Contents:
The de Winton Family, by Peter Sherlock;
Horsemen’s Tales, by Ron Prentice;
John Knight (1812-1912) and the Hungerfords, by Bruce and Lindsey Ward;
The Hungerford Double-Helix, by Ron Mathieson;
Snippets from the Maitland Mercury
Hungerfords at War: Australians in the Great War, by Peter Sherlock;
Hungerfords at War: Australia’s WW2 Nominal Roll, by Eric Young;
Editorial:
Our focus in this journal is on military members of the Hungerford family. The ‘Hungerford lists’ for this issue give details of those men and women surnamed Hungerford who served in the Australian armed forces in World War One and World War Two. These details are now readily available on the internet through the websites of the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial, so do take the time to look for your other relations. Further details of other Hungerfords in these conflicts can be found through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, and we will print these at a future date. We should express our gratitude for the meticulous work of Eric Young in checking the data on the 1939-1945 servicemen and women and comparing it to Hungerfords Down Under amongst other sources.
One of the most prominent military relations of the Australian Hungerfords was George Jean de Winton, a Major in the 99th Regiment of Foot who married Fanny Winder and thus became a brother-in-law to John, Robert and William Hungerford. His memoir of serving in the Australian colonies from 1843 to 1853 was published in 1898 with the title Soldiering Fifty Years Ago, and this forms the basis for your editor’s account of the de Winton family’s story from 1847.
Two of our most frequent authors, Ron Prentice and Ron Mathieson have written for us again, the former on a fascinating newspaper article from 1927 regarding the activities of Septimus Hungerford as a young man, and the latter on the intricacies of the ennobled ‘distaff’ lines of the English Hungerford descendants. Also in Australia, some other interesting facts have come to light concerning the first generation of Hungerfords to settle in the Hunter Valley. Following on from our May 2003 journal on the l75th anniversary of the Alexander Henry and the note that there must be some descendants of the other passengers in Australia today, we made contact with the family of young shoemaker John Knight (1812-1912). And recently more material from the Maitland Mercury has given further insight into life in the 1840s and beyond. We hope in future issues to print more material beyond the Australian scene— we are, after all, a Society with interests in Hungerfords of all times and places!