Ancestors to Immigrants by BH Woodley The Woodley family crest is a chevron between three owls argent and is available from any of the many name websites. This family record should make it considerably easier for readers to trace our family ancestors, places and occupations should they wish to do so. Later chapters provide a record of some the issues which faced my family during my life. It does not trace family past my parents generation, or in other words the descendants of all my direct family, as this information is subject to genealogy ethics and privacy provisions and is only available to family researchers and those who appreciate the effort which has gone into this family collection and who acknowledge their information source. However, thanks to the input from relatives and family, it does give a general background as to where we came from in the UK and life in early New Zealand.
On my maternal side [Bush] a distant relative Paul Bush [12] had an interesting history [b1490 d1558] as he was the first C of E Bishop of Bristol from 1542-1554 and personal Chaplain to Henry V111. However when Henry gave clergy the right to marry and he was married to Edith Ashley he was deposed by Queen Mary and is now buried in in the Bristol Cathedral. Paul's mother Margaret Strange [12] was an heiress by Joan the mother of the 1st Lord Strange of Shropshire, and is thus related to six early English kings from 981 to 1221. The Bush side of the family is via the marriage of John King to Sarah Maria Bush - the first family to emigrate to Wellington New Zealand in 1842. John was the third Solicitor to practice in Wellington and later a member of the Wellington Provincial Council - a form of our early government. A history of the Bush - King family follows later in this chapter.
My early paternal ancestors came from West Berkshire in the Hampstead Norreys area which is very close to the M4 motorway. An internet search [10]shows that it is close to the junction of the A34 and the M4 and to the town of Chieveley, Chaddleworth and the Living Rainforest which is a local tourist attraction. Records from other Berkshire researchers in the UK indicate that the family name of William Woodley can be traced back to as early as the 16th century from this area with a William born in 1738 and baptised at Hampstead Norreys as the son of John and Sarah Woodley on 4 March 1738. Another William Woodley[2] was born in 1788 at Burghclere in Hampstead who married a Sarah at Hampstead Norreys and a brother John born four years earlier at Chaddleworth. According to historian Dr Barry Jerome the Woodley families who are related to William had been had been living in Chaddleworth since the 17th century.It is expected that the St Marys Church graveyard[10] in Hampstead Norreys is a useful resource for Woodley historians. John[2] was a wheelwright living opposite William in Newbury Road at Woodbourne Cottage and his daughter Mary Hannah [born 1816] was a witness when William’s son of the same name got married in London. So there is a definite link between the Berkshire and the London families. A second William was born to William of Berkshire in Pimlico, London (b. 18/03/1830 d.9/11/1909)[1][3] and then taken back to the family home for christening in Hampstead Norreys. We also know that William Junior had been a boarder of Henry Hazell wheelwright at Hampstead Norreys and was married in London at Westminster at the church of St. John the Baptist in 1856 to Mary Ann Flory -Gray(b.28/01/1836d.4/01/1926) [1][3] and must have some time after decided to emigrate as the five person family left England on the SS Canterbury[4] on 21/09/1863 and arrived in Lyttleton NZ on 10/01/1864. The Chaplain kept a diary of the voyage which is available on loan from the Canterbury Historical Museum, Christchurch.
They brought a family of three children [4] named Eliza(1857-1934), William(1860-1871) and Henry(1861-1924) ranging in ages from five to one. Mary Ann the mother was pregnant when they sailed and later gave birth to Caroline. Eliza married William Hide. William the son died in Rangiora of hepatitis [5] at eleven years of age where he is buried, and the family had farmed for some twelve years, but a daughter Caroline (1864-1922) later married David Blair of Vancouver Canada and emigrated [5] to that country. William's son Henry was my grandfather who married Elizabeth Wells of Benjeroop, Victoria Australia on 21/12/1884 [6] who was a Scots lass from Blantyre, Lanarkshire and she is buried 10-05-1938 at the Waimari Cemetery, Christchurch. The marriage of Henry (1861-1924) and Elizabeth (1862-1938) produced my father William (1892-1962) his brother James (1886-1957) and five girls, Marion(1889-1950), Una (1891-1973), Ruth (1896-1963), Evelyn (1898-1983) and Bessie (1902-1989).The family business in New Zealand was pastoral farming as owner/occupiers and probably as tenant or labourer farmers in Berkshire and William Junior is recorded as a builders labourer on a birth certificate when he was working in London. William farmed at Rangiora and Hilton shortly after emigrating. William Woodley is listed in “Wises” property holders register as a farmer-blacksmith.He is buried at Temuka with his wife Mary Ann and his son Henry[5]; so except for Henry’s wife Elizabeth they are in the same cemetery.
