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The Rashleigh/Kinsman Story
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It is quite amazing at times how
family history correspondence over many years
from different people in different parts of the
World throws up different perspectives on the
same family. This is certainly the case with the
Rashleigh/Kinsman family of St Keverne and later
of South Australia.
In writing this article I am indebted to several
people who have written to me as one of the OPCs
for St Keverne or to my late father-in-law,
Rev.Thomas Shaw regarding the Rashleigh-Kinsman
connection.
John Rashleigh, the son of John and Margaret
Rashleigh (nee Allen), was born on 13 September 1795,
was baptised at St Keverne church on 15 November 1795
and was married at
Breage church on 11 November 1821 to Phyllis
Symons, the daughter of Robert Symons and
Elizabeth (nee Richards).
John Rashleigh was a yeoman farmer at
Porthkerris, a cove on the south Cornish coast
between Porthallow and Porthoustock in St Keverne
parish.
John and Phyllis had six children between
their marriage in 1821 and John Rashleigh's
death at Porthkerris on 23 July 1833 - John 1822,
John James 1824, Elizabeth 1826 (died young),
William Richards 1827, Elizabeth Simons 1829,
Caroline 1832 and Thomas Henry 1833. The family
had strong links with the Bible Christian chapel
at Porthallow and some of their children were
baptised by the local BC minister, although
others were baptised at St Keverne church.
John Rashleigh, it appears, was bed-ridden for
several years before he died but Phyllis managed
the farm and developed the good business skills
that were to stand her in good stead later in
Australia. John died on 19th July 1833 and was
buried at Manaccan on 23rd July 1833.
William Kinsman was one of three Bible Christian
ministers named Kinsman. Richard Kinsman, born in
Stratton, was active in the BC ministry between
1830 and 1860 and died at Stonehouse, Devon in
1881. William (the first) was born at Poundstock
and was active in the ministry in the 1830s and
1840s and had two spells as minister of the
Breage BC circuit.
However, it was William Kinsman (the second) who
came to play a part in the history of the
Rashleigh family. William Kinsman (the second)
born in Morwenstow in 1799, began his ministry in
the Scilly Isles in 1825 and by 1833 was in
Mevagissey.
According to Rev. Oliver Beckerlegge in his
publication "United Methodist Ministers and
their Circuits 1797-1932" William Kinsman
was at Mevagissey in 1833 but then
"disappears". He probably left the
ministry but continued to preach for the Bible
Christian church. However, he
"re-appeared" in St Keverne in 1833 and
it can be assumed that, as a BC
minister/preacher, he visited the ailing John
Rashleigh at Porthkerris.
On 14 August 1834 William Kinsman, bachelor of
St Keverne married Phyllis Rashleigh, widow, by
license at St Keverne church. Over the next ten
years six children were born to the Kinsmans,
five girls and the sixth, a boy, William in 1844.
Three of the children (Rosina, Grace and Philippa
) were baptised on 10 March 1843 at the family
home at Porthkerris by the local BC minister. In
both the 1841 and 1851 Census Returns the
Kinsman/Rashleigh family was at Porthkerris.
William Kinsman tried his hand at farming but he
seems to have been fairly useless on the farm so
for fifteen years after their marriage Phyllis
kept the management of the farm in her hands. In
the meantime, Phyllis's eldest daughter
Elizabeth Simons Rashleigh who had emigrated to
South Australia and married Francis Rowe sent
glowing letters home about life in Australia. For
some years the Kinsman had lost money as a result
of disease in the potato crop and, as there was
only one life left before the lease of
Porthkerris would terminate, they decided to sell
up and emigrate.
On 11 November 1851 William and Phyllis together
with their six children plus William Richards,
Caroline and Thomas Henry Rashleigh sailed from
Plymouth on the "Caucasian" arriving in
South Australia on 8 February 1852. William paid
an excess fare of £37 on the voyage
possibly because he had a large number of
children and his daughter Philippa was blind.
William and Phyllis gave their ages as 30 for
the passenger list of the Caucasian when in
reality they were much older. This was in
response to the stipulation laid down by the
South Australia Company that sponsored assisted
passages that emigrants must be under 30 years of
age and must be agricultural workers. So although
Phyllis and William were about 53 years old they
had to be thirty to get assistance. Their history
of farming at Porthkerris easily fitted the
second criterion.
The Kinsman story can now be taken up by
extracts from the diary/memoirs of the Hon.Thomas
Playford who married Mary Jane Kinsman in 1860
and who later became the Premier for South
Australia and was instrumental in drawing up the
Australian Constitution.
I was most intimate with a family who came (from
England) to Mitcham (South Australia) about the
year 1852-1853 for I married into that family.
(Mitcham was about seven miles from Adelaide but
today is now an inner suburb of the city) Some of
the children were named Rashleigh and some
Kinsman for Mrs. Kinsman had been married twice.
I heard him (Mr. Kinsman) preach twice in our
little chapel and thought he was a good preacher.
He was a tall, well-built man with a pleasing
serious-looking face, much liked by his children.
In the meantime, gold had been found in Victoria
and the men in the Colony were flocking there. Mr
Kinsman resolved to go also and take William and
John (his two stepsons) with him.
