THE MUNROS OF SALTBURN
The Munros of Saltburn and Their Descendants 1st edition 2022
Published by Don Munro
Copyright © 2023 Don Munro. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author.
Editor: Gen Brown,
Layout and cover design: Don Munro
Printed by Don Munro
www.munro.net.nz
THE MUNROS OF
SALTBURN
And their Descendants
The Story of George Munro and Margaret Ross of Saltburn, their
children and their families.
We follow them through their lives from Scotland to England, Wales
and Africa.
By
Don Munro
Dedication
This is dedicated to Lynn for putting up with the many hours spent
pouring over historic records, my frustration when hitting those
inevitable “brick walls” and supporting and encouraging me
throughout, especially with the repeated requests to cast her eye over
old, fading, damaged family photographs to exercise her facial
recognition skills, and so much more.
Page i
Foreword
I have written this essay to document what I have uncovered over the
years about my Munro ancestors and their families. It is written in a
narrative form for those who are put off by the stilted and repetitive
style of genealogy reports that are generated by the numerous
software programmes available to capture family history. It is,
however, difficult to do much in this regard when the only facts
available are the details of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths, and
even these limited facts are not always all known.
The Munro Homestead, Preston House, Old Main Road, Pinetown
My interest in our family history was piqued by a family reunion of the
descendants of my Munro great grandparents - George Munro from
Saltburn and Selina Jane Davie from Ormiston.
Page ii
My interest in finding out more about George and Selina was also
spurred on by the fact that, in my early years, I lived in the Munro
Homestead, Preston House, when my parents lived there with my great
uncle Bill.
The window to the left of the front door in the picture above, being my
bedroom, with my parents’ bedroom across the hall with their window
on the right of the door. Our living room was on the far right and Uncle
Bill's on the far left. After we moved to our own house on Cowies Hill, I
often returned to the farm, visiting Uncle Bill and spent many
enjoyable hours there.
My research has happened in fits and starts and it is only recently, in
the last five years or so, that I have had time to dig deeper and really
make progress. Advances in information technology and its
dissemination through numerous internet platforms have made all this
possible. Today with genetic tools such as DNA matching much more is
being discovered and often disputed facts have been proven. I have
also had the good fortune to have found likeminded individuals and
relatives, from around the world, to collaborate with and pool
resources. It is with this in mind that I decided to make what I have
found available to others and share it.
I can provide no guarantee that all the statements within are
completely true, as I have discovered over the years of genealogical
research that even documents of fact can contain errors, in addition
much of what one discovers is by interpretation. I have however done
Page iii
my very best to ensure that the details I have presented are true,
where there is doubt or alternatives I have identified these where
possible. I have limited the work to generations past to respect the
privacy of living descendants.
Page iv
Contents
Dedication............................................................................................. i
Foreword ............................................................................................. ii
List of Photographs and Diagrams ..................................................... vii
Acknowledgments .............................................................................. ix
The Munros of Saltburn ........................................................................... 2
The Adam Family ................................................................................. 4
Margaret (and Charles Scott Middler) ............................................. 5
Mary (and Roderick Mackenzie) ...................................................... 5
Davidina (or Davida, or Ida) ............................................................. 6
Jane Munro ...................................................................................... 6
George ............................................................................................. 7
David Munro ........................................................................................ 7
The Mackenzies ................................................................................... 8
John (and Rebecca Edgar)................................................................ 9
George (and Agnes Heath) ............................................................ 11
Christina (and Norman Macleod Macdonald) ............................... 13
Margaret ........................................................................................ 13
The Allans .......................................................................................... 14
The Cosgroves .................................................................................... 16
The African Adventure of John, Donald and George ......................... 18
Donald Munro ................................................................................... 18
The Munros of Tongaat ..................................................................... 18
Agnes Jessie (and Frank Drake) ..................................................... 21
George Samuel (and Anna Kapp)................................................... 23
Page v
John Ross (and Edith Smith) .......................................................... 24
Burt ................................................................................................ 27
Alice (and Charles Norris) .............................................................. 27
The Munros of Pinetown ................................................................... 30
Margaret Mary (and Alexander Dryden) ....................................... 33
Laura Selina (and Richard Clendinning) ......................................... 35
James Davie (and Lilian Wayne) .................................................... 37
Alexanderina Ellen (Cissy) (and Alfred Dacomb) ........................... 39
Alfred Charles (Alf) (and Gladys Knowles) ..................................... 40
Isabella Sanderson (Bella) (and Benjamin Barrett) ........................ 50
George Ross (and Ethel Forrest) .................................................... 52
Malcolm Bruce (and Christina Beggs) ............................................ 54
William Kenneth Martin (Bill) (and Mary Williams) ...................... 54
To Conclude ....................................................................................... 58
Where it all comes from ...................................................................... a
Page vi
List of Photographs and Diagrams
The Munro Homestead, Preston House, Old Main Road, Pinetown ....... ii
The Munros of Saltburn ........................................................................... 2
Saltburn Village 1904 ............................................................................... 2
The Adam Family ..................................................................................... 4
Murthly Hospital ...................................................................................... 6
The Mackenzies ....................................................................................... 8
The Mackenzie Family ............................................................................. 8
John and Beck with William, Edgar and John ........................................ 10
William Mackenzie ................................................................................ 10
George Mackenzie ................................................................................. 11
Jerusalem War Ce metery 1917 and 2017 ............................................ 12
The Allans .............................................................................................. 14
The Pembroke Castle in Cape Town ...................................................... 15
The Cosgroves ........................................................................................ 16
The Munros of Tongaat ......................................................................... 18
