When Ann-Maree McMurtrie flicked through The Guardian earlier this month, a headline jumped out at her.
“Photo sparks search for Wilkinson family,” it read.
The Motueka local scanned the photo below it and was stunned to see a long-gone but still familiar face looking out at her – her great great-grandfather John Arthur.
The story explained how the framed photograph, neatly labelled with “John Arthur Wilkinson” and “Stanley Brook Nelson” on the back, was found in a Lower Hutt op shop.
The finder reached out to a Stanley Brook Facebook page, administered by Tim and Myra Upton, who didn’t know the people in the photograph but did manage to identify the pictured house.
Ann-Maree was sure she owned an identical picture. She went into her own photo stash, “lifted up the lid and there it was,” she says.
Ann-Maree was born a Wilkinson, taking her husband Bruce’s surname in marriage.
She brought in a different photo to The Guardian office – one that showed her great great-grandparents, John Arthur and Agnes (nee Louden) Wilkinson.
In this image, John Arthur had eschewed the dapper hat, but is unmistakably the same man.
His great great-granddaughter says that the family hailed from the Stanley Brook area, although as far as she knows, it is just herself and her Upper Moutere-based brother left in the district. She doesn’t recognise the other two people in the photograph, despite the Lower Hutt picture being labelled with the name “Toby” as well as the name of her grandfather.
She reckons this newly discovered photo will end up with her younger son, who is the most interested in family history.
Ann-Maree was not the Wilkinson to be alerted to the story. Matthew Wilkinson, who lives in North Canterbury, got in touch last week, explaining that John Arthur was his third great-uncle.
This means that Ann-Maree and Matthew share a common ancestor in John Wilkinson senior and Harriet Scarth. Two of their sons were James Scarth Wilkinson – Matthew’s great great great-grandfather – and John Arthur Wilkinson, Ann-Maree’s great great-grandfather.
Matthew says he has spent several years researching his family history, and forwarded some letters written in about 1850 that gave a detailed account of John senior’s impressions of Victoria in Australia as a new immigrant from Leeds.
The letters also talked of his absolute joy at being told that, unbeknown to him, his wife and their children had made the enormous trip across the seas to join him and were waiting for him in the bay.
“My delight and astonishment may be more easily felt than expressed,” he wrote.
A second letter, written by Harriet to her sisters, also describes this happy reunion.
“I need not tell you John’s amazement, and that he could scarcely credit his own eyes and ears,” she told them.
She wrote of the harrowing 15-week journey by ship with their four children, including Matthew’s ancestor, James Scarth. His brother, John Arthur, was born in Australia in 1851, and was described as “a stunner” in the letters written by his besotted father.
Harriet described the heat of the Australian summer and the parched land that looked “burnt up like a common”, saying that even after she had been in the land for four months, she had yet to see a single blade of green grass.
“When the hot winds prevail, everything is so hot and dry that the sparks from a pipe of tobacco will set the grass on fire and it will run for miles.”
She did, however, approve of the tea, writing that “they do not measure out with a spoon here, but put it into the pot by handfuls”.
Matthew says that the Wilkinsons moved to Stanley Brook around 1865, where John Arthur and his older brother James Scarth purchased properties near where the Motueka River and Stanley Brook meet. A photo shows at least three generations of Wilkinson family among a large crowd beside the Stanley Brook School. He wonders if the mystery Upper Hutt photo is also a multi-generational picture, but can’t yet be sure.
Matthew is keen to connect with Ann-Maree so that they can continue to share information about each of their branches of the Wilkinson family tree.
