Dirty Rotten Scoundrels #2: John Rendall Cave

So, a while ago I posted about the fact I had relatives in SA whose surname was Cave. At the time I made quite a joke about famous Caves, possible connections, yada yada. Anyway, after a little further investigating, it turns out that in their day they WERE famous Caves, and not the ones in Naracoorte either.

Susanna Darby, my ancestor George's sister, married Charles Cave. He had formerly been a yeoman farmer at Stoke Parsonage, these days known as The Priory. Her own father was also a yeoman farmer, in Pitney. I remember reading the excellent book about the Darbys in South Australia written by Basil Darby, who found it unusual that George and Mary could afford their own passage to SA (I believe he even used the words 'scraped together their passage'), and I had always shared the assumption they would not have been well off. Since reading about the Caves I've realised that a yeoman farmer owned upwards of 100 acres of his own land and was considered part of the middle class, which explains a lot about what happened when they got to Australia.

Stoke Priory. Not bad, hey?

 

George set up farming in Coromandel Valley, while his sister Susanna and brother-in-law Charles owned a farm at Sturt and a property on King William Street. Several female members of the family married prominent businessmen, one married the former aide-de-camp of Governor Macquarie, and some married regular joes (that would be my branch of the family. Typical.) Several male members of the family became prominent businessmen and public officials, including William Rendall Cave, explorer, merchant, ship owner, composer, Consul to Chile,  and all-round over achiever. Hell, he even started a wheat buying scandal decades before the AWB got in on the act! South Australian readers will see the genealogy on his Wikipedia page contains some of the most eminent names in our state. Nobody else I'm related to has ever aspired to the lofty (pun-intended) heights of owning not one but TWO mansions.

While every family has its shining light, they also have their black sheep, and it just happens in this particular branch of the family they are father and son. Yeah, that's him... near the bottom of the Wikipedia article. John Rendall Cave.

John was without a doubt educated at one of Adelaide's finest schools (*note to self - find out which schools the kids went to. Bet it's something with its own archive*), possibly succeeded his father as Consul to Chile, and would have been set up to be successful in business. He would have been given every possible advantage in life. But for what did he appear in the papers? His enormous profit margins? Civic service? Philanthropy? Being a stalwart of the Church? No: he appeared most regularly for getting sentenced to 12 months in gaol (and then avoiding serving the term) for pressuring a domestic servant to abort his child, a move which resulted in the death of the unborn baby and Antonie Hedwig Klemich, the young woman in question.

Grave of Antonie "Tonie" Klemich

 

The flowers were from me. I felt so bad when I read about her yesterday that I headed off to see her straight away. One thing which was something of a relief was that it seems someone has really looked after her plot. It is in pristine condition, despite being 105 years old. Antonie was not from a family of means. She 'got into trouble', and tried to remedy the situation by taking some very drastic measures. There's many a family that would have pretended not to know her on her deathbed, much less interred her with due respect. While she said that she was "very bad", it's obvious that those who knew and loved her did not feel the same way. Kudos to them for ensuring their poor darling girl received a decent burial. If this whole story reveals the despicable, exploiting behaviour of John Rendall Cave, it also shows the absolute decency of Alwyn (pronounced 'Alvin' I would presume) Klemich and his family.

 

To follow up, in 1930 Cave was written up in the Police Gazette for failing to provide maintenance to his wife and children. The newspaper trail clearly indicates a marriage break-down, the children staying with their mother who tragically died only seven years later.

 

Most of his family are buried together, but there is no sign of him. Perhaps he went to Chile? Perhaps he changed his name and moved away? Naturally I'm curious to find out what happened. I have contact details for someone I am certain would know, but what elderly person wants a phone call about their father when he's a guy like that?

 

Yeah... so not going to be dialling that number any time soon.

 

Edited to add: have heard from a relative who informs me that John formed a succession of somewhat dodgy relationships before dying in 1957 at the home of his last love interest, the woman who ran the Royal Admiral Hotel and farmed pigs at Port Adelaide. It seems somehow appropriate.

 





The Lure of the Famous

Everyone who carries out any level of genealogical project has probably encountered someone who is deep in the grip of the lure of fame. We all know the person who embarks on their family history, often starting with a completely unrelated person rather than their parents, in a vain attempt to prove they are descended from Ned Kelly/JFK/the King of England/Adam & Eve/a Pope.

