Category: Buchan

Dating Photographs

A REID roadside picnic – 1928/9

A lot of magazine articles dedicated to the subject of dating photographs, would use clues such as fashion and the model of the car to date this photograph.  Fortunately, my grandmother wrote on the back of almost every photo so I can use my family tree to make the job a bit easier:

“Grandad Reid; Grandma Reid; Aunt Mona; & probably Ron; & Eric; Uncle Walter’s car”

‘Grandad and Grandma Reid’ are Alexander Gibson REID and Janet HUNTER who married in Glasgow 1886 and emigrated to New Zealand soon after.  It’s quite exciting to have photographs of people who for a long time were only names on the 1871 and 1881 censuses.

‘Aunt Mona’ was mentioned in my previous post so it is also quite exciting to have a picture of her.  ‘Uncle Walter’ must have been taking the photo.  They married in 1925 – my grandmother and her older sister were flowergirls for their wedding – so the photo is obviously post 1925.

Eric BRUNDELL, the baby being held by ‘Grandma Reid’, was born in October 1928 which means this photograph was taken late 1928 or early 1929.

‘Grandad Reid’ died in late 1929 which to me makes this photo as poignant as the one of Ngaire (see here).

I’d love to know the make and model of ‘Uncle Walter’s car’.  Any vintage car enthusiasts care to hasten a guess?

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The Buchan Trio

The Buchan Trio (1925) Alex, Gwen & Ngaire BUCHAN
The photograph above is of my grandmother, Gwenyth Jean BUCHAN (centre) and her siblings – younger brother Alexander Lewis BUCHAN and older sister Ngaire Margaret BUCHAN (their youngest sister Margaret was to appear 6 years later).
Tragically, Ngaire died of peritonitis (a ruptured appendix) when she was only ten years old (December 1927). Grandma recalls that her family received Ngaire’s school first prize after her death.  I’m not familiar with school ‘prizes’ but I assume this means she was a very clever little girl.  I can only imagine the tears that flowed when the mail was delivered that day.

I have two copies of this photograph.

On the back of one in an unknown hand is written ‘With the Compliments of the Season. from the Buchan Trio – To Auntie & Uncle from Ngaire, Gwenyth & Alex’. I’m excited to think the handwriting is that of one of my great grandparents (Charles BUCHAN or Margaret Hunter REID).
On the back of the other, in my grandmother’s handwriting is ‘Ngaire (died at age of 10); Gwen; Alex; We were flower girls for Aunt Mona’s wedding to Walter Brundell’.

A quick check of the family tree shows that Aunt Mona married Walter on the 1st June 1925.  This means that my grandmother was 2 weeks shy of her 5th birthday, Alex was under 2 and a half years old and Ngaire 9 and a half.  She was to pass away six months later.

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More Chiropody at Trentham

My mother found more of my great grandfather’s cartoons depicting Trentham military training camp (New Zealand) in World War I (see the original post here):
That First Trentham Feeling
on Trentham Pebbles in Bill Massey’s boots
(Buck – Copyright)
Recruits Coming into Camp
(Buck.17. Copyright 1917 – Trentham)
S.M. Try one on his head Sergeant
[sign] Massey’s Massage Institute – hours any old time – cupping done gratis
[sign] Notice – Don’t hurry – Wait your turn
(“Buck” Copyright 1917 – Trentham)
Innokulatin dun ere – Don’t sass the dokter – By order
(copyright Buchan)
Bill Massey was New Zealand’s prime minister at the time.
I received a reply from Archives New Zealand.  Unfortunately, they seemed to ignore my request to accredit the images to Charles BUCHAN and instead focussed on which records I could access for a fee.

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Chiropody at Trentham

I’ve finally managed to scan some of my grandmother’s photos that I brought back from my holidays.
This one appears to be a photograph of a sketch:
‘Chiropody at Trentham’ – Buchan 1916
On the back, my grandmother has written “Done by Charles Buchan during WWI.  He was in medical unit doing chiropody“.
Charles BUCHAN was my grandmother’s father.  She had written a letter to me years ago, when I first became interested in family history, in which she told me:
“Dad had a slight heart problem (valve) so had not been accepted for active service & ended up in medical corp & it was there that he did his training (or experience) in CHIROPODY (lots of feet there to practice on) & on returning to NZ, decided to set himself up as CHIROPODIST much to Grandma Reid’s disapproval. ‘Why on earth would he decide to out on his own, when CLUFFS (or whoever) would have been more than happy to re-employ him?'”
Grandma REID was Charles’ mother-in-law, who seemed to be a rather stern sort (maiden name – Janet HUNTER – grandaughter of James BROWN).  I’ve tried to research ‘Cluffs’ and its variations but came up blank (any help from New Zealand would be welcome).
While trying to find out more about Trentham Military Camp, imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this page from Archives New Zealand :

There was no mention of Charles by name or any further information on his drawing but a look around provided me with another World War One sketch by my ancestor:

Swabbing While You Wait – another drawing by Charles Buchan, 1916

I had never seen this picture before and got very excited.  I will be contacting the archives to see if I can obtain a copy of the second image or at the very least if they will credit the images to Charles.

Trentham Camp and Upper Hutt District, 1914-1918 via New Zealand Electronic Text Centre

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I’ve been MIA the last few weeks as I travelled back to Australia for my brother’s wedding (which was lovely).
Sadly, my grandmother’s health has deteriorated and she has now moved to Sydney to be closer to my uncle. (Interestingly, she is a direct descendant of the BUCHAN lunatics I’ve been blogging about and is also suffering from senility).

However, this move uncovered many photograph albums that I think even grandma had forgotten existed.  She told me once that she had thrown out all her old photos because she didn’t think anyone was interested (!).  Happily, this has turned out not to be the case and I pored over loads of antique photographs of her life (which until now I had never seen).  More on those when I have access to a scanner…

 

image via doubleday

In other news, I am currently reading a new book entitled, ‘Tasmania’s Convicts’ by Alison Alexander, which I found whilst in Australia.  I am less than halfway through but find it addictive reading and am happy to recommend it to anyone researching convict ancestors in Van Diemen’s Land.  It even mentions my ancestor Elizabeth ALLEN (very briefly) who was transported there in 1843 for stealing a shawl.

My brother has just returned from his honeymoon in Tasmania, where he had spent part of it ‘researching’ at Port Arthur. I hope to receive some information from him in the near future.

My head is swimming with genealogy right now so I’ve decided to focus on my convict ancestors for a while to give me a bit of focus.  No doubt when I get this scanner, I’ll be flitting around again though.

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