Hugh Tonneycliffe Falla
This is included because of the Tonneycliffe link with
the Workman family.
Sarah
Falla is Ellen Workman's sister, both were born TONNEYCLIFFE's.
Supplied
by Christine Allan-Johns but originally from Don Le Page.
Falla family taken in 1905
Back row: Elsie, Jane, Kate and Jack
Middle
row: Sarah, Daniel (father) , Gladys, Sarah (mother) and Annie.
Front
row: Hugh, Flo, Eddie and Ted
Linking
the Antipodes
by Hugh Tonneycliffe Falla
In the year 1857 in the town of Carrick-on-Shannon in Ireland a
daughter was born to a warder in the British jail. Two years earlier a son was
born to a sea captain residing in the Channel Island of Guernsey. The meeting
of these two people some eighteen to twenty years later forms a basis of what
will prove an interesting story, covering over a century in time and embracing
two and a part generations.
Sarah, one of the seven children of the warder was under the age of eighteen
when the father finished his long term as a keeper of the jail. Already some of
the older members of the family had left for the much talked of colony of New
Zealand. Immigrants for that colony were being sought and stories of great
opportunities in that far off country were being received from the Motherland
to join the hardy pioneers who had already gone there. Hugh Toneycliffe and his
wife had strong Protestant beliefs, so that it was small wonder that he wished
to leave a country controlled by a faith contrary to his own. The Irish at that
time had little confidence in the British people and what they termed `absentee
land owners'.
Memories of the dreadful potato famine were still fresh in the minds of many. Tom
and Ellen, two of the older children had already emigrated to New Zealand and
commencing with the drapery firm of Black & Beattie in Christchurch, and
then pedalling drapery about the country. Tom was later destined to be a
partner in the firm of Toneycliffe & Carey where the State Theatre now
stands. Later on he took over the firm of Petties Ltd in Gisborne which in
later years was bought by the Farmers Trading Co. of Auckland in whose hands it
stands today. Ellen settled in Blenheim after marrying Robert
Workman [should be John not Robert] whom I understand came from the
whaling stock and whose father ran away with a Maori Princess from Kapiti
Island and eluding capture was able to marry her. These Blenheim episodes
provide thrilling tales of adventure in themselves, but we must return to Hugh
Toneycliffe and the family who emigrated on the sailing ship “Waikato” in the
year 1875.
Captain Dan Falla, a native of Guernsey, the second largest island of the
Channel Islands group was master of the sailing ship “Don Colino”, of some six
or seven hundred tons register, making regular voyages to the South American
ports in Terra del Fuego, to Punta Arenas and the various ports up the coast of
South America, and also to Buenos Aires and Montevideo in Uruguay, Porto
Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and many other small ports.
I am not sure of the nature of the trading but it must have been quite
lucrative at that time and from the information I received during my research,
smuggling formed no small part in the profits of the trading. During those days
it was most rife. Dan Falla junior, the captain's son, lost his mother while a
small baby. At the age of twelve he went to sea, first with his father and then
in the other ships gaining his able seaman's certificate at a very early age in
a ship of 612 tons register, trading between Punta Arenas and the homeland in
1873. The name of the sailing ship on the certificate is difficult to decipher.
Dan used to tell his children amusing stories of his adventures in those early
days. One humorous story he used to tell with relish was how he outwitted his
captain and father on one early voyage. On this occasion he was enjoying a
slice of bread heavily plastered with butter and jam, the two together not
being allowed. He was sighted in the galley by his father looking down on of
the ventilators from the deck. His father came racing down the steps to catch
him red handed and arrived to find no sign of bread, butter and jam anywhere
and returned to the deck mystified. A little later wily Dan returned to the
galley and retrieved the piece of bread butter and jam that was firmly stuck to
the underside of the top of the table, where he had just time to hide it before
the arrival of his father when seen with it. He also bore a scar on his chin.
