Post by annabarbara on Jun 3, 2014 22:52:20 GMT -5
I am one of the great grand-daughters of Richard, and I live in New Zealand.
I would like to clarify/correct some of the misinformation I have read about him on the internet.
Arriving in the Pacific, in the 19c, Richard settled in Western Samoa, NOT Fiji. He married in Samoa to a Samoan woman. It was the practice of the time to anglicise the real names of Samoan women who married European men, and so Richard's wife was described by the name "Mabel Matthews" in the birth certificates of their four children.
The first of their children was a son, Robert, who is my grandfather. He left Samoa at about age 19 and came to live in Auckland, New Zealand, where he married in 1915 and had 3 sons (Samuel Richard Noall, Robert and Colin Noall). The younger 3 children - one was named Grace - also left Samoa to settle elsewhere in the South Pacific in the early 20th century. (Samoa at the time was bedevilled by colonialists and the future for children of mixed parentage was not looking very positive).
So the younger 3 children moved - one (?) to Tonga, (possibly Grace) and the others to Fiji. In Fiji today, the Beddoes family are a prominent family of politicians who are directly related to the Noalls by marriage in the 20th century.
Captain Richard Noall retired to Fiji in late life, and died there. The notion that he "married a Fijian princess" as I have read on some boards is completely false. Nor did he jump ship in Australia.
He travelled to Samoa in the 19th century as a young man who was betrothed to a fiance in St Ives. It appears that there may have been a good deal of family pressure in arranging this intended marriage, which did not proceed, as Richard left Cornwall and settled in Samoa, married a Samoan woman and never returned to the United Kingdom.
I was told (unsure of reliability) that the family of the jilted fiance were told that Richard had died in the South Pacific by his family in St Ives; possibly because they wished to avoid a court case for breach of contract. However, as it must, the truth was ultimately a matter of common knowledge in St Ives of the time.
I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion.
I would like to clarify/correct some of the misinformation I have read about him on the internet.
Arriving in the Pacific, in the 19c, Richard settled in Western Samoa, NOT Fiji. He married in Samoa to a Samoan woman. It was the practice of the time to anglicise the real names of Samoan women who married European men, and so Richard's wife was described by the name "Mabel Matthews" in the birth certificates of their four children.
The first of their children was a son, Robert, who is my grandfather. He left Samoa at about age 19 and came to live in Auckland, New Zealand, where he married in 1915 and had 3 sons (Samuel Richard Noall, Robert and Colin Noall). The younger 3 children - one was named Grace - also left Samoa to settle elsewhere in the South Pacific in the early 20th century. (Samoa at the time was bedevilled by colonialists and the future for children of mixed parentage was not looking very positive).
So the younger 3 children moved - one (?) to Tonga, (possibly Grace) and the others to Fiji. In Fiji today, the Beddoes family are a prominent family of politicians who are directly related to the Noalls by marriage in the 20th century.
Captain Richard Noall retired to Fiji in late life, and died there. The notion that he "married a Fijian princess" as I have read on some boards is completely false. Nor did he jump ship in Australia.
He travelled to Samoa in the 19th century as a young man who was betrothed to a fiance in St Ives. It appears that there may have been a good deal of family pressure in arranging this intended marriage, which did not proceed, as Richard left Cornwall and settled in Samoa, married a Samoan woman and never returned to the United Kingdom.
I was told (unsure of reliability) that the family of the jilted fiance were told that Richard had died in the South Pacific by his family in St Ives; possibly because they wished to avoid a court case for breach of contract. However, as it must, the truth was ultimately a matter of common knowledge in St Ives of the time.
I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion.
