As you’ll see I know far less about the Cornesses than the other families, but Cliff spoke fondly of his mother Annie’s family — or most of them! They’re woven throughout his stories, including a fair amount of their family history. His Uncle Jack (or John) Corness came to New Zealand in 1923, a year or so before Cliff and his parents, on the SS Ionic. Jack’s wife Nellie and their four kids followed in ’23 on the Dorset.
As a kid I thought I knew who Uncle Jack was, but I had it wrong. The man I remembered turned out to be a different Uncle Jack — Uncle Jack’s son Jack.
Cliff reckoned Jack the Elder was an avowed Communist and therefore wrong about everything — and wrong-headed to boot.
One day in the late 1960s or early ’70s I drove Dad to Jack’s place in Auckland for a catch up, but Jack wasn’t home. Although I’ve since spotted Uncle Jack registered as a miner from Hikurangi on the 1928 electoral roll, by the late ‘60s he’d have been pushing 70 and retired.
“Who’d want to buy a house in a place like this?” Cliff said, shaking his head as we were about to drive off. “He’s got no idea about property values.” This was in Ponsonby. I want to say it was on Richmond Road but maybe I’m getting that wrong. Anyway, if it’s not true it should be.
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The younger Jack Corness was a coal miner like my grandfather — also called Jack, of course — but for some reason he’d moved to Huntly. Better work prospects I suppose, or the Hikurangi mine closing. Although I can’t remember Jack the Elder, I have nothing but the best memories of his son, my Uncle. He was modest, wiry, amiable and with a ready smile. And like all miners no stranger to hard work. We’ve lost touch with them, but I do remember his wife Agnes and daughter Ellen.
Jack’s two brothers, Dennis and Tom, and his sister Winnie, also came to New Zealand in 1923 but as I write I have no idea what’s become of them. I did find photos of the two boys in Dad’s album. But the only one I can find of Jack is that little image of him at his Dad’s feet. Uncle Jack is being Uncle Jack, and there’s that smile I remember on little Jack’s face.
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What strikes me now is how adventurous these people were, both the Baughs and the Cornesses — especially given their families’ histories.
They were Lancastrians through and through. Annie Corness, Cliff’s mother, was born in Bolton, North East of Liverpool. Her father Thomas was born in Bolton and died there.
When you look at the place names that come up in the family tree they’re strikingly close together, at least by modern standards. Wavertree, Old Swan, West Derby and School Lane are all in Liverpool. Bolton looks to be an hour or so’s drive up the M62. And if you’re to believe Google, from Bolton you could drive through Horwich, Blackrod, Wigan, Hindley and Westhoughton and be back to Bolton in time for lunch provided you didn’t stop on the way.
Once again there was Irish blood. Thomas’s mother, Kate Kelly — Cliff’s Great-Grandmother — was Irish, and Thomas married into another Irish family, the Daleys. His wife was also, confusingly, call Kate! I’m pretty sure both the Kellys and Daleys had migrated to Lancashire, and certainly Thomas and Kate the younger met and married in Liverpool. Both families were living in School Lane in the centre of the city at the time.
When they married Thomas Corness signed with his mark, as a labourer. His father John Corness was recorded as a rope maker.
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For a number of reasons building a family tree for these families is difficult. For starters there’s the practice of using the same first names from generation to generation, which must be the bane of every family story teller. And then, records are scarce for working class people. The most reliable sources I’ve found are census documents. Birth records are hard to come by and death records often non-existent.
I haven’t found much available on ancestry.com for either the Baughs or the Cornesses. And names are spelled differently. The Cornesses are also the Corners, Cornes and Cornises. The Daleys can be Dalys, Dailys and Dailies. This won’t have been helped by the fact that, like many working class people at the time, they’re unlikely to have been able to read and write. And that’s without mentioning the bad handwriting of the people filling in the old forms, possible inaccuracies when transcribing to ancestry.com and the Latinate versions in Catholic baptism records. I decided to stick with Corness and Daley.
Which is all to say it’s entertaining and a bit obsessive, and I’d certainly like to fill in the gaps.