Female first names

So, what's in a name? Everyone has one, most people have a vague idea what their own means (I've always understood that Rebecca 'meant' enchanting!), but we don't really give them much more thought.

I've put together a list of SNR's direct female ancestors to look at the most frequent names. Obviously, I can go much further back on some lines, which means that potentially names from a particular region are easier to get than others, and therefore, my information is slightly skewed to those areas (I'm thinking of the wonderful records kept of Devon Churches compared to the scarce information from Ireland, or the 'difficult to negotiate' records from Germany). I've ended up with 124 names (counting both first and second names) of which there are 40 different names. I suspect that many people descended from mainly 'English' stock would have a similar list...

The list is as follows:

Mary (25)
Elizabeth (16)
Ann/e (12)
Jane (8)
Sarah (6)
Helen (5)
Catherine (4)
Ellen (4)
Alice (3)
Margaret (3)
Agnes (2)
Clara (2)
Hannah (2)
Isabella (2)
Marjorie (2)
Martha (2)
Matilda (2)
Susanna (2)

Then one occurrence of each of the following: Carey, Caroline, Charlotte, Christina, Dorothy, Eileen, Eliza, Elsie, Frances, Frederica, Gwenyth, Harriet, Isobel, Ivy, Latitia, Lily, Lorna, May, Rachel, Rebecca, Ruth, Tabitha.

These names were 'given' over a period of more than three hundred years, but I've compared them to the records of most popular names from 2013.  Needless to say, they are quite different!  In fact, the only names on the above list that also appear in the Australian, Canadian, Irish, UK or US top ten female names are Isabella (all bar Ireland), Sarah (Canada and Ireland), Charlotte (Aus) and Elizabeth (US).  These are probably names that would be considered 'old'!

Names

The study of names is called onomastics, a field which looks at linguistics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philology and other obscure things. 

A first name, or given name, identifies a specific person, differentiating them from other members of a group, such as a family or clan, with whom that person shares a common surname. The name is 'given' to a person, generally at or around the time of birth, and usually by the parents.

Surnames are a hereditary name common to all members of a family. As Ancestry states: ‘Your last name gives you a sense of identify and helps you discover who you are and where you come from.’

All names have meaning: all first names and all surnames. In Western Society we don't generally get to choose our surname, and most people wouldn't even consider changing their name because of the meaning. First names are slightly different, and the amount of 'baby names and their meanings' books available would attest to that. I'm not sure that we actually chose the names of our children based on their meaning, but we certainly looked into the meaning of the names we chose.

So I’m not sure that my 'examining' the names of our ancestors is really all that informative, but it is fun!

Frederick Hibberd (1835 - 1908)

Frederick Hibberd was born on 13 July 1836 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; the son of Mary Pavy and Elijah Hibberd.  He was baptised on 31 July 1836 in the Salisbury Parish Church – he was actually baptised as ‘Frederic’.  He was the couple’s second youngest of eight children.  Elijah Hibberd died in 1840 and Mary in 1841 – so Frederick was an orphan at the age of five.  It appears that the older siblings raised the younger children, including Frederick.  In the 1851 and 1861 Census he was living with his brother, Elijah – firstly in Salisbury and then in Winchester.  Elijah was an umbrella maker and it appears that, for at least some time, Frederick joined his brother in this occupation.  In 1857 Frederick commenced lay preaching and recalled that his first sermon “lies buried in forgetfulness”.  In the 1861 Census his occupations was listed as a shoemaker / lay preacher. He was student number 33 at Spurgeons College (then Pastor's College), London - one of the very first people to have trained with Reverend Charles Spurgeon for the Baptist Ministry.  Frederick attended the College in 1862 and 1863 until Rev. Spurgeon sent him to Australia to help supplement the meagre number of Baptist Ministers in the Colony.  Generally the training was a little longer than two years unless Spurgeon had a particular ‘assignment’ for the student.  Obviously Spurgeon did in Frederick Hibberd’s case.  Spurgeon heavily influenced Frederick’s style.

Frederick Hibberd arrived in Sydney on the brig ‘La Hogue’ on 29 October 1863 – the journey had taken 90 days from Plymouth. The Baptist Church was in its infancy and no doubt Baptists in Sydney would have been thrilled to have a new Minister in the Colony.  Upon his arrival a tea and public meeting was held to welcome him to Sydney.  According to the Sydney Morning Herald’s report of the meeting, about 300 people attended the tea and a much larger number attended the meeting.  Captain Williams, of the La Hogue spoke and talked about Frederick’s exemplary activities while on the La Hogue – Frederick had conducted all services and performed other ministry activities.  Rev Kent also spoke about how important it was to get a gentleman who was endorsed by Rev Spurgeon.  He said Ministers were like warriors in the field of battle who were delighted to receive reinforcements.   Frederick said that he trusted there would be a good bond between himself and his church.  He said that a Minister should have the freedom to work wherever he could do good work and should be hampered by poor conditions.  He said that he needed the support of his Church.  He finished by quoting some lines by Wesley describing the Christian’s future blessedness. 

