wednesday afternoon, 18th inst. There were present 17 members, all of whom signed the Women’s Christian Temperance pledge. After the minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed, the election of officers took place, with the following result Mrs Brooke, president, Mrs Calders, vice-president Mrs Hansen, secretary pro term Mrs Whall treasurer pro term. Communications were read from the Town Clerk re using the Town Hall for the meetings, and from the secretary of the WCTU Christchurch, giving all information for carrying on the work. The meetings will be held on alternate Wednesday afternoons, when all who are interested in the work will be heartily welcome.∗

The first two petitions for franchise of 350 signatures were presented in 1887 and the Jewish parliamentarian Julius Vogel introduced a Woman’s Suffrage Bill which was withdrawn at committee stage. In May 1888 the WCTU stepped up their campaign, ensuring that every parliamentarian understood their reasoning by sending each member of the house of representatives a leaflet Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote, which outlined how women were discriminated and why women deserved full suffrage.

In 1890 long serving Conservative MP Sir John Hall introduced another Women’s Franchise Bill which failed on a technicality. An amendment also failed as supporters were not present when the vote was cast. The following year 9000 women’s signatures on eight separate petitions were not enough to sway Parliament despite the premier John Ballance giving his support. The parliamentarians arguing against Franchise were supporting the lucrative liquor lobby. It was to be a few more years before this battle was won, yet the women and men of New Zealand were not about to give up the fight for their moral and political revolution. It was no longer if, but when.

Winning the Vote

Roused by 600 members of WCTU around New Zealand, women gathered in churches, schools and halls to sign the petitions: in 1892 over 19,000 women contributed to six petitions and then in 1893 thirteen petitions signed by 32,000 women were presented at parliament.

The campaigners had little time to celebrate: their next task was to ensure women were enrolled in the next two months when the rolls closed before the New Zealand general election scheduled for Tuesday 28 November. By Election Day there were 84 percent of the eligible women registered, of those two out of three women voted.[2] The Liberals won nearly 58 percent of the vote and Richard Seddon became Prime Minister for the next 13 years.

Many of the parliamentarians who had voted for women’s suffrage were not entirely altruistic. Hall, a long time support of Women’s Suffrage and a conservative politician, thought women would be conservative voters. Some also believed that women would vote according to the wishes of their husbands and fathers.

So often the stories recorded are of men and their accomplishments. These three suffragists deserve to shine as well. Once they had won the right to vote, they did not sit back, but continued to forge what they thought would be a better society, by following their beliefs with a passionate conviction.

Dinah Hansen (front row, seventh from left in dark dress and hands folded in her lap) and her daughter Rachel Lawn (behind Dinah’s left shoulder, wearing a large white hat tilted forward) in Greymouth, 1906, alongside Kate Sheppard  (large white collar, no hat) and others.  Auckland Weekly News. Image: AWNS-19060412-10-7  Used with permission. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.

For further background on the work Dinah and her daughters contributed to the Methodist Church, WCTU and Women’s Suffrage see Chapter 13 – Fighting the Good Fight in my book To Live a Long and Prosperous Life.

∗ Grey River Argus, 20 May 1892 

[2] Aitkinson, N. (2012).‘Voting rights – Votes for women’, Te Ara

 

Following in their footsteps – part 2

A day trip to Canterbury-Dover

We finished our four-week trip of Europe and UK with a few days in London, arriving by train from Cheltenham on a Saturday afternoon. Very early the next morning, before the sun was up, we caught a big red double-decker bus from our lodgings in Paddington to Victoria station, and from there caught another bus to Canterbury, Kent. Travelling by bus was the only way to do this trip in a day – trains all seemed to be geared to travelling through to Europe and were very expensive. I was a bit apprehensive of catching a bus in London in the dark but each stop was announced along the way and we managed to get off in the right place! We then had a ten-minute walk to get to Victoria Station.

Waiting for a bus in the dark in Praed Road, Paddington

Victoria Station is the terminus for buses that travel out of London

A glimpse of London suburbs as the sun rose – it took best part of an hour to get out of greater London: even on a Sunday morning there was a lot of traffic

Flying southwards along the busy motorway through rolling, wooded Kent farmland down to the coast was altogether another experience: previously on our trip we had travelled by plane, train and car. The plus was that we sat high up and could see the countryside, the negative was that the tinted windows of the bus made it nearly impossible to take photographs of the scenery.

We arrived in Canterbury just after 9 am. Here we were met by a lovely local Gilley who was to let us into the locked Jewish Cemetery. First we walked up the High Street:

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The Jews Burial Ground

The cemetery is rather hard to find, located behind high brick walls and some shops on Whitstable Road. you have to go down what seems to be a private drive between the shops and a house to find the gate.

Here we visited the graves of Dinah’s parent’s grandparents and her brothers, sister and brother-in-law: Frances and her husband Mordecai Nathan (both died 1841), Barnett (d 1866) and Julia Nathan (d 1886), Solomon Nathan (d 1841) Joseph Nathan (d 1856), Benjamin Nathan (d 1848), Fanny (d 1878) and Joel Abrahams (d 1867). There are other unmarked Nathan’s here too: Dinah’s brother Solomon had at least two children buried here; Henry (1837-1838) and his un-named baby daughter. Four of the interments were brought to be buried from afar: Solomon Lyon and his son Henry both brought from France, Benjamin from Portsea and Joseph from Exeter. There may well be other family here too, as the sources I consulted (Webster, Cemetery Scribes) have only listed those associated with Dover and legible headstones. The Nathan family who had ties to Dover for nearly 100 years has now got descendants scattered across the globe.

