Sunday, December 30, 2012

Ellen (Farrer) Middlebrook

I think of this woman ( my 3x Great Grandmother, as the  matriarch of my family . It was she and her husband who chose to bring their family of 6 children to New Zealand in the 1860s to start a new life. Sadly her husband John died less than 4 years after their arrival, and how easy it may have been for Ellen at the time to return to Yorkshire to the very well established Farrer family, and yet she remained, with her children and forged a life for herself and brought up 6 children each of whom became successful in their own ways, all having children of their own.

I hope to learn more about her life but I needed to create a layout with the information I know now and hence this layout using a very small and poor quality photocopy of a portrait taken probably in her 30s  or early 40’s – maybe  before she left England.

I would love to know where the original of this is.

 

 


Journalling reads
Born Ellen Farrer, to father Benjamin (clock maker) and Ellen nee Thompson, in Pontefract, Yourkshire on August 4 ,1820, Ellen married Johhn Middlebrook, brewer of Millbrook, Leedson February 2nd 1847 . They lived in the Liversedge area of Yorkshire for the early part of their marriage and and emigrated to New Zealand with their 6 children under the assisted immigration scheme, arriving on the ship Shalimar in 1862 ,to begin a new life.
They bought land in Matakohe and Whangarei, but moved to Auckland, and when her husband died in 1866 Ellen remained living in the central Auckland area for some time but did live with her children at various times She lived till the ripe old age of 94, dying in Arkles Bay at the home of her daugther Jane, of old age. Through Ellen Middlebrook I became the 6th Generation of my family to live in New Zealand.

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