John Munro ........................................................................................... 19
Alice Thring ............................................................................................ 19
Alice's Gravestone in Newcastle ............................................................ 20
Vivian with his father Frank ................................................................... 21
Leslie and Clarice ................................................................................... 22
Boer War Harrismith.............................................................................. 23
John Ross ............................................................................................... 24
Ian Ross-Munro Wedding ...................................................................... 26
Cpl. JM Norris God's Greatest Gift Remembrance Your Loving Wife
Thelma ................................................................................................... 28
Alice and Charles William’s Gravestone ................................................ 29
The Munros of Pinetown ....................................................................... 30
George Munro ....................................................................................... 30
Selina Jane Davie ................................................................................... 31
Preston House - The Munro Homestead ............................................... 32
Daisy Munro 1896 ................................................................................. 34
Laura and Richard, Wedding 1904 ........................................................ 35
Laura Selina ........................................................................................... 35
Jimmy in NMR Uniform ......................................................................... 37
Page vii
Jimmy with his Athletic Medals ............................................................. 37
Angus, Pearl and Bruce .......................................................................... 38
Alfred Dacomb ....................................................................................... 39
Alf ........................................................................................................... 40
Gladys Vera ............................................................................................ 41
Alf and Gladys at Cowies Hill ................................................................. 42
Unveiling of Boer War Memorial in Hexagon, Queenstown ................. 42
Gordon ................................................................................................... 43
Gordon in NMR Uniform ....................................................................... 43
Sella 1946 ............................................................................................... 44
Sella on Ferry in New Zealand 1999 ...................................................... 45
John and Carina ..................................................................................... 46
Gwynnie and Roley ................................................................................ 46
Kit ........................................................................................................... 47
Daphne .................................................................................................. 47
Barbara .................................................................................................. 48
Tom ........................................................................................................ 48
Nan and John ......................................................................................... 49
Wilfred in NMR Uniform ........................................................................ 50
Duncan in RAF Uniform ......................................................................... 51
George Ross ........................................................................................... 52
Malcolm Bruce ....................................................................................... 54
Bill Munro .............................................................................................. 54
Willie ...................................................................................................... 55
Willie and Ilva ........................................................................................ 56
The Munros of Pinetown and Partners as at 30 March 1898 at Daisy’s
Wedding ................................................................................................ 57
Daisy Munro .......................................................................................... 57
Laura S Munro ....................................................................................... 57
Cissy Munro ........................................................................................... 57
Nan Munro............................................................................................. 57
Bella Munro ........................................................................................... 57
Page viii
Acknowledgments
It is not possible to name all those who have helped me over the years
with my research, but thanks must go to my family who have put up
with my boring stories when uncovering new details; also to my siblings
and cousins for family information. I can’t ignore the host of fellow
genealogists who have assisted in some way.
Emily deserves a mention for organising the family reunion that set this
all off. A special mention must also go to Rory for the inspiration, help
and journalistic advice that he has given, and to Noreen for the gift of a
plethora of family photographs and for the personal stories about her
family.
Finally, to Genevieve for giving of her time to proof read the many
editions and provide editorial advice and to Cameron for his ongoing
interest, even from afar.
Page ix
The Munros of Saltburn
(George Munro and Margaret Ross)
And their
Descendants
The Munros of Saltburn
Saltburn Village 1904
George Munro was the second youngest child of Donald Munro, a
merchant and tailor of Tullich and his wife Catherine McKenzie. George
Page 2
was a house carpenter and lived in Saltburn, a small village near
Invergordon in the Highlands of Scotland, with wife Margaret Ross,
whom he had married in 1834. Margaret was the eldest child of David
Ross and Isabella Munro of Saltburn.
The family of George and Margaret seems to have had their share of
tragedies with Margaret outliving three of her children and George
outliving two. His daughter Catherine barely survived him, passing
away later in the same year. Their son John was to die in 1886 in
Newcastle, South Africa, where he had lost his young wife in a tragic
accident in 1877.
Their children were, Margaret, born in 1834, (shortly before their
marriage); David born in 1837; Catherine in 1838; Donald, in 1841;
John, in 1843; George, in 1845; Isabella, in 1847; and lastly,
Alexandrina, in 1856.
George died in 1882 in High Street, Invergordon, where he had resided
since 1875. Margaret outlived him by 5 years dying in 1887 also in their
High Street residence. No trace can be found of their burial although it
must have been at one of the cemeteries of the local churches.
Page 3
The Adam Family
(Margaret Munro and James Adam)
The Adam Family
George and Margaret’s eldest daughter, Margaret, married James
Adam, a railway porter working in Edinburgh at the time of their
marriage. James, the son of a farm servant seems to have left the
employ of the railway and was an agricultural labourer in 1864 when
their first child, Margaret, or Maggie, as she was known, was born.
They had five children, Margaret, Mary, Jane Munro, Davidina and
George, before Margaret succumbed to meningitis in 1878. Times
seemed to have been fairly hard for Margaret’s family. After her
parents had moved to Outram Street in Invergordon, Margaret and the
children were living in their old family home at Saltburn, for the 1871
census. She was recorded as an agricultural labourer while, James, also
an agricultural labourer, was not with her, seemingly being away,
where the work took him, lodging in Lairg, Sutherland. Margaret must
have moved to join him, in Sutherland, before their youngest child, a
son, George, was born in Kildonan in Sutherland. After her death the
Page 4
four youngest children lived with her parents, who had now moved to
High Street in Invergordon, and the eldest Maggie with her Aunt,
Isabella, in Glasgow.