As well as the familiar headstones, I was also able to identify that of Joseph Nathan, the brother closest to Dinah in age. Joseph had died aged just 25 a few weeks after Dinah and Nathaniel married. Joseph’s stone was made of sandstone and has badly deteriorated so the wording is all but obliterated, however I was able to make out the first name ‘Joseph’. His stone was next to his grandparents and brother Solomon on one side and his parents on the next. In fact all of the Nathan family graves that are identified occupy a single row, along with one or two other burials, towards the back of the cemetery.

Joseph Nathan 1831-1856. Hebrew on this stone followed by English is all but indecipherable. The headstone is recorded by Martyn Webster (1996). Webster refers to inscription records made in 1973 for the Jewish Historical Society in which this stone (M4) is: “NATHAN Joseph youngest son of Barnett age 24”.

‘JOSEPH . . . ‘ is just visible, here I wet the stone to try to get a bit more contrast.

I had first come across images of the Nathan family headstones (except Joseph Nathan’s) on Cemetery Scribes. In my research I also came across Tina Machindo’s site Historic Canterbury. Tina has several pages about the jewish community in Kent, including the one about the cemetery and the synagogue.  Tina kindly allowed me to use her photographs of Nathan family tombstones in To live a Long and Prosperous Life.

In correspondence with Tina I discovered that she had in her collection a letter written to a Nathan descendant: Kitty Glassman (nee Barnard) about the up-keep of the cemetery. Kitty was the grand-daughter of Dinah’s sister Kate and her husband David Barnard. It was Kitty’s parent’s B.I. and Abby Barnard who had been the last of the Nathan descendants to be in business in Dover. Tina kindly sent me a copy of this letter, the transcript can be seen on her website here.

It was incredibly moving to be in this place where so many of my forebears lie together. With finally seeing these headstones came the realisation that somehow a circle had now been completed – from when Dinah left England in 1864, as her great, great, great-granddaughter I was finally able to pay respects at the grave of her parents, which she was never able to visit herself, although she had undoubtedly stood here at the graves of her grandparents and siblings. I felt the ache of loss and grief and how difficult it must have been to be so far away from family in times of loss and felt tears well for Dinah.

At the end of my book I wrote of visiting Dinah’s grave in 2013 –

I had remembered to bring a stone—white quartz—and tucked it onto the ledge of what remained of her headstone. A sliver of white marble from the headstone lay there. I put it in my pocket. I found it there later when I absently slipped my hand inside: thin, white, crystalline and slightly dished like a shell. Limestone turns to marble under pressure.

I had kept this small fragment from Dinah’s gravestone in Greymouth, New Zealand since that visit in 2013. It sat above my computer for four years while I researched and wrote Dinah’s story. Now it had travelled with me on our journey across the world. It is the Jewish custom not to lay flowers at a grave, but instead to place a small stone in remembrance and to acknowledge your visit. I placed the fragment on Dinah’s parent’s gravestone. I also brought small white quartz pebbles for the other graves, carefully tucked away in our luggage and left them there too. A silent message: you are not forgotten.

Dinah’s gravestone fragment rests on her parents headstone.

Exploring Canterbury

After visiting the cemetery we went and found Hawks Lane, where Barnett and Julia Nathan were living at the time of Barnett’s death. Nearby is Jewry Lane, which is where (surprise) the Jewish community was situated before their expulsion from England by Edward I. Unfortunately the area where Julia was living when she died; Riding Gate (part of the city wall), has been redeveloped and lost to expanded roadway.

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We also found the building where the Abrahams had their Glass and China shop, rebuilt after the devastating fire in 1865. (p116) The stone building on the corner of Mercury Lane survived, but the ancient half-timber medieval hostel (featured in Chaucer’s Tales) in which Abrahams shop was situated was engulfed along with most of the block. The re-built part is white-fronted block to left of the corner building.

corner Mercury Lane and High Street

We also searched and found the remaining building of the Canterbury Hebrew Synagogue, now used by Kings School as a recital room.

Former Canterbury Synagogue, now part of a school

Canterbury was lovely and I really wished we could have looked at the cathedral, however as it was a Sunday there were limited entry times. The Cathedral is walled and you pay to get into the precincts, so you can’t even just wander around outside. We got small glimpses from various narrow and winding streets but it is quite different from the cathedrals and abbeys we saw in the Cotswolds which seem to have more green space around them.

Gate to Canterbury Cathedral Precinct. Being a Sunday morning, you were only allowed in if you were going to attend the service.

The High Street in Canterbury is paved as a pedestrian precinct, and was delightful to explore, although there are many shops aimed at the ever-present tourists. To the east of the High street lay the Cathedral precinct and a warren of tiny streets and lanes, yet to the west we suddenly found ourselves in a modern shopping precinct, complete with chain stores and food courts, giving a weird sense that we had just time-travelled between two or more centuries.

A view of the Cathedral tower

next: our visit to Dover

Following in their footsteps – part 1

In October 2016 my husband Steve and I spent just four short weeks in Europe and UK. I was determined to visit a few of the places my forebears had come from and that I had researched and written about. Over the next few posts I will bring you some of my experiences ‘abroad’ (as Paddington Bear might say).

Amsterdam

The first place we came to with family connections was Amsterdam. It was here about 1737 that Dinah Nathan’s grandmother Frances was born. Frances was living with her son, Dinah’s father, Barnett Nathan in Dover in 1841 when she died, at the incredible age of 104, so Dinah probably remember this little old lady.

