Evans - Christie Family compiled by James Evans in 2009

About this book

This book traces the ancestors of James Evans (above) and has been compiled for his children. It may also be of interest to relatives on both sides of the family that was brought together on Selsey Bill in 1950 when Donald Evans was introduced to Eleanor Hunter (nee Christie). The photos and stories have been collected after a number of trips to England and visits of relatives to James' adopted country Australia. Thanks are due to too many relatives to mention. The author hopes that his efforts will save others in the family time when they become interested in their heritage.

Front cover photo

Downie Leslie Family c 1898Standing: Dora, Mollie, Eleanor, WilliamSitting: Robert, Frank, Edwin, Frances, Katheline, Bertie

Inside back: Your grandmother Eleanor with Sarah Hunter.

IntroductionSitting here in the 21st century it is difficult to fathom the influence that the people in this book have had on the way we work, live and play. This congregation of vicars, military men, tea planters, lawyers, doctors and businessmen appear to me to have one general characteristic best captured by the title of a parlor entertainment performed by the Downie Leslie family in Aberdeen in the 1890s, 'Honour Before Wealth". Certainly this could be applied to the long line of Evans vicars in the Diocese of Canterbury or the Fergusson doctors in Richmond. But then perhaps this is a fanciful and vain idea. The Christie brick and tile makers and the Provost of Stirling may well have been on the make, as was great uncle Bertie who tried his hand at farming in Western Australia, or those three members of the family trading tea and rubber from the Far East. Let's not forget Percy Evans, the military doctor who may well have had an involvement in the South African concentration camps in the Boer War. When I see these faces and the incomplete stories behind their expressions I occasionally feel the forces of pre-destination. By this I mean the probability that my values have not been learnt so much as inherited. And not just from the men. The women here are a force to be reckoned with. The photo of Clara Muir Evans tells a story of strength, while the face of Hilda Evans perhaps evinces the emotional cost of being a women in the days of male domination. The over-bearing solemnity and formality of many of these photos have an oppression about them that seems so distant as to be from another world. And so it was in many ways. Look at the eyes of the baby Edwin and the mother's adoring glance on the front cover of this book. He was cut down by a German bullet on the first day of the 1917 Battle of Arras. Nigel Fergusson smiles radiantly at a tea party in Richmond not long before his ship was blown up in port with all hands lost. Philip Hunter gazes at his new born son days before being killed in the Battle of Britain. Nearly everyone on these pages was touched by war, as were their parents and each generation before them. It is only we, the British born baby-boomers and their children who have escaped these horrors and perhaps treat peace as a right rather than a privilege born from sacrifice.

All these are personal views and impressions. You will have your own as you flip the pages and no doubt corrections to facts or additional information. For this reason there is a webpage accompanying this booklet which will be updated as new stories are discovered (http://www.womerah.com). This site also contains more biographical details of our descendants. Finally, the script is a written as a narrative to my children and all references to generational titles such as grandfather refer to their relationships with them. My mother was a Christie/Downie Leslie. My father an Evans/Fergusson. The book dedicates a chapter to each of these four families. We start with George Christie because he seems to have been the only politician in the family, and he is the only Christie of his generation that we have a visual record of ....

James Evans

September 2009

George Christie - businessman, politician, freemasonGeorge was the brother of John Christie, your maternal great great grandfather. He was born 1827, died 1902.

On graduating from Stirling Grammar School, George went to Edinburgh to work with his Uncle Robert in the tea trade. After a failed business as a tea merchant in London's Strand, George returned to Stirling to work in his father's brick and tile manufacturing business alongside his brother. He was a member of the Stirling Rifle Volunteers under Captain Mackieson. After his father died George retired and left the business in his brother John's hands. He became involved in politics, ultimately becoming the Provost of Stirling (equivalent of Mayor). There is a clocktower in Stirling dedicated to George Christie.

Source: Stirling Saturday Observer, 26th July 1902

The Grand Lodge of Scotland's Year Book (2008) summarises his achievements as:

Provost of Royal Burgh of Stirling 1870-73Past Master of Lodge Ancient Stirling, No. 30 1874-78Provincial Grand Master of Stirlingshire 1893-1903

Construction of the memorial clock was in 1905/6. The article states that his wife (unnamed) was unable to attend the opening due to ill health (she died in 1907) and the opening ceremony was attended by his neice Miss Oliphant (resumably John Chritie's daughter).

