DESCENDANTS OF JOHN CHRISTIAN WOHLMANN
AND RELATED FAMILIES – DE CROISETTES, DANIEL, ANDREWS, MARRIOTT, CLARKE
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Frederick, known as Fred, was born in Lancashire. His birth was registered at the Oldham office,
in the September quarter of 1875, reference 8d, p. 719. He spent some of his early days at
Leytonstone where the Daniels moved after Lancashire while Eliza, his mother, taught at Bow. In between however, as the 1881 Census shows, Fred, like his big brother Edwin, was not at home at the Royton household. Rather, he was in Nottingham with his aunt Ellen and widowed grandmother, Mary (Marriott) Clarke, at 45 Arkwright Street. The family story is that he was sent to one of the private 'Thompson' Schools in Nottingham, in this case run by a relative. Thanks to the Mansfield Society's efforts, and information from census material, we now know that this was the charitable foundation in Mansfield set up thanks to a sum of money left by Charles Thompson, born in Mansfield in 1714, and becoming a wealthy merchant. Fred's aunt Martha Clarke married William Mee and together they ran the school. Presumably Fred lodged in Nottingham and travelled to Mansfield to school, as he was to be found with his grandmother and aunt in Nottingham in 1881. The Daniel family house, Elly Clough, still stands in Royton as the Greyhound pub. This 1881 census entry is revealing. Aunt Ellen's husband is 29, a 'Watchmaker and Jeweller' born in Shepherd's Bush, in London. Ellen was quite a lot older -- aged 38 years, with no apparent signs of children in the household other than young Fred. Of interest is that Mary Clarke, Ellen's mother, is there too. She is given as aged 77 from Normanton, Derby, meaning she would have been born in 1803 or 1804. There is a 'niece' staying at the house too, Edith Moss, aged 21 -- a 'Milliner', born like so many Clarkes in Mansfield, Nottingham. It is worth noting that in the same census Lettie Mary Moss, a 'niece', 17 and a 'Pupil Teacher', was staying with the Daniel family in Royton. Plainly the Clarke women were happy to exchange children. In Fred's case, he had been sent to school there at Toothill, Mansfield, one of the 'Thompson Schools', in this case run by his uncle. His school arithmetic exercise book is still in the possession of the family. According to his sister Ellie, Fred was always obsessed with the sea and used to love to hear stories about it from one of his uncles who was at sea. (As at February 2004, it is not known which of his uncles this would be, whether Robert or Frederick, but perhaps Frederick, who married a Japanese woman.) The uncle, however, might have been on the Clarke side: Eliza had one uncle so far not traced. Fred entered the Merchant Navy moving his wife first back to England then to Victoria in Australia while he worked as master of passenger liners for the Commonwealth of Australia. According to a Sydney Herald report on the disastrously contentious 'mutiny' on the Jervis Bay, Fred had been a pilot in Penang before settling his family in Melbourne, Victoria. When the war (First) broke out, he applied for a command, eventually joining the Commonwealth Line. He commanded the Austradale and the Buller, then moved to the Ferndale. His last command was the Jervis. The Sydney and Melbourne newspapers of June 1928 were full of accounts of the contentious event that took place in the Indian Ocean. The press had a field day and the matter reached the House of Commons. Violent stowaways were found on the SS Jervis, causing so much alarm to the crew and passengers that the authorities were alerted. This led to open debate about how the captain had handled the affair, and Fred finished up in Australia at Lake's Entrance, Victoria with a small dairy farm. There, in retirement, he ran steamer trips on the Lakes -- 'played', as he put it, with little boats. He took over the management of the Lakes Steamer company with a complement of three boats, two often out of commission. The company had been running for 52 years and was one of several that plied the waters. Fred also owned a dairy farm which employed two of his sons. The milk business, Fred told his nephew Trevor Daniel in a letter (5th January 1935), was so successful that they had to outsource to supplement their own supplies to the neighbourhood. His letter is in the Daniel family archives and is full of information about the family. His wife 'Alice' thought it was 'lovely' to feed a crowd of fourteen visitors. Captain Daniel's sister, Ellen (Ellie) Daniel Powell - who lived in Nottingham - wrote a piece for the Evening Standard, dated Tuesday June 26 1928. The article formed No. 13 in the 'Makers of Men' series. It was headed 'Family life under the iron discipline of Victorian Days.' It included photographs of Edwin Daniel (Snr), his wife Eliza (nee Clarke), Capt. Daniel, and Alice, his wife, as well as one of a fiercely glum Frederick Daniel, aged 6. Included was a line drawing of the house Fred had built for his family in Boxhill, Melbourne. In the article Ellie corrects the erroneous address for the family