Amsterdam in 1737 was a thriving port and as incredible as it may seem to an antipodean who lives in a country where buildings over 150 years are considered VERY old, many buildings from this era, and much earlier, survive today just as they did then, lining the canals spanned by pretty bridges.

 

Flowers on the bridge just by the Rijks Museum

While in Amsterdam we visited Rembrandt’s House in the Jewish quarter, or Jodenbuurt. Rembrandt lived there between 1639 and 1656, a hundred years before Frances was born, but it was a peculiar feeling that she might have walked past this place. Stepping inside was like walking into a painting and for me a highlight of our trip. It is entirely feasible that Frances lived in a similar house not far from here. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside, so make sure you check out the link to these 360º photos here.

Rembrandt’s House in the Jewish Quarter, Amsterdam (and a bicycle)

At the door of Rembrandt’s house

 Rembrandt was to paint (and etch) several pictures of his Jewish neighbours. This beautiful painting, known as The Jewish Bride we saw in the Rijks museum:

‘The Jewish Bride’ in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, painted around 1667

After Paris, Amsterdam was clean, pretty and safe. I felt very much ‘at home’ and that I could happily live there. The reality is that most of the people who work there commute as it is really hard to find somewhere to live, even the houseboats on the canals are very expensive. I hope one day to return and spend a bit more time exploring this old and vibrant city, as our stay there was for just a few days and I was still finding ‘being a tourist’ exhausting with my broken arm.

Coming in my next post: our explorations of Canterbury, Kent.

A mother’s private grief

Writing about my maternal line always brought into focus how different the lives of women in the 19th century were from mine today: so many advances in technology, medicine and science, and politics have meant that sacrifices and losses of our forebears are almost forgotten, until we come to examine their lives closely, and try to imagine what it must have been like to live then – corsets and crinolines hampering our steps, laws that denied us a voice in the world, and the general precarious nature of life without antibiotics.

In writing my family history I decided to use have my 3 x great grandmother Dinah Nathan as the central individual in which to build my multi-layered family story. I drew on my university studies of History and Women’s studies as inspiration: I am only too aware that women did not always feature in official accounts history. But as the family matriarch, Dinah was the one person that ensured her family survived and grew and prospered in New Zealand, and I believe she was looked upon with respect in her community of the West Coast of New Zealand – if not with a little fear. I once was relayed a story that a young girl growing up in Greymouth (when Dinah was still a force to be reckoned with in the community) was admonished by her parents for not applying herself to her school work – the alternative (oh horror!) was to be sent off to work for Mrs Hansen!

Dinah Hansen (nee Nathan, formerly Hart) in 1915

Image: (cropped) pg 339 P. Caigou

But before Dinah became a formidible matron, straight-laced and no-nonsense, she was a young wife and mother, with youthful passions and emotions. She learned, like many of her Victorian counterparts, the hard way, that grief was a private and personal thing, to be held close to one’s heart.

In my initial research for my family history To live a Long and Prosperous Life, I was shocked to discover that Dinah had lost a child when living in Christchurch in 1867 – a ‘forgotten’ child, born and died [just over 1 year old] while Dinah and her children were left behind while her husband Nathaniel Hart went first to the West Coast with the gold rush, and then to Melbourne ‘to seek better prospects’.

I wrote with an ache of sadness for Dinah’s predicament:

Little Barnett Hart succumbed on March 13 1867 to that most common killer of Victorian children; diarrhea. The water quality in Christchurch was poor and raw milk easily spoilt. A newly weaned child was particularly vulnerable, no longer enjoying the benefit of mother’s milk. [p 165] . . . 

. . .  It seems especially sad that memory of this little boy was suppressed, probably because of the intense grief that Dinah suffered. Discovering his short existence through birth and death records late one night brought tears to my eyes, and I wept for Dinah and her grief that had remained so private all these years. [p166]

A genealogist’s work is never done, and so it was that when I learned in early 2017 that it was possible to search UK birth records at the GRO using the mother’s maiden name and death records are now shown with the individual’s age, I decided to check for any new information and was immediately confronted with a HART birth for Pymouth, Devon. A quick look at the deaths for the same year – 1859 – gave me that sick, sad feeling again. Here was another child of Dinah and Nathaniel Hart – born between their eldest child, Sarah in 1857 and their next daughter Rachel in 1860.

Joseph Eleazer Hart, birth record 14 April 1859

GRO ref: J Quarter in PLYMOUTH  Volume 05B  Page 247

Joseph Eleazer Hart, death record, 9 June 1859 age seven weeks.

GRO ref: J Quarter in PLYMOUTH  Volume 05B  Page 183

Immediately I saw the little boy’s name I realised the answer to my puzzle why Nathaniel’s father, Eleazer Hart, who had died in 1857 was not ‘remembered’ as was the common Jewish naming practise when their son Benjamin was born – the answer was of course because he already had been remembered – along with, most probably, Dinah’s brother Joseph Nathan who had died aged 25 just four weeks after Dinah and Nathaniel had wed in 1856.

So here was another ‘forgotten’ baby, another son – their first son, who did not survive.

Little Joseph Eleazer died of the same common illness that was to end his brother’s life ten years later in New Zealand.  Returning to my records, I realised that this birth and death occured for Dinah and Nathaniel in a year of turmoil, with Nathaniel being brought before the local magistrate in Reading, in January 1859 charged with footpath obstruction. His resulting conviction, along with the feeling that somehow he was singled out as a scapegoat, almost certainly precipitated their move to Plymouth to start afresh [p98]. Add to this that now, from the birth registration, we know that Dinah was pregnant at the time of Nathaniel’s being in court, and that they moved south not long after that in time for Joseph to arrive in June.

