SHARP William – South African Boer causality ?.

[Alan SHARP]

Very little is known about this William SHARP. The Cathcart Parish (Lanark, Scotland) Register reads:-
1823. 20th April. John Sharp & Agnes Campbell in West Cathcart had their 1st child born and Baptised 11th May, named William. [Oral histry is that he was killed by the Boers.]

William’s Kiwi family chose to honour his death in a unique and living way. Oral history records that William Sharp’s Father, and Brothers, John and Humphrey Ewing, (established Nurserymen in New Zealand), propagated for sale, in the early 1900’s, the Willie/Willy Sharp Apple, hybridized by John Jnr, and named in William’s honour.

In 1951 one of the trees was gifted to the Brogdale Horticultural Trust, Kent UK, and is still represented in their Heritage Orchard. The variety also still lives on, in heritage orchards in NZ.

It is assumed that William emigrated to South Africa, and was a causality of a localized skirmish, because his age would appear to rule him out as a causality, of especially the latter Anglo – Boer campaigns.

A sad postscript is to record that William’s nephew (Humphrey Ewing Sharp’s youngest son) William SHARP enlisted for WWI with the NZEF (using his older brother Ronald Gordon’s birth certificate) and died at Arras, France on May 26th, 1818.

Email: Alan SHARP herringboneAThnpl.net April 2010.

PS added [ Oral history...] 12/4/2010 Alan.
PPS Corrected top date to:- 1823, 20th April. (Figures previously transposed.) Alan.

23/4/10 recieved following reply from Brogdale.

Hi Alan,

I'm afraid there's not an aweful lot in the archive on the origins of the
apple. Our accession was sent to Brogdale in 1951 from the New Zealand
Fruit Research Station in Aukland. We have a copy of an article from the
New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XIV May 21, 1917 that mentions
it on Page 348 (just a variety description rather than any provenance as
such) and an article in German which again describes the apple (and
suggests it's Australian).

Sorry I can't be of more help,

Best wishes,

Matt
(Dr Mathew ORDIDGE)
-------------------------
Alan SHARP.

[nelmit]

Hello Alan,

What a lovely, everlasting memorial his family gave to William.

I know he was old enough to have left home, but since William isn't with the family in 1841 or 1851 I wonder if he died when he was very young. Do you have any other records of his life?

Regards,
Annette

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings Anette.

Short answer is NO.

The William SHARP (Cathcart) who married Jane DUNBAR (Eastwood) in April 1842 left the Clyde with the (1st ?) Paisely Society emigration to NZ in June arriving October 1842. (Duchess of Argyle & the Jane Gifford) In 1860 Jane died of consumption [TB] and William re-married, Helen SHARP, his families home help since her arrival with her brother John in 1858 on the SS Harwood. (Cousins - 2nd cousins is the question)

They left from Helensburgh Row, but prior to that John SHARP Sen. & Agness CAMPBELL had moved around the estate gardens of Renfrew & Lanark. John & Agnes followed Helen & John to NZ on the SS Mersey in 1861. My William SHARP and his 2nd wife Helen SHARP, fed and housed Helen's family on their leased Hospital Reserved Land lotts untill they got established. ( Helen, WITH AN 'H' she was known to insist when her name was being recorded.) South Africian research is an unknown field for us.

Because the "John SHARP" line was only my maternal SHARP line, I collected what came my way but treated them as my second line of enquirey until just a few months ago, when I joined both lines on an Excel spread sheet and laminated 12 pages, for a family reunion. I did this when I woke up to the fact that the Row 1844 and 1848 parish records were recording the paternal G Father as William - not John. Earlier records had no Grand Parent details, and this pre-dates the 1850's extended format of recording. (Perhaps I will find more info when I get to researching the Row Parish records.)

Since registering with 'Talking Scot' because it is free, I have been slowly reading through the forums. Most helpful. Looking to see if there are Paisley Society emigration records, that we don't know about, and any other avenue that appears to be worthy of a look see. Even found one on my own home patch.