given in the 1881 census: the family lived at 'Ellicelough House' (not Elly Clough House) in Royton while Eliza taught locally.Children were 'seen and not heard', and the younger ones made to eat standing at the table to keep their backs straight. Morning and evening church services were the order of each Sunday, with Sunday school in the afternoon. Parents took turns to escort the children, the other staying at home to cook dinner, father's efforts being quite as good as mother's. As for going out at night when they were older, up to 21, a parent would escort them, and even after 21 a full account had to be rendered of where they were and with whom. As for returning late, that was not an option. Ellie took the view that Fred's strict upbringing probably helped him command his men. Fred, she said, worked hard at school, especially in those subjects likely to be useful to him at sea, such as mathematics. He was a serious child, and not given to getting into trouble. Fred's favourite pastime was music. Next, in her account, comes a small deceit. Ellie states that when Fred left school he went to work in his father's office -- he was engaged in business in London. In fact his father was more often unemployed than not, and only ever worked as an accounting clerk so did not have an office of his own. While Fred was in office work he began to study (with his uncle's connivance) navigation books. When his father found out he relented and set about finding him a berth in a ship, the first being the Rhine, a sailing vessel (a record exists of a sailing from Bremen, 552.S.S.RHINE, Bremen, June 18 1870, Capt:Meyers) setting off for a round-the-world trip. Fred was then 16 and was away from home for 4 years. He had grown so much by his return that his family did not recognise him. He left as a midshipman and returned as a first officer. In the next year he gained his master's ticket although he was only 21. I was some time before he could be given a ship because of his youth, but when this came about, he was one of the youngest captains in the mercantile marine. He spent most of his working life at sea between India, China and the Straits Settlements where many of his relatives settled for periods before the First World War. Ellie depicted him as 'the image of his father' and with 'much of his father's character'. She also said he was persevering, courageous and calm. Fred settled his family in Box Hill, Melbourne. The address was 113 Carrington Street (now Road) Box Hill. The house is now a quite old painted brick home with a second story and a high pitched roof on a fairly large block of land. It is at the Elgar Road end of the road and the other end, the Station Street end is now home to numerous Asian restaurants of all descriptions on one side and the railway/shop complex on the other. The following is a letter, written by Fred's grandson. It is of particular note in that it shows Fred spent time in Essex where his brother William Daniel met his future wife, Annie Amelia Andrews. Fred must have visited them there. It is also revealing in that it tells about the Watcham side of the family: "...During the past year or so I have been working on a family tree and history on Dad's side (Scott) and have almost gone as far as possible with that, dating back to the 1850's when my great great grandparents arrived in Australia from the British Isles. I have not done a great deal of research myself on Mum's side. However around 1973 Mum's cousin Frederick Trevor Daniel gathered quite a bit of information together ...Apparently during the 1920's Trevor, while visiting from England, spent quite a few months with Mum's family while they were living at Box Hill. [Note, see later, re the house in Carrington Rd, Box Hill].... Getting back to your letter, we were unaware that the Daniel name was ever spelt with an 's'. [Note: this was an error in earlier research, confusing another couple, Edwin Daniels and Eliza Clarke with this couple.] Auntie Freda tells me that she was told that her grandfather, Edwin Daniel, had a withered arm and his handicap caused difficulty in obtaining a steady job. His wife Eliza[beth], in order to support their large family, was a school teacher. According to Mum's birth certificate, Frederick Daniel was born in Lancashire. However Auntie Freda has said that her father spent most of his childhood with an aunt and uncle at Nottingham [Note: this was with Eliza's sister Mary Clarke, who married Robert Moss]. At the age of 14 he left his relatives for the sea. Grandma Daniel (Alice Minnie) was apparently born in London, as indicated on Mum's birth certificate. However Mum's family were always told that she was brought up in Essex. Grandma's mother's married name was Eugenie Watcham - we don't know what her maiden name or husband's Christian name was. [This is now known to be Gibbs] ....Grandma may have had a brother called Douglas and also a brother and sister who were twins and last born. The girl's name may have been Elsie... Auntie Freda says Grandpa knew Grandma when she was a young girl in Essex. Grandpa signed up for military service in Penang