 

Like all of you, I've remained blissfully free of this kind of thing. My genealogy started with the relatives I knew I had and has worked out from there. Along the way I've discovered a few people who would have been widely recognised in their own communities (sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not) but nobody more notable than that, and that's about what I'd have expected. In fact, the vast majority of my ancestry comprises people who only ever made it into the paper if they got married or died, if that. I've never wasted time mooning over famous people and their possible connection to me, if only because there are so many famous McDermotts it would be hard to pick just one! ;)

 

This week I've been away on holidays. Nothing particularly genealogical, as the town and area we are in is not one which was heavily inhabited by family at any point. Consequently, the focus of my genealogical work has been catching up on the data backlog. I have three plastic pockets chock-full of information distant cousins have sent me about their branches of the family, and some of it has literally been sitting there for years waiting for me to compare those notes with my records, verify the details which are new to me, input the data and so on. Yeah, of course I've had research time in those few years, but my genealogical ADHD has lead me down other paths in that time.

 

One of these piles has come in from a distant Darby relation in WA. Like most of you, I have never chased the siblings of my immigrant ancestors as they could appear in nearly any country in the world. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean! However, I do collect information about them should it cross my path. Actively chasing them is a project for another decade! In this instance, the cousin supplied information about the younger sister of my George Darby, Susannah, who like George emigrated from Pitney in Somerset for South Australia in the mid 19th century. She married a man whose surname was Cave, and-

 

Wait, hold the press - did you say CAVE? In Australia? Fark!!!!

 

So, it turns out that there is a whole branch of Caves in Australia who are related to me (as in the surname, not the geological formation). However, I'm not going to go on a wild-goose chase looking for connections to music legends who may or may not have that surname. For a start, they're Victorians, and in any case the likelihood of there being any such connection is somewhere between fuck all and none. Now, if it had been Coburns from Cork perhaps... Nah, not even then.

 

In the highly unlikely event that Nick Cave ever appears on an episode of "Who do you think you are?" I will be sure to watch, but in the meantime it's going to be the very last item on my genealogical to-do list. You know, right after I finish my family history. And we all know that

 





Outcome of my Travels

Well, I know you are all waiting with bated breath (hahahaha! - Sorry, did I laugh out loud?) to hear about my trip to the mid-north. So without further ado, let me launch into Boring Travel Monologue #1.

In between the actual work which I had been sent to do (which I did do, but I'm not going to write about) I squeezed in four cemeteries, 1 pioneer garden, 1 church, 1 family history society, 1 museum, 1 railway  station, 1 gaol and 422 kms. Only 1 winery, and that was because it's attached to the church (gotta love the Jesuits!) Happy with that. I also brainstormed a pile of memes to make for the blog, so all in all it was a pretty productive few days.

On the way there I stopped to pay a courtesy call to my 4x great grandparents, George and Mary Darby, who are interred in the Riverton Cemetery. They are buried close by to their daughter Annie, who for some reason had her maiden name used on her headstone even though she was married. Very weird, especially since her husband was a B-grade celebrity.

Probably the only time a family history researcher has driven into Riverton Cemetery with Limp Bizkit's "I did it all for the Nookie" playing on their ipod. Loudly.

I also visited another of their daughters, Elizabeth, who is interred in the old cemetery. It has since been redeveloped as a pioneer garden (I fucking hate that - especially as a celebration. Yay, the state is 120 years old, let's celebrate by desecrating the graves of our pioneers! What a great idea! Fucktards.), but luckily hers is one of the stones which has been retained. While I will never know the exact spot she lies with her newborn son, at least I could see her tombstone <insert rant about sacred sites here>. I then spent Day 2 in planning. Of course as genealogy synchronicity so often has it, that same day I received an email from another of the Darby descendants who is planning a trip to Pitney, their original home. Always funny how that happens!

Before checking in at the hotel I also went to the Clare Museum, on the lookout for my Lavis related family history mysteries. The volunteer there was extremely helpful and dug up the Maynard family history book. Unfortunately the book's author knew about as much as I did, and had even omitted any reference to the Bigamy Incident, so no joy there. Although there were many Maynard related things in the museum, nothing further could be found about the Lavises.

