William Neasmith - Chaneyfield Mill

[Babsneigh]

Hi Cousin Dijaks,
My great grandfather was Charles S. Neasmith who was a lithographer working in Manchester in mid 19th century and he married Janet Thompson at Manchester Collegiate Church (Cathedral) Manchester on 30th May 1842. My grandfather was Thomas Neasmith who was born in Manchester 6 January 1845. Charles and Thomas also came to Australia and kept in contact with William Neasmith's descendants in Australia, especially through the MacKinlays.
Are you desended from Elizabeth Neasmith who married James Vallance on 15 June 1825?
I would love to find out any information on the family of my great grandmother, Janet Thompson.
Also I was wondering if you had been able to find the parents of William Neasmith who married Margaret McNeiledge on 19 January 1792.
Babsneigh

[dijaks]

Hello Cousin to you too!

I am descended from William Neasmith and Margaret Murray's daughter Elizabeth who married David Matthews in Maneroo District NSW on 12 Mar 1850.  Elizabeth and her widowed mother Margaret and siblings landed at Twofold Bay near Eden NSW in 1848 as part of Ben Boyd's Utopia experiment.  They were seen as suitable people for his experiment in the colonies.  The children worked on squatting runs in the area which I suspect Ben Boyd had set up.  Margaret and Elizabeth married young men working in the area and when the gold rush started in Ballarat, they set out for the Ballarat goldfields, but that is another story.  Mother Margaret, son William and Agnes all went to Sydney after the experiment failed.
No, I haven't found out who William Naismith Senior's parents are, but I suspect that your Charles Stewart Neasmith's name is the clue!!!  He is the only one with a middle name!

Dijaks

[Babsneigh]

Hi Dijaks
Maybe we should get in touch by email. I'm interested in stories about the Neasmith descendants when they came to Australia.
My email address is cbshort@bigpond.com

Babsneigh

[Babsneigh]

Hi everyone,
I have just discovered something on the web that tells me that in August 1838 William Neasmith said that he had been a manager of a weaving factory belonging to the Lancefield Spinning Company for 13 years ( 1825-1838). I found out that the Lancefield Cotton Works were situated at 85-7 Lancefield St., Glasgow. They were built about 1825 by the Lancefield Spinning Co. A weaving factory was added to the east in about 1840. The works were sold in mid-1870s.
I can only assume that the name Chaneyfield Mills was given to the part where William Neasmith was the Manager in 1842.
So the information given to me by my late father, that he was running a cotton mill in Manchester, was wrong. The mill was evidently in Glasgow. That means the monument to him must be in an old grave yard in Glasgow. When I visited Glasgow in 1965 I remember seeing a huge graveyard with many similar monuments. Good Luck to those who are looking!  Babsneigh.

[Babsneigh]

Hi Everyone,
You have probably worked this one out long before me. I have just studied the drawing of the monument to William Neasmith with a magnifying glass and believe the word is Lancefield , not Chaneyfield. It is very hard to work out what it is but whoever guessed Chaneyfield was wrong! It was Lancefield.
So that solves the problem. I just looked up Lancefield Street on a Glasgow map so know where the mill was located.
There is even a photograph of a building on the site i.e. 85-7 Lancefield St. on another web site.
I believe a number of the old cemeteries were levelled to make way for progress. So you make not be able to find the monument. But some record of it may exist somewhere.
Good hunting!
Babsneigh