Eliza Mills born Eliza Claudia Leathart - Was she ever found?

The Queenslander January 25 1896

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9332, 5 February 1896

I found these two notices while doing some random research on the name LEATHART(a great-grandmother's maiden name).  So I set off to find out who ELIZA CLAUDIA MILLS was,  what happened to her, and how she was connected to us. 

 ELIZA CLAUDIA LEATHART was born on the 23rd of January, 1833,  and was christened at Saint George the Martyr Southwark, Surrey, on October 6th, 1833.  ELIZA's  father was CHARLES LEATHART and her mother was CLAUDIA ELIZABETH MARY LEATHART (born GRUNEISEN).  The family at the time of ELIZA's birth lived at Litchfield Street, Soho,  and CHARLES'  occupation is given as perfumer. 


ELIZA's father, CHARLES LEATHART, was born on December 10, 1806 and baptised on January 3, 1807, at St Giles in the Fields, Holborn, Camden. His parents were JOSEPH LEATHART and MARIA LEATHART born DAVIES - and these are my own ancestors through their son (and CHARLES' brother) CUTHBERT CADWALADR LEATHART (1808 - 1873) who was an early pioneer settler to New Zealand.  That solves the mystery of how ELIZA is related to me. 

CHARLES LEATHART baptism record 

 ELIZA's mother CLAUDIA ELIZABETH MARY GRUNEISEN was born August 25th, 1805 and was baptised on September 19th at the Old Church, St Pancras, the daughter of CHARLES JOHN FREDERIC GRUNEISEN and MARY ANN GRUNEISEN born COLE . 

CHARLES JOHN FREDERIC GRUNEISEN was born in Stuttgart on July 1, 1763 and moved later moved to England where he became a naturalised citizen by an Act of Parliament on December 23, 1796.   In 1808, his occupation was listed as merchant. He died in 1824.  

 MARY ANN COLE was born in Woodbridge Suffolk England in about 1788. In the 1871 census, she was 83 and described as an annuitant living with her unmarried daughter (CLAUDIA'S sister) MARIAN GRUNEISEN (aged 52) who was a lodging house keeper at  53 Oxford Terrace (now possibly part of Sussex Gardens). There were two  domestic servants and one other lodger - an insurance broker - at the same address.  

As a note of interest: CLAUDIA's brother CHARLES LEWIS GRUNEISEN (1806 - 1879) was a well-known author, journalist, music critic and adventurer whose exploits  and obituary even reached the newspapers in New Zealand. He was one of the first war correspondents and cheated death many times. On at least one occasion came very close to being shot as a spy but for the intervention of Lord Palmerston. Later, he was instrumental in establishing the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden and was a well-known opera critic.  CLAUDIA clearly must have grown up in an academic, intellectual and musical environment, and I wonder how much of this was passed on to her children.  

Also of interest, later in the century, another high achiever in the GRUNEISEN family was CLAUDIA's distant cousin EDUARD GRUNEISEN (1877 - 1849) a German physicist known for the Gruneisen Parameter and the Mie-Gruneisen Equation of State.  He was a signatory to Vow of Allegience of the Professors of the German Universities and High Schools to Adolph Hitler and the National Socialistic State. 

CHARLES LEATHART and CLAUDIA ELIZABETH  MARY GRUNIESEN  married in on 22nd of September,1827, in St Pancras Parish Chapel, Camden.  

They had at least five children:
CHARLES GEORGE (1828 - 1894) 
JULIA PLACID married name HEWITT (1831 - 1910) Emigrated to Australia 1858. 
ELIZA CLAUDIA (1833 - ?) 
GEORGINA BOADICEA MARIA married name MOOR then JONES (1836 - 1908) Emigrated to Australia
THEOPHILIUS (1834 - 1836) 

Further research throws up more information about CHARLES  and CLAUDIA and their circumstances. CHARLES had been in a partnership with Samuel Graffney (the younger) as whosale manufacturing perfumers of 26 Warwick St, Regent St. Their partnership was dissolved by mutual consent on 11 March 1839. An interesting discovery is the inclusion of a Leathart (most probably this CHARLES) connection to a famous English court case in 1842 where  the tort of "passing off" was first articulated - regarding a hair product formulated by "Leathart", used by one manufacturer and then copied by another. 

