General Chat

Following along from Huia.
We have a lot of drownings here in NZ: people go out in dinghies take a couple of kids with them, no thoughts of safety and the next thing the tide turns or a storm starts and the waves roll in, the boat capsizes and what was supposed to be a family out fishing for the day ends in tragedy.
We have a notorious surf beach called Piha, this beach is patrolled by life guards and on a nice sunny day there can be more than four or five rescues of a day. The rips just pop up out of nowhere and the flags are continually being shifted to denote the safe places to swim. One minute you can be waist high in water and think all is okay and the next you are pulled out to sea. We have a television program called Piha Rescue and they don't just show the nice bits. Not everyone survives. It is not at all like Baywatch.

Our ancestors came here in sailing ships and wakas... you would have to wonder how many wakas didn't make it, how many fell out of their canoes and never made it to NZ.

In 1863 The Orpheus left Sydney with 259 men on board bound for NZ, the Tasman Sea was calm and the boat as it came into the Manukau Harbour it hit the sand bar and heeled over. 189 lives were lost... There are plenty of articles on google about it.

From my own ancestry

This one was lucky but the other two not so lucky. Some of my ancestors were one of the first white pioneers to set foot on the Spit at Ahuriri which later became Napier.. In fact one of my greatgrandmother's siblings was the first white baby to be born in Napier, Nov 1851. There were no roads, and at times they were forced to walk along the shingle ridge between the inner harbour and the sea carrying home 50lb bags of flour etc. Their only recreation consisted of walking along the beach where they sank ankle deep in the shingle, or in going out in the boat with their husbands. On one occasion while the boat was crossing the channel, Sarah who was nursing her baby, suddenly missed her 2 1/2 year old (born 1850 in Wellington). On frantically staring around she saw the child's white sun-bonnet bobbing about on the waves and being carried out to sea by the swiftly running current. A Maori boy who was in the boat with them, jumped overboard and swam to the little one and brought her back safely.

Ormond was not so lucky from our papers past. Sept 1882

On Tuesday afternoon, Ormond Joseph Torr oldest son of Thomas Torr was accidentally drowned at Petane. An inquest was held on the body yesterday at Mr Torr's residence, Kaimate, before Dr. Hitchings, Coroner and a jury of which Colonel White was chosen foreman.
The deceased was about 9 and a half years old and had returned home from school at 4 pm on Tuesday afternoon, after which he was sent by his mother to get a load of firewood. He returned and left the wheelbarrow containing the wood at the gate. Mrs Torr saw the barrow but did not see the deceased and beginning to feel uneasy , sent two of the children to look for their brother. They ran back and reported seeing their brothers hat floating on the river. Mrs Torr, assisted by the neighbours, procurred a boat and commenced to dredge the river. Mr Twigg superintending from the bank. After two hours search the body was found in 9 feet of water and brought to the shore
A verdict of " Found drowned ", was returned

In 1884 Ormond's first cousin Claud drowned in the Wairoa River (we played there when I was young, as did my older cousins and my dad before me) he was only a little chap not quite 3 1/2... I don't know the circumstances but like most rivers they ran along the back of the properties and were not fenced off.

Moving forward and on my mother's side of my family. Feb 1975, My cousin aged 29 and pregnant, her husband and young son aged 2 were out in their 28 foot yacht, the youngster toppled over the side. The dad jumped in and my cousin had to turn the yacht around and when she got back both the father and child were in difficulties. She tried to pull them back into the yacht but the combined weight of the two was too much for her. She then clambered into the dinghy that was being towed behind them and again tried to haul them in without success. She then jumped into the water and tried to support them.. her husband was a big guy he was an All Black forward. It was about another hour before they were spotted by the harbour board pilot launch. The little lad had died by then and the husband died on his way to hospital.

Persephone

Okay Huia you have ESP now... I was going to include them in my post when I get around to it. I took my American friend out to Awhitu light house to show her where it happened when she was over here last year.

Persie

There were all the sailors who drowned when HMS Orpheus was wrecked while crossing the bar into the Manukau Harbour many many years ago.

Huia.

Thank you Cyns,

I will have to get out my history papers now...

Persie

St Nicolas Islip, Northants, parish records recorded the following in 1783 about the brother of my 4 x great grandfather:

"George Eayres, a tailor, of Sudboro, being indisposed, thought bathing might be of service and accordingly went alone to the river stripped off and leapt into the pit above the mill and was drowned. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death."

My gut instinct is that it was probably suicide, but that he was given the benefit of the doubt by the jury, and could thus be buried in consecrated ground.

Nudged for Persie! Who has a tale to tell! :-D

Cx

I have a Memoriam card for Esther Bridget Wark and her 2 sons who lost their lives by the sinking of the "Princess Alice" by the "Bywell Castle" at Barking Creek, Sept 3rd 1878. Nearly 700 people were drowned. Somebody on GR had given me a website to investigate back in 2006. I now have the full story of it. I think the Warks were friends or former neighbours of my gt grandparents.

