John Lawrence Swift (1866 - 1946)

Born 20 Jun 1866 in Oxley Island, Manning River, New South Wales, Australia

Husband of Clara Emily (Curry) Swift — married 1 Jul 1900 in Whitianga, New Zealand

Descendants

Died 17 Oct 1946 at age 80 in Hikutaia, Thames-Coromandel, Waikato, New Zealand

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Biography

John Lawrence (Jack) Swift was born in Manning River, NSW

When John Lawrence Swift was in his twenties, he left Australia and went to Fiji for three years, before moving on to New Zealand. It was while he lived in Fiji that he was given a violin which some family members claimed was very valuable because it was made by Joseph Guarnerius in 1714. Family rumour has it was Joseph Guarnerius was a pupil of Stradivarius.

When he came to New Zealand Jack Swift worked as a bushman, at Whitianga, and being a catholic he would go to Mass on the Sundays that the priest from Thames or Coromandel visited, and it was there that he met and married Clara Curry, the oldest daughter of Henry Curry and Mary Ann Lynch, on July 2nd 1900. After their marriage, they took up the licence for the Post Office Hotel at Neaseville, a gold mining and timber milling village in the Coromadel Ranges between Puriri and Tairua.

They carried on in the Hotel for the next seven years, and their first four daughters were born there. By this time gold was getting harder to find and Neavesville was becoming a dying town, and The Swifts felt the hotel was not the best place to bring up young daughters, so they sold up and moved to Waitawheta where Jack Swift went back to the bush work he had done in his single days. He had obtained a contract as a tree feller and the family settled down and the older girls went to the Waitawheta school.

As the Waitawheta contract had run out and the Swifts had moved to Hikutaia, where Jack had a felling contract in the Maratoto, and they lived in a house rented from the Alleys.

When the bush contract expired Jack Swift decided to go farming, and sharemilked for Viv Young on Ferry Road for a few seasons, then he moved to Wharepoa for a time before buying his own small farm on the Main Road, where the monumental mason business now operates. He and his family milked their small herd here until the youngest son Jim, was called into the army in 1940, and the herd was sold to Norman Harper who was married to Maud Swift, and farmed the adjacent property.

Burial

Omahu Cemetery, Hikutaia, Waikato, New Zealand (billion-graves)
together with Clara

Research Notes

When Jack Swift Snr. left Australia he took his nephew George Stace with him. George was the oldest son of George Stace and Agnes Swift. I believe that Agnes was really from Margaret’s first marriage to Patrick Smith. Although I can find no trace of her birth I have traced a marriage of a George Stace to Agnes Smith dated 1876, so if she was a daughter of Thomas Swift she would be only about 15 at the time, however if she was from Margaret Norton’s marriage to Patrick Smith she would have been about 20.
Young George Stace was only 18 when he came to New Zealand with his uncle Jack Swift, and he eventually married Selina Lynch a daughter of Peter Lynch (who many years after his first wife Susan had died remarried) and Mary Barlow (Merepono) the daughter of Herina De Har and Robert Barlow. Herina De Har also married Hare (George) Ranapaia (Lanfear). Mary Barlow was also known as Mary Lanfear. Herina deHar was the oldest daughter of Louis Dehar and Herina Hokima.

John's Birth Certificate shows he was born at Oxley Island

Sources

• Smiths of Hikutaia nz Family Archives

au NSW BDM (Australian, New South Wales, Births Deaths Marriages)
nz BDM (New Zealand Births, Deaths, Marriages)

1866 - Birth - au NSW BDM 9814/1866 SWIFT, JOHN to (f=) THOMAS (m=) MARGARET at MANNING RIVER
1900 - Marriage - nz BDM 1900/1726 Clara Emily Curry <m> John Swift
1946 - Death - nz BDM 1946/28218 Swift , John Aged 78Y