Day 3 I went to visit a site which is of family and local history significance, the Sevenhill Winery/Church/Cemetery. It's the oldest winery in Clare, was once host to St. Mary Mackillop, and is also where her spiritual director, Fr. Tappeiner, is interred. It's also a place where some of my husband's family, the Fudges, worshipped and were interred. I went on the walk hosted by the exceptional Br. John May, former head wine-maker of the Sevenhill winery. One of the stops we missed but which features in the walk booklet is the World Youth Day cross. In the booklet it makes it sound like it is the actual World Youth Day cross which is up in the Radiata Pine grove, but the WYD cross carries on its journey the following WYD, so I'm not sure exactly what it is that's up in the grove. If it had been the actual cross I'd have taken the time, as the cross and icon are very special to me, but I was a bit too busy for replicas and commemorative models.

Day 4 was pretty action-packed. When I was doing the dog-leg to Riverton I realised I was going to be not-a-million-miles from Burra and Hanson, which are also areas of importance to the family, so Day 4 I hit the road (again) and went out to Burra.

The first stop was the cemetery. There are a few married-into-the-family types who are interred there, but I must admit I completely forgot about them in my hurry to see one very special person: a four month old baby named Mervyn Clifford Dawson.



Mervyn's grave-site at Burra Cemetery

Mervyn is my great-uncle, and he's definitely my Sad Story #1. Mervyn was the son of my great grandmother, Ethel Gladys McPherson, and someone... maybe my great grandfather, but probably not. Although her family lived in Hanson (about 12km from Burra), he was born in Alford. She was probably sent to stay with family to hide the shame etc. etc. because Glad was not married at the time (Yes, they'd have a fit if they knew I was stating this on public record, and no, I don't give a fuck. Ethical considerations are good and all, but they shouldn't have to be ashamed about that beautiful baby boy.) Four months later, Glad was back with the family in Hanson. In August Mervyn died of pneumonia, and his death certificate refers to him as the son of William John Dawson, who was Glad's father. Glad was the eldest daughter, so it's pretty obvious that Mervyn had been passed off as her parents' son. They'd had their last child the previous year, so it was probably a fairly convincing story to Burra folks. I doubt anyone in Hanson believed it.

Like most family historians I am beset by babies who were taken from us all too soon. However, Mervyn troubles me for a number of reasons.

1. He's the only one I know for a fact was lied about during his life-time
2. He was my grandmother's half-brother, but I don't know if she even knows he exists, and of course I am not game to ask in case she doesn't know
3. I wonder what manner of mummy-guilt my great-grandmother must have suffered with, between the circumstances of his conception, his birth, his illness, her other son's death many years later in the war...
4. Glad's parents were expecting her when they married, so pot, kettle, black to them.
5. Oddly enough, Mervyn's existence was alluded to by a tarot reader I saw in the late 90s, who said that my grandmother had a brother who died as a baby, but I didn't find out about him for many years after that.

I checked first with the wonderful folks at the Burra History Group, and their VERY helpful president Meredith sent me a mud-map of the cemetery plus directions for where to find the map AT the cemetery so that I could locate Mervyn's grave. He is buried in a section where very few headstones remain, but by a stroke of extreme good fortune he is buried on the intersection of two pathways, which made his site miraculously easy to find (some of that genealogical serendipity that strikes from time-to-time). I sat alongside Mervyn and had a thoroughly good cry for quite a long time. I am happy to have had the chance to visit him. I was probably the first family member to visit him in some 60-odd years, and also probably the first to visit him with full knowledge and acceptance of the circumstances of his birth. I left him a toy car, and continued somewhat regretfully on to the next stop.





Redruth Gaol

Most people who go to visit Redruth Gaol are there out of interest in its role as the prison in what was once SA's largest country town, its history as a girls' reformatory, especially the infamous riot which led to its closure, or ghost hunting. However, I visited because my great-great grandfather Edwin Francis Gough was once the 'turnkey' there, and was sacked in 1864 after allegedly assaulting a prisoner. While he appealed the matter and it ended up in a parliamentary hearing, he was not successful and ended up applying for a store license in Moonta the following year. It was the beginning of a major decline in the family's fortunes, no doubt the subject of a future blog entry!

Burra is a small place, but I had two more important stops: the Burra railway station, where my great-grandfather probably once worked as porter, and the surrounding suburb of Aberdeen where my grandmother was born almost 100 years ago. Unfortunately I missed taking pictures in Morehead Street where Mervyn died or of the Methodist Manse on Jessie Street where my great-grandparents married. Maybe next time.