I had been intending to send the card to the Dockside museum, but havent done so yet.

Huia.

I knew him too. He was a lovely fellah.

We travelled abroad by ship as kids and so learned to swim "on the water in the water" - "The ancient order of Polliwogs"

I took all three of my children to the leisure centre to swimming lessons.

I was chatting with one of my sons today and I said these days it os vital to swim and to drive.

My children learned other skills, such as music, but these two are the most important.

Hi there,
did reply to something similar on another thread. But i will put it here too. One relative drowned at Patrington in 1823. Think he was on a sloop. Two brothers drowned on the same day at a gala and the small boat they were in had too much sail and it tipped over throwing the two brothers into the Trent . One managed to get to the bank, but the other brother grabbed him to try and save himself and both drowned. They are buried together and this is how i found out about it. One was the inn keeper at Susworth and the other was a master mainer. The Trent, when it is windy is not ideal to swim against, as it is tidal. The brother at the inn had quite a bit of money in his pocket, this was 1877.
:D

Cynthia - the thought did occur to me, and fires was one that came to mind. Ernest Hll/Monck's sister (my avatar) Ada the Actress's grandson, I recently learned -- son of her son who settled in South Africa, who himself then settled in Scotland -- died in a house fire.

I'm having to work today folks, but the stories are still interesting and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so! The depth of research, and insight into social conditions, that they demonstrate is very impressive.

Hey PigletsPal, I see you are researching "Hill". What date range and location.

Whoops I'm hijacking Janey's thread. Nevermind.

Janey has unfindable/lost/misplaced Hill type people in her tree as well.

Mine was an orphan. Poor lad. He was also dumb enough not to remember his mother's name.

Janey. Copied from a previous post. "I do wonder about families like my extinct Rushlands, who seemed to produce boys in the 1700s, then suddenly a generation of girls (two boys who did die young) at the beginning of the 1800s, and poof the name was gone. Where did all the boys go? I don't know what causes of death would have been common in Lincolnshire!"

Then here I am searching for George and looking at all and sundry and I find this. Wondered if it is of any interest to you??? No Rushlands unfortunately.

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LIN/papers_names.txt

Janey, how do you fancy an 'elemental' thread?

I have a newspaper report of how my gt.grandfather was burnt to death in a barn in 1891.

All we then need is someone with a death in an early aviation accident and a tragedy in a field!

I bet there are some more interesting stories out there......:)

Cx

Grand dad taught my father and his brothers to swim by throwing them in the Thames.

My sister and I, at Junior School, were bused to the local swimming baths for lessons. Neither of us can swim. Probably did not help being told to jump in the water or be pushed in.

A lot of relatives in the 1800's were waterman and lighterman etc and not yet found a death by drowning.


Maureen

Hi Huia, Yes Australia. The Clarence River is in the Grafton area of northern New South Wales. It is a sub tropical area and quite warm in our summer months December to March.


I must add a bit here from my own experiences with one of my children. He was born around the time when it was fashionable to drown proof your toddler. Like any caring parent I took him to the pool to swimming classes where with lots of other children of his age, pre kindergarten were taught to "swim" to the side of the pool. The method used was to persuade them to jump into the deep water and then thrash around until they surfaced and swim to the side.

After very few lessons it was clear from the tantrums and tearful pleading that this was not a popular event with the child. I persevered, as all mothers do when it seems right. Finally the upsets became so bad I stopped the lessons.

Never had to worry about him drowning. He never went near the water until he started swimming lessons at school aged about 10. Now he is into all types of water activities with his own family. For many years I did worry that I may have made a very wrong decision in forcing the lessons on him at such a young age.

Being an Aussie I can swim along with the husband and kids who are all good swimmers. Given we lived so far from the beach you always made friends at school with the kids that had swimming pools. I didn't need a pool at home because all the kids around me did.

Two weeks ago I received the death certificate of a man who I believe to be my gt,gt,gt grandfather and his cause of death is Found Drowned. He was found in the Bridgewater Canal, in Hulme on the 13th March 1855.

Thanks to a GR member I have the newspaper report about him being found and with what it says sounds like he had an accident 6 months earlier and sustained brain damage so his death was accidental.

Gai

Aunty Sherlock, what country was that, for them to be bathing in the river in December? Was it Australia, or New Zealand?

Huia.

Janey

My grandmother and mother lived by the creed

ne'er cast a clout
till May be out


"clout" is vernacular for item of clothing, so

never stop wearing winter clothing until May is over.




could you use this to solve the washing problem caused by #1?



sylvia

Susan#, that's a little closer to home, not just an ancestor but someone you knew, or at least your parent did.

At the other end Lindsey may have the record -- the year 1711, I have few known ancestors that far back, let alone knowing details like that -- tragic details indeed, but were they not, we would know nothing of them ...

Glad to see David of the narrowboat thread dropped in too -- all insights have been interesting.

I am finding every single one of these posts fascinating!