WHO’S WHO PAGE 1 OF 4
from the book"A Quota of Qualtrough"Pages 14-22, Emigration to New Zealand
THE QUALTROUGHS went in for good, plain first names, carrying them down the generations like family heirlooms.
No doubt they clarified the situation themselves with references to "William's Edward" or "Edward's William" or "James's James" and "Catherine's Catherine", "Elizabeth Jane", "Elizabeth Anne" and so on and so on, plus the Billys and Willys, the Katys and Kittys.
We shall try to make it equally clear just who we are writing about and trust that within your line of descent it all makes sense.
Two branches of the extensive Qualtrough clan left the Isle of Man in 1859.
They were the WILLIAM AMBROSE QUALTROUGHS who went as far as Liverpool and the JAMES QUALTROUGHS who went on further - to New Zealand
William (Ambrose) QUALTROUGH was christened as William but his son's N.Z. death certificate includes the name Ambrose. (See Death Certificate)
James took all his family save the second daughter, thus being the first in the new land to give Pakeha and Maori something to get their tongues around.
In 1860 there is record of a MARGARET QUALTROUGH disembarking in Lyttelton.
Then in 1882, the above William Ambrose's second son EDWARD QUALTROUGH, aged 23, left Britain for New Zealand and in due course established a family of five - one son and four daughters.
Much later upon the New Zealand scene came yet another branch -THOMAS MOORE QUALTROUGH - who arrived in 1920. His brother RICHARD CECIL QUALTROUGH took the plunge in 1925.
Also in the 1920's there is record of a JAMES EDWARD QUALTROUGH living in Christchurch, having come from Britain though born on the Isle of Man.
Next we have two daughters and a son of one WILLIAM EDWARD QUALTROUGH who left the Isle of Man in 1886 with the popular Liverpool his Mecca.
(Liverpool's attraction for Manxmen appears threefold: within easy distance of the Island and close to the beloved sea; a city large enough to give employment yet with rural outskirts suited to small farming.)
These latter three Qualtrough-comers are relatively shiny-new. They are sisters MONA ANNE McMAHON, who emigrated from Britain in 1953, HELENA FLORENCE ROCKHILL and their brother RONALD CLIVE QUALTROUGH who came out in 1956.
Last up - at the time of writing! - is ANN GRIFFITHS who came to Auckland directly from the Isle of Man in 1967.
For easier following of our Qualtrough saga in sifting who's who, the last shall be first, working backwards in Time.
WEATHERWISE:
ANN GRIFFITHS is the daughter of the late Edward Fleming Qualtrough (died 1952) and Kathleen Mary Qualtrough (nee Weeks) who died in 1956.
Deciding to leave the Isle of Man, Ann considered Australia, Canada and New Zealand as future homelands and chose the latter because of the climate. Australia was too hot, she thought and Canada too cold - sounds like the porridge of the three bears, doesn't it? Now Mrs Donald Griffiths, of Glendowie, Anne has three children. (See genealogical chart 13)
LEFT LIVERPOOL
THE FATHER of Liverpudlians MONA McMAHON, the late HELENA ROCKHILL and RON QUALTROUGH, William Edward Qualtrough, had a proud boast within his family that he had left the Isle of Man "with sixpence (five cents) in my pocket"
He became a baker and who could resist the temptation to make the obvious puns about earning a good crust and making dough for he was first apprenticed to a Mr Costain and ultimately became a master baker. He owned a bakery and a shop in Irlam Road, Bootle, and another shop in Hawthorne Road, Bootle, a suburb of Liverpool.
William Edward sold both businesses in 1924 and bought a bakery in Everton, Liverpool, which he disposed of in 1936 when he retired. He died in 1945 and is interred in the West Derby Cemetery.
He married three times but had children by his third wife only, the former Emily Brownell, a nurse whom he had met when she was working with his sister Catherine. Emily died in 1958 and is buried with her husband.
There were six children of the marriage and the New Zealand connections are the fourth, fifth and sixth in the family, Helena Florence, Mona Anne and Ronald Clive respectively. Helena married Charles J. Rockhill. She had no children and died in Auckland in 1975. Mona married Leonard Joseph McMahon (now deceased) and lives at Howick. She has four children.
Ron, the youngest of the family, married Eileen Stanley in Liverpool and they left there in 1956. They live at Glendowie, Auckland, and have a daughter, Catherine, now living in Cairo with her family which befits the Qualtrough tradition of seeking out the faraway places.
© 2021 by Malcolm Qualtrough, Elizabeth Feisst and the late John Karran Qualtrough.
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