Day Thirty Six

Chatting online with my neice Julia who now now lives in Northern France I was told that she has two swords that belonged to Fitzmaurice Creighton, my great grandfather.  This started me off on another series of enquiries.  I decided to Google Fitzmaurice deVere Creighton, his son, also a military man

I had previously researched him, on Day Seven of the Chronicles,  but this search turned up new insights.  This excerpt from The London Gazette reveals not only that deVere had been ADC to the Sultan of Johore but more intriguingly that his full name was Fitzmaurice deVere Pennefather Creighton.  A check of the UK Birth Deaths and Marriages records confirmed that this was in fact his full name.  But why "Pennefather"?.  An unusual name and perhaps a clue to who Fitzmaurice's mother was.  Could it be that Fitzmaurice gave his first son the names of his mother's family.  Is there any record of a Pennefather or a deVere Pennefather or even better a Fitzmaurice deVere Pennefather?

Another search produced even more surprising results. Which I will post tomorrow.

Day Thirty Five

New Informatiuon coming soon on William Abraham Creighton of Creightons Creek, Victoria in Australia.  1849

Day Thirty Four

Information coming soon on Thomas Cordingley

Day Thirty Three

Time flies  and I have been remiss in recording the history of my family.  It is time now to return to the quest.

Jen Creighton, my mother, was born one hundred years ago today, September 4, 1911 in Alligator Creek, North Queensland.  Her father Harold Havindon Cordingley was at that time a proprietor of the North Queensland Meat Export Company, a company established by his father Thomas Cordingley in 1896.  The sale in 1913 of this company to the American company, Swifts,  financed the purchase of the grazing property, Mihi, in New England.

The illustration, shows the meat-works at Alligator Creek and is from the recently published history of Thomas Cordingley, written by Gweneth Cordingley.  The book gives a detailed account of the life of my great grandfather, who arrived in Australia in 1866 to work as a "technologist" at  Charles Tindall's Ramornie meatworks and of his significant role in the establishment of the Australian meat industry.