I also have emailed the Brogdale Horticultural Trust to see if it was Hort. Research NZ that supplied the apple as the SHARP conmmrcial orchards were, by then, out of production. If it was family, was there any correspondence that indicated more about William "the Boer casuality" that has not survived in the oral hand me downs.

Early research by the John JACKSON'S (& Mathew CAMPBELL'S) of Hamilton Lanark, had traced the John SHARP [then CAMPBELL] side back to John CRAWFORD and Agnes REID of East Kilbride in the 1760's. (Believe the research was done in the 1950's)

My stumbling block is we are short on records for William SHARP & Marshal Munro of Cathcart. (Unfortunately John and William were / are by far the most common given SHARP names, and though patronymic naming helps, there were just too many same named cousins born about the same year.

My means for research are very limited, and very streached over many lines of enquiry, out side of family history, so I have relied on others with deeper pockets to do the HARD COPY research, and I'm acting as the convener - communicator - facilitator. Other family researchers, especially on the John side have memberships to all sorts of places, but even they have not had much luck to now. What has renewed my interest was the enquiry recieved before Christmas from a Rob SHARPE (Ancesrty.com) in Sydney, lo and behold he was a descendant from Thomas SHARP and Sarah FAULDS m. Eastwood 1849. I had only one piece of hard evidence, from a sighting in an original 1860 record, that they had ever made it to NZ. Why our oral history did not acknowledge them was because they only stayed one generation in NZ. Now the quest is on to find researchers, researching the Lamond, Simpson, and other distantly related extended family. Of course we can do it - through Talking Scot. (Hope fully other lines will not have to wait 30 years to avail themselves of my information.)

P.S My main posting is on the OPR forum. SHARP/E'S of the Clyde Valley.

PPS. Even the first generation in NZ were signing legal documents with an 'X' so the spelling SHARP or SHARPE would have had little meaning. As we have strong connections with EASTWOOD the spellings there were normally SHARPE, but else where, in even the same generation it was SHARP.

Rambled enough,

Thanks for your interest.

Alan.

PS added [then CAMPBELL] in an edit. Alan.
PSS further edit Ancestry.com.au member NOT Amazon.com - the problems of proof reading your own copy - you read what you want to read- not what is typed/keyed. Alan SHARP.

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings again.

Had a quick look today for the FMP (Find my past) index on Chelsea Pensioners. To a search of just ; William SHARP / Scotland, there were 24 hits. As I don't subscribe to FMP I'm unable to see if any were born in either Renfrewshire where William was born (West Cathcart ) or Lanarkshire across the White Cart (Stream) where they worshiped at the Cathcart Church. The family then moved to Carmunnock - Cathkin - Eastwood (Renfrew again) and finally Row, Dumbartonshire, before coming to NZ. Born 1823 would make William fairly old, even for the Transvaal conflict, but you must approach the research with an open mind. My figures were all out for their Agnes (1829 Carmunnock) until I found another baptism for an Agnes in Row in 1848, 19 years later. Still have not found the death for the first Agnes, but they decided to have another, so that could also be the case for their William.

Agnes RUSSELL (Row/Rhu 1848) died and was buried at Cambridge NZ. (Pukeroro / Hautapu Cemetery.)

Alan SHARP.

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings again.

This weekend I had a distant relative contact me, asking how come some johny come lately’s to Shaw Road Oratia NZ, were claiming another SHARP apple was being theirs. In looking for contemporary press coverage I came upon this delightful piece of editorial, not sighted before.

Thanks to PapersPast New Zealand’s online old newspapers we have the following clipping from the “Observer, Volume 9, Issue 532, 2 March 1889. page 10.

Thanks Muchly !

We regard Mr H. E. Sharp, the well-known orchardist, as a model subscriber. He is a great admirer of the OBSERVER (which-ahem ! – of course stamps him as a man of taste), always pays in advance, and rarely visits town without leaving a basket of apples for the use of the staff. We don’t know the name of these apples. They might be ‘Maiden’s Blushes,’ for they are rosy red, milk white within, and of delicious flavour. They are very greatly appreciated by the staff – literary and typographical – and Mr Sharp is voted by all hands in the office a jolly good fellow.

Alan SHARP.