This sad little episode in Dinah and Nathaniel’s life was the first personal tragedy of their marriage, and a lesson in the perils and pain of motherhood for young Dinah, still in her early twenties. A few months later, Dinah was pregnant again, with her second daughter, Rachel, my great, great grandmother. Little ‘Rachel Lizzie’ appeared with her family on the 1861 UK census and the little baby who lived just seven weeks seems to have been quietly ‘forgotten’ for 158 years.

[ Ref: Pintrest]

I suspect that there are now many family historians looking with astonishment at these previously unknown family members – some not even named – and realising that their forebears carried always with them a particular, private grief, one that thankfully, most mothers in the 21st century will never know.

Pro patria mori*

*  second line from the phrase beginning  Dulce Et Decorum Est -Wilfred Owen’s gas poem.

September 15 2016 marks the 100 year anniversary of the Somme Offensive. This post details the involvement of  just one of Dinah’s grandsons and grand nephews who served in the Great War. What must it have been like as a grandmother and mother to see these young men go off to war, to feel the grief and worry of your daughters as they farewelled their boys? This is the story of one who never returned.

Benjamin on his mother Rachel’s lap in 1897 (part of a group photograph that included Sarah’s family, the older boy is  Ernest Lawn, son of Sarah and Thomas)

Ben from a group photo taken c1905

Ben and brother James at Blacks Point school

At Dinah and Sim McIvor’s marriage in 1912

Ben at brother Herbert Lawn’s wedding, 1915

Private Benjamin Webster Lawn

2418, 5ft 4½, 8st (64 kg), with ‘clear complexion, light blue eyes’ and ‘black hair’ signed up at Reefton on the fifth of February 1916; passed fit on the sixth February, sailed from Greymouth on the ninth and two days later he was in Trentham where he attested on 11 February 1916.

Ben Lawn was the second youngest son of James and Rachel. He had grown up in Black’s Point, with the sound of the great stamper battery ringing in his ears, a tease of his older sister Dinah and playmate of younger brother Jim. The three youngest children of James and Rachel played together, and went to school together. With dark curly hair Ben had the look of his mother Rachel, and he had grown tall as he reached his teens. Leaving school he headed to the inevitable job at the stamper as battery hand, working for the Consolidated Gold Mining Company. He kept fit like his brothers playing rugby and even joined his friends one Easter weekend cycling the Buller Gorge to Westport on his brother Charles’ bike.

Ben’s army record suggests he had high spirits in training, with two misdemeanours recorded, over staying leave: forfeit three days’ pay and bringing liquor into camp. The last meant he forfeited any leave and remained confined to camp before embarkation on Troopship No.35 Willochra which left Wellington on 21 May 1916.

James and Rachel Lawn family about April 1916

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Two months and six days later they arrived in Devonport, on 26 of July 1916, and two days after that he marched into Sling camp where he was attached to the British Expeditionary Force – France, 1st Infantry Battalion 2nd Company of the Canterbury Regiment. After a short, sharp, shock of drills and exercises, the young men who had arrived in high spirits had been transformed to a disciplined and focused unit, ready to face the enemy. One month after arriving in England on 28 August they were hardened up enough to be on their way to the front in France. The following day they arrived at the NZEF Depot at Etaples, near Calais where Ben joined the 1st Battalion Canterbury Regiment and was posted to the new 13th Company on 8 September.

The company went into the Somme, where the offensive had begun on 1 July. The British and Allies were trying to retake an area that the Germans had occupied for some time. What was once rolling farmland, woods, quarries and cellars in farms and villages disguised machine gun posts, and the ground was heavily entrenched. The Germans were in strong fortified bunkers, some double storied underground and trenches protected by vast beds of barbed wire some 40 yards (metres) deep. Bare ground was frequently mined, prolonged gun and artillery fire had blasted trees and shredded vegetation, pockmarked the fields and buildings had become an alien landscape. Air reconnaissance was used to see the enemy trench systems and to plan attacks, with various trenches and posts named as ‘alleys’, ‘lanes’ and also local roads, buildings and rivers in a confusing tangle of battleground that is hard to comprehend from the official written account: even the maps appear confusing to the novice. At points in the melee men frequently lost track of their battalion and with reinforcements and regrouping it was not until much later that they would find men were ‘missing’.

On the first day of battle in July over 60,000 British troops were killed or wounded. The offensive continued over the next two months, with little ground taken. The third ‘big push’ began on 15 September, in which the British used tanks for the first time. The rain began on the second day. On 25 and 27 September the third phase was begun with the New Zealand Division involved in attacks at Morval and Thiepval Ridge.

The official account of the Canterbury Battalion details how Ben’s regiment prepared for the attack near Longueval. At about 8 pm three companies of the 2nd Canterbury Battalion who had been detailed to be sent into battle emerged from their trenches and lined up on the road. Half an hour later they began to advance, silently creeping up until they were finally seen, 50 yards from the enemy line. Under rifle and machine-gun fire the troops rushed the German trench Goose Alley and captured it.

The mission was reasonably successful and they captured prisoners and machine guns, yet a few hours later the enemy made a ‘determined counter attack’ and the Allies were pushed back, only to then surge forward again. Such was the nature of battle in the Somme—forward and back, rush forward with bayonets, lose a trench, scramble and snare in acres of barbed wire, gain another trench. Exhausted, the company was relieved from the front line, but they were not given much rest, instead they were detailed to try and repairthe roads around Thistle Dump.