Margaret (and Charles Scott Middler)
Eldest daughter, Margaret, was living with her Uncle and Aunt,
Alexander and Isabella Allan, in Govan, a suburb of Glasgow for the
1881 census. She was working as a domestic servant, possibly, to help
Bella with her 4 month old son David, who was recorded in a later
census as an invalid. There she met and, in 1890, married a seaman
Charles Middler, the son of an Aberdeenshire veterinary surgeon
Thomas Middler and his wife Christian Trail. Charles must have given
up his life as a seaman because in the 1901 census he is recorded as a
window cleaner, perhaps because by then he and Margaret had
adopted a son also called Charles. A little more than two years later
Margaret was widowed and Charles is recorded as a chandler on his
death registration. Margaret was still living with son Charles in the
same home in East John Street for the 1911 census. She died in August
1950, in Clydebank, Glasgow and is recorded as the widow of “seaman”
Charles Middler.
Mary (and Roderick Mackenzie)
Mary, Margaret and James’ second child, married Roderick Mackenzie
and moved to Urray in Rosshire where her father, James, was then
living and working. Mary and Roderick had one son, Duncan, born in
Page 5
about 1904. Mary’s family including son, Duncan, was living in Newton,
Urray, Ross and Cromarty for the 1911 census. Her father James died
there as a retired farm labourer in 1913. In the 1921 census the family
are still living in Urray where Roderick was Gamekeeper for Captain
John Stirling of Fairburn. Mary stayed on in Urray until her death in
1933.
Davidina (or Davida, or Ida)
Davidina signed herself as Davida, when reporting her grandmother’s
death in 1887. She went on to call herself Ida in later life. She became a
nurse and was at the Rowditch Lunatic Asylum in Derbyshire, England
for the 1891 census, where she was an “attendant on insane”. Her
career progressed and in 1911 and 1921 she was registered as a single
woman and Matron of the Ipswich Lunatic Asylum in Foxhall Road,
rd
Ipswich, Suffolk. She died in Ipswich in the 3 quarter of 1925 at the
age of 56.
Jane Munro
Jane, like older sister Ida also
went on to become a nurse and
worked at the Lunatic Asylum at
Murthly in Perthshire, where
she was recorded, unmarried at Murthly Hospital
the age of 40, in the 1911 census. In the 1921 census she was still
working at the Perth District Asylum but was visiting her sister Mary
Page 6
and her family in Urray. What became of her after that has not
revealed itself yet.
George
George was last recorded in the 1891 census, where he was recorded
as a grocer’s assistant lodging in Glasgow Street, Govan. What became
of him thereafter remains unknown and the subject of further
research.
David Munro
The first of the Saltburn family to die was George and Margaret’s eldest
son, David. He died in 1860, at the age of 23, of consumption, the
disease we now know as tuberculosis. This is a disease often
th
associated with poverty and poor living conditions. It was rife in 19
century Britain. At the time of his death he was a student and had
seemingly planned to travel, possibly to South Africa, having acquired a
passport in 1858.
Page 7
The Mackenzies
(Catherine Munro and David Mackenzie)
The Mackenzies
The Mackenzie Family
Catherine married David Mackenzie from Wick in Caithness in 1867,
and they had four children, John, George, Christina and Margaret.
David, the son of a bootmaker, was a wool warper at the time of his
and Catherine’s marriage. He must have been well thought of because
after working at Colm Mills in Inverness, he went on to secure a
position as manager of the Glanclywedog wool factory in Llanidloes,
Page 8
Wales. It was here in Llanidloes that their youngest daughter Margaret
was born.
Catherine died of lung cancer in 1882, after the family moved to
Wales, only a few months after her father, George.
Her husband David remarried and went on to survive the First World
War. He farmed in Forden, Montgomeryshire, Wales. His two
grandsons, David Mackenzie, John’s son, and George Munro
Mackenzie, George’s son, had been living with him in Forden helping
on the farm, before signing up to serve. On enlisting, David nominated
his grandfather as his next of kin rather than nominating his parents,
John and Rebecca, suggesting that this had been a long standing
arrangement. During the war David moved to live with his son George
who was farming Stapeley Farm near Minsterley in Shropshire. Perhaps
with his two grandsons going off to war, managing the farm on his own
was too much for David. The young cousins were sadly both to perish
almost a year apart while serving in the forces, George of wounds
sustained in the Palestinian campaign and David of Spanish Flu in
Belgium, shortly after the end of hostilities.
David Mackenzie lived to the good old age of 85, dying 10 years after
the conclusion of the War, in 1928, at Forden and is buried in the
cemetery at Middleton-in-Chirbury.
John (and Rebecca Edgar)
John, David and Catherine’s eldest son, moved back to Scotland and
married Rebecca (Beck) Edgar from Ayrshire and settled in Glasgow.
Page 9
The couple had 5 children, all sons: David, named for his Mackenzie
John and Beck with William, Edgar and John
grandfather, William Edgar, George Munro, named for his Munro
great-grandfather, John and finally Edgar Hugh bearing his maternal
grandfather’s names. Tragically, George Munro Mackenzie was to
succumb to measles in 1903 at the tender age of 21 months. The two
older sons went on to serve in the First
World War, the younger two being too
st
young. David served in the 1 Battalion
of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry in
the European campaign and died of
“influenza” in the December of 1918,
after the cessation of hostilities.
Presumably this would have been the
William Mackenzie
notorious Spanish Flu which was ravaging
the Allied armed services at the time. David is buried at the Charleroi
Page 10
cemetery in Belgium. William survived the war, serving in the Royal
Field Artillery. He went on to marry Annie Duffie in Glasgow in 1922.
He died in 1975 in East Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Not much is known about brother, John, who died at East Kilbride,
Lanarkshire in 1982. The youngest brother, Edgar Hugh, married
Christina Webster in 1938. He died in 1962 and is buried in Fort
Augustus, a village on the south west banks of Loch Ness in the
Highlands of Scotland.
John died in 1931 in Pollockshaw, Glasgow, and Beck in 1947, after
returning to her birthplace in Maybole, Ayrshire.
