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

 

Sarah Qualtrough (1853-1921) - Mother of ten

LIKE HER brothers and sisters, SARAH grew up on her father's farm at Pakuranga. Only six when she came to New Zealand she would have attended the private school her brother Thomas had spoken of, and watched the menfolk go off on military service and seen her big sister Betsy go from home as the bride of William Cowan.

 

It was while visiting Betsy at Kihikihi that Sarah would have met her future husband John Haddock, a member of the Armed Constabulary stationed at Orakau Redoubt. John, like Bill Cowan, had come from Ireland and he was a regular visitor to the Cowan home. It was one of his duties, too, to pick up the day's ration of milk for the Redoubt from the Cowan farm. Pretty Sarah took John's eye.

 

Romance blossomed and they were married on February 24, 1876, from Sarah's home at Pakuranga. John had transferred to the constabulary of the New Zealand Police Force in 1872 and at the time of his marriage was stationed in Hamilton.

 

They lived at Hamilton for three years where their first three children were born - Edwin Qualtrough, Sarah Evelyn and Winnie Bella.

 

In 1880 the family moved to Ngaruawahia where their second daughter Emily Bellfield was born, thence to Dargaville where three more children were added to the family - John Mosstown (Moss), William and Herbert.

 

From Dargaville the next shift was to Warkworth. The change of scenery brought a change of sex in the issue of little Haddocks for after a run of three sons a daughter, Ada Lilian, came into the world. Yet another son followed in 1889 with the birth of Mervyn.

 

Warkworth brought tragedy into the lives of Sarah and John. Firstly Ada, four years old, became sick and died in 1891 to be followed by Mervyn, only three years old, in 1892. Their tiny graves on a hillside above Warkworth bear mute testimony to the risks of pioneer life.

 

SARAH (QUALTROUGH) HADDOCK, right, with her younger sister EMILY QUALTROUGH

 

Sarah and John produced their last child, their 10th, on September 16 1891, a son whom they named Bertie Mervyn although somehow he became known as Pat

 

In 1895 after 25 years of service John left the Police force -a long career when you consider 10 years of previous service with the Irish Armed Constabulary.

 

 

 

 

 

John, not one to sit around, decided to break in land in the Waikato. William and Herbert went off with John to farm at Karamu in the Waipa County. The life was considered too rough and rigorous for the womenfolk so John installed Sarah and the girls in a comfortable cottage in Pratt St, Ponsonby, Auckland. Edwin and Moss also stayed with their mother and worked in Auckland.

 

After some years farming, John became ill and returned to the family in Pratt St, where he died in 1903.

 

The family drifted into their own lives. Edwin, the eldest, who was working for the (then) Northern Steamship Company, was the first to marry. His bride was Elizabeth Jane Butterworth, of Auckland.

 

Emily - known as Emil - married a master mariner, William Edmund Sinnott; Moss married Williamina Cornwell, farmed for a while, then went into the timber business at Paeroa.

 

William farmed at Karamu, joined up in World War 1 and was killed in action at Gallipoli. Herbert (Bert) farmed at Karamu and married a local girl, Edith Rose Smith.

 

'Pat' served in the Merchant Navy in World War 1 and became a ship's engineer on the England-New Zealand run. He married, on the Isle of Man, May Harrison, a great-granddaughter of James and Catherine Qualtrough. (They would be first cousins once removed).

 

The Haddock side appears to have had more contact with the Isle of Man than other branches, for Moss, during his war service, managed a visit to the Island and was warmly welcomed into the hearts and homes of descendants of Catherine, his unknown aunt.

 

Evie and Bell remained single and lived at the Pratt St. home with their mother and their Aunt Emily who joined them some time after her sister Annie's demise. Grandson Selwyn Haddock can remember visiting them as a boy and seeing Sarah, then an old lady, in her favourite rocking chair surrounded by the scions of her family.

 

Some time before her death in 1921, Sarah went to live with Emily in Te Awamutu. She is interred in the Purewa Cemetery in Auckland alongside her husband. 

 

(See Genealogical Chart 8)