Having to correct other people's best efforts at spelling Roxborogh is a common family experience, as is having no quick answer to the question "Where does the spelling come from?"
Finding real answers has been something of a saga. Web searches sometimes bring up misspellings of people whose name is properly spelt "Roxborough". This is also the case with the oldest reference found to date - "le Comte de Roxborogh" in a 1748 French translation of a history of Charles XII, King of Sweden (Jöran Andersson Nordberg, Carl Gustaf Warmholt, Histoire de Charles XII. roi de Suède, p.288 in Google Books). The spelling also appears as a variant of the place name Roxborough in Philadelphia. In June 1915 in the Grey River Argus the name of a torpedoed ship was mispelt Roxborogh. Unfortunately this was about a year too late to be an explanation for where the name came from.
Until the 1990s, beyond knowing that my grandfather, the late Bill Roxborogh's father, was Charles Henry Roxborogh and that he had died in Christchurch in 1960, there was little to go on.
Neither Bill nor his younger brother Harry ever had any contact with the father who had disappeared out of their lives by the time Harry was born in 1916. In the late 50s Bill's wife Boyd rang the one person in a New Zealand telephone book with a likely name, but he had a "u" in the spelling and denied having had any children. The evidence is now that like much else it was a lie. Years of searching by different members of the family got nowhere until my mother Cathie Roxborogh suggested looking up the World War I military records for Charles Henry Roxborough. Perhaps he had put the "u" back in. Allowing for the reinsertion of the "u" (which was crossed out on the first marriage certificate) we seemed at last to have the right person. Still there was contradictory information on subsequent marriage certificates and no birth certificate. A death certificate from 1960 said he was born in Glasgow and that he had come to New Zealand in 1914. Searches in the UK and telephone books in Australia, New Zealand and the States were fruitless.
Although the military records provided red herrings of their own, they did indicate that around the time when Bill and Harry were born, Charles Henry had used a number of aliases, and that he had had a police record. The next step was to go to the police archives. These gave details of charges and provided a reasonably handsome looking photograph. Was there a family likeness? I put the evidence on a spreadsheet to puzzle over the patterns and look for ideas. It still seemed that Charles' real name was Roxborogh with or without a "u" and that he had had some association with Ashburton.
On a visit to Christchurch I visited the genealogy room in the Canterbury Public Library and there came across a 3"X5" card record of a marriage of a Charles William Chapman and a Mary Elizabeth Wainwright on 6 January 1891. The June 1914 marriage certificate for Charles Henry Roxborogh had given his parents as William Charles Roxborogh and Elizabeth (Wainwright). Chapman was a known alias - might it in fact be his real name?
Charles Roxborough's other marriage certificates contain other variations in the names of his parents. In 1917 they were Charles William Roxborough and Ellen Winton, in 1933 William Harry Roxborough and Mary Wainwright, and in 1946 William Charles Roxborough and Elizabeth Mary Wainwright. The 1917 marriage was bigamous and more likely than usual to be fictitious, but Wainwright is the name of his mother on the other three, legal, marriages. The 1891 date of the Chapman-Wainwright marriage was within a possible range given that his ages on the marriage certificates and death certificate suggested a number of possible years for his date of birth from 1891 to 1898.
So it now seemed likely that Charles Henry's real family name was Chapman. He was not born in Scotland but somewhere in Christchurch or Canterbury. This was exciting but more information was needed.
A few years later a member of the Ashburton Association of Genealogists helped me take the story further. Familiar with work on the Chapman family, they put me in touch with Chapman family researchers. A few months later I was amazed to receive a copy of the family tree for Charles William and Mary Elizabeth Chapman which gave the birth date of Charles Henry as 6 April 1893. Soon I had the long lost birth certificate and some baby and childhood photos to add to the one from the police files. When it came available on line I discovered that PapersPast quickly led to newspaper clippings of court cases including references to his trial for bigamy and escape from prison in Hamilton. Research by other members of the Chapman family helped fill out the story of his siblings and his ancestors, most of whose lives appear more straightforward.
A large part of the riddle was now solved. We can now say that as a family name, the spelling "Roxborogh" is unique to the known New Zealand descendants of Charles Henry Chapman, aka Roxborogh and Roxborough, and Lizzie Maud Woolley and their two sons, William (Bill) and Harry. We do not know why he became the black sheep of the family, how he got into a life of crime and deception, or why he refused to acknowledge his adult sons whose own difficulties were compounded by his silence.