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on sermons to be preached by Frederick in 1864, although there is no record about what the sermons were actually about:

10 January – The Mischievous Penknife

17 January – A Question for the Times

24 January – An Eye to Business

31 January – Spiritual Anatomy

7 February – The Four Portraits

14 February – Which of the Two

21 February  - How are you

28 February – Travail and Triumph

6 March – Black but Beautiful

13 March – World’s Contemplated Condition

20 March – Crossing the Line

5 June – Here is the form, but where is the force?

12 June – What do you preach?

19 June – Good cheer for the famishing

26 June – Do you remember?

3 July – Will you come?

10 July – Too late!  Too late!

On 11 January 1866 Frederick married Isabella Dixson at 198 York Street in Sydney.  It was Isabella’s 21^st Birthday.  Isabella and Frederick had eight children; of which only one was male.  The sixth child died as an infant.

After marriage, Frederick continued to work in Sydney, but increasingly had issues with two deacons of the Church. In 1867 he decided to accept a ministry at Launceston, Tasmania. When Frederick, Isabella and one year old Helen were moving to Launceston, the steamer they were on collided with another ship and sank in Hobson Bay, near Williamstown. Fortunately, due to the proximity of other ships in the Bay, there was no loss of life – except for some of the sheep – and the Hibberd’s possessions happened to be on a different ship. It must have still been quite a shock to Isabella and Frederick!

They didn’t stay in Launceston for a long time.  Frederick resigned in July 1867 in protest of “impurity and corruption in the church”. The young family then went to Sandhurst, Victoria. He resigned from this position to recover from injuries received in a serious carriage accident.  He was riding along the street that the hospital was located on (that was handy) when his horse stumbled and he fell into an area that had been excavated.  He suffered severe concussion.  The family returned to Sydney.

Frederick Hibberd appears to be quite ‘accident prone’!  Besides the sinking in Hobson Bay, he was also lucky to escape the sinking of the Jason in 1875 when he spent a year travelling to England – a trip which was undertaken in part to have a rest after nearly dying in the above carriage accident in Sandhurst! There were at least two other reported carriage accidents that Frederick was in – one with his infant granddaughter.

Upon his return to Australia in 1875, he went to Bourke Street Baptist Church in Woolloomooloo; before moving to Ashfield in 1880.  The family lived in Holden Street – near the newly built Ashfield Baptist Church, and Frederick worked free of charge in the new church. The family were supported by Hugh Dixson, Frederick's brother-in-law.

Frederick Hibberd was highly respected as a minister and preacher.  He was involved in the NSW Baptist Union for over 45 years, specifically: the president four times; editor of The Baptist for nine years; and the secretary of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society for 23 years.  Besides assisting in the establishment of the Ashfield and Goulburn Baptist Churches, Frederick also started new work at Bourke Street, Sydney and at Parramatta. After finishing his work at Ashfield, Frederick worked extensively for the Baptist Church in NSW, including preaching wherever invited. He was also involved with the establishment of the East Carlingford Presbyterian Church (now Epping). It was unusual that a Baptist Minister would be involved in the Presbyterian Church.

On 27 October 1908 Frederick Hibberd died suddenly at his home “Sarum” in Carlingford in Sydney.  He was 73. It was reported that he woke in the morning and didn’t feel particularly well.  He decided to go back to his bed, he asked his wife Isabella to get him “a glass of brandy” (as reported in The Baptist edition of 2 November 1908) before he fell back on the bed and died.  Presumably the brandy was considered medicinal as Frederick had lectured on the importance of abstaining from alcohol!

The funeral was held on 28 October. Arthur Waldock organised the funeral arrangements and conducted a short service at Frederick Hibberd’s home with relatives.  Rev W.M. Cartwright, president of the Baptist Union, conducted the service at Rookwood and Thomas Porter delivered the eulogy. Arthur Waldock also assisted in the service along with other ministers. The service included the singing of one of Frederick Hibberd’s favourite hymns, “Rock of Ages” (This hymn was also a favourite of Prince Albert, who had it played to him on his deathbed).

When Rev Arthur Waldock was establishing the Canberra Baptist Church he ensured that a stained glass window was included in Frederick Hibberd's honour.  A plaque was also put in the Bathurst Street Baptist Church in recognition of his work.

Relationship to SNR = Great-great-great grandfather

William Harry (1835 to1883)

William Harry’s family was from the village of Radyr in Glamorganshire, Wales.  Members of the family had lived and farmed there since at least the early 1700s.  William was born in January 1835 and he was baptised in the Radyr Parish Church on 17 January.  William’s parents, Mary (nee Williams) and John, had only married on 11 November 1834 – a little less than two months before William’s birth. Mary was 16 years old when William was born and she turned 17 in April 1835.  John was 20 years old.

The Welsh had followed a patronymic naming system up until the middle ages, where the last name of the son was the father’s first name.  This system was still used in some rural area of Wales up until the 19^th Century, but the country predominantly used fixed surnames. Mary and John adapted this naming system to suit themselves, and named their child Mary’s surname.

Over the next 19 years William was joined by nine siblings, eight of whom were brothers!