George (and Agnes Heath)
Unlike his brother John, George did not
return to Scotland and stayed near his
father in Wales, marrying Agnes Heath
in 1895 in Welshpool, Wales. Agnes
gave birth to twins George Munro and
David Richard about a year later, in
Toxteth Park, Lancashire. The twins
were baptised twice, first in October in
the parish of their birth and then again
George Mackenzie
in December in Welshpool.
George was to be found living with his son, David Richard, in 1911 at
Whiteway Colony, Sheepscombe, Stroud, Gloucestershire. Agnes was
meanwhile working as a housekeeper in Harborne, Birmingham and
Page 11
their other son, George Munro was living with Grandfather David
Mackenzie in Welshpool, joining his cousin David helping out on the
farm. The Whiteway Colony was an unconventional residential
community in the Cotswolds in the parish of Miserden near Stroud,
Gloucestershire. The community was founded in 1898 by a Quaker
journalist, Samuel Veale Bracher, along with other Tolstoyans. George
is recorded as a small holder, indicating that by then the residents had
abandoned the Tolstoyan disdain of land ownership. Conditions in the
community were probably still fairly spartan, as is indicated by the fact
that running water only arrived in 1949. The community was
considered by many, including Gandhi, as a failed Tolstoyan
experiment.
In early 1914, son, David Richard
died at nearby Shropshire, where
the family had moved. They were
probably, by that time, living at the
Stapeley farm address that was
given by George Munro on his
attestation papers when he joined
to serve for the War. George M.
joined the Gloucestershire
Regiment at home but had
transferred to and was serving
with the 160th Company of the Jerusalem War Cemetery 1917 and 2017
Page 12
Machine Gun Corps in the Palestinian Campaign, when he sustained
fatal wounds in the defence of Jerusalem and died on 27 December
1917. He is buried at the Jerusalem War Cemetery.
George died shortly after the War in 1920 at Forden, Welshpool. Agnes
lived on for over 30 more years until January 1952 and is buried in the
Croft Cemetery, in Welshpool.
Christina (and Norman Macleod Macdonald)
Christina is recorded living with her parents as a 9 year old in the
census of 1881, but was not there for the 1891 census. It seems she
was taken in by her then childless Aunt Alexandrina in Trentham. It was
here, in Trentham, that she would have met Norman Macleod
Macdonald, whom she married in the November of 1898, with her
cousin Ida Adam (otherwise known as Davidina) as a witness to the
ceremony.
Margaret
Margaret was living with her father and stepmother in Wales at each
census until 1921. She is last found, at the commencement of
hostilities against Germany in the Second World War, still in Wales as a
single 61 year old woman in the England and Wales 1939 register.
Page 13
The Allans
(Isabella Munro and Alexander Allan)
The Allans
Isabella Munro is missing in the 1871 census but was in Ayr with her
Aunt, her mother’s sister, Elizabeth and her Uncle when she wrote to
her brother, John, in Natal, South Africa in the December of 1874.
Perhaps the attraction was her cousin, Alexander Allan, who was at
nearby Ballantrae as a student teacher in 1871. They were married in
her home town, Invergordon, in January 1880. Alexander was by then
an “engine smith” living in the major shipbuilding centre of Glasgow.
The couple had 5 children. Sadly only two, their eldest David born in
late 1880 or early 1881 and their youngest Margaret, born in 1891,
survived beyond infancy. The other three children, George Munro,
Alexander Cosgrove, and Elizabeth Ross had all succumbed before the
1891 census. Alexander was not at home for the 1891 census. Perhaps
the nature of his work as a ships engineer necessitated his travelling
abroad. Whatever the reason, he certainly was travelling aboard the
Avondale Castle to Durban, in the Colony of Natal, as an engineer,
when the census of 1901 was taken. Alexander stood surety for their
Page 14
passages when Isabella and their two children sailed on the Pembroke
Castle to join him later in 1901.
Their son, David, was
recorded as an invalid in the
1901 census, and his age was
recorded as 16 on the travel
documents to Durban,
perhaps so that he would be
still considered as a The Pembroke Castle in Cape Town
dependent rather than the adult that he undoubtedly was. Isabella had
also been in the habit of misrepresenting her own age, first at her
marriage where she claimed to be 4 years younger, and then later, to
be some two years younger at successive censuses, but most blatantly
on her travel documents where she claimed to be 12 years younger.
Sadly Isabella was not to live long in Durban, dying a little over a year
later in the December of 1902 at Esselmont House on the Berea. Her
brother, George Munro, was the informant on her death notice, in
which he declared that he was taking care of David but had no idea of
the whereabouts of daughter, Margaret, who would have been only 11
years old.
What became of her children or their father Alexander after Isabella’s
death is not known.
Page 15
The Cosgroves
(Alexanderina Munro and James Cosgrove)
The Cosgroves
George and Margaret’s youngest child was daughter Alexandrina, born
in about 1856. Lexy (as she was known) would have been just 8 years
old when her two brothers George and Donald set sail on a new
adventure to Africa.
She was living in Macclesfield, Cheshire when she wrote, in January of
1877, to her brother George’s wife, Selina, to thank them for the best
wishes on her upcoming nuptials to James Cosgrove. In the letter she
writes with sadness about the unfortunate atmosphere in the family
home, in which her father seems to be frequently drunk and abusive to
her mother. James and Lexy were married at St. Paul’s Church in
Macclesfield on 24 May 1877. The couple set up home in Macclesfield
where they lived for a few years before moving to Trentham in
Staffordshire.
No record can be found for the birth of any children for the couple,
however after Lexy’s death, a twelve year old Margaret Cosgrove was
Page 16
living with James and his second wife Hannah Maria Ormerod in the
1901 census. Her age indicates that she was probably Lexy’s daughter,
although there is a remote possibility that she was an illegitimate child
born to a sixteen year old Hannah, who later took on the surname of
her stepfather.
