Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - eminentvs

Pages: [1]
1
Buckinghamshire / Re: ROBERTSON/McCALMONT
« on: Monday 30 November 09 21:12 GMT (UK)  »
Russ,

It's exciting to learn that your wife is the great-granddaughter of James Shaw Robertson and Ethel McCalmont Robertson. I don't know how much you may already know about the McCalmont and Robinson/Robertson families; for instance, are you aware of the connection with Florence's English Cemetery and the Villa McCalmont (as it was once known)? Are you aware of the beautiful chapel here in Hanford that Ethel was so deeply involved in decorating? If  not, there are links and pictures to send your way. There are many documents here that are directly relate to Ethel McCalmont and her husband -- both in church documents and in a trove of business papers that were long ago donated to our local museum. I am researching the English colony of Hanford, of which Ethel was a central figure, as part of an historical project for a centennial. I'll be happy to share with you anything that might be helpful. I don't know how to attach images to this reply, but I do have a few that might be of interest to you, and will pursue some means of providing them.

Mark A.

2
Buckinghamshire / Re: ROBERTSON/McCALMONT
« on: Friday 27 November 09 21:17 GMT (UK)  »
I've been researching James Shaw Robertson and others who were central figures in Hanford, California's "English Colony" of the late 19th Century. In addition to JSR, there are the McCalmont sisters, Ethel and Margaret (Margaret married JSR's business partner, James Ernest Rawlins), William Rose Robinson (1851 - 1885, older brother of JSR) and his fascinating wife, Lilia Napier Rose Robinson. These were remarkable people, and they left a lingering imprint of art, faith, and pioneering development behind when they returned to England. The Episcopal Church of the Saviour in Hanford preserves and uses the redwood chapel built by these and a few others in 1882, decorated with stained glass windows from Florence (the mcCalmont connection) and England and remarkable wall paintings by the McCalmont sisters (see St. Ann's in Syston for similar work done by the McCalmonts after the return to England). JSR's first wife, Julia Eliabeth "Lily" Robinson (nee Barkworth) is buried in our local cemetery, as is William Rose Robinson.

Surprisingly, after 125 or more years, there are pressing issues. I am eager to find living relatives (most particularly among the descendants of Harold and Julia Traill Barkworth, parents of Lily Robinson), and photographs or portraits of any of these individuals to supplement the few images we have of JSR. Lilias Napier Rose Robinson published a couple of very charming accounts of trips to Yosemite and the Sierras with her husband -- rare volumes that warrant re-publishing; verified images of either Lilias or her husband would enhance that project enormously. I would be happy to share the information I've gathered at interpreted on this side of the Atlantic.

Pages: [1]