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AUGUST 2001 NEWSHEET OF THE MOUNTENEY AND COPESTAKE ONE NAME
STUDIES
[GOONS 2045]
THERE IS NO JULY 2001 EDITION AS THE JUNE EDITION WAS ISSUED SO LATE
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Simon Martin
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Higher Ince
Wigan
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Payable in £STG to "S. Martin" Drawn on a bank with a
UK Bank sort code
AUGUST 2001 MOUNTENEY NEWSHEET
(c) Simon Martin and contributors 2001
AUSTRALIA see FRANCE, CALAIS, LACEMAKERS
CANADA
[email protected] (Velma Masner) writes:
Do you know about Lois Stewart and the news letter she
publishes quarterly? Through her I have extended my charts after
years of being dead locked. I am very happy to exchange any
information on Mountaney Family.
I have two Mountenay lines that come together at Joseph
Monteney. (Note the various spellings) [Mountney marrying
Mountney!! - Ed]
I start with: Nellie Ann Mountanay Born 1880 Goderich,
Ontario, Canada. Married: John McBride
Her parents: Cornelius Alfred Mountney and Martha Anne Mounteney
(this is my 2 Mounteney lines)
Cornelius' line is: David Mountney, Albert Mountney, Joseph
Monteney
Martha Anne's line is: Cornelius Mounteney, John Mountaney, Joseph Monteney
Mountaney's reside in New York, USA? Joseph is where I end.
Born: abt. 1757 Married: Margaret FRANK 1785.
FRANCE, CALAIS, LACEMAKERS
From Gillian Kelly - [email protected]
Has researched the Lacemakers of Calais for the last 25 years - surprisingly, the name was even coined here in Australia - in the late 1970s a group of Australians, and almost independently of each other, found some pretty odd coincidences in our invaluable shipping lists - this led to the formation of the Australian Society of the Lacemakers of Calais - and the phrase Lacemakers of Calais has become generic in England, Calais and America to describe the English folk in Calais from 1815 on who took the lace trade to that city - much to our delight!
Perhaps you might like to have a look at our website -
www.angelfire.com/al/aslc/
It has a fair Australian flavour because our webmaster is a true
Currency lad - but it will give you an idea!
Ouvrier en tulle : in Calais this always refers to one who was
hired to operate a machine that produced firstly tulle, or the
ground that was embroidered to make lace, and later to operate
leaver's machines that made true lace. I have had much debate
with Calaisienne colleagues, and we agree that this ouvrier is
the English twisthand.
Lace seems to be translated as Lacet or Dentelle: the lace
produced on the leavers and like machines is called dentelle. The
Society of professional lacemakers incalais refer to themselves
as dentellieres
This was the usual practice for the English in Calais. A very
high proportion of the English in Calais returned to England to
marry - this was an English community on foreign soil - and one
that lasted some fifty years - some of these folk were actually
born in Calais, but to English parents and they considered
themselves English. They chose to marry on English soil and the
register of St Mary the Virgin in Dover throughout the 1830s and
1840s is full of marriages between folk who I can identify as
Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire & Derbyshire folk working in
Calais les St Pierre. (While any child born in Calais had to be
registered according to French law, quite often the parents would
have batches of children baptised back in their own parishes when
they made return trips. This is pretty confusing for some
researchers who believe they have found the baptism, and
therefore birth, of a child in the above parishes - their whole
existence in Calais can disappear.) Burials had to be carried
out, obviously - and now there is little evidence of the English
in the Calais Sud cemetery - because of the way the French manage
their cemeteries. The only Englishman who I am aware of being
brought home to be buried was one of the Birkins.
We have found that most of the 700 people who came to Australia, came on three ships and many, many of them were inter-related. The lace trade itself fascinates me - any connections you can make as to where this lot of ours fit in the grand scheme of things would be truly appreciated!
[I think there is a link between Framework Knitting [FWK] and
the later Lace making and hence linkes with the Nottinghamshire
and Leicestershire Mounteneys- Ed.]
The Lacemakers of Calais
by Gillian Kelly
Most people think of the lacemakers of old as little old ladies
sitting in sun-filled doorways with a pillow on their knees and
their hands flying across a myriad of thread-filled bobbins, and
looking as if they had just stepped out of a Dutch interior
painting. They have a look that defies time with their lace caps
and Rembrandt faces as they ply their intricate and fascinating
art.
It often comes as a surprise then that the Lacemakers of Calais
were none of these things. They didn't originate from Calais and,
in fact, were not even French. They were blacksmiths, white
smiths, engineers and inventors extraordinaire. They were male.