Niece, Christina Mackenzie was left without a mother as a 10 year old
in 1882, and it seems based on her absence from her family for the
census of 1891 that her then childless Aunt Lexy had taken her in to
care for her. This is corroborated by the fact that, in 1898, she married
a Norman Macleod Macdonald of Trentham.
Lexy died in Trentham in 1899 and was buried there on
rd
23 September. James went on to marry his second wife Hannah in
1900. James and Hannah had three children, Ivan, James Allister, and
Alfred Edward.
James died in 1929, in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, three years after
Hannah.
Page 17
The African Adventure of John, Donald and George
Donald Munro
Donald had followed in his father’s footsteps and, according to the
census of 1861, was a house carpenter in Saltburn before sailing off,
with brother, George, to Africa in July of 1864. We know he arrived in
Durban aboard the Eudora in the September of that year and that all
the payments on the debt incurred for his passage were paid. Whether
these were paid by him or the sureties for the debt is not known. It is
reported in George’s obituary that he and George joined John in a
brickmaking venture at Umgeni, but nothing further has been
discovered in the records of his comings or goings since then.
The Munros of Tongaat
(John Munro and Alice Thring)
The Munros of Tongaat
Probably around the time his older brother, David, became ill with
tuberculosis, John decided, or the decision was forced on him, to take
his place and he applied for a passport in 1859 just as David had done
in 1858. It would appear, as he is not in the 1861 Scotland census, that
Page 18
sometime after David’s death, in 1860, John boarded a ship and sailed
off to a new life in Africa. He was to land in Durban, in the Colony of
Natal, where he found employment with a
brick maker John Cox.
He must have found Natal an attractive
location and encouraged his brothers to join
him, as they did in 1864. John later went on
to trade in Tongaat where he married a
young Alice Elizabeth Thring in 1868.
John Munro
Alice too was an immigrant who had travelled
to Natal with parents and nine siblings on the Sovereign in 1850. Alice’s
father, Samuel, died soon after arriving in Natal in 1851. His widow,
Elizabeth, later married Samuel Storer Bull, and it is at his home in Mt
Albert that John and Alice were married.
Alice and John were to have five children,
three boys: George Samuel, John Ross and
Frank Albert, and two girls; Agnes Jessie
Treleven and Alice. At the birth of Agnes
Jessie, John was a contractor in Tongaat,
then a trader living at Novar Farm at
George’s birth and for the other births he
was recorded as either an innkeeper or
Alice Thring
owner of the Tongaat Hotel.
Page 19
A tragic set of circumstances was to beset the family as reported in The
Natal Witness of 18 May 1877. On 8 May, after visiting family in
Newcastle, the family were travelling further north on the road to
Wakkerstroom, ascending a hill, when at sunset and almost at the
summit where they intended to outspan for the night, a chain broke on
one of the wagons. John attempted in vain to apply the brake but the
wagon struck and ran over him before rolling
over, throwing Alice out and killing her
instantly. The children miraculously all
survived. One family story being that Alice
threw the youngest, three month old Alice to
a Zulu helper to save her. Alice was buried
the following Wednesday, in the local
cemetery, after a well-attended service at the Alice's Gravestone in
Newcastle
local church.
John was seriously injured and remained in Newcastle to recover. He
lived out the rest of his life there, dying 9 years later in 1886. A family
story is that John’s brother George and his wife Selina took on the
raising of the boys while the girls were raised by the Thring family. An
alternative story is that on learning of the accident George rode from
Pinetown to Newcastle and brought all the children back to live with
his family at Preston House. It does seem that the girls were brought
up by Thring family. They were both married in Tongaat, following the
Scots tradition of marrying in the parish of the bride, Agnes at the local
Page 20
church and Alice at the home of Mr Waugh. Mr Waugh would have
been James Waugh, who had married their Aunt Jane, Alice Thring’s
sister.
Agnes Jessie (and Frank Drake)
Agnes Jessie married Francis Henry (Frank) Drake, one of 12 siblings of
the Drake family of Pinetown, at St John’s Church in Tongaat in 1895.
Frank was to become the caretaker of the Umlaas Waterworks on the
Umbilo River at Paradise Valley near Pinetown. The dam was destroyed
in a catastrophic flood in 1904 and never rebuilt. Drake Road which led
to the waterworks until it was severed by the new main road to
Pietermaritzburg in the 1950’s, was named after the family. They had 5
children, Reginald Beresford Francis, Vivian Arthur, John Spencer,
Kathleen Alice, and Leslie Francis.
Agnes and Frank’s eldest child, Reginald,
was to die tragically, in 1901, of acute
dysentery, a little more than 3 months
short of his sixth birthday. He is buried in
the St’ Johns Cemetery in Pinetown.
Vivian was born shortly before his older
brother’s death. In 1926 Vivian married
Rosella Pavelly before a magistrate in
Durban. They had two children, a boy
and a girl. Vivian with his father Frank
Page 21
Rosella died in 1967 and Vivian a few years later in 1971. They are both
interred in St Johns Church in Pinetown.
John lived in Dowa, in what was then Nyasaland when he married Hazel
Ida Lilian Boast in St John’s Church in Pinetown in the September of
1941. Their only son was born in Blantyre, the capital of Nyasaland,
now Malawi.
John Spencer died in Johannesburg in 1960 and Hazel in 1978.
Agnes and Frank’s first daughter, Kathleen Alice, died in 1908 at the
age of just 15 months. She died from convulsions arising from
tubercular meningitis a rare complication of tuberculosis, mainly
affecting children under 5.