(Note. John Rashleigh was the son who remained
in Cornwall, so could not have accompanied William Kinsman
on the journey)
He stayed long
enough in Mitcham to see the rest of his family
comfortably settled and then departed by ship for
Melbourne. He and the two Rashleighs duly landed
in Melbourne with horses and carts to carry their
luggage to the diggings near Bendigo. They made a
late start and camped for the first night not far
from Melbourne. Mr. Kinsman was troubled in the
afternoon with a bad attack of dysentery and told
the Rashleighs that they were to go on and that
he would walk back to Melbourne and procure some
medical advice and medicine and that he would
catch them up later. William and John Rashleigh
went on but he never turned up and that was the
last time that he was seen alive by anyone
according to the most diligent enquiry made by
Mrs. Kinsman and others. She was informed that a
man answering William Kinsman's description
had boarded a vessel bound for Port Adelaide but
that he had died before the vessel reached the
Heads and was taken ashore there to be buried.
However, there is no record of his death or
burial.
Poor Mrs Kinsman was thus left to fight her own
way in life, mysteriously bereft of her husband.
With the little money she had, she purchased some
cows and sold milk and butter. She realised that
there was an opening for a passenger conveyance
to the city so she bought a cart and drove it to
town in the morning, returning in the evening.
Later she obtained the mail contract in 1855. As
the traffic increased she procured a bus and her
son William drove it. Mr James of the Norfolk
Arms, Rundle Street, kindly gave her the use of
his stables and, despite competition from other
buses, the people of Mitcham supported her
venture.
Soon after the Kinsman's arrival in Mitcham,
I fell in love with Mary Jane, obtained her love,
and we courted for seven years before we married.
Mrs Kinsman died on 21 February 1866 of gastric
fever and was buried in Mitcham. I was one of the
executors of her will together with William
Rashleigh and Mr.Rowe. We found that she was
worth several thousand pounds which was divided
in equal shares among all her children except for
Philippa, her blind daughter, who was left for
life with the interest of £550 to keep her.
I was the acting executor and since then have
invested Philippa's money, paying her board
and giving her pocket money to purchase books for
the blind. Her sister Mrs Williams boards her for
18 shillings a week. However, of late the
interest rate has been so slow that I have been
compelled to take some of the capital to meet
expenses and if she lives many more years, all
the capital will be used up.
James Playford Duncan, a professor of mechanical
engineering at the University of British
Columbia, Canada, is the great grandson of Mary
Jane Kinsman and Thomas Playford who had married
in 1860. He wrote in April 1982 as follows:-
" My maternal great grandmother, Mary Jane
Kinsman, lived in a house in Adelaide, South
Australia, called "Helston", a house on
the corner of Kent Terrace and Norwood Parade,
now demolished. She lived to the great age of
about 96, so that I having been born in 1919 can
remember her well. I can picture her yet, seated
in a rocking chair, hassock at her feet, black
bow in her hair, conversing in a gentle, pleasant
voice to her elder daughter (my grandmother) and
my mother on Sunday visits.
The obituary of Eliza Jane Playford (nee
Kinsman) in May 1928 gives an insight into the
Kinsman's arrival in Australia. It states
" on landing at Port Adelaide, they reached
the city by means of a bullock dray and slept the
night in a shed in Hindley Street, before
continuing the next day to Mitcham, where the
family settled.
It is interesting to see that the
Rashleigh/Kinsman families settled in the same
area of South Australia and formed their Cornish
community within the larger Cornish community in
the state. In the same way, the St Keverne
Rashleighs stayed in the Porthallow area for the
rest of the nineteenth century.
The one Rashleigh son, John James, who remained
in England married Elizabeth Nicholls at St
Keverne on 23 September 1852. They had four
children - Thomas Henry baptised at St Keverne
church in 1853 and Mary Ann, John and William,
all baptised at Porthallow BC chapel in 1860.
John was a fisherman of Porthallow from about
1860 until his death in 1912. This link to the
sea was carried on into the next generation by
his sons Thomas Henry, John and William and by
his grandchildren, the children of Thomas Henry
Rashleigh. Sadly two of the grandchildren,
William Thomas and Gordon, were drowned in
Porthallow Bay in 1919, an incident that hastened
the death of John Rashleigh junior in 1921. The
funeral report in the local newspaper at the time
refers to the fact that John Rashleigh had been
in failing health as a result of the shock
brought on by the drowning of his two nephews two
years previous. (Note- the newspaper has nephews
but it should read grandson and great grandson)
The name Rashleigh has gone from Porthallow -
the last member of the family died in 1975 (Mary
Dunstan Rashleigh aged 91) - although there are
descendants of female Rashleighs left in the St
Keverne area. However, the surname is continued
today in South Australia through the descendants
of William Richards Rashleigh who emigrated with
the Rashleigh/Kinsman family in 1852.
I am grateful to David Rashleigh and Beth Hallam
of South Australia for writing to me over several
years with their Rashleigh/Kinsman information
and to James Playford Duncan (Canada) who sent an
interesting letter together with extracts from
Thomas Playford's memories/diary to the late
Tom Shaw in 1982. More recently I am grateful to Carole Rashleigh of
Falmouth for correcting some details.
Without their help this story
of emigration could not have been written.
Terry Moyle
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