George Christie

Detail of portrait, painter unknown

Supplied by Stirling Council's archivist

Clocktower in Stirling, Scotland

Dedicated to George Christie

The tower was renovated in 2006

The ChristiesScots who migrated south

There are no photos of your great great grandfather John (1822-1876) who inherited his father's (George Snr: 1788-1867) brick and tile manufacturing business at The Shore in Stirling. As the archivist at Stirling Council noted: he "continued a very successful operation, since not only was he able to buy Forthbank (a large house just east of Stirling demolished between 1938 and 1942) but his estate was valued at his death at Forthbank on 30th April 1876 at £37,111, which makes him a millionaire by our standards today". The census returns state that he employed 17 men and 3 women. At Forthbank they had a cook (Elizabeth Buchan, 27), a table maid (Isabella McGruthes, 19) and a nursery maid (Jesie Sharp, 18). He and his wife Jessie Todd had 7 children, the fourth of which was John Todd Christie, your great grandfather. After running away to sea at the age of 14, he followed his elder brother George into the tea business in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He had retired from the business by the time he married Eleanor Downie Leslie in Parkstone, Dorset on 12th December 1905. Jonathan Christie remembers the family's tea plantation was Radella, just outside Nuwara Elya in the high country. In January 1905 he and Eleanor travelled to Ceylon, presumably with a view to him resuming his career as a tea planter. They returned to England when Eleanor fell pregnant with Frances, mistaking morning sickness for an aversion to the climate! John and Eleanor (also known as Nell or later in life Gardie) had four children; Frances (1908-1955), Ronald (1910-1991), Eleanor (your grandmother: 1913-1982), and Jean (1930- ). Frances married an air force officer, Dick King-Lewis and had no children. Ronald became a rubber planter in Malaya (from where he was forced to leave after a motorcycle accident which resulted in the death of a local chinese man) before settling as a tea planter in Assam. He retired from planting in the 1960's and became secretary of Brancaster Golf Club. He served as a Colonel in the Gurkhas in WW2. He married Sylvia Sparks and they had two children, Patricia (Tishy: 1950 - ) and Jonathan (1951- ). Eleanor was married twice before your grandfather, Donald Evans. Her first husband Wally Nisbett was in the Scots Highland Regiment and committed suicide within a year of marriage while on a posting to Palestine. The second, Phillip Hunter , was killed in the Battle of Britain in August 1940. They had one son, Nigel (1939-1997), your uncle. Jean married Lt Cdr Richard Clarke (1930-2003) and they had Judith (1955 - ), Anthony (1959 - ) and Carolyn (1961 - ).

The Christie Family

John Todd Christie, Jean and Frances

At the wedding of Frances to Dick King-Lewis, 1932. Her brother in law Nigs King-Lewis was doctor to Harold MacMillan, Britain's Prime Minister.

Christie family

Eleanor Frances Downie Leslie

Dressed to be presented at the court of Queen Victoria c 1898. She married John Todd Christie in 1905.

Frances Christie

The eldest child born 1908, died of cancer in 1955.

Ronald Christie

Born 1910 and became a tea planter (Assam) and followed the family golf tradition being secretary of Brancaster Golf Club in the 1960s and 1970s.

Christie family

Eleanor Christie

Third child of John and Eleanor Christie and your grandmother. Widowed three times she had two children, Nigel Hunter from her second marriage and your father from the third to Donald Evans.

Jean Christie

Jean married Dick Clarke, a Lt Cdr in the navy who owned and managed a successful marina in Dorset. They had three children: Jusith, Anthony and Carolyn.

John Todd Christie with family

L-R: with Frances and Ronald c 1913, with Ronald early 1930s; Frances hiding behind balding Dad

Eleanor, unknown, 1925?

Eleanor Christie

With unknown friend, c 1925

Ronald, Frances and Eleanor

Again in the 1920s

Frances, Ronald and Eleanor

Presumably taken during the Second World War 1939-1945.

© James Evans

Christie gallery

Sqd Ldr Philip Hunter, son Nigel, Gardie, Jean

Philip was your grandmother's second husband. Photo probably taken at Red House in 1940 not long before Philip was killed in August in the Battle of Britain.

Philip Hunter addressing his squadron

Propaganda coverage. This was the most planes destroyed by a squadron in a day by either side. Historians now doubt the veracity of these claims. Nevertheless ...

Christie gallery

War time at Red House, probably after Philip was killed

L-R Unknown, Dick King-Kewis (Frances' husband), the now twice widowed Eleanor Hunter, Eleanor Christie, Unknown, Frances King Lewis.