Where did the Roxborogh ancestors come from?
Today most of the Roxborogh families are found near Dunedin or Pukekohe in New Zealand. The first person to take the name and spelling Roxborogh, was Charles Henry Chapman whose parents came from Lincoln and Springston, south of Christchurch.
It would be easy to think that the family came from Scotland or Ireland, but the family origins are English.
The Chapmans came from Ulcombe in Kent, and the first of these Chapmans in New Zealand was Samuel Chapman who married Elizabeth Mealing in 1856 who emigrated from Oxford arriving on the ship Grasmere 9 May 1855.
Charles' mother was a Wainwright whose family on both sides came from Worksop, near Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. Charles and Sarah Wainwright arrived on the ship Cresswell in 1859 and settled in Springston not far from Lincoln.
Charles' wife, Lizzie Maud Woolley, came from Walsall in North Birmingham. She and her parents migrated to New Zealand around 1910 and lived in Devonport on Auckland's North Shore.
Charles Henry Roxborogh (1893-1960) father of Bill and Harry Roxborogh
Charles was the second child of
Charles William Chapman and
Mary Elizabeth Wainwright.
He was
born in the Wairiri Valley
near Glentunnel and Hororata,
Canterbury, 6 April 1893 and he died in Christchurch on 5 October 1960.
His older brother
Joseph was born in Lincoln in 1892, and his younger
siblings were David, Ada, William, Edith, Gilbert, Archie and Ernest.
Places associated with his early years are mostly in the Selwyn District of the Canterbury Plains just south of Christchurch. The house where the family lived, at least around the years 1904 to 1906, at 36 Kildare Terrace, Lincoln, is still recognizable. It is fairly easy to locate on Google Earth Street View.
His marriage to Lizzie Maud Woolley in June 1914 when he adopted the name Roxborogh was the first of four, but subsequently he spelt Roxborogh with a "u". His first son, Bill, was born 6 October 1914. In August 1915 By August 1915 there was a warrant out for the arrest of "Charles Roxborough" for failing to maintain his wife. It was noted that he "may assume the name Chapman". Their second son, Harry was born in February 1916. A month later he was arrested in Hamilton, but escaped. On 17 April the Ashburton Guardian reported on the Supreme Court in Auckland on the 15th.
In January 1917 whilst serving this sentence he was recruited from borstal in Invercargill to serve in the army. He was sent for training to Trentham Camp, but in April he escaped to Masterton and married a domestic servant who had stolen her employee's clothes for the occasion. He was picked up for bigamy fairly quickly and sentenced to prison in Wellington. The delay in leaving for Europe may well have saved his life. Eventually he left for England in June 1918 with "E" Company, 39th Reinforcements and arrived not long before the War ended. By October 1919 he was back in New Zealand and discharged. Following the robbery of a store in Shannon by 1922 he was again in prison, this time in Mt Eden.
Charles and Lizzie divorced in November 1920. He remarried again in 1933 and divorced in 1946. His last marriage was in March 1946 and he lived at 23A Tainui Street, Christchurch. He probably worked as a jobbing builder. He was remembered as charming though the darker sides to his character remained. He was cremated and there is no known memorial.
The information on his World War I military records saying that his father was Charles Henry Roxborough and that his mother was Ellen Lewis Roxborough who lived in Racecourse Road Ashburton is false in important details, yet points to the actual situation. Neither Bill nor Harry ever discovered the information about him now available from army and police records, and through newspapers, nor did they ever see a photograph of their father before they died. Charles had no other known children. His treatment of his first wife and their two boys left their scars, in Bill's case in particular it was exacerbated by subsequent childhood experiences.
Charles William Chapman (1868 - 1939) and Mary Elizabeth Wainwright (1869-1934) and their parents
Charles Henry's father, Charles William Chapman was born in Prebbleton, now near Lincoln University, on January 9, 1868 to Samuel Chapman and Elizabeth Mealing who had been married on 10 July 1856 in St Michaels Church, Christchurch.