The ‘weather was wet’ was an understatement. The rain poured and the chalk ground was rotten: churned, muddy and waterlogged. Trenches were deep in water, uniforms and boots were wet through. After several days at this difficult task, on the night of 24-25 September the Brigade relieved the 3rd (Rifle) Brigade in the front line, with orders to take part in the Fourth Army’s attack the following day. This took place just after midday, and met slight opposition, and a few casualties. The line was moving forward, and the next forward push was about to be made.

For once, the rain had stopped, and as one account described, the weather was glorious, and was excellent for aviation work. First the artillery bombarded the enemy, and then a creeping barrage, with artillery fire moving forward in increments and the troops followed behind—although sometimes the troops were too enthusiastic, got too far ahead or the creeping barrage was off range and men were killed by ‘friendly fire’. The men were ordered over the top at 2.15 pm on 27 September. It was overcast and rainy: the fine weather had not lasted. The 1st Canterbury Battalion advanced behind the barrage, with the 12th and 13th (Ben’s Company) in that first wave. The official account concludes the description of this offensive:
The attacking company was held up for a short while by bombers and machine-guns; but the latter were silenced by our Lewis gunners, and all the objectives of the battalion were captured by 2.38 pm, with slight casualties.

Ben was killed in action on 27 September 1916, probably going ‘over the top’. He was aged 20 years, one of the ‘slight’ casualties. The Allies had advanced one mile on their last position. Behind them lay 50 square miles (130km2) of devastated land. By the end of the offensive the line had only advanced 5 miles (8km) into enemy held territory. Country roads ceased to exist as chalky waterlogged soil crumbled under heavy machinery; replacement artillery, troops, supplies all had to traverse the mess that had once been productive farmland. Ahead lay miles of equally soulless land. One hundred years on, the words: ‘The Somme’ still conjures unimaginable horror and loss.

When this battle ended the 2nd Canterbury Battalion counted 33 officers and 713 men killed, wounded and missing. Ben’s burial was recorded by the OCDGR E (Officer Commanding of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries), as Reference number 21836 B as having been performed by A.H. Cullen, attached to South African [Infantry?].

Those who died in No Man’s Land were often never identified: as they fell into the mud their bodies became obliterated by the on-going battle. Dog tags were perishable and in the wet, uniforms rotted. Nevertheless there are still human remains being discovered and identified in the twenty-first century. However, soldiers who, like Ben, were seen to be killed were probably buried by their comrades close to where they fell, perhaps in part of a trench, in a shell hole or a hurriedly dug grave, perhaps with one or two others, their dog tags removed and passed to an officer in command.

A telegram was prepared, addressed to Mrs R. Lawn, Black’s Point: she was noted as next of kin (mother) in his military file. Nearly two and a half weeks later Rachel and James received the dreaded black bordered telegram from the Ministry of Defence advising them of Ben’s death. The news spread quickly to his sisters and brothers, aunt and grandmother, as well as friends and neighbours—everyone in the community knew the boys who were away serving. The family reeled with disbelief that their Ben was not going to be coming home. He was just a lad.

The date of his death was what everyone turned to: what were they doing that fateful day? It was a Wednesday. Carrying on their work-day lives far away, while Ben heard the crack of rifle fire, the sudden thud as the bullet hit, the oblivion as he fell lifeless into the mud, the sounds of mortar and gunfire thundering on.

Although a grave reference is recorded on the Defence Force file, it was not until the following year that the bodies of soldiers in their temporary graves could be re-interred in appropriate cemeteries, the difficult task carried out by the British V Corps. The battle that had raged over the ground where Ben had been buried was to totally destroy the landscape and identifying features—his grave was never found. This was perhaps the hardest thing for his family to imagine: the boy from Black’s Point alone in the cold dark ground on the other side of the world. No funeral, with comforting rituals to help the grieving, no headstone for family to visit. A few lines in the newspaper under ‘Casualties’ and then: gone.

1500 New Zealanders were killed on the Somme. Most of them, 1272, remained unidentified and are buried in unmarked graves or remembered on memorial walls. Benjamin Webster Lawn is remembered on the Commonwealth War Grave Memorial at Caterpillar Valley, Longueval. White headstones lined up with military precision, enclosed in rectangular grounds, surrounding by rolling fenceless farm fields and a few trees creates a peaceful oasis in contrast to what it was like when Ben the boy from Reefton was there.

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Ben is also memorialised on his mother’s headstone in Lyttelton cemetery. Rachel Lawn nee Hart died just over a year later, the family believed, of a broken heart.

Benjamin Webster Lawn memorial on Rachel Lawn headstone, Lyttelton Cemetery

Rachel Elizabeth Lawn, Lyttelton cemetery (stone since collapsed after 2011 earthquakes)

 

(excerpts 327-29 Chapter 15 The Great War To Live a Long & Prosperous Life)

Christchurch, 1860s

Over six years of writing and research uncovered surprising connections for me: not one but two shops were owned by the Harts in the centre of early Christchurch. Prior to this discovery I had always assumed the Harts set off for the West Coast within a short time of their arrival in January 1865.

High Street

Early Christchurch prior to 1860 Taken by Alfred Barker from the new Provincial Government buildings.

In the left middle distance Cathedral Square can be seen marked by white fences and shrubbery around the perimeter. Beyond that is Fishers Corner and the spire of the Methodist church on High Street.

Central Christchurch c1862. Showing the Square at the top, Hereford Street, Cashel Street and High Street intersecting at an angle. Nathaniel Hart’s first shop was close to the corner of High and Hereford Street.