and worked there as a harbour pilot. Rather than return to England following his period of service, he remained in Penang and joined a shipping company which had its headquarters there. This often resulted in his travelling to such places as the southern coast of China. Grandma left home, against her mother's will, in order to travel to Penang and marry Grandpa. Apparently Mrs Watcham believed her daughter should have remained with her to help raise the younger children. They married on October 3rd 1903 and their first child, Frederick Watcham Daniel was born prematurely in 1904. The weak child only lived 3 months and finally died when an 'ayah' who was helping Grandma apparently fed the baby milk that was bad, resulting in convulsions. The next child to be born, Uncle Charlie, was also unhealthy as an infant and the family was advised to move to a cooler climate for the child's benefit. At around this time, Grandpa's sister Ethel and her fiancé Leslie Miles, who were both at Penang, married there also. Auntie Freda also tells us that Albert, another of Grandpa's brothers, married one of the native women, prior to his death at Penang. [Note: it seems rather that Albert married a girl named Florence before dying of Dengue Fever.] Taking the doctor's advice, Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Charlie left Penang for the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England and it was there that Uncle Reg was born. It was not long before the family left England for Australia, where Grandpa took up a property at Warrandyte in Victoria. He had an orchard there and was also contracted for a mail run. While they were there, both Uncle Lloyd and Uncle Len were born. With the approach of WW1, and the anticipation of having to spend long periods away at sea for his country, Grandpa saw it necessary to settle his family in a town house in Ringwood. It was there that Auntie Freda was born. Grandpa obvious spent much of his life at sea and at the age of 27 was the youngest sea captain on record. During his career, some of the ships which he captained were 'Bakara', 'SS Ferndale', 'Esperance Bay' and 'Jervis Bay'. The SS Ferndale was the largest cargo boat built in Australia at that time. Ferndale Parade in Lakes Entrance gains its street name from this ship. Daniel Street in Lakes is also named after the Daniel family [Note: as are Ian, John, William and Graham St, perhaps -- to be checked]. While in Australia, Grandpa worked for the Australian Commonwealth Shipping Line, which later changed its name to Aberdeen and Australian Shipping Line in the late 1920's. Around 1920, Grandpa had a double storey house built in Carrington Rd, Box Hill, which was to be the family's home during the birth of the last 2 children, namely Uncle Jack and Mum. Up to this stage, Grandpa was still actively engaged with shipping and was frequently abroad, leaving his wife to look after their children. In 1928 he gave up the sea and moved with his family to Garfield (this is a small village on the Melbourne-Lakes road) where he took up dairy farming and orcharding. As the farm there did not prove to be very successful owing to the depression, they again moved during 1932 to Lakes Entrance, where he took up property on a hill overlooking the town and resumed dairy farming. [Note: He ran the boats which did the trips around the Lakes, among these the Dalgo, Tanjil and Wyvella. Also the Carpenter family, who opened up the sea entrance, were linked by marriage to the Daniel family. The old Daniel real estate business has now been combined with the national business LJ Hooker, so the Daniel name no longer appears on the main street shop.] During his retiring years, Grandpa handed most of the farming work on to his sons, who supplied a milk run within the town. One of Grandpa's interests was the running of a tourist information centre in the town. When he died in 1942, Grandma, Uncle Lloyd and Mum moved down into the town, where they all lived until Grandma's death in 1955... The only brother and sisters Trevor had included on the family tree are: Edwin, William (b. 1872, d. 1935), Federick (b.1885, d. 1942), Albert, Ethel, May and Ellie. ....We know nothing of a Charles, or of a set of twins [Note: the twins were little boys who died within days of each other, as shown on the family group listing]. It would appear that there could have been more children earlier on, such as a Frederick William, whom you mention. I also see that Trevor has Edwin Daniel's wife's name written as Elizabeth Daniel, nee Clarke, while you have it shown as Eliza..." [There were no earlier children, and Eliza could not have been Elizabeth as she had an older sister of that name. The records consistently show her name as Eliza.] Administration of Fred's will was awarded 2 February 1943. The probate reference is 950, Daniel Frederick, late of Lakes Entrance, Estate Agent, dod 14.9.(19)42, ANA 2.2.43. His death appears in the Victoria state Births, Marriages and Death Index. He is recorded as having died at Bairnsdale, and his father's name is given as 'Edwin Henry', his mother Eliza Clarke. |