John Mudford (b. 1791, d. 1852)
John Mudford was born in West Chinnock in 1791 and baptized in St. Mary's Parish Church, West Chinnock on 27 May 1791. In the St Mary Parish register on his baptism entry his parents are recorded as Robt and Ann Mudford. At some point the family likely moved to London as John's oldest brother, George Mudford (b. 1775) was married in Lambeth in London in 1799. In addition, his father Robert likely remarried at St. Dunstan's in Stepney in 1804.
John Mudford married Jo(h)anna Hewit(t) in St. Dunstan's Church in Stepney, east London on November 16, 1812. The church register is almost illegible, but shows that John and Johanna signed the register with their marks. In addition, the witnesses were David Hewitt, who signed his name and Mary Burnard who signed with her mark. The banns were read over the preceeding two weeks.
Based on baptism records from St. Dunstans in Stepney, John and Johanna appeared to have had five children before their youngest, William, was born in 1833. They had their four oldest, John (b. 12 August 1817), George (b. 12 August 1819), Ann (b. 17 July 1821) and James (b. 3 March 1823) all baptized on 12 October 1823. Their fifth child, Mary (b. 26 November 1825) was baptized on the 25 December 1825. My direct ancestor William (b. 24 October 1833) was born some six years after Mary, and it is not known whether there were other children born between Mary and William.
At the time of the 1841 England and Wales Census John (aged 50) and Johanna (aged 50) were living in Church Lane in east London. Also recorded in the household were four of their children: John (aged 20), Ann (aged 20), Mary (aged 15) and William (aged 6). In the 1841 Census adult ages mostly seem to be rounded to the nearest 5 years. By this time James (b. 1823) has disappeared from the record and he was not part of the family group that emigrated to Aotearoa. Although Mary was in the household at the time of the census in early 1841, she did not emigrate to Aotearoa with the rest of the family in October 1841.
In 1842 John and Johanna applied for free immigrant passages for themselves, their children John, George, Ann and William and John's wife Susan and their newly born daughter. The free passage scheme was promoted by the New Zealand Company, which was a largely fraudulent enterprise, that aimed to acquire land from the Māori at extremely cheap prices and resell at much higher prices to investors in England, with the promise that land values would dramatically increase as colonization happened. The plan was that these investors would take up residence and create a land owning class, and the free passages would be provided to labourers who would become the working class for the colony, and would work for the land owning class. Many of the land sales were eventually deemed fraudulent. In addition, most of the initial acquirers of land had no intention of settling in Aotearoa as they were simply speculating, with the result that there were very few people in the colony to actually pay for the labour of those who had come out on free passages. The New Zealand Company was thus forced to employ the labourers, and it eventually collapsed under the financial strain.
Register of Labourers Applying for Free Passage
The cutoff age for free passages was usually 40. When John and Johanna applied they put their age down to 44. They were likely accepted because they were emigrating with a number of working-age children. John Mudford and his family were accepted for free passage and set sail on the Clifton from Gravesend on 2 October 1841, and arrived in Port Nicholson on 17 February 1842. John Mudford and his adult sons are listed as eligible jury members for the district of Port Nicholson in 1845, 1846 and 1847. During that time John Mudford senior was living in Thorndon Quay. George only appears on the 1847 jury list, with his occupation listed as seaman. The 1847 jury list is the last reference I can find to George Mudford, and his death is not in the NZ BDM database.
John and Johanna's daughter Ann married William Boyd in 1843. Ann and William's two eldest children Catherine and Johanna were both born in Wellington. However, by early 1846 the Boyd's seem to have relocated to Auckland, where their remaining eleven children were born, and William plied his trade as a sailmaker in Mechanics Bay. As a result of her daughter moving to Auckland, and having a large family, it is likely that Johanna moved to Auckland with the youngest son William in 1850, as she is not mentioned in the reports of John's death in 1852.
John died suddenly on September 26, 1852. An inquest into his death was held and the verdict returned was that John Mudford died by the visitation of God from natural causes. At the time of his death Johanna, his wife, was living in Auckland and John was living in his sailmaking shop. His probate papers contain an inventory of the contents of his shop/living quarters and details of his assets and liabilities, which makes for interesting reading.
John Mudford's Assets, Liabilities and Effects
John appears in the burial register for St. Pauls Church in Molesworth St. Thorndon. None of the early graves from this time period are in existence any longer.
Johanna (Hewitt) Mudford (b. 1788, d. 1876)
Johannah lived for 24 years after John died. There are few references to her to be found. From 1865 there is a newspaper report of a Mrs Mudford being brought up before the Resident Magistrates Court in Wellington in 1865 on suspicion of lunacy. It is likely that this person is not Johnana, as she was probably living in Auckland by this time. It is more likely that the subject of the article is Susan (Hatt) Mudford (b. 1819). The next reference to be found for Johanna is an article in the Auckland Star from 6'th June 1876 in which there is a story of "Granny Mudford", a well-known character in Auckland, petitioning the court for a place in the Old Women's Refuge. The article states that she has lived in Auckland for 30 years and has many stories of the "old identities" of Auckland. However, after working as a nurse for the last twenty years she is now destitute and her family members cannot afford her the "necessaries of life", so she is seeking asylum in the Old Women's Refuge. There is a follow-up story the next day, 7'th June 1876, which states "that her son, a respectable man, and her daughters have provided her with a comfortable room and the necessaries of life". Finally, at the end of June, 1876 there is a story about "a very old woman, named Mudford" creating a disturbance in court because she had been turned out of doors by her family members. From the description it appears that she was likely suffering from dementia and was extremely confused.
Johanna died not long afterwards on 1 September 1876. She is buried in Symonds St. Cemetery, in a plot which also contains the graves of her son William (b. 1833) and William's wife Elizabeth (Stafford) Mudford (b. 1834). Johanna also has a profile on Find a Grave.
