Greetings.
Seeing the Australian quest for info re the above family name, I thought I would post info about an extended RIDDLE family that came NZ's way. The spelling change to RIDDELL, in this instance, was due to an error in a draft act of the NZ Parliament, and the family being advised late in the process, it would be easier to deed poll change their spelling, than to correct the bill in it's final reading.
The NZ family have a widely circulated manuscript, copies of which are in local libraries.
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PEEPS INTO THE PAST
Or
sidelights on the descendants of
James RIDDELL(LE)
and his wife
Jane GOODALL
This is a copy of memories, facts and figures as left by, Mr. William RIDDELL, of Gordonton, New Zealand, and edited by his sister, Miss Jessie RIDDELL. Sixty-nine foolscap pages in a tidy long hand and completed shortly before her death in August 1973.
Trustees of her estate, made, as was her intension, copies of the manuscript and supplied them to be shared among extended family and the local libraries. Since then with the development of computers, the copy has been entered on to computer disc, by Paul & Marion SMITH, nee RIDDELL and others. [E. & OE]
These lines from a well known hymn:-
Days and moments quickly flying
Blend the living with the dead
Soon shall you and I be lying
Each within his narrow bed.
And the following which I saw on a tombstone in the Kelso (Scotland) cemetery:-
Remember man as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now so must you be
Prepare for death and follow me
are cause for sobering thoughts and reflections on the past and on the future too, for that matter.
The older I get the more regrets I have that I have so little knowledge of my forbears. That is who our ancestors were and their mode of living, and their experiences which must have been so very different from ours when one thinks of the marvellous progress that has been made over the last hundred years. There are plenty of books to be had that give us quite an insight into the experiences of those days, but I have my regrets that I never availed myself of the opportunity I had in my contact with the older generation. To listen to, or question as to their young days, which I now realise must have been very interesting, being so very different from my own, and the same thing now applies to my own young days and my children's. It seems impossible to hand onto the next generation little, if any of one's experience and knowledge that one gains as he passes through this life and each generation has to learn by making the same mistakes that the preceding generation made. Surely, a state of affairs that could be avoided, if we took more interest in the happenings of the past.
Granted always, of course, that there is a vast difference in these days of jet travel from the days when sail was the only means of travelling around the world. When one took a hundred days or more to come from Great Britain to New Zealand instead of two or more as it is today.
It is only of recent years that certain matters concerning our forbears have concerned me and I thought that possibly some others might be interested in the following notes on these lines. My knowledge is very limited I must admit, to say nothing of my capability to put it down correctly but I do not know of
anyone else who has thought of jotting down certain facts of at least four generations of one branch of the Riddell family.
Origin of names has always interested me and the following may prove of interest. The border folks of Scotland through the centuries have had a very troubled time. They were noted for the raids made over the border to England for cattle, etc. and consequently had to contend with a lot of raiding in return. There is a story told of ancient times when one such raid by the English was over and the party was returning home. The inhabitants of one valley knotted the stalks of a well grown field of rye and then ambushed the party so that they were forced into the field of rye, where they were attacked and defeated. These border folk were afterward known as the Rye-Dell folk and so the name originated.
In a cemetery in the small village of Nenthorne, about five miles from the town of Kelso there is a tombstone to the memory of James Riddle and his wife Jane Goodall. This James Riddle either leased or worked on a farm known as "Girrick" on the Newton Don estate owned by the Earl of Balfour. Also he and his wife reared a family of six sons and three daughters. The sons' names were James, Walter, John, Andrew, Robert, and Patrick. James and Walter were the eldest two but how the others came I do not know neither do I know two of the daughters Christian names but one Margaret evidently was the eldest of the three girls. The two daughters unnamed here, both married. One to a man named Ballantine, and they remained in Scotland; and the other married a man named McLachlan, was widowed, with five or seven of a family, and migrated to Canada in 1907 (Some fifty years after her brother James had gone to New Zealand JR). Two Ballantine daughters were still alive when I was in Scotland in 1953. We called on them in Kelso but both have since died. One was unmarried.
Of the McLachlan's some years ago I received a paper from Scotland with a death notice saying that so and so McLachlan had died and that he was the last survivor of the family of McLachlan, late of Kelso Scotland. So as far as I know, that is all I can say of those two families. (I have found the address of a son John written in my war diary. The surname McLachlan should be spelled McLaughlan. He was in the Canadian forces in World War One but we never met, though we narrowly missed one another while on leave once at Berwick-on-Tweed.
Margaret, the above mentioned daughter, married a man named John McBain. He was a blacksmith originally but later proved a very successful inventive engineer and both he and four of his sons were responsible for quite a lot of inventions and established some very successful business in Chirnside and Tweedmouth particularly. John McBain invented one of the earliest mowing machines (hay) with a side delivery attachment, was also used for cutting grain crops. Windmills also were one of his main products. Later the sons carried on with internal combustion engines. Their marine engines were much favoured in the fishing fleets around the United Kingdom.
The Chirnside branch then operating as a company was experiencing a good export trade to Pakistan and the Argentine when I was in Scotland in 1953. Windmills, engines and water pumps were the main exports. Andrew, the youngest son was in 1953 mostly taken up with pea harvesting machinery, which was a great success. Another success of his was a revolving hen battery. This was as automatic as it could possibly be, even down to delivering the droppings into a barrow which only required emptying once a week. Gathering the eggs was the only daily chore. Andrew, in conjunction with his brother Walter in the early twenties of this century won a world wide competition held on the Scilly Isles (reputed to be one of the windiest spots in the world) for a wind machine for the generation of electricity.
There were four sons and one daughter in John McBain and Margaret Riddle's family. The daughter Jean, married George Greive, a printer and stationer in Berwick-on-Tweed. Their daughter Margaret is still conducting the business. In these five families, with the exception of the eldest son, Alex, who was married and died without issue, each had one son and one daughter. All the males died
without marrying so the McBain name has ceased to exist as far as we are concerned. The daughter’s with the exception of Margaret Greive, married and are in England or Scotland. John's daughter, Nancy, is a Mrs Burgon and lives in Berwick-on-Tweed. Andrew's daughter, Margaret is a Mrs Jarvis of Little Clacton, Essex, England and Walter's daughter Beulah, is a Mrs Strang of Couper Angus, Scotland. John McBain, Senior, had several brothers but he was the only one who spelt his name with the Mc. Grand-dad Riddell(le) used to say he did not know where he got the name from as he was just plain John Bain when he knew him.
My wife's Grandmother was a Mrs John Brunton and was a sister of John McBain. We have kept in touch with these Bain's ever since our marriage. Mrs. John Bain and Mary Riddell are still writing weekly to each other.
The reason of my dealing with the daughters of James Riddle and his wife Margaret Goodall before mentioning their sons is that all of the six son’s, sooner or later migrated to New Zealand. All of them, with the exception of James and Patrick went to the South Island on arrival and for several years afterwards. The eldest son, James, was born on the 22nd of May 1831, and was married to Jane Oliver on the 16th May 1856. Jane Oliver was born on June 21st 1829.
END OF QUOTE.
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Some 1,500 words, at the start of some 25,000 describing the family connections in Scotland, and their pioneering farming endeavours in New Zealand, up until the early 1970’s.
If you believe you could be connected, and would like more information, please contact me because I’m linked to these families through my Grand Mother.
Alan SHARP.
A RIDDLE - RIDDELL branch in NZ.
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