 CHARLES and CLAUDIA came to New Zealand in 1841,  arriving on January 25th on  the ship "Slains Castle". They brought none of their children, but were accompanied by EDWIN LEATHART, aged 25, who was CHARLES' brother, and in other information is described as a paper hanger.  For unknown reasons, CHARLES and CLAUDIA returned to England by 1843 where CHARLES LEATHART is listed  in the P.O Directory as who.(wholesale?) perfumer or 53 Poland St, Oxford St.  EDWIN stayed in New Zealand - and appears to have been in fairly regular trouble with the law (more on that at a later date). 

Several questions arise: CHARLES'  two brothers FRANCES OWEN LEATHART and CUTHBERT CADWALADR were already in New Zealand at this stage  - in occupations far less genteel than perfumery.  FRANCES OWEN was a ship's captain, and CUTHBERT CADWALADR worked in a range of pioneer work from labourer, to bush publican, to mariner. (More about these men in future posts.) Was EDWIN brought out to the colonies because he was going to get in trouble in England, and did CHARLES and CLAUDIA accompany him to make sure he got here? Were they coming to check out the place to see if the wanted to emigrate? Were they visiting CHARLES' brothers? None of those would have been usual options for married couples with children. And who looked after the children in England? A small clue could have been in brother FRANCIS OWEN's acquisition of land pre-1840 Treaty of Waitagi; however, one of the conditions in the Treaty was that all pre-1840 land sales would be investigated and evaluated as the Governor's office saw fit to assess the legitimacy of the transactions. Given the lengthy time for communications to and from England, land could well have been gained and lost by the time CHARLES and CLAUDIA arrived.  Obviously further research is needed here. 

CHARLES LEATHART died in june 1846  - not too long after returning from New Zealand - and was buried on 5th June  at All Souls Cemetery, Kensal Green. His address at the time of his death was 63 Berwick Street, St James, Westminster. 

In the 1851 Census, it is probably our ELIZA LEATHART (aged 18) who was a house servant for the Baptist minister of the Spencer Place Chapel -  John Peacock (71), his wife Deborah (64) and their (implied) son, Ebenzer, (29) who was a printer.  The family lived at 7 Owen Row in Clerkenwell. 

In the same census, ELIZA's mother, CLAUDIA, was aged 43 and lived alone at 59 Robert St, St Pancras, Marylebone.  She was a teacher of the pianoforte. 

CALUDIA LEATHART  died in July 1857, and was buried at the HIghgate Cemetery of St James in Swains Lane. Her address at the time of her death was Stibbington St. Somerstown. 

ELIZA  was about 27 years old when she married JAMES MILLS  on May 24th, 1860 at Marylebone, Middlesex.  JAMES was a clerk, and his deceased father (also JAMES) had been a captain in the army.   JAMES lived in Charles Street, and ELIZA had been living in the Trinity District. Both were able to sign their own names,  with JAMES having a particularly attractive handwriting style. 

I cannot find any further evidence of ELIZA or her husband JAMES,  although it seems she must have left him and gone to New Zealand or Australia. The names are too common to be sure of any available records found online.  Whether she had contacted any family is uncertain - and whether she saw any of these notices and was able to collect her share of her brother's inheritance is also unknown.  I can find no unequivocal proof of any further information about her, including her death.   Further research may uncover more information, and I am intrigued to know the missing parts of the family story.  I know there is a large family of descendants of FRANCIS OWEN and CUTHBERT CADWALADRR in New Zealand and Australia, and maybe someone has more information.  It would be great to know. Feel free to contact me via the side panel.  

This is FRANCIS OWEN LEATHART  (photo from Ancestry.com. Many thanks to whoever posted it first.) 

                     

I thought this may have been Cuthbert Cadwaladr, but it seems the style of children's clothes is ,ore likely Edwardian - well after Cuthbert's death. So - this could well be a Cuthbert's son, Robert Alexander Leathart in his later years.  He may have 'let himself go' after his wife Elizabeth died in 1901? 

Please contact me if you can fill in any of the missing pieces. 

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1216, 21 June 1895, Page 20

Note: Many LEATHART  family trees and ancestry details make the error of attributing CHARLES and CLAUDIA LEATHART as ROBERT ALEXANDER LEATHART''S parents.  CUTHBERT CADWALADR and MARYANN SHREAD (several variants of name recorded) are ROBERT ALEXANDER LEATHART's (1842 - 1913) unequivocal parents.  There could also be confusion between two ROBERT ALEXANDERs  because one was CUTHBERT CADWALADYR's brother , (born 1817, England) and one was CUTHBERT CADWALADR's son (born Kawhia, NZ, 1842).