On the Thames in the early 1960s

L-R Mollie Downie Leslie, Eleanor Evans, Nigel Hunter, Gardie

Christie Gallery

Jonathan (1951 - ) and Patricia aka Tishy (1950 - )

The only grandchildren of Eleanor and John Todd Christie to carry the family name. By some irony Tishy's husband and children are Todds, her paternal great grandmother's family name.

The Downie LesliesThe law, merchants, an Indian connection and golf.

As I write, the last Downie Leslie lives in Adelaide, Australia and has no children. The first was Robert born in 1848 to William Downie, a contractor in Caithness who died prematurely. His mother, born Mary Turnbull, then married Alexander Leslie, a Sheriff Officer and Messenger-at-Arms. From then on Robert, his wife Frances Turnbull (sic), and all of his children adopted the name Downie Leslie. Robert was an Advocate (barrister) in Aberdeen specialising in commercial law. He was also Sercretary to the Iron Trades and Shipping Employer's Association and captain of Royal Aberdeen Golf Club (1904-06). Robert died of a heart attack on the London-Ediburgh train on 5th December 1906. Soon after Frances appears to have moved south with the children. However the Scottish link remains strong with the youngest, Edwin, joining the Seaforth Highlanders, only to be killed on 9th April 1917 at the Battle of Arras. Many of the elder children had military and commercial connections to India. One, Bertie, unsuccesfully tried his hand at farming in Western Australia. His grandson is the one who lives in Adelaide. For a long time the family lived in Bon Accord Square, Aberdeen with a governess called Miss Youngson ("Youngie" to the family). Bertie's descedents in Perth have a copy of "Honour before Wealth", a family parlour play performed on 8th January 1902 and set in 'A room in a lodging house', 'a saloon in Chateau Laroque' and a 'Room in the ruined Tower Elfen'. All the children performed except William (who lived independently by that stage) and Edwin (too young at 4) alongside some friends from the Thompson and Henderson families. The family gravestone lies in the Allenvale Cemetery in Aberdeen on which is recorded Robert, his wife Frances, John Malcolm, Arhur Norman, Edwin Victor, William and his wife Christina Louttit Laing.

Downie Leslie Gallery

Family tree of selected descendants

As researched and compiled by Heather Verity Smith in 2008

Downie Leslie Galler

Robert Downie Leslie

Advocate (barrister) in Aberdeen, a keen golfer and captain of Royal Aberdeen Golf Club 1904-06. His mother, like his wife, were both born Turnbulls.

Frances Ewart Downie Leslie (nee Turnbull)

She and Robert married in Newcastle on 28 June 1877 and had ten children, the second oldest of whom was Eleanor Frances, your great grandmother (1883-1974). She died in London in 1927 aged 72.

Downie Leslie Gallery

Frances Ewart and John Turnbull

John was a merchant seaman who was also known as "Hellfire Jack". On 2nd November 1855 they gave birth to Frances in Amble, Nr Alnwick, Northumberland.

© James Evans

Unknown, Teddie and Robert Downie Leslie

It is possible that this is a photo of three brothers, Either that, or they are business partners.

© James Evans

Downie Leslie galler

Dora Downie Leslie

Married Edward Wingfield King OBE, a writer of childrens books and philanthropist.

y

Molly Downie Leslie

Widowed twice her last husband was Frank Cooper, the Oxford Marmalade maker. Afterwards she lived with her sister Eleanor until she died in 1974.

Downie Leslie Gallery

Eleanor and Edwin Downie Leslie

The older sisters had an almost maternal relationship with their youngest brother

Edwin Downie Leslie

The student around the time his father died (1906)

Edwin Downie Leslie

In Seaforth Highlander uniform not long before being shipped to France only to be killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras. Having charged with his men and taken one emplacement, he was killed instantly with a bullet to the head.

This was the same day that General Allenby was replaced because of his disagreement with Haig over the tactics at Arras. On the other side was a young runner called Adolph Hitler.

Downie Leslie gallery

Eleanor Downie Leslie (aka Gardie)

Taken in the late 1960s, probably at Nigel Hunter's marriage to Judith Parkinson.