They designed and built machines of uncountable complexities
that, in the long run, produced true lace in an infinite variety
of patterns and of such fineness that it floated like gossamer.
And, with the addition of electricity, these machines can still
be used 160 years later.
The story of machine-made lace began in Nottingham towards the
end of the 18th century. The first machines produced a knitted
fabric that ran if cut or holed. The demand for lace was great,
and while romantic visions of hand-made bobbin lace abound, it
was a dirty trade of sweat shops and pathetic wages, and totally
unable to keep up with demand. The time for machine lace was
ripe, and the first machines that produced tulle were invented in
the early 1800s in Nottingham. The tulle base was embroidered by
hand, to produce a fine fabric.
England was fiercely protective of her world lead in textiles.
She made it illegal to take the machines, or even the men who
made and ran them, out of the country. There were even
suggestions that such a crime be punishable by death!
To protect her own industry, France placed high tariffs on
English lace and fine English cotton, making the product
outrageously expensive. With very low profits and high wages in
England, around 1816 one Robert Webster with accomplice, Samuel
Clark, ran the risks and smuggled a machine into Calais. The
machine was dismantled and shipped on numerous boats in packets
labeled "old iron," and then reassembled in a shop on
Quai du Commerce in the village of Saint-Pierre, outside the
walls of Calais itself.
Trade boomed and in the following years no fewer than eleven
machines were set up. The operatives were English and their
motive was profit. The machines were owned by Englishmen and
operated by Englishmen, lest the secrets of the trade got out!
In 1822 a man called Austin either gave or sold a machine to a
French engineer who was able to copy it and teach his fellow
countrymen how to use it. From this time on, the French and the
English worked side by side in Calais et Saint-Pierre, in a
blossoming business. Eventually the British trade embargoes were
lifted and, while the industry had catastrophic rises and falls,
it was marked by two spectacular improvements.
The first was the application of steam to the machines. This
enhanced production and led to the necessity of machines being
accumulated in factories - marking the commencement of the
factory system. The second was the belated application to the
lace machine of an invention of a man called Jacquard. This
system allowed the movement in and out of play of individual
threads. This system had been applied to other textile machines
many years earlier, but wasn't until the 1830s that Fergusson was
able to successfully attach it to a lace machine. For the first
time, it was possible to produce true lace in its entirety on a
machine.
By this time there were some three thousand English living and
working in Calais and Saint-Pierre. Their lifestyle was simple
but comfortable and seemingly better than life in the Midland
counties of England.
Then France revolted! The Revolution of 1848 was not particularly
bloody by other standards but it brought France to a complete
standstill. Banks were frozen and all work stopped. In some areas
of France, British workers were actively menaced, but in Calais
and Saint-Pierre the atmosphere was simply one of despair. The
lace factories were closed and their English owners returned to
England to wait for better times. In France there was no money to
be had and seemingly no way of survival except to return to
England and to the Poorhouses of the various parishes.
Nottingham and its surrounding counties were gripped by the same
depression as Europe and her Poorhouses were bursting at the
seams. One group of Calais Lacemakers saw returning to the
Poorhouses as untenable and in March of 1848 they gathered in a
church in Saint-Pierre to discuss their plight. One hundred and
fourteen families signed a memorial beseeching the English
Government to support them in their desires to emigrate to the
Australian colonies, especially South Australia.
Their initial pleas were disregarded. Many of the men were over
forty, they were highly skilled in a trade not wanted in
Australia and many of them had large families with numerous
children under the age of ten. The Colonial Office was not
convinced that it would be getting immigrants of quality.
However, with statements of support from English Consul Bonham of
Calais, and the sure knowledge that the British parishes would be
hard pressed to support such an influx, a compromise was reached.
Appeals to raise half the assistance money were launched in
London and in Nottingham, and kits were found to outfit the
emigrants.
The first to leave Calais were shipped by steamer to the Thames,
where they boarded the Fairlie and sailed on 30 April 1848. There
were 56 Lacemakers on this voyage - chosen as those who seemed to
be the least destitute. They were disembarked at Port Jackson.
The next was the Harpley, an Australian built merchant, which
departed 12 May 1848 and did go to Adelaide. Her complement was
intended to be entirely Lacemakers, but at the last moment six
families were redirected to other ships. The heads of family of
these six, it would seem, were unable to produce their marriage
certificate - an ordinary requirement for couples emigrating as
married! Finally the Agincourt left Gravesend 6 June 1848.