This was received when in a South American port by the father of a girl about
his own age. They were kissing and cuddling when the girl said in broken
English “Quick, run Dan, here comes daddy”. Dan did run quickly but not quick
enough to avoid a stab from a knife wielded by the infuriated father and no
doubt was thankful to escape with nothing worse.
When captain Dan Falla retired from sea he erected a brick kiln on a large
triangular block of land in the parish of St Martins in Guernsey. The back road
from the Grande Rue to Moulin de Camps and the front road from the Grande Rue
to join the Moulin de Camps and known as Les Camps Rue. This was very close to
the historic old mill in St Martins. After being at sea for some years Dan
stayed in Guernsey to work with his father and there learned his trade at
brick-making. I might cite one amusing story that young Dan used to relate of
that period. One day he was proudly showing off a gold sovereign he had in his
possession when he heard his father approaching and of course he was supposed
to be making bricks, so he quickly poked the sovereign into the soft clay of a
brick he was making and noting the brick piled some more on it. A sovereign in
those days meant a lot of money to a young lad. When dad had gone he pulled out
the brick to retrieve it. To his horror it was not there so brick after brick
was pulled apart but the sovereign was not found and maybe today is in one of
the baked bricks used to build one of the Guernsey houses; but poor Dan never
quite forgot the loss of his golden sovereign.
The lure of the sea returned to young Dan and in 1875 he took a job as sailor
on the sailing ship `Waikato' bound for the new colony of New Zealand. You will
remember that this was the same ship as that on which Hugh Toneycliffe, his
wife and family were emigrating to New Zealand. Dan was a fine looking young
man and young Sarah Toneycliffe a pretty Irish lass. I don't know at what stage
on the voyage they first met; but the trip took one hundred days from land to
land so there was ample time for them to get acquainted. The voyage on a small
emigrant ship in those days was not what we would call today a luxury cruise.
Nearly fifteen weeks on a ship with nothing to see day after day but sea and
sky, the food very indifferent and the hatches battened down every time the sea
became rough, it was not to be wondered that the prevailing wish was to sight
land again. At Timaru the passengers from the sailing ship `Waikato' were
landed on the beach and housed in immigrant barracks until arrangements could
be made for work and homes to live in.
Dan and Sarah lost no opportunities of meeting together but this was no easy
matter in those late Victorian days when Sarah's parents kept their strict
watch on their eighteen year old daughter. Dan visited their home at every
opportunity and they used to tell us of their hasty goodnight kisses outside
the door as Dan made his departure. As their friendship grew and their mutual
love developed Dan asked Sarah if she would marry him. He sought the parent's
permission to court their daughter and she agreed to marry him provided he gave
up any intentions of returning to the life of a sailor. Meantime Dan had
returned to his trade of brick making in Timaru and it was not long before he
was able to take Sarah as his bride and in course of time they were blessed
with one daughter then another. [Ed. Jane Ellen Falla, their first daughter was
born at Kowhai near Kaikoura. Sarah possibly went up to stay with her sister
Ellen there, as it was before they moved there.]
About this time an opportunity came for Dan to work at his trade in the little
town of Temuka about twelve miles north of Timaru. Sarah and Dan and their two
children Jane and Kate set up a new home in Temuka and even today over ninety
years later there are many old buildings remaining built of the hand made
bricks which Dan was recognized as adept at making. The clay was puddled by a
crude arrangement turned by an old horse going round and round in a circle. It
is surprising the great numbers of hand made bricks that were daily turned out
by one man using even these crude methods in those days.
anotherWhile residing in Temuka the young couple had their first major setback.
