James Lawrie

Kincardine (or Kincardine-on-Forth) is a small town located on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, in Fife, Scotland. The town at one time was a reasonably prosperous minor port. It was there that, on 5 January 1832, that a son was born to Charlotte May (born 1808). The child was named James. Charlotte was not married to his father, John Lawrie, but James took his father’s surname.

Charlotte then developed a relationship with James Falconer. That relationship initially yielded her two more children. Three further children followed, but the Parish Register for the town of Maykirk, north of Edinburgh, records that at this time Charlotte was James’ ‘lawful’ wife. The last of Charlotte’s children was born in 1843.

James Falconer thus became James’ stepfather. He was 9 years old at the time of the 1841 British census, and naturally enough, was ‘living at home’. When the 1851 census was taken, James was no longer recorded as being at the family home.

In due course, James Lawrie sailed from Liverpool to New Zealand aboard the sailing ship ‘Red Jacket’, arriving on 17 May 1860.

In that year he bought land on the peninsula. In the summary document provided to us, that land is recorded as being ‘part Lot 168, 31 acres, for 15 pounds 10 shillings’. This description doesn’t obviously correlate with the information shown on Denham’s 1853 survey map of the southern part of the peninsula.

Four years later, on 17 May 1864, James married Elizabeth Jane Johnston(e) at the residence of her stepfather, John Parker of Mahurangi.

Here we need to digress to learn a little about Elizabeth’s own family, for this has relevance to some of what we shall recount about the lives of James and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was born in Ponsonby, Auckland, on 2 March 1845. Her father, Captain Hugh Johnston, was a skipper on a ship involved in the Sydney-Auckland timber trade, and was a registered towmaster. Her mother was Margaret Ann Johnston (nee Stewart). She was born in 1818, and died in 1898.

Captain Johnston was lost at sea, on a journey on which his ship was carrying timber spars to Sydney. It appears that the Johnston’s only son was with his father on that journey, for he too perished in that incident.

At the time of their death, Mary Ann (Elizabeth’s mother) was pregnant with Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth was born, she had as a sibling an elder sister who (like her mother) also was named Margaret Ann. This sister was born in 1832, at Port Lincoln, Australia. In 1862 this sister married a German-born mariner, Charles Ludwig Kasper (born 1832). The sister died in 1898.

At some stage after Elizabeth’s birth, Mary Ann remarried, her new husband being John Parker.