RootsChat.Com

I have just succeeded in ordering on line Arthur's book, which I discovered at the same time was called 'Gold to Grass'. I am so excited! I wanted to buy two copies so I could give one to my first cousin who has invited us for Christmas dinner. At the same time I discovered one could order a copy of an interview with Robin Ashwin who is my father's godson and who has had a distinguished diplomatic career. I believe he is back in Adelaide and in view of the fact that he's is a good deal older than I, I really must try to contact him on this visit.He is the descendant of Charles Ashwin, Alfred's brother whom you mention.Charles Francis Godrey was born in 1816. He married Caroline Amelia, daughter of Joseph Reece of Essex and had 3 children: 1)Caroline Grace 2) Godfrey Napier, married Mabel Rosa Gibson and had a son Edward Manley 3) Charles Stephenson married Eliza Sarah Joy ? and had a son Eric Charles Godfrey who went back to signing his name Ashewynne. He had a son Eric Charles Francis Godfrey born 19 October 1890. He married Mary de Quetteville (there is a de Quetteville terrace in Adelade), daughter of Rowland Barbeuson Robin (hence the name Robin). They had two sons, Philip Manley born 5 September 1929, married Patricia Mary Ann Russell and had a number of children, and Charles Robin who married OchChe of Seoul and had a son and a daughter.
Alfred Jenkin and Charles Francis Godfrey had 5 brothers and sisters. George Thomas, born 1811, Charlotte Grace born 1809 were both older, and then after came Caroline born 22 January 1818, died at Cheltenham unmarried, Fanny Ellen Eliza born 21 August 1021, died 22 May 1834 and William Manley born 11 February 1825 lived with his aunts in Cheltenham and all trace of him was lost.
Indeed Alfred and Susannah's grave must have a plaque. Tell me how you fare with that. My grandmother, Ethel Maud, is in the Mitcham cemetery which was fairly newly opened when she died and she is surrounded by her old Adelaide friends.The rest of the Ashwins are in the West Terrace cemetery which is close to the centre of the city, being one of the first ones built. Ethel was exceptionally beautiful and in fact my father met a man who said she was considered the most beautiful girl in Adelaide. She was very vain and had a high opinion of herself I have heard. She was much photographed in wonderful dresses but I need some technological help to get these onto the site to show you! She had a very active social life I gather, balls, parties non stop and she also won medals for lifesaving, being a great swimmer, a skill my father inherited,  but sadly not I! It may have had something to do with the fact that her father had built his house right on the seafront. She also spent a lot of time in India, especially when her brother, Malcolm was there, and she was an avid traveller, something my cousin Janet and I have inherited. It must have been a very great change for her to find herself a vicar's wife deep in the Enhlish countryside at the rather isolated parish of Thorneyburn, far from the sea and within sight of Hadrien's wall.
You have told me so many things! I had no idea there was a street named after Arthur in Alice Springs. I have been there a couple of times and my cousin Janet very often. What is the street called exactly...my daughter will have a look at Christmas when she is there.
Tell me what else you would like to know.
Best wishes, Susan
 

Hello  Beth,

This site is amazing isn't it? Delighted you have discovered it too and very interested to hear you also are a descendant of Alfred Jenkin Ashwin. On my tree it is noted he remarried a Susannah Johnson ? Brick from Maidstone in Kent. I see her name was actually Birch! One of the children from this marriage was Arthur and I have two large handwritten notebooks in which he has written about his experiences in outback Australia. After him on my tree, I have Harry, who apparently died, then Ada or Alice, Wilmott,Tom and Frank, but I have absolutely no dates for any of these, no evidence that the names are correct or that they  even existed. My side of the family, as far as I know, never met them. All the issue of my great grandfather, who was Alfred Jenkin's second son by his first marriage, are in Adelaide, except that I have been in France for the last 33 years. I can tell you about the various children etc. From which of Alfred's second batch of children are you descended?

Look forward to hearing more and shall tell my cousin about you.

Susan   

It's like a disease isn't it! Despite not having the time at all, I simply had to work out the link, and I think it is this.. I have a huge quantity of information, which, as I said, really needs to be sifted through. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of it because I have done no research at all, but it is so detailed that for the most part, I am assuming it is correct, and some things crop up from different sources so either it's correct or just repeated family lagend!
In 1719 Thomas Ashwin of Tower Hill, Bidford married Hester Manley of Crowle, Worc.
Their fist son, Manley, born the year of their mariage, married Mary Godfrey or Godfree in 1746. Their first son, Thomas married Phoebe Cormel in 1783 and she gave birth to 10 children of which your Edward is one.
However Thomas Ashwin and Hester Manley had 6 children. Their second son Thomas, baptised 1727, married Anne Smith of Littleton. They had 5 children. The eldest son, Thomas, born 1753 married Mary Price. He was a Magistrate and was killed in the Priestley riots in Birmingham on August 12, 1791.
Thomas and Mary had 8 children. I have details on all of them, but I am descended from their second son, Thomas Price born January 22, 1777, died blind at the age of 66 in Prestbury where he lived with two maiden sisters,Eleanor and Elizabeth. In 1804 he had married Grace, daughter of William and Sarah Jenkin of Truro. They were a Quaker family. Thomas and Grace had 7 children.
Their third child, Alfred Jenkin, born Cheltenham April 12, 1814 was an accountant. His first marriage to someone as yet unknown, produced two children, Edward Marston and Alfred Gordon. It may well have been that his first wife was a Marston because this name enters the family for the first time here. Alfred Gordon was born in Cornwall in 1843 and drowned off Cape Horn in his early 20's. I am descended from Edward Marston. Incidentally Alfred Jenkin went on to marry a second time with Susan Johnson Brick and had a whole lot more children, of which the eldest has left handwritten books about his experiences exploring the centre of Australia.
Anyway, Edward Marston,born 1845 in Cornwall went to Australia at the age of 3, presumably with his father, but this has never been researched I think. He married Susannah Tapley in 1873. The Tapleys were a well known Adelaide family after whom Tapley's Hill is named. Edward Marston bought land on the seafont at the Semaphore, then very fashionable,  in 1878 and in 1884 he built a large house. He and Susannah had 4 children of which my grandmother, Ethel Maud, born 1874 was the eldest. Milford born 1876 dropped dead in the street leaving his wife Nell with 2 sons. I do not know them at all. Arthur Malcolm was born in 1778 and married Mary MacDiarmid. They had two daughters, Mary and Margaret, both of whom married and had children, all of whom still live in Adelaide to my knowledge. I have been living in France for 33 years but I have seen them occasionally. Ethel Maud married the Reverend Wilfrid Walmsley Nicholson, whom she happened to meet in Adelaide,in London, and they moved to Thorneyburn in the very north of England where my father, Bryan Walmsley was born. Their second son, Edward Marston Ashwin was born in Askam Richard, where their father died at the age of 56, leaving Ethel with 2 boys 7 and 12. She decided to return to Adelaide but contracted tuberculosis on the boat and died 6 years later,also at the age of 56. Edward married and had 3 daughters, all of whom have married and had children, but he also died at the age of 56. When my father turned 56 he had a party, although he did not know his brother's fate at that stage!! I see all Edward's children and the eldest is coming to my  daughter's wedding. I married a Dutchman and came to France. Sadly I was widowed at the same age as Ethel, but instead of having 2 sons, I have 2 daughters, although they were the same age as Ethel's sons when their father died.
I hope you can wade your way through this! As I said, I have masses and masses of stuff but not very close to either of us, but my goodness, there are a lot of Ashwins around the world!
Susan