William became a blacksmith and worked in the railways. In the 1850s William and his brother John moved to work in Panteg railway works. William was working as an iron bar roller. This task involved operating the machine that rolls the iron into required shapes, most usually for train tracks. During this time he met a woman named Mary Williams, ironically the same name as his mother.

William married Mary in Stokes Croft, Bristol on 2 July 1861. Bristol is 60 kilometres southeast of Trevethin.  The Parish register describes them both as residents of the town, but they were both living in Monmouthshire at the time of the 1861 Census in April. It would seem that they were ‘on their way’ to Swindon, Wiltshire.

In 1840 Swindon was selected as a place to establish an engine building and maintenance works for Great Western Railway (GWR) Company.  The GWR was so named as it was working on railways west of London.  The “greatness” of the distances in the United Kingdom are not so great when compared to the vast distances in North America and Australia.  By 1864 the GWR network consisted of 955 kilometres of broad gauge, 309 kilometres of mixed gauge (three gauges enabling both standard and broad trains to travel along the route) and 653 kilometres of standard gauge; a total of 1900 kilometres crisscrossing the West, Wales and the Midlands of England (not much further than the distance between Brisbane and Melbourne!).

Swindon had been a small market town until the mid 1800s: there was no existing heavy industry in the area. Workers were moved in from the rest of the country, particularly from Wales.  A village for workers was built about two kilometres north of Swindon.  The new houses were built in what is now known as Cambria Place and Cambria Bridge.  Cambria is a form of the word Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales.  The area was also called New Swindon.  Mary and William Harry were two of the many Welsh people who migrated to Swindon to work for the GWR.  New Swindon grew quickly.  In 1895 R Jefferies, in “Jefferies’ Land: A History of Swindon and its Environs” wrote:

“Houses were built at a rate which astonished the country, and a new class of men, hitherto unknown in the neighbourhood, appeared, men who worked hard, earned high wages, and were determined to live upon the best they could afford.  The agricultural labourer was content with bread and beer, the mechanic must have meat, groceries, and other comforts. … Tradesmen found New Swindon a profitable place – a Wilshire California.”

Mary and William Harry arrived in Swindon, Wiltshire, England sometime after their marriage but before the birth of their first child in 1863.  All of Mary and William’s eight children – seven males and one female – were born in Swindon.  Despite the fact they family lived in Wiltshire, they retained much of their Welsh roots. In many ways this was understandable and reasonable. The family lived in a Welsh enclave in Swindon, they spent time in Wales and they possibly spoke Welsh at home.

Mary and William’s first child, Thomas William, was born in early 1863.  About 15 months later, Frederick Edward was born and a third son, John, was born a year later in early 1865.   Two more sons, William and Henry (Harry – thus called Harry Harry), were born in 1868 and 1870 respectively.

In 1871, at the Census on 2 April, the Harry family was residing in Cambria Place, New Swindon.   The household included Mary and William with their five sons along with Mary’s mother, Ann Williams, and four older children of Mary’s sister, Ann.  Not far away lived William’s two brothers, one of whom was married, who were also working on the railway.  Another brother had also been living in the area but had moved just prior to the Census. 

Mary and William had a further three children: Mary Ann, the only daughter, born 1872; Charles Evan born 1874; and Alfred, born 1875.

The railway works were difficult places to work.  Jefferies described them as follows:

“Passing between a row of fiery furnaces seven times heated, the visitors enter the rail-mill where the rails are manufactured.  This place is a perfect pandemonium.  Vast boilers built up in brick close in every side, with the steam hissing like serpents in its efforts to escape.  Enormous fly-wheels spin round and round at a velocity which renders the spokes invisible. Steam hammers shake the ground, where once perhaps crouched the timid hare, and stun the car.  These hammers are a miracle of human manufacture…  a mass of red hot metal [is] wheeled along and placed beneath the steam hammer, where it is thumped and bumped flat… The workmen wear shoes shod with broad headed iron nails from heel to toe.  Their legs are defended by greaves – like an iron cricketing pad; their faces by a gauze metal mask.  The clang, the rattle, the roar are indescribable… Out comes a mass of white-hot metal, it is placed on a truck and wheeled forward to the revolving rollers, and placed between them.  Sparks spurt out like a fountain of fire – slowly it passes through, much thinned and lengthened by the process; which is repeated until at length it emerges in the form of a rail.”

Sometime around the early 1880s William, Mary and their four youngest children moved from Swindon to the parish of Higher Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales. William decided to leave the hard work of the railway and was working as a Hotel Keeper, operating a hotel called “Gelly” in the small village of Abergwynfi in the Afan Valley.  The entire population of Higher Llangynwyd was less than 10,000 and consisted of a number of small villages, the largest of which was Maesteg – ten kilometres from Abergwynfi. Originally the area had been owned by the Jenkins family who ran a farm called Gelli – hence the name of the inn! 

William Harry died at Abergwynfi on 21 January 1883 age 48. It seems that the railway had taken its toll on him. William had left the family relatively financially secure, probably through his well-paid work at the GWR.

Relationship to SNR = Great, great, great grandfather