My maternal side of the family for a time had a considerably more glamorous and academic lifestyle.[Refer Bishop Paul Bush 1490-1558]. James King [1780-1850] was employed by the Crown at a high salary (around p.700 in 1830)[11] to oversee the Woods and Forestry Department at Inverness Scotland and married Mary Maria Mellis [1789-1860] a daughter of John Mellis, St. Helena, France. John Mellis a Military Surgeon [12] may have dealt with Napoleon’s imprisonment and his son Lieutenant George Whalley Mellis was Surveyor General in 1830 and his son J.C. Mellis [12] was Colonial Surveyor and Commisioner of Crown Property in 1858.[Refer "Views of St.Helena" by George Whalley Mellis].This must have warranted a generous pension when he retired to London. James son John with his wife Sarah Maria sailed to New Zealand in 1844 on the SS Theresa is recorded in a diary of passenger Sir Frederick Weld [11] where it states that the vessel was chased by pirates off the coast of the Azores showing Danish colours but believed to be operating out of the Portugese port of Praya. They exchanged fire with the pirates and the other excitement was when a fire broke out on Christmas day but the crew were too drunk to attend and later quarrelled with the Captain and refused to work which led to the loss of an anchor off the coast of Port Taranaki. The crew were sent to Prison when the voyage finally ended at the fledging port of Nelson though where they would lodge them is any ones guess. It is not known whether the entire King family emigrated together though it is known that John King first visited Wellington on the SS Martha Ridgway arriving 30/03/1842 and departing in 1842 to collect his large family before returning 1843 on the SS Theresa. A full 30 page treatise of the history of the King family is available from the historian Dennis Bush-King for research purposes. It provides a fascinating insight into a family which provided much to the early devolpment of the Colony and of Wellington and who was the acting Commisary General in 1842, third Solicitor and in 1857 elected to the Wellington Provincial Council. Dennis Bush-King summarises;
"He was well meaning,ambitious,articulate verging on the verbose, an aggressive advocate at law resorting to attacks on opponents and even by the robust standards of the day was considered intemporate. He was exposed to a wide range of people and organisations and had influence on the development of early Wellington and played a part in the development and practice of the legal sysyem of New Zealand." He certainly practised the family crest/motto which is "Labore ipse Voluptas" or "labour itself is a pleasure."
John King who was born at London 19/06/1809 and died Wellington 5/06/1862 [one of six males] emigrated to Nelson by way of this voyage and practised as a Solicitor all his life at Wellington and is buried in the Bolton Street Memorial Park[11], near the lower footbridge with his wife and daughter [both] Sarah.Both John King Jnr and Thomas King were two of four children who changed their name to Bush.John after marriage to Sarah Maria Bush on 25/09/1829 changed to the hyphenated surname of Bush-King, and some time after he was involved with the militia fighting the Maori Wars. Their union produced four sons and five daughters including a son who was my maternal great grand father Thomas Edmund Bush-King (1841-1914) who died at Mt Eden Auckland. They appear to have deleted the King surname for possibly reasons connected with a large inheritance and to escape inheritance tax in 1912 when a daughter of John a Catherine Wemyss wife of Lt. Frederick Wemyss of the British Army drew up a Will and Deed of Covenant to leave her estate to the nephews and nieces of brother Thomas Edmund Bush and John King, another brother of the same name. There is no hard evidence to support this reasoning other than the fact that there was a breach in family relationships which had lasted for some thirty years when the various branches of the families lost contact and did not know that the Kings were related to the Bush families until the 1960’s when a family historian Gordon Trevor Bush published his research [11][12] “To be a King” in September 1966