Later Years of the Young Qualtroughs from the book "A Quota of Qualtrough" Pages 48-70

 

REGRETFULLY the following biographies of The Unknowns, those of James Jnr., Richard and Anne are sketchy for they left no direct descendants to pass on information. They are grouped here, out of chronological order on the family tree, because we can tell you so little about them.

 

James Qualtrough (Jnr) (1836-1896) - Maintained Family Farm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgement: JOHN McINDOE LTD.

 

QUEEN STREET, AUCKLAND (1883). The centre of Auckland business and finance. This and other similar scenes must have been fairly familiar to the young members of the QUALTROUGH family of Pakuranga who would have often travelled into Auckland for supplies. Queen Street terminated its northern end on the city's longest wharf, which stretched 517 metres out into the Waitemata Harbour. In the foreground are a number of 'Jacks' bargaining for water melons iwth two gaily dressed women, while at right a newsboy dodges nimbly between horse and wagon.

 

JAMES, more than likely called Jimmy, eldest of the family had spent much of his youth with his paternal grandmother but returned to his parents' home upon her death in 1856 when he would have been 20.

 

He was a young adult when the family migrated and in the only reference of a personal kind we have been able to find - James Cowan's SETTLERS AND PIONEERS - he is described, along with his much younger brother Richy as "…. Giving promise of a strength and sturdiness to equal their father's."

 

Jimmy worked on the Qualtrough farm at Pakuranga and seems not to have ventured further afield than Auckland. Property deeds record that he did have land of his own at Karaka. With changes of nomenclature over the years and lack of detail, it is hard to be sure if the land was in the area we now know generally as Karaka, out from Papakura, or closer to the Tamaki area now known as Karaka Bay.

 

Of all the family he was the only one to return to the Isle of Man, going back in 1882 as executor of his father's will to settle up affairs on the Island.

 

The will in pdf format

 

After an absence of 22 years and as a man approaching his middle-age did he have regrets over leaving his homeland? Was he disappointed that reality failed to recapture the glow of boyhood memories? What were his feelings towards his sister's motherless children? He must have visited them and must have stood beside the grave of the young Catherine, recalling the years of childhood, the parting and the exchange of letters.

 

He returned to the farm at Pakuranga, rejoining sisters Anne and Emily, the latter away from home a lot after she became a professional nurse.

 

The family, by this time, had dispersed. Betsy and Sarah had married earlier as had Willy, now farming at Orakau. Tom, a young widower, was contracting in the Waikato and Richard we understand had gone to Australia.

 

In 1886, at the age of 50, James married Miss Alice Farnsworth, of Otahuhu, daughter of early settlers. Although he had no children of his own, James must have had an interest in their welfare, for records show that he was a member of the Pakuranga School Committee in 1886 and in 1893 was elected to the Auckland Education Board.

 

James was unable to lift mortgages on the family farm and had to let it go. This was sometime in the years of 1891-1892. His last years seem to have been in poor health and he died in 1896 at the age of 60. He is interred beside his parents in the churchyard cemetery at Pakuranga. (See Genealogical Chart 4).