There were three small rivers near Temuka and during heavy flood the Opihi and
Temuka rivers overflowed their banks and the third added to the water volume
flooding them out. Sarah had barely time to get a few clothes while Dan caught
his horse and saddled it. With the water rising rapidly, Sarah was put on the
horse with the baby while Dan took the other child on his shoulder and they
made their way for higher ground and a neighbour some distance away. In those
early days the hardy pioneers and colonists had no such things as child
allowances, unemployment benefits, social security payments nor flood and
earthquake insurances to rely upon. Sarah and Dan lost all their possessions in
this disastrous flood and even their means of livelihood had gone when the
brick yard and kiln were flooded. There was nothing left for them to do but to
leave the township and make a fresh start, so they went back to Timaru where
Sarah's mother and father were living and also some of her brothers and
sisters.
The next move was to the little township of Kaikoura about two hundred miles
north where Sarah's eldest sister Ellen Workman was living. There Dan commenced
working with a building contractor, his part of the work being the making of
bricks. He arranged with his employer to purchase a section of his land to
erect a house and a portion of his wages each week was kept back till the land
became his own. Then a portion of his wages was used in paying for the lumber
for the erection of the house. In due course they were very proud
of the little house they had built, but there was a big proportion
of wages due to Dan for the long hours of work put in from daylight to dark.
Rumours became rife that the financial position of Dan's employer was not as
healthy as it should be; so Sarah kept urging Dan to get the title deeds of the
land on which they had built their house and to which they were now entitled in
their own rights. Sarah's intuition proved to be correct and Dan had good cause
to regret that he had not acted on it earlier, because it was not long before
his employer had to file in bankruptcy and the young couple had to lose once
again not only their home but all the wages of long hours of toil besides the
balance of wages due.
Meantime a son had been born, assisted into the world by a dear old Maori
midwife named Biddy Hammond. He too was named Daniel John, so now we have three
Dans - Captain Dan the grandfather, Dan the son, and Dan the grandson. The
youngest Dan in later years chose to be called by his second name and as we
will have need to refer to him later we will now call him by the name he went
by and make further references to him as Jack.
We can now understand the predicament of the young couple with three young
children, their home no longer belonging to them and their means of livelihood
gone due to the bankruptcy of their employer. Dan secured another position on
the sheep and cattle station of Kekerengu, a few miles south and inland from
Kaikoura. I am not sure whether the owner of Kekerengu was named Captain Cain
but I did hear them speak of the time when Captain Cain imported a small number
of rabbits and only two survived. These two however multiplied so rapidly that
some years later he was almost faced with ruin and used to say he wished they
had all died. This wish was echoed by many other run-holders in later years
when the rabbits became such a pest over the whole country. Life and conditions
in this isolated part of the country were not conducive for bring up a family
fast approaching an age when their education had to be considered, so the
decision was made to return to the growing town of Timaru in South Canterbury
where they remained for some years.
By the year 1888 Sarah and Dan had three more daughters added to their family
of three, so now with six children the way was hard going especially as the
colony was encountering difficult times, and the growing pains severe with so
much money necessary for development. About this time Dan's stepmother in
Guernsey who was very fond of him expressed a wish to see her stepson whom she
had cared for during his early childhood and who was the only mother he ever
knew. Dan left his wife and family of six to visit his stepmother just before
she died. He was away about six months and arrived back in New Zealand before
the Christmas of that year. The difficulties and hardships being encountered at
that time can hardly be realized or visualized by the present generation. The
wages were small and the settlers had to be prepared to adapt themselves to all
kinds of work and conditions. In 1892 another daughter named Florence was added
to the family. The names of the eight children starting with the oldest were:
Jane, Kate, Dan, Sarah, Elsie, Annie, Edith, Florence. Really hard times were
now being experienced in New Zealand during the nineties by strikes and labour
unrest.
Meanwhile there had been changes taking place on Captain Dan's property in
Guernsey. Complaints were being made that the smoke from the brick kiln was
having a detrimental effect on the trees surrounding Lord de Saumarez's manor
almost opposite and as the `gentry' in the island in those days had much power,
so Captain Dan had to close down his brick yard and remove his brick kiln. He
thereupon built some greenhouses on the property and a row of cottages along
the road frontage, but was forced to limit the height of the cottages , the
reason being that if built too high they would lessen the amount of wind
available for the windmill at the back.