(map detail from Christchurch City Libraries)High Street 1863 showing the smaller shops between Fishers Corner and the Methodist Church. One of these was Nathaniel Hart’s first shop. Image: Illustrated London News

Windmill Road

Panorama of early Christchurch from the Provincial Government buildings looking south-east towards Antigua Street. This image shows the windmill (which was already gone by 1865) that gave the popular name “Windmill Road” to the area where the Harts were living when they had their last baby, Barnett Hart in 1866.

Hereford Street

Hereford Street c1880. Nathaniel Hart’s second shop was ‘three doors down’ from Fishers Corner which is on the far right of this image. The second shop would have backed onto their first shop on High Street.

Top: BNZ on the north corner of Hereford Street and the shops opposite. Nathaniel Hart’s second shop was most likely one of the small shops past the verandah.  Bottom: Hereford Street looking east prior to the 2011 earthquakes. Most of the buildings in this view have since been demolished.

 

A family likeness

On the 177th anniversary of the invention of photography, it seems an appropriate time to post an image that brought me face to face with a Hart ancestor and at the same time this is an opportunity to introduce the other side of the family that forms the basis of To Live a Long and Prosperous Life: the Harts from London.

A Victorian invention – photography and self-image

Photography was the social media of the time: people used small carte-de-visite as a calling card, larger cabinet cards were exchanged with family and many mounted their collections in albums. Soon photographs were printed as postcards, as many used their latest studio portraits to send by post to friends and family – an in the case of our ancestors, across the globe to family back ‘home’.

Photography had first been attempted in the early years of the nineteenth century; however two methods were developed about the same time, in both France and England, around 1840. Louis Daguerre developed the daguerreotype process using chemicals and glass. This was the first process to be announced, but at the same time Henry Fox Talbot was working with the calotype which used paper for a negative. From then on, photographic processes improved and portraiture was available for anyone who could afford the fee, which soon became within reach of many.

The daguerreotype was one of the earliest forms of commercial photography. A negative image on glass, they were typically mounted in an oval, circular or arched frame on a dark background so the image showed positive. They were encased in ornate hinged, velvet-lined pressed metal or leather cases. They were expensive, and fragile.

 

An example of the daguerreotype

Tin-types, images developed on thin metal plates were produced for a longer period in USA than in Britain, but were soon superseded by the glass negative and paper print mounted on card. Later, paper prints from negatives were cheaper and many copies could be made from the one negative. Copies were also soon able to be made of older forms of photographs.

 Within a few short years photography was available in cities and towns, and taken up as a hobby by those who had time and money to afford the cameras, chemicals and the darkroom necessary for developing.

Lenses and bellows, chemicals and glass: here was alchemy for the masses! The photograph took the world and reflected it back as it hadn’t been seen before, captured forever in time. The raw images of themselves shocked many Victorians, and it wasn’t long before they evolved ways of posing and staging photographs to make their ‘likenesses’ more appropriate to their sensibilities. Fabulous studios with velvet drapes, columns and urns and classical painted backdrops, suitable props and even clothes to hire created the illusion of photography as fine art: a portrait taken to show status, record important social events; a marriage, a new child, a family gathering, or family parting, retirement, and even death.

 Places as well as people were subjects: in 1854 the Crystal palace was disassembled and moved to it’s new site, all recorded with the camera; the photographs were later published in a book. In the same year the Crimean War was also documented in photographs, although exposure times meant that action was not ‘caught’.

Identifying Eleazer

A descendant of Philip Hart (1824-1903) in USA found this photograph. Labelled ‘Eleazer’, over the years it has been assumed this was Philip Hart’s son Eleazer P. Hart (1851-1928). The copy of the picture reproduced here came to the author labelled ‘Eleazer/Elby/Elly Hart c1890s’.

Eleazer Hart c 1855

But who is this gentleman? The subject of this photograph is not that of Philip’s son Alexander ‘Elby’ Hart but almost certainly that of Philip’s father Eleazer Hart (1787-1857). The image was probably taken about 1855, most likely around the time he went to live in Portsea, Hampshire. The identification of photographs are based upon both the type of image and of the subject. The physical appearance; (size, mount, maker’s mark or stamps on the bottom or back) and the subject of the photograph itself; the clothes they are wearing, hair (and beard) styles, and background details.

 The above photograph appears to have been previously inserted in a round frame, suggesting it may be a copy of a daguerreotype, or possibly a tintype. Without seeing the original and its mount it is hard to be certain. The clothing is that of a much earlier period than the 1890s: the wide soft neck tie and standing collar suggests those worn in the first half of the nineteenth century. The satin waistcoat and the broad shoulders suggest the cut of a frock coat. The clothing and the pose match those in the description and photograph of an ‘unknown gentleman’ by Horne & Thornthwaite (photographers) which is dated about 1850.

Photograph of unidentified sitter by Horne & Thornthwaite, about 1850. Victoria and Albert Museum no. PH.151-1982

Aside from technical clues that help us date this image, there are other clues in the features of this gentleman that may or may not point to our relationship with him: the arch of eyebrows, the nose, or chin, the rounded head, something about the eyes . . . People have an ability to ascribe ‘recognition’ to photographs and paintings, seeing what they want to see whether there is actually a direct relationship or not. Modern genetics can only tell part of the story—were this gentleman’s DNA available we might be a little closer. So we are left with an image of a solid, prosperous gentleman, who may just be Eleazer Hart.

---

Eleazer HART (Eliezer ben Yehuda  Ha’Cohen) 1787 – 1857 was my  My great-great-great-great grandfather and the father of Dinah Nathan’s husband Nathaniel Hart. The Hebrew אֱלִיעֶזֶר (‘Eli’ezer pronounced Ali-ay-zer) means “my God is help”.