The youngest of Agnes and Frank’s
children, Leslie Francis, was a clerk
with the South African Railways
when he married Clarice Martha
Oliver in 1937 at Estcourt, but had
risen to be a station master in
Leslie and Clarice Ladysmith at the birth of their first
son. Leslie and Clarice also had a second child also a son. Leslie died in
1977 and Clarice in 1991.
Agnes Jessie died at Addington Hospital in Durban after an operation,
in February 1917. Frank died 18 years later in June 1935, in Pinetown.
Page 22
George Samuel (and Anna Kapp)
George Samuel likely moved to Harrismith where he married 17 year
old Anna Margaretha Johanna Kapp in 1894. It seems that George
joined the Harrismith Commando and fought with the Boers against
the British. He was killed at the Battle of Dewetsdorp on 23 November
1900.
Boer War Harrismith
At the beginning of the Guerrilla phase of the Boer War, Boer General
C.R. de Wet held a long-cherished ideal of invading the Cape Colony.
With the Boer forces withdrawn from the southern and western fronts
in March 1900, the Cape rebels had been left in the lurch. Hope now
rose that a new invasion would once more motivate Cape Afrikaners to
join the Boer forces. The extension of the theatre of war to the Cape
Colony would also considerably complicate things for the British and
force them to over extend their forces. De Wet was leading a column of
about 1,500 mounted Boer Commandos south when he came to the
town of Dewetsdorp, his home town. It was occupied by British Troops.
He besieged the town and after a three day engagement defeated the
Page 23
British garrison of 408 troops who surrendered to him on 23 November
1900. It was on the day of the surrender that George Samuel was killed.
While de Wet had been victorious in the battle it was a distraction from
his main mission to invade the Cape Colony. The resulting delay gave
three British columns time to catch up and disrupt the invasion. As de
Wet was now engaged in Guerrilla warfare he didn't have facilities to
hold prisoners of war and so, a few days later, released all the other
ranks, but not the officers.
George Samuel’s widow, Anna Margaretha Johanna, by then a 26 year
old, remarried in 1903 in the same church in Harrismith. She was to go
on to marry a further 3 times, was widowed each time, and died a
childless widow in September 1963.
John Ross (and Edith Smith)
John Ross became an accountant and moved to
Barberton in 1892 joining the firm of Parker
Wood and Company. Here he married Edith
Mary-Ann Smith in 1898. Before the Boer War,
Barberton was predominantly populated by
“Uitlanders”, the term used by the Boers for
those not of Dutch extraction, and who would John Ross
have been loyal to Britain or other foreign power. After the declaration
of war, many of these Uitlanders fled. Barberton was held by the Boers
until it was captured by the British on 13 September 1900. It is not
known whether John Ross remained or left the town, but he is
Page 24
recorded as having served in the Barberton Town Guard which was
called out for active service by the British on 8 December 1900 and was
disbanded on 21 December 1901. He became a prominent
businessman and personality in Barberton and was elected to the Town
Council, became chairman of the finance committee and Deputy Mayor
before being elected Mayor. John and Edith had eight children: Donald
Reginald, Edna Ross, Olive Letitia, Leslie Ross, Rhona Ross, Ian Ross,
Jocelyn Ross, and Alastair Dalkeith Ross. Of the six children who bore
his middle name at least two contracted this to the double barrelled
Ross-Munro form which their descendants continue.
Their eldest son, Donald married Marguerite (or Peggie) Elizabeth
Elliott, a nurse, in 1928 in Pietermaritzburg . Donald died there in 1985
as did Peggie in 2003.
Edna married Daniel Hartmann in 1943, was widowed in 1957, and
died in Roodepoort in 1998.
Olive married the son of Walter Burford Thompson and Hannah
Beatrice Crickmore, Cyril Crickmore Thompson at St John’s Church in
Roodepoort in 1935. Cyril and Olive had a son. Cyril was a signalman
for the South African railways at the time of his death in August 1956.
He was cremated at the Braamfontein Crematorium. Olive survived for
many more years dying in 1990.
Second son, Leslie married Marguerita (or Rita) Crystal Hyde in 1934 at
St Mary’s Church in Jeppestown. They had two daughters and Leslie
was recorded as a garage supervisor for their baptisms. Rita died of
Page 25
cancer in 1957 and Leslie went on, in 1958, to marry Johanna te Roller,
the widow of Johan Beumer, from Winterswijk in Holland, in Pretoria.
Leslie was the yard supervisor at the Rietfontein Brickworks in Springs.
He died in 1976 in Springs and Johanna in 2003 in Benoni.
Daughter Rhona married Douglas John Nolan, the son of Irish
immigrants in Roodepoort in 1947. They had one daughter. Douglas
died in February 1980, and Rhona in Florida, Johannesburg in 2005.
Third son Ian was born in
Johannesburg, after the
family moved from
Barberton. He became an
Estate Agent and married
Catherine Joan Warren, a
typist, at the St John’s Ian Ross-Munro Wedding
Church in Belgravia in Johannesburg in 1946. Ian along with several
other siblings adopted the double-barrelled form of the name, Ross-
Munro, incorporating his grandfather’s middle name. They had one son
who continues this form of the name. Ian passed away in June of 1987
in Roodepoort.
Youngest daughter, Jocelyn married Croyden Campbell Hyde, a dental
mechanic, whose sister, Rita, was her older brother, Leslie’s wife, in
1943. Croyden, or Don as he was known, died in 1966 in Johannesburg
and she in 1974.
Page 26
Youngest son Alastair Dalkeith also contracted his name to the double
barrelled form and was born in Roodepoort in 1921. He married Edith
Shirley Irons in 1951, at St Gabriel’s Church in Florida, Roodepoort.
Edith and Alastair had two children, a son and daughter. Edith died in
1990. As a widower of 10 years, Alastair remarried in 2000 to Yvonne
Heathie. He died in Olivedale 9 years later in 2009.