The street was then known as Les Camps Terrace, by which name it is still known
to this day. In New Zealand Sarah and Dan were not finding economic and living
conditions at all easy and Captain Dan once again a widower was needing a
housekeeper to look after him as well as someone to work the glasshouses for
him. He also wished to see his son's wife Sarah whom he had not yet met, so he
decided to ask the whole family to come over to Guernsey to live with him. He
afterwards grew very fond of his Irish daughter-in-law. Imagine if you can the
hardiness or hardihood of Sarah who in 1895 with eight children, the youngest
three years old and over six months pregnant for the ninth, setting out for the
long seven weeks voyage to England round the Cape Horn. They left New Zealand
in the S.S. ”Ruapehu” during the coldest winter the colony had ever
experienced. While travelling Sarah became very ill and coupled with this was
the anxiety whether she would reach England before her child was born. Little
Florence used to say, “Oh my feet, my feet, they are so cold. When will we get
to our other grandfather and a fire to warm my feet.?” Poor Sarah had to lie in
her bunk and hear her plaintive cries and see the other children so neglected
for the want of a mother's care and attention. Eventually the family arrived in
Southampton and then in Guernsey on August 29 th just in time, for ten days
after arrival a second son Hugh was born. The family now consisted of seven
daughters and two sons with almost fifteen years separating the two sons.
The fact that Dan's family were nearly all daughters had a certain bearing on
the decision to return to Guernsey because just prior to their decision to
leave New Zealand the government had brought out a scheme of giving blocks of
land in the wild bush parts of the country with a view to bringing it under
cultivation for farming. Sarah's sister Mary and her husband Robert Hamilton
with a family of boys took up this offer and went to the Kawhatau a district
near Mangaweka for this purpose. Dan and Sarah did not think this was the kind
of life for a family of girls. The Hamilton family did a lot of pioneering work
felling the bush and bringing the land under cultivation. First in the Kawhatau
district and later in the King Country near Raurimu and in the Waioeka Gorge
north of Gisborne, also near Rotorua and Opotiki and in North Auckland. Some of
the grandsons are still carrying out the same work today in those districts and
in the Huntly district, doing no small share with the development of the wild
country.
Soon after young Hugh was born Sarah received word of her sister Mary's death
which was a severe blow to her. When however she learned more particulars and
how her body had to be conveyed on a stretcher by six men over wild rugged bush
tracks from the Kawhatau to Mangaweka for burial, she realized more fully they
had made the right decision not to settle there which was over fifteen miles
from the nearest township and where her sister had to be taken for
the last sad rites.
It is interesting to note at this point the arrangements that were made by the
shipping company in New Zealand when they learned of the large young family
that was travelling on the `Ruapehu'. They arranged for them to have a very
large cabin with a smaller one adjoining it. In this larger portion Sarah slept
with the seven girls while Jack occupied the adjoining one with his father. A
good deal of structural alteration was necessary to arrange this
convenience but it meant that Sarah was able to be in constant contact with the
whole family to direct the care of the younger ones by the elder and to receive
attention herself from the elder ones. These arrangements were most helpful and
perhaps saved the life of the very ill pregnant mother. On their arrival in
Guernsey Jack, formerly known as Dan, was fifteen years old and assisted his
father in the management of the glasshouses. Three of the girls were of school
age and were sent to the British school in the town. There was a parish school
in St Martins but at that time a good deal of French was being taught at the
parish schools and as Sarah was anxious for the children to have a good
knowledge of English she elected to send them to the town school even though it
was a good distance away for the children and the fee was one franc weekly.
This does not sound much at the present day standards but ten pence a week
which was the value of the franc at that time represented a large amount to be
paid for schooling. The baby Hugh thrived but when he was two years old
Florence too had to go to the town school In Vauvert.