The Evans familyVicars and military men

The Evans line of vicars is said to go back to the 1600s, all in the Diocese of Canterbury in Kent.The first record I have found is a plaque in Headcorn Church dedicated to David Evans (1729-1801) who served 38 years in the parish. His only son, also David (1771-1822), was a graduate of Pembroke College Oxford and the vicar of Ruyton in Shropshire before he succeeded his father at Headcorn. He had two sons. David Evans, who started a dynasty of doctors in Belper, Derbyshire. One of his sons, Thomas, was a scholar and Canon of Durham. When he died in 1889 his biography was published as a foreword to a book of his work, called Latin and Greek Verse, still being published in 2009. This describes his uncle and David's other son, George William David (GWD) Evans (1800-1883), as and educated, forbidding man. GWD succeeded his father at Ruyton before becoming the last vicar of St Mary's Reculver and the Perpetual Curate of Hoath. He and his wife Bridget had fourteen children, the oldest of which was your great great grandfather George (born 1828). Bringing up so many children was financially onerous. But GWD seems to have been a man of brains and ingenuity. As his grandson Harold Muir Evans wrote in the 1940s: "...he was like many other country clergymen, a scholar. He travelled and wrote a book which seems to have been widely read, 'The Classic and Connoisseur in Scicily and Italy' ... he was a considerable linguist and ... funds must have been rather meagre; in order to increase funds he used to take rooms in London and with his eldest daughter (Mary Anne born 1829) spend several days a week working on the translation of the Bible into Spanish, and so I would like to think he was a part author of the Bible of Spain by George Borrow." From other accounts it sounds like GWD's vicarage was close to a summer house owned by a brick and tile maker from London named George Randell. George Evans clearly became good friends with the only Randell son, John. Your relative was taken into the family business: "the land on which ... became valuable and the Randell Estate is the outcome of the building thereon". A street in Islington was named after the family, Randell's Road. Sadly the fruits of the Estate had all but been consumed by the time your grandfather died in 1975.

George and his wife Clara Maria Muir (another Scot and the daughter of a hat maker) had five children, the eldest of which was Percy (1868-1945) a military doctor who served in both the Boer Wars and First World War. He married Hilda Fergusson and they had Rosemary (1910-1978) who died unmarried, and your grandfather Donald (1912-1975) who became a senior air force officer. He had your uncle Nigel by his first marriage, and your father by his second. I haven't unearthed any pictures of George, but his wife Clara is the first photo. The Evans/Fergusson Richmond connection is important because it explains why you have a Welsh surname, Scots blood but in all likelihood will call yourself Australian. Your Scots lineage is further confirmed by your maternal grandmother who was born Betty Burne and was a Scot who came to Australia via New Zealand. George appears to have been the only Evans to have built wealth through 'trade', something often looked down upon by the late Victorians who survived into the 20th Century. My father, for instance, only ever owned one home, a two-up, two-down cottage in Suffolk he bought within 15 years of his death. At the dinner table, money was never talked about, indeed it was frowned upon.

Evans Gallery

Clara Maria Evans (nee Muir)

Married George Evans (b 1828) in 1862 and had five children one of whom was your great grandfather Percy Evans. George's father was GWD Evans, the last of a line of vicars going back to the 1600s, all in Kent.

Evans Gallery

Percy Evans c. 1900

A Colonel and military doctor who served in the Boer and First World Wars. He was Assistant Director Medical Services for the British Expeditionary Forces 1915-1917. MArried Hilda Fergusson. Died 1945 aged 67.

Evans Gallery

Hilda Annie Drummond Fergusson

On her wedding day, 11th October 1909. They had two children, Rosemary and Donald.

Evans Gallery

Hilda in later life.

Showing the signs of stress that both she and her spinster daughter suffered. Rosemary had a number of episodes requiring psychiatric treatment.

Evans Gallery

Rosemary and Donald Evans in about 1914

Rosemary (1910 - 1978) was a spinster who spent time in India before returning to England and Fleet. For a time she fostered Nigel Evans following his father's divorce from Pauline Breach.

Evans Gallery5

Donald Evans (1912 - 1975)

By this time in the 1960s Air Chief Marshal Sir Donald Evans. Known as an innovator he commanded the Fighter Interception Unit in 1942 deveoping night fighter tactics, before orgnising the air signals for the Sicily and Normandy invasions.

Pauline Mary Breech

Donald's first wife, mother of Nigel Randall Evans (1943 - ) and Judith (1944-45)

Wedding day 1939

In his scrap book Donald formally requests leave for his honeymoon in France. Between the lines it is clear that he and the RAF knew that war was imminent, and that France may be a place to leave quickly.