On 6 January 1891 Charles William Chapman married Mary Elizabeth Wainwright in St Andrew's Church Christchurch and for a time they lived at 36 Kildare Terrace, Lincoln. Their descendants apart from Charles Henry, are traced in various Chapman family histories. After Mary died in May 1934 (she is buried in Bromley Cemetery, Christchurch, Block 11, Plot 294), Charles moved to Auckland. It is somewhat uncanny that he is buried in O'Neill's Point Cemetery on the North Shore (row I, plot 140) not far from Lizzie Roxborogh / Perret, the daughter-in-law he probably never met.
Mary Elizabeth Wainwright and her twin sister Susannah Bridget were born in Springston, also near Lincoln, on 26 January 1869 to Charles Wainwright and Sarah Keeling from Nottinghamshire who had travelled on the Cresswell, leaving London 27 May 1859 and arriving in Lyttelton on 12 September 1859. At some point Charles and Sarah Wainwright moved to Mt Stuart near Waitahuna on the main road to Central Otago. They are buried in plot 7, block 12, an unmarked grave, in the Waitahuna Cemetery lacking even grass (perhaps some of us descendants should collect money for a simple memorial).
Lizzie Maud Woolley (1889-1929) mother of Bill and Harry Roxborogh
Elizabeth, know as Lizzie, was born at 161 Whitehall Road, Walsall, near Birmingham in England, on 5 December 1889, the eldest child of William John Woolley and Jane Adkins. The family migrated to New Zealand around 1910 and lived in Devonport, Auckland. She was one of four children, including a brother William Henry who was married to Blanche and lived in Cambridge, and another brother, Harry, who is remembered to have lost an arm in World War I.
As noted, Lizzie married Charles Henry Roxborogh on 1 June 1914. Their first child Bill was born in Devonport on 6 October 1914, and their second, Harry on 19 February 1916.
After Lizzie Maud and Charles Henry Roxborogh divorced on 13 November 1920, Lizzie married John Douglas Perrett, on 16 November 1920 in the Presbyterian Manse, Devonport. She died following childbirth aged 36 at 22 Oxford Terrace Devonport on 27 June 1929, and is buried in the O'Neill's Point Cemetery, row I, plot 196. There was one son, Trevor and three daughters, Barbara, Shirley and Diane, from her second marriage.
Lizzie's father, William John Woolley was born about 1864 and at the time of the 1881 census he and his parents Henry Woolley and Ann (Barnett), and their 6 children, William, Albert, Harry, Clara, Sarah Jane and Lizzie, were living at 72 Ablewell Street, Walsall in north Birmingham. In 1895 they were living at 53 Queen Street. There are records of the baptisms of Sarah Jane (7 March 1875) and Clara (25 August 1872) in St Matthew's Church, Walsall. Both parents were born around 1834, but so far searching has not unearthed a record of their marriage or that of William John Woolley to Jane Adkins. William John Woolley died at 10 Beaconsfield Street, Devonport 30 May 1924. Jane Adkins died 3 December 1937 and is buried in O'Neill's Point Cemetery in row F plot 209 next to William John (whom John Roxborogh is named after) in plot 208.
John Roxborogh, the eldest son of Bill Roxborogh.
As well as our children, those of us who are children of Bill or Harry Roxborogh rejoice in having a number of siblings and half-siblings, and their children, who share a connection with the family name, its spelling, and the mystery of its origin.
As things have come to light we realise how important it is to accept the past and to move on in our own lives. Perhaps some of Charles and Lizzie's inheritance can be put to good use, along with insight into the vagaries of human nature. A number of us in the family share a Christian faith, have to grown to understand how complicated life is for many other people, and not just ourselves, and to recognise that acceptance and healing is part of what Jesus was about. We are not defined by those who have gone before, but we are affected by their story, achievements and failings. The name will always be at the end of the day what we decide to make it. We have the opportunity to write our own story and shape what we hand on. I believe God will have the last word and that it will be a word of salvation.
Today, a name which family members have to explain constantly has become an asset as a unique identifier. Hence the domain name, roxborogh.com, of this website. My work on the family tree is somewhat in fits and starts, but I invite other members of the family to be in touch. If your spelling of Roxborogh really does have no "u" in it and is not Roxborough, Rosborough, or Roxburgh, we are almost certainly related. If your name is Chapman it is also possible. You can email me john@roxborogh.com with any information you have or questions you think I may be able to assist with.
John Roxborogh
Updated: 24 July 2004, 30 August 2005, 25 February 2008, 10 January 2009, 19 May 2010.