For the Harpley and the Agincourt, the voyages were arduous, but
made under the ideal circumstances of all the passengers knowing
each other, coming from similar backgrounds and going forward
with similar intent. Those on the Fairlie were entertained and
shocked by the behaviour of a particularly difficult group of
women and a Superintendent Surgeon who behaved quite unfairly
towards some of the men!
The arrival of the Harpley in Adelaide marked the beginning of
yet another trying period in the Lacemakers' lives. There was no
Immigrants' Agent to assist them find work and they were, with
few exceptions, destitute. However, with the determination
already exhibited, they were settled into work within the first
few months. Many of the single females married with alarming
alacrity.
Those who reached Sydney stepped into a political climate where
the country areas were complaining loudly about not receiving a
sufficient supply of labourers and who could blame anyone for
wanting to settle in beautiful Sydney after over three months at
sea! To overcome this tendency, the Lacemaker's were not allowed
to disembark at Sydney. Most of the Fairlie lacemakers were
dispatched to Bathurst and the Agincourt passengers were split in
half. The first half, within days of their arrival, sailed by
steamer to Morpeth, from where they walked to the East Maitland
barracks and were assisted into employment all over the district
by the local authorities.
The second half were transported up the River to Parramatta where
they were established in the Immigrants' barracks for several
days while arrangements were finalised to transport them over the
Blue Mountains to Bathurst - a journey of ten days. On reaching
Bathurst, they too were settled into Immigrants' barracks with
the overflow being accommodated in a converted store. They were
quickly absorbed into the fabric of Bathurst society. They were
initially mainly employed as servants of the domestic and farm
varieties. A few of the lads were offered apprenticeships and
their lives, while very different from anything they could ever
have imagined, settled down to a pleasant routine.
We can feel for Eliza Lowe's husband and young family - she got
wet crossing the mountains, and died of pneumonia within weeks of
reaching Bathurst. Jane Crofts got as far as O'Connell, almost to
Bathurst, when the arrival of her baby became imminent and she
had to request the dray stop to allow her to give birth.
We recognise the work of Thomas Saywell in the development of
coal mines at Bulli and his real estate ventures at Brighton-le-Sands
- a name one would have to assume was a reflection on his younger
years.
In the years to come, Mary Anne Whewell was to marry coach
builder, James Holden, in South Australia and their name is
legendary in thee annals of the Australian motor industry.
Brickie Foster, the son of Frederick, of Forbes, married one Kate
Kelly who bore three children. Kate died in the saddest of
circumstances and her brother, James, overlanded it from Victoria
to take the children back to their grandmother, Ellen. Kate Kelly
was Ned's sister.
Part of the original agreement with the Colonial Secretary was
that the Lacemakers of Calais would not bring tlieir trade with
them and, while this seems sad from the point of view 150 years
later, it is becoming increasingly apparent that they were only
too happy to leave it all behind.
Australia WAS the land of opportunity. There was sunshine and
food, and their children did not have to work long hours from
early childhood. It was the time of the goldrushes and Land Acts
that put land within the reach of those who wanted it.
Almost seven hundred men, women and children came on those three
ships, with the families relocated off the Harpley following in
the next months.
While many followed in the years to come, these original
immigrants with all their knowledge and skills, and their special
deals with the Colonial Secretary and the British Foreign Office,
were the original Lacemakers of Calais
The Harpley
Build me straight, 0 worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
that shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
The merchant's word
Delighted the Master heard;
For his heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace unto every Act.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882
The Harpley
The Harpley was built near Exeter on the River Tamar in Tasmania,
in the yards of the Patterson Brothers, and launched in 1847. She
was measured as being of 547 tons and had two decks, a square
stern and was ship-rigged on three masts. She was 122.4 feet long
and 26.3 feet wide at the widest part and her depth from deck to
keel amidships was 18.6 feet. She was built for James Raven, a
merchant of Launceston.
between two and three hundred passengers for Spring Bay, to
witness the launch of Mr Raven's ship. A portion of the band of
the 11th accompanied the steamer, and played several enlivening
airs during the trip down. The launch was effected without delay,
in a most skilful manner; but the tide having ebbed about six
inches, the vessel grounded within a few yards of the shore. Mrs
Raven performed the ceremony of christening the ship, to which
the name Harpley was given; she is 544 tons new register. The
Swan was stationed in the Bay, where the spirited owner
entertained a large number of guests; in the evening she was
towed up by the steamer. The Harpley is as fine a ship of her
class as was ever built in the world; her model is considered
excellent, whilst the work is admirable, and reflects the highest
credit upon Mr Patterson the builder. Wherever she goes, the fact
of such a vessel having been built on the banks of the Tamar,
will excite astonishment, and must tend to raise the capabilities
of our port in the estimation of all.