On the way back to Clare, I stopped in at Hanson. Hanson was the residence of the Dawson family for several years, including the time that Mervyn was born and that my great-grandmother Glad met and married Francis McPherson. My great-great grandfather William John Dawson taught the local school and was noted in the area for his enthusiastic support of the Belgian Relief Fund during the war years. There isn't much there any more, but the Methodist Church still stands along with a few houses. I don't know to what degree my ancestors worshipped in that Church as it was Wesleyan Methodist, and Glad chose to get married in the other Methodist Church in Burra.

There's also this building... looks like a schoolhouse to me!

On my last day in the Clare Valley, I stopped into the Clare Family History Group. They have some wonderful resources, and I definitely want to go back another time to check their Northern Argus indexes and land records. However, the volunteers (including the lovely lady from the museum!) were busy with older visitors and I wasn't able to get much help locating anything useful. I did find the school register for Hanson, probably written by my great-great grandfather William John Dawson, but no light on the Martin/Maynard/Lavis/Wiseman conundrum after all of that! :(

I did deliberate about a more extensive stop in Tarlee on the way back, but scrubbed it out in favour of getting back to the two littlest twigs of the family who I knew would be keen to catch up again. After all, the Tarlee school has been there for over 100 years, so it will probably still be there next time I get the chance to go to Clare! I also didn't get to Terowie, where my great-uncle Ron was born.

All in all, it was a quite successful trip. I didn't solve any of my mysteries, but I did do some other things which needed to be done, and still got my work done to boot.





Places I'd like to go: Clare Valley

I've just been told that work are sending me to the delightful Clare Valley for a week at the start of June. I've been hassling the person in charge of the trip for a full itinerary. She probably thinks I want to hit the wineries. What a waste of time that would be - if I wanted a bottle of wine I could get one from the bottle-o when I get back home.

 

My husband's relations, the Colberts and the Fudges, had quite a few members move to Clare and Sevenhill, so naturally both cemeteries are high on my to-do list if we end up having any free time. I have pictures of most of the existing headstones connected with the family but would love to pay my respects in person. While the Catholic Church in Clare was the place most of them worshipped, quite a number attended the wonderful historic Sevenhill Church. I have fond memories of hanging out in the crypt as a kid, reading about the Polish priests who started the parish while my parents were in the winery... this could explain why, quite a few years later, when I think "Clare Valley" I think dead people!

 



 

I don't care what anyone else says - this is the place to be!

 

The thing I'd like to do most of all is actually to do with my side of the family. In 1865, my ancestor Jestina Darby's nephew Walter Lavis married Ellen Maynard at St. Barnabas' Church of England in Clare. (Ellen's parents John Maynard and Elizabeth Seymour were pioneers in the district.) In 1873 Walter was called up to be a witness in a court case in Adelaide. The case dragged on, and Walter started spending time at one of the local watering holes. It was there that he met Mary Ann Martin, and the pair were married on 08 March at the home of Mrs. Catherine Gay on Gilles Street.

 

They travelled to Melbourne for a honeymoon, and it was there that Mary Ann became aware of a slight serious problem... Walter was still very much married to Ellen! Walter was arrested on 20 May and in August pleaded guilty to bigamy. Five years later, Walter was dead, having been run over by a bullock dray in Appila, NOT (as far as we know) driven by either of his wives. Ellen, who was two months pregnant when she was widowed, remarried an Appila (Yarrowie) local, David Clifford, and we hope lived happily ever after. However, some questions remain:

 

1) What happened to Ellen after her marriage to David?

2) What happened to Mary Ann after the court case?

3) How did these events contribute to Walter's children Henry, Albert and Louisa moving to New South Wales, where they became the adopted children of Solomon Wiseman?

 

 

Yeah, grandson of THAT Solomon Wiseman.

 

I'm really hoping that while I'm in Clare I'll get a chance to visit the Clare Regional History Group, the Clare museum (that's Ellen's parents on the back wall of Room 1) and anyone else who may be able to shed light on that one!

 

 

The only possible explanation!

 

Then of course there's the trip back. I'll be so close to Riverton that it should only add an extra half an hour to the trip to stop in and visit the Riverton cemeteries where so many of my Darby ancestors lived and are buried. I'll also pass through Tarlee, where my grandmother used to live and my great-great grandfather taught school.

 

Wines... who's got time for 'em?