Evans Gallery

A young Nigel Evans (c 1944)

Nigel became a successful British documentary film maker and author (The White Head Hunter under the name of Nigel Randall).

Grove Lodge, Camberley 1960

Gardie's home (aka Eleanor Downie Leslie). Nigs is Nigel Hunter, and Nigel Evans is nick-named Ni. Needless to say when I was born, the congratulatory letters all congratulated them on Nigel III.

Eleanor and Donald Evans

Photo taken in the late 1960s on the family boat, Grebe 2, sailing on the River Orwell. They owned Tudor Cottage, Stutton, Suffolk as a weekender.

They are both buried in Stutton Churchyard.

Dad's christening, 1950s portrait and passport photos.

There are only two Evans' who can carry on the name in the traditional manner: you and Andrew. Both childless in 2009. No pressure!

The FergussonsHealers and military men from Scotland

Dr James Fergusson (1835-1903) was born on a farm called Drumeleyer, Nr Irongray, Dunscore in Scotland. He migrated south in the 1870s to Richmond close to where George and Clara Evans lived. James and Anne Gilchrist Drummond (1842-1933) had seven children. Hilda (1883-1946) married your great grandfather Percy Evans. All the male children - John (aka Carl), George, Drummond, Vivian, Nigel - where either doctors, military men or, like your great grandfather, both. There was also a strong Indan connection with Vivian serving there and his sister Eleanor dying in childbirth in Simla. Nigel was a naval man and godfather to Donald Evans. He was killed when HMS Bulwark blew up in port with all hands lost in November 1914. Eleanor married a New Zealander, William Marris, who was a distinguished Latin scholar and translator, twice Governor of the United Provinces in India, and eventually Principal of Armstrong College, Newcastle (1929-1937) and Vice Chancellor Durham University (1932). Their son, Denzil Marris, was your gradfather's closest childhood friend who became a distinguished banker, being head of Lazards and on the board of Barcays Bank amongst other directorships. I have a record of five Fergusson doctors, the last of which was Patrick Drummond Fergusson who died in 1997, still practicing in Richmond. His son, James Ferusson, is a journalist and obituary writer for the London Independent newsaper.

Fergusson Gallery

Dr James Fergusson MD FRCS (Edin)

The Scottish doctor (1835-1903) who travelled south and started the Fergusson dynasty of doctors and military men in Richmond, Surrey.

Anne Gilchrist Fergusson (nee Drummond)

Lived to the age of 91, dying in Richmond in 1933.

Fergusson Gallery

Surgeon Rear Admiral James (Jim) Fergusson

Photo taken in Malta in 1930. Christened George Douglas Gordon, so there is some confusion over his name!

Dr Drummond Fergusson

The second generation of Richmond doctors in about 1932. Said to have been Virginia Woolf's doctor. Died in Egypt on holiday in 1935 aged 48

Fergusson Gallery

Richmond, c 1906

L-R: Nigel, Drummond (with cup), Carl (turnng in chair), Eleanor (sitting far right)

Fergusson Galllery

Sir William Marris Kt KCSI, KCIE, ICS

Married Eleanor Fergusson who died during childbirth in Simla, India. Governor of the United Provinces of India (Punjab). A New Zealander and Latin scholar.

Denzil (Denny) Marris

Denzil (Denny) Marris

His mother died while giving birth to him. Distinguished banker who was your grandfather's best friend in childhood.

Fergusson Gallery

Vivian Fergusson

Colonel in the Indian Army; died aged 40 in Simla.

Muriel Fergusson nee Hooper

Muriel Hooper

Married "Carl" John Carlyle Fergusson ICS

And, in the end ...Postscript

Harrison,

Like you, the only grandparent I knew was my maternal grandmother. Her husband John Todd Christie would have been 107 when she died, and today would be 142. My paternal grandfather would be 141. Statistics like these are one good reason to try to record what is known about them and their lives in this volume and the accompanying website. Right now you will be too busy looking to the future to care much about the past. This may change in the future. For me, your birth - half a world away from my heritage in Scotland and England - was one reason to spend some time exhuming the past. I did not want oral history to be confined to your Australian antecedents. If and when you come to be interested, any research you do will be made easier by the records that will be digitised by then, and available on the Internet. The latest trend is Augmented Reality - the ability to superimpose the past on to a mobile phone that mainlines historical records into a present place and time - so, who knows, you may even be able to bring them to life!

Dad 20th September 2009

Notes

Evans-Christie Family Album