John HAWDON

From on Thu, 29 Jun 2006 Dear Elizabeth, My hobby of family history is four years old, an interest first acquired at the age of 68. Yesterday I was looking for the descendants of John Hawdon and Margaret Catherine Potts who had emigrated to Australia in 1828, and was delighted to find abundant information on Don's Rootsweb site. John Werge wed 20 Jan 1760 to Margaret Younghusband at Chatton, Northumberland, England My three-greats grandmother, Margaret Potts née Werge (15 Sep 1771 - 1862 #3193, born at Chatton, Northumberland, England and died at Broulee NSW dau of Ellen and John) followed her only daughter to Australia and died in New South Wales, aged 93, according to a privately published "The History of the Family of Werge of Northumberland", 1891, and I have recently become interested in her latter years and what happened to her daughter and son in law.

Written on Thu, 6 Jul 2006 I spent yesterday in London, visiting the Huguenot Library, London Metropolitan Archives and Society of Genealogists library. The data above was obtained at the SoG library. Accordingly, a fair amount can be known about the direct Hawdon ancestors. The marriage of John Hawdon to Margaret Catherine Potts was in 1826 - on 13 June, by licence, at St Peter's Walls End, Northumberland (later Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne). Witnesses were Gilbert Wood, Elizabeth Werge, and Mary Hawdon. Source - photocopy of the parish register, obtained for me by a County Durham genealogist last year. I am not sure of the birth date for John Hawdon. The actual Staindrop Parish Register of Baptisms states: "John s of John and Mary Hawdon near Wackerfield" was baptised on 23 May 1770, and his younger sister "Hannah d of John and Mary Hawdon Wackfd" on 23 Oct 1772 The John who married Margaret Catherine Potts has the detailed baptismal entry in the Staindrop register:- 1801 birth and baptism "John Hawdon 29 June. 29 June being a premature birth 2d of Jno 1st son of Hawdon, Junr, Yeoman of Walkerfield by his wife Elizabeth Hunt, N of Darlington" The N after Elizabeth, I take to be "native" Source: Transcript by Herbert Maxwell Wood 1869-1922, copyright, Newcastle Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, and now on microfiche. There are two marriages in the Gainford parish registers:- Hawdon John - Staindrop P - Mary Watson this P. Banns 14 May 1765 wit. Wm Watson Wm Farrer Hawdon John, Jun, of Staindrop Parish, gentleman wed Eliz Hunt of this Parish by Lic. 9 Jun 1798 witnesses Francis Hunt, John Hunt, Ann Hawdon, Frances Hunt, Hannah Hawdon and there are two Hawdon baptisms 1813-1839 in the Gainford transcript by C.Yellowley 2003:- 15 December 1813 Hawdon Joseph son of John and Elizabeth 8 June 1827 Hawdon John son of John and Margaret Catherine the last of these being the eldest of John and Margaret's children born before sailing to Australia. Best wishes George

and on Sat, 13 Jan 2007 Dear Elizabeth, We corresponded by email 29 June - 06 July 2006 in connection with the Hawdon family, and you kindly gave me Brian Packard's address. I thought you might be interested in the outcome. I wrote to him in July, and received a handwritten reply dated 25 August with Hawdon family charts enclosed. No second hand or new copy of "Joseph Hawdon: The First Overlander" could be obtained anywhere in Australia, or elsewhere, and there I let the matter rest. However, to my great surprise, his daughter Sally Mashman, sent me an email with the entire text of the book as an attachment! This I have printed out in its entirety, and filed in polythene "pockets", with the pages back to back, so that it reads like a book - so much easier on the eye than a screen! It was a remarkably good read, and represented a monumental work of original research. I envy him the amount of documents that have survived, and their accessibility. One interesting point was the mention of William Potts, an elusive gentleman (1800-1848) staying with his brother in law, John Hawdon, on 30 Jan 1844, which may explain where he went to after leaving the army in 1832 after 18 years service in the 17th Dragoons and 45th Foot (later the Nottinghamshire Regiment). In your last email you mention visiting Brownsea Island. My grandfather (1864-1926), who served in the Boer War, retired to New Milton, Hampshire, after many years in the army, and started a Scout troop in about 1911. I have my grandmother's diaries 1896-7, 1914-18, and they mention going to hear Baden-Powell speak in Bournemouth (which is next door to Poole). The subject of your last email was "Happy Memories", and I wonder if you have ever written a memoir to pass on to descendants (and others)? My cousin has done so recently (private publication only), and this is a challenge to myself to do likewise. How I wish some of my forebears had written even a brief memoir! The discovery in 2002 of my grandmother's diaries, and 51 letters of my grandfather to his mother (1878-1902) have given me an insight into their lives that I could not have believed possible. But a memoir would have done even more so. My third daughter, Valerie, is completing her final year at Brighton University for a B.A. in Cultural and Historical Studies, and is writing a dissertation on an aspect of Hamber Family History (!) with an encouraging tutor. Apparently family history is becoming a serious university discipline these days. I wonder what postgraduate studies you undertook in UK? And your subsequent career? Earlier this week I spent the day in Canterbury Cathedral Archives looking at parish registers and finding my great X3 grandparents' marriage (1800), and great X4 grandparents' marriage in 1747, in an East Kent parish. When I left school in Canterbury in 1952, the Archives were just being built after having been a ruin due to bomb damage in the war. It is a nice place now, next door to the Great Cloister. I expect you are on holiday at the moment. We are having the mildest winter on record, with frost on only two days so far. The lawn had to be mowed between Christmas and the New Year, because the grass had not stopped growing. With very best wishes, and many thanks for your help in July 2006, George and Grace (Hamber), Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK

Celebrating our first Overlanders

In 1831 John Hawdon, took up a grant on the Moruya River. His homestead, Kiora, can be seen from the Araluen Road, about 6km west of Moruya. Classified by the National Trust, it is not open to the public.
When John Hawdon died, in 1881, he was buried in the Kiora cemetery, near the homestead. The Hawdons' ten-ton brig transported goods up and down the river. It is said that the first black swans seen by Queen Victoria were a gift from Kiora.