On 10 February she was registered at Launceston as No 1 of 1847
and made her first voyage out of Australia in March 1847. She
carried a full cargo of primary produce, then called at Hobart to
embark 50 soldiers, 26 women and 40 children. She left Hobart for
England on 20 March, and reached England in July. The London
Times reported:
"The Harpley" - Under her three topsails and jib, with
a stiff breeze from the north east, and strong ebb tide, the
smart ship Harpley appeared of Plymouth on Monday morning, the 17th
instant, and notwithstanding the opposition of both elements,
she, cutter-like, gracefully entered the sound, and with a
conscious pride took up her anchorage at the appointed station.
ComparativeIy a few years since no one would have imagined that
the far distant colonists of Van Diemen's Land would have sent to
the mother country a fine specimen of naval architecture, so well
qualified to mingle in one of her noblest ports, with the
merchant shipping of the parent state. The Harpley was launched
in Launceston on the 2nd February, 1847, and with the exception
of her chain cables, was there supplied with all her materials,
stores, rigging, pumps, &etc.
There are stories of her being unsound, with fault being found
with the Australian timbers used to build her. This was untrue
and her registration was changed from Launceston in 1847 to
London at the end of her first voyage there. She was commissioned
to carry the Lacemakers out of England to South Australia and she
departed Deptford on 12 May and reached Adelaide on 2 September.
Her next voyage from England carried an interesting contingent of
Baptists. John Chandler was a child at the time, but he
remembered:
In the year of the Great Famine in Ireland in 1848, there was a
great stir amongst the Chartists, and much excitement in Brighton.
Wagner, the Vicar of Brighton, was pressing for the Church Rates,
and the Nonconformists would not pay, so he stopped the clock at
St Peter's Church, which many of the town people depended on for
their time. All the boys took up the cry whenever they saw him,
"Who stopped the clock?" We all knew him by the grey
pony that he rode. When we saw him coming we would look out for
some place to escape in where he could not ride, and then shout
out with all our mights and run, for he had a whip like the
huntsmen have...
Provisions got very dear at this time, and many people were
talking about emigrating. Many were leaving for America. There
was gold discovered in California... This was in 1848. Some of
the members of the Ebenezer church met together and after much
talk and many prayers, they resolved to emigrate... The Harpley
having got all her cargo aboard and most of her passengers, we
started from St Katherine's Dock on 9th September, 1849 and were
towed down to Gravesend... *
From information supplied by John Donisthorpe, Rolicker Chandler,
Ronald Parsons & A H Bradfield.
* Forty years in the Wildemess, John Chandler, revised Michael
Cannon, Loch Haven Books,1990
Passengers aboard the Harpley
Harpley Arrived Adelaide 1848
SURNAME
NAMES
OF
YEAR BORN
PARENTS
Mountenay
John
1803
Bennet
Elizabeth
1801
Mountenay
Thomas
1829
Mountenay
Goerge
Derbyshire
1832
Mountenay
Ann
Calais
1836
Needham
Emma
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE see FRANCE, CALAIS, LACEMAKERS
TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES - UK
UK-INFO DISC PRO 2001
2000 Electoral Roll and Telephone Directories [Includes
duplicated entries in both sources]
456 Mounteney etc entries
By Surnmae
Mountenay 2
Mounteney 133
Mountney 322
No other variants spotted
By Chapman Code
NTT 45 Middle
DBY 35 Middle
ESS 34 Early
WAR 34 Mainly Birmingham Recent
CHS 33 Recent
LND 30 Middle
LEI 22 Middle
KEN 20 Recent
STS 19 Middle
DOR 14
HAM 11
SRY 11
LAN 10 Recent
NFK 10 Early
BRK 9
GLS 9
HRT 9
BKM 8
GNT 8
SYK 7
Leeds 7
BED 6
SSX 6
Coventry 6
OXF 5
SFK 5 Early
CLV 4
NTH 4
CON 3
DFD 3
MGM 3
SAL 3
AVN 2
CAM 2
CWD 2
DEV 2
HUM 2 North Humberside
LIN 2
MDX 2
NBL 2
NYK 2
Edinburgh 2
POW 1
Southend-On-Sea 1
Glasgow 1
The distribution is very interesting as it does nort really
bear any resemblance to place of Origing NFK, SFK, ESS, [Ecclesfield
near Sheffield died out into heiresses and still has a nil
population of Mounteneys]
USA See CANADA
Last updated 20 Aug 2001 - Web Master - Simon Martin [email protected]
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