John Ross and Edith were to later move to Roodepoort, near
Johannesburg, where John died in 1948 and Edith in 1969.
Burt
Frank Albert (or Burt) Munro who was born in 1875, joined the
Railways as a carpenter and lived in South West Africa. He married
Blanche Constance Duke of St Helena in Cape Town in 1929. In 1943 he
returned to Durban, possibly for treatment of stomach cancer. He died
in Addington Hospital in 1943. He is buried at Stellawood Cemetery.
Blanche died in 1953 in Cape Town and was cremated at the Maitland
Crematorium there, but is memorialised on Burt’s gravestone at
Stellawood Cemetery.
Alice (and Charles Norris)
Alice Munro was to marry Charles William Norris in 1904 at Tongaat at
the home of her Uncle James and Aunt Jane (nee Thring) Waugh.
Charles was a carriage builder for the Natal Government Railways. They
had six children: Roland Walter, Charles William Raymond, Vera
Caroline Alice, John Munro, Kathleen Jane and Marjorie Ellen.
Page 27
Roland was born on Charles’ and Alice’s farm Hillside Farm at South
Coast Junction in Durban. He married Jean Arabelle Erasmus in
Margate on the Natal South Coast. They had two children, a boy and a
girl. Roland died in Rustenburg in 1984 and Jean in 1994 in Umhlanga
Rocks.
Charles was also born on the family farm at South Coast Junction. He
was a builder in 1936 when he married Muriel Natalie Robertson in
Seaview Durban. Charles and Muriel had two daughters. Charles
passed away in Johannesburg in 1980 and Muriel a few years later in
1983. Both are interred at the Main Cemetery in Braamfontein.
Third child, Vera, married Johanes Chrisparus
van Tonder, a steam engine fireman, in 1932.
They had two daughters before divorcing
some time before Vera remarried to Andrew
(Andre) James Brink, a steam engine driver in
1945. Johannes was also a steam engine
driver at the time of his second marriage in
1947. Vera died in 1985, Andrew had
predeceased her in 1964 and Johannes
Cpl. JM Norris
God's Greatest Gift passed away in 1988.
Remembrance
Your Loving Wife Thelma John Munro Norris married Thelma Kezia
Dawney, before enlisting to fight in the Second World War with the 1/2
st
SA Field Force Battalion in the 1 SA Infantry Corps. After taking part in
the East African campaign against the Italian forces, his unit moved to
Page 28
North Africa where he perished in the second Battle of El Alamein in
October 1942, and is interned at the El Alamein War Cemetery in
Egypt. Thelma married again to Bertram James Newman, whom she
divorced before her death in 1994.
Kathleen married motor mechanic Douglas Lauderdale in the
Methodist Church in Bellair in 1940. They had two daughters. Douglas
died in 1970 and Kathleen in 1996.
The youngest daughter, Marjorie, married Mannie Siegfried Frara in
the Roman Catholic Church in Pinetown in August 1945. Mannie was
the son of Moses Siegfried Frara whose father, John Louis Fiore, went
by the surname Frara in Natal. He was an Italian immigrant whose
family continued with the Frara surname for convenience. The Fraras
are another well-known Pinetown family. Mannie and Marion had four
daughters before their youngest, a
son, was born. Mannie died in 1994.
Alice passed away in December 1927
at their home, Hillside Cottage in
Rossburgh, Durban and her husband
Charles William in 1954. They are
both buried at the Stellawood Alice and Charles William’s
Gravestone
Cemetery in Durban.
Page 29
The Munros of Pinetown
(George Munro and Selina Davie)
The Munros of Pinetown
According to the 1861 census Donald followed in his father’s footsteps
and was a house carpenter while George was still a scholar, but he too
must have entered the trade as both he and Donald were recorded as
such in immigration records. In 1864 the brothers made the long
journey by ship to the East Coast of Africa to join their brother, John, in
st
the fledgling Colony of Natal. They sailed from London on 1 July
th
arriving in Durban on 16 September and finally disembarking in the
th
port on the 18 September of 1864. John with
his business partner or employer, and fellow
brick maker at Umgeni near Durban, John Cox,
stood surety for their fares.
George and Donald apparently joined the brick
making venture on their arrival until 1868. It
was in that year, and about the same time his
brother, John, had left to trade in Tongaat, that George Munro
George joined fellow goldseekers to make the arduous journey in a
Page 30
wagon with six oxen to the goldfields at Tali. At the time Tali was in the
territory of the Matabele tribe on the borders of what is now Botswana
and Zimbabwe. This venture was not successful and in 1869 George
returned to Durban, reportedly with less money than when he had left.
He took up residence in Umgeni and took up trade as a builder up and
down the coast, as well as transport riding and farming. As a builder, it
seems he was soon to partner with James Sanderson, George going on,
in 1872, to build the homestead of the district surgeon for the
Pinetown area, one Dr. Bevis, at a cost of £300. The home is still
standing today and has been recognised for its historical value. The
home sat in 10 acres of park like grounds. The homestead has served a
number of different purposes over the years, including as the
Pineholme Home for Boys and now stands on the campus of the John
Wesley Primary School. After having been partially damaged by fire it
and the grounds were granted by the Government to the school.
During the next few years George’s continued
building, farming of tobacco and other crops,
and transport riding, mainly in Natal, but also
as far afield as Johannesburg. In 1875 George
married James Sanderson’s niece, Selina Jane
Davie. George and Selina continued to live in
Umgeni, where their eldest daughter was born
Selina Jane Davie in the January of 1876. Later that year Selina’s
Aunt, Laura Selina passed away and was buried at the St Andrew’s
Page 31
Anglican Church in Pinetown. Possibly, as a result of Selina’s Aunt’s
death it was after about a year of marriage that the couple settled on
Uncle James’s farm. Here, James had built the homestead that was to
become the seat of the family for almost 100 years and which was
named Preston House after the Scottish town where he had been born.