John Potts wed 2 Nov 1795 to Margaret Werge at Chatton, Northumberland, UK
John Hawdon married at Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1827 to Margaret Catherine Potts 1802 - 28 Oct 1886 age 84, who had her first child in England, the second off the coast of Brazil, and then in NSW
1. John Hawdon 1827-1848 who is buried at Mildura Station Graves Site
2. Gilbert Hawdon 1828 born near Cape of Good Hope during the trip to Australia
3. Margaret Catherine Hawdon 1 Aug 1830 - 14 Jul 1911 born at Narrellan, New South Wales, Australia
4. William Hawdon 3 Mar 1832 - 14 Jan 1915 born at Narrellan, wed Elizabeth Paterson 1858
5. Ernest Werg Hawdon 10 Jan 1834 - 10 Jun 1892 wed 1867 to Martha Coppin at Broulee, New South Wales, and wed Elizabeth Emmott 1874 Broulee, New South Wales, Australia
6. Joseph Hawdon 17 Apr 1836 - 24 Jul 1859 born at Bergalia, and died at Broulee, New South Wales,
7. Francis 7 Jul 1838 Brighton, New South Wales, wed 1882 to Harriett Eales at Moruya, New South Wales,
8. Elizabeth Anne Hawdon 4 Jan 1842 - 1931 born at Melbourne, Victoria, wed 5 Jan 1864 to Francis Davison Jnr
9. Annie Hawdon Birth: 26 Feb 1844 - 19 Dec 1941, born at Kiora, NSW, wed 14 Jun 1865 to William Wilson Moruya, NSW, Australia

From on Thursday, 18 September, 2008 Hi Elizabeth, Saw your webpage on John and Joseph HAWDON. Great that you mentioned Martha COPPIN is linked to ERNEST HAWDON. Really they did not marry but they had a child my great grandmother born as EMILY COPPIN. Father was unknown. Funny that ! Cannot change history. Great you have noted that. Would you like to see a photo of my grandfather, George William KNOX, unofficial grandson of Ernest Hawdon and look at the likeness ? Kind regards, Jeanette

Joseph Hawdon 1813, youngest brother of John Senior, was the first to drive a herd of cattle from the known area of the Goulburn River in Victoria, along the Murray River into South Australia, and then overland to Adelaide in 1839
* Birth: 14 Nov 1813, Walkerfield, Co Durham
* Death: 12 Apr 1871, Christchurch, NZ [S111]
* Occupation: runholder
Father: John Hawdon
Mother: Elizabeth Hunt
Family 1: wed Jan 1842 to Emma Outhwaite, Melbourne, Australia
1. Emma Josephine Hawdon 21 Jan 1843, Australia - died 9 Dec 1889, Dunedin
2. Arthur Joseph Hawdon 5 Jan 1844 #13950, Australia - died 29 Mar 1921, Mt Peel wed Sarah Elizabeth Barker c1872, New Zealand
3. Cyril Goodricke Hawdon 9 Sep 1846 #14988, Australia
4. Alice Hawdon 1850 #17015, Australia - 12 JUL 1934, Hurst Green, London wed 21 Apr 1869, NZ to Edward Wingfield Humphreys and wed 1896 to Henry Cautley in London
5. Rupert Whycliffe Hawdon 1852 #25403

Joseph Hawdon wed c1866 in New Zealand to 2: Mary Macfarlane
1. Rosamund Hawdon 20 Apr 1870 - 24 Apr 1916

Notes
1000 Famous Australians - Halls 1978 Auckland Public library Overlander who helped chart unknown territory between Melborne and Adelaide. (1813-1871) Born in Walkerfield in County Durham. Migrated to New South Wales in 1834 to join his brother John. In 1836 he, John Gardiner and John Hepburn, joined forces to overland cattle to Port Phillip. Hawdon took up land in the Dandenongs but continued overlanding. During this time he pioneered an overland mail service, securing a 1200 pound a year contract to carry mail to Yass every fortnight where it was passed on to a post-boy from Sydney in exchange for the southbound mail. In 1838 Hawdon and Charles Bonney drove cattle from Howlong to Adelaide. Following the River Murray and then Lake Alexandrina most of the way, they helped to chart unknown territory. Next year he and Captain Mundy drove cattle between Melbourne and Adelaide over a more direct route. Hawdon made Melbourne his headquarters, taking up residence on a property near Heidelberg. He also founded the Pastoral and Agricultural Society. In 1848 he took up 11,000 hectare property at the junction of Goulburn River and Sunday Creek. Hawdon remained in Victoria until 1858 when he migrated to Canterbury, New Zealand, and continued his pastoral activities.

Australian Dictionary of Biography p 524 Similar story, more detail. He remained in Victoria until 1858, when he migrated to the Canterbury province of New Zealand where his name was given to the Hawdon River and Lake Hawdon. He took up large pastoral runs, visited England in 1867, and on his return was called to the Legislative Council but could not attend. He died at Christchurch on 12 April 1871. Hawdon married Emma Outhwaite in Melbourne. [She died in 1854. In 1872 his son Arthur Joseph Hawdon] married Sarah Elizabeth Barker, reputed to have been the first child of European parentage born in Canterbury. Hawdon was adventurous and alert to opportunity, and by his own success gave valuable service in developing new territory.