Family History 4.40

Robinson story

adapted from Robinsons of Rotherhithe and family traditions

 

Joshua Caleb's Family

 

When the family returned to Auckland during the wars of the sixties, Joshua Caleb stayed there, and did his training as a painter and paperhanger with his brother-in-law, Charles Hill of Hill and Plummer. During the next ten years he prospered because by 1875 he had acquired two properties, one in Wellesley Street and a three-roomed house in Wellington Place.

 

He married on 13 April 1875 from Wellesley Street. His bride was Mary Ann Meneer Tremain, the eldest child of Edwin and Ann (nee Meneer) Tremain, who emigrated in the late fifties from Cornwall. The village they came from is Egloshale, now almost a suburb of Wadebridge. Egloshale is built around a street that runs away from the Camel river from the village church. Its name means 'Church by the river'.

 

When Mary Ann was a girl, her task on Saturday mornings was to help her mother to carry sand from the river so that, after they had swept up the last week's sand from the mud floor of the kitchen, a new clean lot of sand could be spread in a traditional pattern for the next week. Kel Tremain was another later member of the family.

 

The wedding took place at the Beresford Street Congregational Chapel, and they set up house in the Wellesley Street property. The first decade of married life saw four children arrive: Edwin in 1876 (he died of TB in 1904), Felicia Ann Tremain in 1878 (who married William Bigelow), Harold in 1880 (he was killed at Messines in August 1917), and Ernest in 1884 (a teacher for many years in the Waikato).

 

In 1885 the family moved to Jervois Road, Ponsonby, and Joshua ran his business from there. The shop was valued at 28 pounds ($56) and another building in College Road at 22 pounds ($44). His staff varied from two to twenty, depending on the amount of work. Five more children were born there: Caroline in 1885 (later Mrs Judd, who we used to visit at Matawai, in the hills west of Gisborne), Watkin 1890 (who married Dora but had no children), Arthur, who only lived seven months in 1893, Harvey in 1895 (father of Owen, Graham and Pam, Mrs Poole, wife of Richie), and Amy Emma Jane in 1898.(Mrs Noble).

 

In 1912, Joshua and Mary Ann moved to Seymour Street in Ponsonby, although they still carried on the business from the Jervois Road property. Joshua had also bought property at Waikumete. His properties were worth 900 pounds ($1800) by this time.

 

Their last move was to Westminster Road, Mt Eden and it was there that Mary Ann died in 1916. Joshua moved to 17 Banks Street, next door to his brother-in-law John Newman. For the rest of his life he lived with Felicia Ann and William and their family. He died in April 1927.

 

He was very involved with both the Baptist Church and the temperance movement.

 

The village of Egloshale, looking down the street towards the church and the Camel River