Lays of the Lakes and More

Lower Rydall Falls 1837 by Thomas Fearnley

This has been a productive week genealogically, and rather than spread the research out over several weeks, I have decided to publish while it's still fresh and exciting in my mind. First I have some more on Catherine Ponsonby that would confirm her as the sister of my 3xgreat grandfather, James Denoon Young. And although I still have no leads on any South African connection for Lonsdale Denoon Young, I do have one for Euphemia Chamberlain Young.

Just in case we would need more evidence that Catherine Ponsonby was the sister of James Denoon Young, here is a poem from her book, Lays of the Lakes, and Other Poems of Description and Reflection(1850). Page 16 has this title and opening stanza:
         
               Effusion,
               After visiting the celebrated falls at Rydal.
               Addressed to my little nieces.

               Catherine and Jemima dear,
               Were you with little brother here,
               You would much delighted be,
               With all the wonders you would see,
               In this land of lovely lakes,
               Mountains high and woody brakes.

The nieces, Catherine and Jemima are surely the children of her brother, James Denoon Young. In 1850 they would have been aged 8 and 10 respectively. And they would be the same Catherine and "Jemmia" Young from Catherine Pononby's 1851 Scotland Census at 6 Drummond Place (See the previous post, Clerk in Orders). Presumably she had taken their little brother, James Denoon Young, junior, about age 5,  to the Lake District. Since the other sister Ann Walker is not mentioned by name, I suspect she had died before the poem was written. If so, then she is probably not the author of the "Sunday School Hymn", noted in my previous post. And the whole of this poem is, perhaps, an allusion to her death, and she is (as are we) the "limpid stream" told by the "heap of Rocks":

               "I will stay you tiny thing,
               With your pearly current flowing,
               Where the mountain flowers are growing;
               ...

               Little streamlet! Get you gone!
               You shall here no longer run;
               You shall not permitted be,
               Thus to pass, as you shall see."

The stream goes on regardless of this rock and others obstructing its path, until it leaps into the Fall and joins the Lake. The poem could be read as applying to any obstruction we might encounter in life, but, in my reading, the closing stanza is looking heavenward in a conventional Christian sense, and is surely about life and death and destiny.

               The moral is, a gentle mind
               When resisted, we may find
               In its holy course of life,
               Shrinks not from unequal strife
               With the world - and thus may rise
               To high triumph in the skies!

In her preface, Catherine Ponsonby extolls the virtues of religious poetry, and the purpose of the book is clearly for religious inspiration, largely through reflection on the Book of Nature.

          The tendency of such a species of Sacred Poetry is undoubtedly to strengthen
          the spiritual life of the Christian, and to excite a spirit of devotion in the soul.

The front page also lists a number of other works she had authored:
          The Prospect, or Scenes of Real Life
          The Mysteries of Providence and Triumphs of Grace
          The Countess D'Auvergne, or Sufferings of the French Protestants

And "&c&c" suggests there were more. Googlebooks has in addition:
          The Etheringtons (1833) - with Lady Georgiana Bourke
          The Border Wardens: An Historical Romance (1844)
          The Desborough family (1845)
          The Protege (1847)
          Geneva: A Poem (1849)
          Confession not the Confessional (1859)

The Etheringtons was published anonymously, although an annotated copy exists attributing authorship to Lady Georgina Bourke. I don't know where Catherine comes into this, although I suspect it is a googlebooks error. Lady Georgina was Georgina Sarah Ponsonby, daughter of the 4th Earl of Bessington.

I have already noted that Catherine ran a school, at least from 1841 (the census return mentions a school), and this ran until at least 1854, when The Christian Family Advocate includes a prospectus. By the late 1850s, Catherine Ponsonby was in a difficult financial position with bankruptcy proceedings against her in the Edinburgh Gazette. Publishing probably required her to borrow money, and her sales plus teaching income probably could not repay the investment. The last record I can find for her is in 1859, where her solicitor has arranged a meeting for her creditors to decide on an offer (Edinburgh Gazette).

As for her son Henry James Ponsonby, I found that he was an alumnus of Dr. Boyd's Fourth High School Class. Although I had never heard of Dr. Boyd, I gather from an 1872 publication that he was quite an inspirational professor for his "old boys" to continue to meet for 20-some years after graduation. The publication has a "where are they now" section. Henry James Ponsonby is described as the son of the "Late Adolphus Ponsonby, Litterateur", which seems a little unfair, since I can find no record of his works, but plenty to Henry James's mother. By 1873, Henry James Ponsonby had been in Australia for 15 or 16 years, and was currently working the Gold Diggings and was still unmarried at that time. He was thought of as a talented writer and social commentator by his peers. Were his mother alive after 1859, I would not be surprised to find her in Australia.

A reference to his father appears in the August 1832 of a periodical Polonia, as a member of the Glasgow Polish Association. The context for this was the Polish struggle for independence from Russia, which liberal sentiment in Britain supported.

And now to South Africa. The absence of BMD Death Index entries for some of the Young siblings, children of James Denoon Young and Charlotte Taylor, suggests that they either moved to Scotland or Ireland, or else emigrated from the British Isles altogether. North America would be one destination, but other Imperial destinations could include Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. I have already shared speculation that Lonsdale Denoon Young met his end on a battlefield in South Africa, which is not proven. Certainly, if he'd died in England, I think we would have found a BMD Death Index by now, and the same is true for his brother Heydon Charles Young.

Neither does their sister, Euphemia Chamberlain Young, have an England and Wales BMD Death Index record, but there is a marriage, BMD Marriage Index Dec1894 Kensington 1a 186. Married at the same time and place are both Tyeth Darracott Bounsall and Frank Umblali Reynolds, and Emily Elizabeth Ellis. In order to figure out which of these gentlemen were married to Euphemia, I searched for census returns and discovered that Tyeth had clearly married Emily, which means that Frank Umblali Reynolds must be the man!

So who is he? A search on ancestry.com for his name was not helpful. But when I typed his name into a google search field, I got as far as "Frank Um..." and was prompted to look for Sir Frank Umhlali Reynolds, who turns out to be a South African sugar magnate, born 1852, a friend of the first Prime Minister Louis Botha. Sir Frank had a house built for successive South African Prime Ministers at Pennington, called Botha House, which became the scene for talks between Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk in the early 1990s as apartheid came to an end.

The Pennington estate also contained Lynton Hall, built by Sir Frank's father, Charles, who lived there for 10 years after its completion in 1895. After this Sir Frank and, presumably Euphemia, took up residence. I have their deaths from a public user tree (unconfirmed) as 1930. Lynton Hall is now a hotel and appears to be for sale.

So, if you're in South Africa researching the Young/Taylor family line, I hope this blog can be of some assistance. And just maybe you might be able to assist me in seeing if there are records out there showing that Euphemia's brothers had preceded her to the colony.