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Hi. I'm a descendant of Captain William Jackson Barry - but I haven't worked out how to make the link. I'm hoping for responses from anyone who might know something of the family tree. My great grandmother was his grand daughter - she was Beatrice Stella Mowbray nee Kingsland. Her father was Frederick Mowbray and her mother was Jane/Jean/Jennie Mowbray (later White Fischer). Jackson Barry was well known in his day, was the first Mayor of Cromwell at Queenstown NZ, and published several books of his (I think mostly imagined) adventures worldwide. Any start would be appreciated.

Have you tried googling his name? Lots of info comes up. Just one of them here:

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Gov14_07Rail-t1-body-d9.html

Thanks. yeah, I've got plenty of information on him, but there's very little recorded about his family. I know my great grandmother used to tell my grandmother about him, and I've got a funeral notice for her aunt, Katherine McLeod, which mentions she's his daughter, but that's pretty well all I've got so far. At this stage I don't even know whether my GG Mother is connected to him via her mother, or her father.

can you give us some relevant dates here please?

just to give us some kind of picture here

Barry, William Jackson 1819 - 1907
Adventurer, writer

William Jackson Barry was born in 1819 in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, England. His parents' names are unknown. He arrived in Sydney, Australia, in 1828, possibly as a juvenile convict, and embarked on a lifetime of adventuring and speculation. Turning with enthusiasm to any likely enterprise, he moved constantly from place to place, following opportunity, making and losing several large fortunes. He crossed Australia as a drover, coach driver, cattle trader, butcher and possibly bushranger, and sailed on whaling and trading ships throughout Australasia and Indochina. In Calcutta, in 1840, he joined the navy, serving on gunboats in Burma, Malaya and China. The easy profits of the goldrushes took him to Sacramento, California, in 1849, back to Ballarat in 1856 or 1857, and to Otago, New Zealand, in 1862.

Barry established himself with great success as a butcher in Cromwell, and served as the town's first mayor from 1866 to 1868. He diversified into auctioneering, farming, quartz-mining, surveying the goldfields as a commission agent, and managing a Queenstown hotel. His increasing personal notoriety led Barry into the business of writing and lecturing; his colourful life provided material for three books and for a seemingly inexhaustible series of lectures and public performances given throughout New Zealand, Australia and England. Up and down; or fifty years' colonial experiences was published in London in 1879, and was twice revised and expanded, first in 1897 for Past & present and men of the times and, with short pen-portraits of notable colonial figures, to produce Glimpses of the Australian colonies and New Zealand in 1903.

In spite of Barry's notoriety, his fortunes declined steadily as a result of various unsuccessful political, prospecting and mining ventures. In 1894 he was petitioning the government for a pension - he eventually received £50 - and by 1905 was living in a charitable institution in Wellington. He died in Sunnyside Mental Asylum, Christchurch, on 23 April 1907. Barry had first married Hannah French, the daughter of a whaling friend, in western Australia. Hannah died within a few years, while giving birth to their only child, a daughter, who was given into foster care. Barry's second marriage had been to Adelia Buckley, in Shasta, California, in 1852 or 1853. They had six children before her death in Queenstown on 3 December 1873.

Adelia Buckley Compact Disc #17 Pin #323407 Pedigree
Sex: F
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event(s)
Birth: 1820

USA
Death: 3 Dec 1873

Queenstown New Zealand


Marriage(s)
Spouse: William Jackson Barry Disc #17 Pin #323406
Marriage: 1852
Shasta City California USA

Hi Phil. The Otago Witness has a obit and more on paperspast, on this man. Pat

Oh, thanks everybody - I'm still getting used to how this all works.

The only other information I have is that of the kids, there were two girls (Katherine and Sarah Jane) and four boys (names unknown).

Katherine was my GG Mother's aunty. I know Katherine died in 1938 in Sydney - she was staying with my GG Mother at the time, and she predeceased her husband, Joseph McLeod.

.

HI,

I AM A LOCALHISTORIAN researching the life and time of Jackson Barry.
I have contact with one relation in Australia. One late friend in Cromwell
was a great granddaughter. To Adelia he had six children. Three boys and three girls. The oldest boy was William. The oldest girl was Susan {Sarah Matilda Susanah). It appears she was fostered out to James and Susan Stuart.

The names of the youngest daughters have already been mentioned.

Past history has painted Jackson Barry as something of a scoundrel. I was able to prove that in Cromwell he was a respected businessman. He was a butcher and stock agent as well as mayor. :-)

“What thrilling incidents illustrious Barry
That stamp thee as a marvel in our age,
Thy tale records, that made me spell-bound, tarry
For a whole day o'er the eventful page,
Whose chequered scenes with luck for each occasion
Reminds one of the marvels of Munchausen.”

There are lots of NZ Bios on him. Go to google NZ...

Hello David and welcome to the Community Boards.

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Cx.