Up to this point the son Hugh, now a man past his three score years and ten has
relied on the foregoing events from what he heard so often repeated by his
parents and since verified by the older brother and sisters. My earliest
recollections are of my old grandfather Captain Dan and then my possession of a
little wheelbarrow which I was proud to use thinking I was helping my brother
Jack in the greenhouses. I remember one day in particular, when my brother was
whitewashing the wall of a three quarter span glasshouse. He was unaware that
his little brother was beside him with a small pot of ground in the barrow at
his feet. He flicked the whitewash brush and I received it in the eyes. Jack
was terribly alarmed and agitated as he hastily put my face under a nearby tap
while I screamed and gouged my eyes with my knuckles. The doctor arrived to attend
to me but it was several days before they knew whether the sight would be
permanently lost in one eye. One day in my grandfather's room I picked up the
inlaid snuffbox with which I used to play and they then knew that my sight was
returning much to the relief of everyone. When I was two years old another
sister arrived, she was named Gladys. In speaking of early recollections I
heard so much of the family's voyage round Cape Horn that I felt I had made the
trip myself. Of course I had but not to remember anything because I had not yet
left my mother's body.
When I became old enough I was sent to the infants school at St Martins only a
short distance from my home while my sisters continued taking their long walks
each day to the British Vauvert school in the town. I can still remember the
little French rhymes and jingles that I was taught at that school in the primer
classes. In later years when I learned more French I was able to recognize the
words I learned parrot fashion. While we were in Guernsey the Boer war broke
out and the various days of celebrations stand out in my memory. Prominent
among them were Kronji's surrender, the relief of Mafeking and the relief of
Ladysmith. My father's half brother, my uncle Charlie went to the South African
war and was an officer in the Imperial Light Horse regiment and later wounded
and invalided home. I still have some of his souvenirs such as cartridges with
dum-dum bullets and such like but I have not many memories of those
early days in Guernsey though I learned much more about it and the Islands
history during subsequent visits.
Early in the year 1900 my parents gave me another brother, so now the family of
eleven was made up of eight girls and three boys. New Zealand was again
experiencing better times and my parents began to express concern for the
future of the family in the limitations in the small Island of Guernsey. The
Island's economy was built mainly on the export of early tomatoes and flowers
to England and granite from the quarries for building. Added to this was the
considerable income received from the tourist trade because though small in
size the Island could certainly boast of concentrated natural beauty and a
climate milder than that of England.
By the year 1901 my eldest sister Jane was married to a Guernsey man and with
their little family of a boy and a girl they decided to set out for New
Zealand. My brother Jack had fallen in love with a Guernsey lass about two
years his junior. In September of that year my parents had booked their passage
to return once again to the colony of great promise. We all boarded the S.S.
`Waiwera' to make another start in New Zealand. Now counting the sister already
there, a family of father, mother, eleven children and two grandchildren and a
son-in-law were returning to help the population in a now prospering colony.
The baby Ted was two months old when we set out for New Zealand and I had just
celebrated my sixth birthday. A sister two years younger than me was named
Gladys, my sister Flo was just over nine so the mother still had her hands full
in caring for and training the family. The return voyage was fairly uneventful
and my memories were of a brief call at Tenerife, mountainous seas in the bay
of Biscay, then of some soldiers embarking at Capetown returning to New
Zealand, more storms after leaving Capetown for Hobart and later a sailor
falling overboard and being rescued. One of my sisters had her fourteenth
birthday while aboard and the chief steward put on a real party spread for the
girls, but as no boys were invited I had to peep from behind a large Union Jack
flag with my mouth watering as I watched them all eating the cakes and good
things provided, so different from the routine food served on the voyage at
meals.
Our port of arrival was Lyttelton and the family remained for a short
time in Christchurch where I attended school for a while before going to
Timaru. The school holidays were then on, and following that I spent some weeks
in hospital after undergoing an operation. This long break, the voyage out and
subsequent events set me back somewhat in my schooling, but I went into
standard one at the age of seven and finished at the top of my class by many
marks.