Eleazer  was born and grew up in Tottenham, then a leafy village in the country five miles from London. His father Judah HART had a second-hand clothes shop there. In 1819 Eleazer Hart married Sarah Levy,  at the New Synagogue, London.  The same year Eleazer went into business on his own account as a Rag Merchant. This eventually made him a wealthy man; on retirement he owned many properties and styled himself ‘Gentleman’. The rag trade was hugely profitable in Victorian times as there was  a demand for cotton rag for  papermaking, as well as lint and lagging used for machinery in factories; on the railway and steamships. The family lived and  worked at 20 White Lion Street (now Folgate Street),  in the Spitalfields of London.

Eleazer and Sarah Hart had nine children, two of whom later immigrated to New Zealand.  Their daughter Julia Metz née Hart arrived  in Dunedin with her family in the 1870s. At least three of her children; Eleazer, Sarah, Benjamin and Zimler Metz later lived in Timaru for a time and were instrumental in the building of the Jewish Synagogue in Bank Street. To sons, Philip and  Alexander immigrated to USA and one of them took with him this photograph as a keepsake.

Eleazer’s son Nathaniel Hart, his wife Dinah née Nathan and family immigrated to New Zealand on the Zealandia arriving at Lyttelton in 1865, later settling on the West Coast.  They were my 3x great-grandparents. Two of their three daughters married the Lawn cousins, miners from Cornwall. I descend from Eleazer’s granddaughter Rachel Elizabeth Hart and her husband  James Lawn.

(Excerpts in this post from pp 92-9 To Live a Long & Prosperous life)

It’s in our genes

Has anyone in your family ‘done’ their DNA? I know of one Lawn family member who has completed an Ancestry test (family finder), and I have recently got the results of my mtDNA with FTDNA. On the female line (which traces back through the HART sisters, Dinah NATHAN and her mother Julia SOLOMON), I belong to Katrine’s clan.

I (and the other females in our family who are descended from the daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters etc of Dinah’s mother) belong to haplogroup K1a9. This originated with one woman (dubbed Katrine) who lived 15,000 years ago in Europe, or north-eastern Italy to be precise. Our DNA shows that we are descended in an unbroken line from a woman who lived as a hunter-gatherer in Europe around the time of the last ice-age.

Current matches have ancestors from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova: in the Pale of Settlement, the part of east Europe that was formerly the Polish Commonwealth. This is not surprising given my Ashkenazi roots: Haplogroup K makes up about 32% of those with Ashkenazi ancestry. K1a9 is one of three subclades of K, about 100 generations ago (a generation is 25 years).

A distinguished descendant of the K clan is Oezti the iceman. Handsome devil! Many of my mtDNA ‘matches’ are from descendants of immigrants to the USA, some relatively recently. At some stage there must have been a woman of this line who moved away from her sisters and settled in western Europe or England, and her direct female descendant was Dinah’s mother.

There are some interesting groups on Facebook that can help decipher your results:

Tracing the Tribe and Using DNA for genealogy – Australia and NZ are two that have very helpful members.

I am still coming to grips with my results, and have been waiting for a ‘special’ so I can also do my Family Finder, or autosomal DNA. This test might shed some light on the family of Nathaniel HART, as well as some other elusive ancestors on my other trees.

For those of you who are interested there is an upcoming special with FTDNA which I have just heard about. The family finder equates to just under NZ$100 which is the cheapest I have seen for a while. I have pasted some of the notification email, although the prices have yet to go ‘live’:

“This summer the focus is on bundles that include Family Finder: Y37 + Family Finder, Y67 + Family Finder, FMS + Family Finder, and Comprehensive Genome (FF+Y67+FMS). The prices are in the chart below.

Not only has he set the Family Finder price ridiculously low, but he’s not giving us an end date for this sale. It could last a few days or a few weeks – we don’t know and he’s not telling!

So what we’re saying is, take advantage of these great prices while they’re hot!

Here’s the pricing:

Family Finder

$69

Y37 + Family Finder

was $268 now $218

Y67 + Family Finder

$367 now $317

Comprehensive Genome (FF+Y67+FMS)

$566 now $489

FMS + Family Finder

$298 now $258

**Please note – these bundles must remain bundles. If you buy at the sale price for future use, the entire bundle must be used on one tester. Canceling tests from the bundle will cause tests to revert to regular price.** “

For novices, Y-DNA follows the paternal line, and is a male only test while mtDNA follows the maternal line ONLY. This is the one I used to go back to the origns of my female line, but not to close relatives. Men can test for mtDNA to follow their mother’s line. Family Finder / autosomal gives you a bit of every ancestor and is more useful to help connect to within 5 generations, although it can take some detective work to find out which side of your family the match occurs – this is why it is important to recruit as many cousins as possible to test as well. Results from Ancestry, FTDNA and 23andMe can be uploaded to Gedmatch.com, a website that compares with others’ test results from other testing companies. Ancestry DNA has a wide database of trees to help you connect with others and is useful if you already have a tree on-line with them: their system notifies you of matches as well as giving a nifty diagram of your origins in percentages.

DNA research has come a long way since the first sequencing of the human genome. The haplogroups that form the basis for the mtDNA were divided into seven origins: seven women who became the founding mothers of humans alive today. This journey of DNA discovery can be read in the 2002 book The Seven Daughters of Eve by Brian Sykes. Since the book was written the Neanderthal DNA has been profiled, and added to the mixture: people today may have an estimated 1-9% Neanderthal DNA in their make-up.