Selina was the daughter of George Davie, a Lunatic Asylum Owner in
Tranent, near Edinburgh, and his wife Mary Wortley Sanderson. She
had travelled out to the colony, to join her mother’s brother, Uncle
James and his wife, in 1871, aboard the Priscilla. Family lore has it that
on her arrival Selina had to walk from the port to her Uncle and Aunt’s
home at Pinetown Bridge, a distance of some 15 miles or more.
Preston House - The Munro Homestead
Page 32
A further nine children, all born at Preston, followed over the following
18 years, with a generous smattering of family names from the old
country: Margaret Mary (Daisy), Laura Selina, James Davie (Jimmy),
Alexanderina Ellen (Cissy), Alfred Charles, Agnes Georgina (Nan),
Isabella Sanderson (Bella), George Ross, Malcolm Bruce, and William
Kenneth Martin.
In 1906, on her Uncle James’ death, Selina was to inherit 600 acres
including properties in Forest Hills, Cowies Hill, Paradise Valley and the
Preston farm. George, himself, owned several properties around
Pinetown including valuable properties in the commercial centre of
town. On his death in 1923, these were also inherited by Selina. In
1925 Selina also purchased a 1,500 acre farm in Forest Hills. By the
time of her death Selina had a considerable land holding which in
addition to the properties above included plots of land in Hill Street
and the Rugby Hotel in Old Main Road.
In 1907 George and Selina took the opportunity to sail back to Britain,
arriving at the end of May and visited both their families before
departing for the return to Durban in December of the same year.
Margaret Mary (and Alexander Dryden)
First born, Daisy, as Margaret was known, was born on 20 January
1876. She married Alexander Dryden, the son of Adam Dryden and
Margaret Hunter, of Edinburgh, in 1898. They had three children.
Page 33
When her father died in 1923 Daisy and
Alexander were living in Keetmanshoop
in then South West Africa, where
Alexander was the inspector of works.
He still held the position in 1926, when
he played a significant part in the
planning and building of the Brukkaros
Observatory funded by National
Geographic and the Smithsonian Daisy Munro
1896
Institure.
The first child, Alexander Hunter Munro Dryden became a policeman in
East Africa and rose to the rank of Superintendent of Police for
Zanzibar. In 1947 he was awarded an OBE for his services and was
recognised with the King’s Police and Fire Services Medal for
distinguished Service in 1949. He was first married to Margaret Clark.
In the 1950’s presumably after his retirement he moved to England
where he married for a second time to Berta Louise Engel in 1959. He
died in London in 1972. It is not known whether he had any children.
The second Dryden child was Margaret Selina (Peggy), born in 1901,
who married Sydney Kirkland. They, in turn, had three children:
Geoffrey Dryden, Kenneth Graham and Norma Jean.
Sydney died in 1962 and Peggy in 1967 in Grahamstown and both are
buried in the Waainek Cemetery there.
Page 34
Thirdly, the Drydens had Agnes Hunter who was born in 1905. She
married Guy Leslie Poynton in 1943 and they were living in Howick,
Natal in 1984. Agnes died in 1964 and Guy in 1990.
Alexander Dryden died in 1941 of heart disease in Durban and is buried
in Stellawood Cemetery while Daisy died in 1946 of cancer in
Johannesburg and is buried in the Primrose Cemetery in Germiston.
Laura Selina (and Richard Clendinning)
George and Selina’s second child Laura
Selina was born in 1877 in Pinetown, and
named for Selina’s Aunt, also Laura Selina.
She married Richard (Dick) Clendinning an
Irish immigrant from County Mayo and also
born in 1877. Dick was the son of Thomas
Clendinning and Margaret Jane Kemp and
Laura Selina immigrated to Durban in 1901. After he had
married Laura Selina, Dick’s
mother travelled, with his younger
brother Thomas Andrew, in 1910,
to join Dick and his family. His
father, Thomas, remained in
Ireland dying there in 1925.
Laura and Dick had four children,
Laura and Richard, Wedding 1904
but sadly the eldest Selina Margaret (Pansy) died as an infant of 15
Page 35
months of convulsions brought on by bronchial pneumonia. Their
remaining children were Thomas Gibson (Gibby), Richard Munro
(known by his cousins as Dick), and Agnes Isobel (Myrtle).
In 1939, Gibby married Phyllis Ada Schwegmann, the daughter of
Frederick Herman Schwegmann, a descendant of the German settlers
to nearby New Germany, and his wife Emily Howell. Gibby ran a timber
distribution business and lived in a home in the road named for his
family viz. Clendinning Road. Business trucks were often parked
overnight in the driveway of his home. He and Phyllis had three
children Lynn, Nola and Allan. Gibby died in 1993 and Phyllis in 2004,
and both are buried in the St. John’s Church Cemetery in Pinetown.
Richard Munro was thought by the family to be a confirmed bachelor,
remaining single for many years, before marrying Rhoda Ethel
Crawford (nee Bowman) at the age of 50. Rhoda was the widow of his
cousin Ian Crawford. It seems that Richard had possibly harboured a
hidden fancy for Rhoda. They settled on a farm, near Richmond in the
Natal Midlands, where they had a son. Tragically Richard and Rhoda
were to fall victim to one of the farm murders which were notoriously
plaguing South Africa at the time. They were both viciously hacked to
death by intruders on their farm Manderstam at Thorneville in
November 1994.
Myrtle never married and died in 1971 on her smallholding in Assagay,
from a severe asthma attack. She is buried in the family plot at St.
Johns Church in Pinetown.
Page 36