Family History 4.26

Robinson Story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

Joshua and Elizabeth's Children

Joshua and Elizabeth brought with them on the ship four children. The eldest, Jane, was seven years old. She was born when they were living in Paradise Street in Rotherhithe. We will hear more of Jane later, because she married a man who left a diary full of interesting details of their life in the new country, and one of her sons, named Joshua after his grandfather, is still memorialised to this day in the place he died.

The eldest son, William, who was born when they were living near Elizabeth's parents in Manchester, moved around a lot in New Zealand and Australia, to Brisbane, where he met and married his wife, and to Napier in the sixties and later to Wanganui. But the family always returned to Auckland, and that is where William died.

The next daughter, Lydia, was born when they were living back in London, in Peckham, so was three at the time of the voyage. She eventually married John Newman, a carpenter, who was one of the boatload of emigrants who planned to set up the Port Albert settlement on the Kaipara Harbour. By the time of their marriage they were living in Auckland; as carpenters were in  short supply in Auckland at that time, he never actually made it to Port Albert.

As we have heard, Jemima was hardly a year old when she was drowned in the clay-pit her father had dug in the back yard of their house in Parnell.

The first New Zealand-born child was Catherine, when they were living in Parnell. She married Charles Hill, a signwriter, who eventually developed his business into Hill and Plummer, one of the leading paint shops in Queen Street.

 

Sarah was the next daughter, born in Auckland and moving with the family to Pukekohe East at the age of 12. She married George Plummer, another of the Port Albert settlers, and for years they managed a store and inn there, before moving back to Ponsonby and joining his brother-in-law in the paint business of Hill and Plummer. They built one of the first houses in Selwyn Road, Epsom.

 

Joshua Caleb was the next of the children. We will come back to him and his family later, for his eldest daughter, Felicia, was my grandmother.

 

In 1850 the next son, Watkin, was born and he was the one who took over the farm at Pukekohe East when Joshua and Elizabeth retired.

 

Last of the children was Amy, who married a local boy from Bombay. He and his family, the Halls, had come on the ship Bombay after which the district was named. Amy died at 28 after the births of four children. Her husband, Sam, remarried in his forties and moved to Auckland, where he ran a firewood and coal-delivery business.

 

From the next instalment, we pick up Joshua Caleb's account of the family.