The DNA journey is one I am just starting to roam, but one that leads back into our ancient history. I am looking forward to making connections to the greater family in the clan of Katrine.

Destination

I was thinking about that old adage: ‘it’s not the destination but the journey’ last week, when I set out in the early morning for a trip from my hometown 160km (100 miles) north to the city of Christchurch. It was freezing and the sun was just rising. I wasn’t looking forward to the four-hour round trip.

Those of us who live at the southern end of the Canterbury Plains often complain about the boring, two-hour journey of relatively straight roads interspersed with sections of passing lanes. The milk tankers and trucks don’t seem to take notice that they are supposed to travel at 90kph if towing a trailer, and can whizz past you and leave you in their dust. We sometimes forget to look at the breathtaking snow-clad southern alps gleaming to the west as we mutter in the slip-stream of yet another truck.

Yet this was an important milestone in my journey: for I was collecting my book To Live a Long & Prosperous Life from the printer, and this day would become publication day; 13 July 2016.

The whole thing about the journey versus destination hit home to me when I was reading about Out of Eden, an epic project currently underway somewhere in asia, near Xanadu. The personal quest of adventurer Paul Salopek, I was boggled to see he was taking seven years of his life to walk the route of human DNA migration from Africa to South America. Seven years! What an undertaking! And then I realised that my own journey (sat mostly behind my keyboard and via the global digital network of the world wide web) had actually taken close on that amount of time: seven years.  I particularly like that he is doing what I was tracing within my book: seeking the quieter, hidden stories of people who rarely make the news while at the same time engaging with the major stories of our time. My journey is not quite so epic, but I can empathise with the reasons and the motivation behind it.

Exactly a year ago I had ‘completed’ the writing of my book  (in reality it got tweaked all the way to printing), and I posted this on my facebook status:

16 July 2015

update on the BOOK. Just about got to the I’ve-finished-the-damn-thing stage. But now comes the bibliography, the illustrations and then the printing/publishing. Whose idea was this any way?

I set out on this mission to write and publish not knowing how long it would take – in fact I think if I had known I might never have started. But along the way I was learning, which is so much part of the journey towards the unknown. Learning many things about my family and the heritage my ancestors had left for us, but also a great deal about the process of researching and writing a book, then about formatting, indexing, layout for printing, publishing and all the other bits along the way that you scarcely think about when you pick up a book.

Discussing family history writing in Family Tree Magazine (May, 2016), Cherry Gilchrist has this to say:

Start by embracing three truths, and triumph over the word ‘never’ in each of them:

• It will never be the right time to write it, so just do it anyway.
• Your research will never be complete; but what’s wrong with leaving something for future generations to follow up?
• What you produce will never be perfect. Does it really matter, if it’s full of interest for others?

By this time I had cut out huge chunks of interesting (to me) but irrelevant information, and given the draft to an editor for their advice and direction. I tried to follow admonishments from various sources: eliminate exclamation marks, don’t use two words where one will suffice, try not to be ‘clever’ with fancy-pants words and various other self criticisms that made me super-vigilant on my own writing to the point where I scarcely knew if what I had written was actually any good any more. I checked and rechecked all my facts, sources and references not once but many times. My perfectionist tendencies almost prevented me from ever getting to a ‘finished’ point as I constantly discovered errors, typos and glitches in my ‘final’ drafts. Despite constant proofreading the nature of having such a large number of words (over 230,000) makes it almost certain that there will be still errors in the final book. Some days Gilchrist’s ‘never’ seemed to be winning.

There are many helpful websites and books that can steer the newbie author and indie publisher in the right direction, although many are geared up for the fiction writers. One piece of advice I had found I printed out and stuck above my lap-top as a sort of check list. I must say when I first looked at it in September 2015 I could only tick off the first Write Book which up until then was the goal of my journey. Here I was, newly arrived with a finished book and I still had all this to do!

Publishing Resources

So my trip to Christchurch was an ending in a way – the finished product was finally done. The final few weeks were not without drama, including a huge mistake on the part of the printers who had initially quoted me the wrong price: the ‘new’ quote came in at over $2000 more than the original, which was a shock to put it mildly. With just a couple of weeks before production and having pre-sold and marketed based on their original quote I was not happy. But then I channelled Dinah’s spirit and negotiated a solution. Once this print run has been exhausted any further copies are going to be considerably more expensive to produce. In the meanwhile there are still some copies available at the original price of NZ $49.99.

Finally I had the brand new shiny books in my possession, and was able to deliver some to Christchurch recipients.  I also called into my favourite bookstore Smith’s Bookshop at the Tannery and dropped of some copies that they have kindly agreed to stock. The highlight of my trip was to see that they almost immediately put a copy in the shop window. Now that was exciting!

Smith’s Bookshop

After a long drive home, the next day was spent packaging and boxing up the orders, then delivering them to the post office and courier to make their way to their new homes and into libraries: New Zealand, Australia, UK and USA. Farewell books!

By this time exhaustion has more or less overtaken me and a huge cold threatens to overwhelm my sinuses. All I want to do is sleep. People say to me I must be excited. But I am just glad I have got to the end of this part of the journey and survived. One task before the weekend was to create and distribute press releases including posing for a cheesy author-with-book photo.

Finally, I took four copies of the book and opened each one. I carefully took up my favourite pen with purple ink (Dinah wrote with purple ink, too!). On the first page I  wrote a personal dedication to each of my four children, for it was for them that I wrote and officially dedicated this book:

For my children, with love:
Rachael, Emily, Philip and Alexander
May you, too, live long and prosperous lives.