Early in 2010, via the Guest Book on this website, I received an email from Judy Adams of Coffs Harbour, a stranger to me. She had read the family notes here and now wrote that ‘we share the same early ancestors way back in Launceston, Cornwall, England’.

‘Let me know if you would you like me to send you the details,’ she said. This was definitely an offer I could not refuse. Judy is a genealogy fanatic. She has created her own wonderful website at which I have discovered brand new information, rich and rare, about my own blurred ancestry.

Judy Adams and I are distant cousins. We are related via the 1846 marriage in Launceston, Cornwall of Mary Adams (1812-88) and Thomas Matters (1819-57), my paternal great-grandfather. And by the brave, jointly-planned immigration from ancestral Devon and Cornwall of Thomas & Mary and Mary’s brother John Adams to begin new branches of the family tree in Australia.


1.

These close-knit members of the Adams and the Matters family sailed from Plymouth to Adelaide in July/August 1852, their four month voyages sponsored under a South Australian immigration scheme.

John Adams, 37 year old Agricultural Labourer, and his wife Betsey, 39, travelled on the ship ‘China’ in late July with their five children – James was 12, Mary 10, Henry 8, Tamzin 4 and baby William was 3 months old.

Two weeks later John’s brother-in-law Thomas Matters, 33-year-old Mason, and his wife Mary, 40, followed on the ‘Sea Park’ with their three children - Charles was 4, Thomas was 2, and Mary was a babe in arms. Also in this second party was Thomas’s sister Hannah Matters, 24, John’s sister Thomasine Adams, 23, and Mary’s widowed mother, Maria Adams, whose age is not recorded. In fact, there was a major problem about Maria’s age during the great voyage. It was discovered that her age had been incorrectly recorded, and she was obliged, ‘in compliance with Immigration Directives’, to pay full fare.

Even worse, baby Mary died at sea.


2.

Both families settled in Adelaide, both thrived, both had further children – young Australians.

Judy Adams, my most welcome email correspondent, is directly descended from that adventurous immigrant John Adams. And all modern-day Hatherleys and Hatherley-Greens are descended from that Thomas Matters. The youngest of Thomas’s four boys was Richard Adams Matters (1857-1948), who lived his life in Adelaide. Richard’s elder son was Frank Hatherleigh Matters (1890-1956).

It has always been a mystery – that spelling of my father’s middle name: ‘Hatherleigh’. Where had it come from? Was it connected with the market village of Hatherleigh in mid-Devon, England? Why did he ditch his ‘Matters’ surname in the 1920s in favour of his middle name and then change the spelling to ‘Hatherley’? Judy’s research has opened whole new possibilities.

I had known that Frank and his younger brother Arnold were not the only descendants to have Hatherleigh as their middle name. There is an Olive Hatherleigh Nankivell on the family tree, born in 1914.

Now, thanks to Judy, I could see that Hannah Matters, the very girl who travelled from Plymouth in the second ship, named the first of two daughters she had with Thomas Williams of Adelaide — Rosa Hatherleigh Williams (born 1858). The name must have had real family significance.

Judy’s research turned up the answer. The mother of Thomas Matters — immigrant, Australian settler, founder of the Australian Matters/Hatherley clan — was Martha Hatherley (1780-1851).

That’s not ‘Hatherleigh’. That’s ‘Hatherley’.


3.

Maybe Hannah — and Olive’s parents, and Frank and Arnold’s parents — didn’t know the original spelling. They didn’t have access to Google, after all. Maybe they just accepted that the spelling would be the same as for Hatherleigh, the Devon village. And when my father changed the spelling back to ‘Hatherley’ he might just have been looking for a shorter, less complicated word.

The current-day spelling, it’s clear, has brought us back to our ancestral roots.

What does Judy tell us about Martha Hatherley? She was born in 1780 and baptised at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Launceston, a fair-sized inland Cornish town very near to the border of Devon.

She was the second daughter of John Hatherley, born around 1749, and Ann Gregory. Her parents had married in Launceston in 1768.

This John was the eldest of four children from the 1728/29 marriage of his father — another John Hatherley, Martha’s grandfather — and Grace Earl.

Dates around this time are hard to authenticate and the recording of births, deaths and marriages is haphazard — but this earlier John Hatherley (my great-great-great-great grandfather!) must have been born at the beginning of the 1700s. How far back might the line stretch? Judy supplies hints and clues on her website for others to continue the search.


4.

Let’s focus on Martha Hatherley, born 1780, mother of Thomas Matters, the immigrant.

She had married Richard Metters in Launceston when she was 25, in 1805. That’s not a typographical error. His name is recorded as ‘Metters’, not ‘Matters’. Richard was a shoe and boot maker. The family home is recorded in Fore (or Ford) Street, Launceston. He died in 1834 at the age of 54, leaving his widow Martha ‘of independent means’, as it is recorded in the 1841 Census.

Also noted in this Census: Richard Metters and his family of four girls and three boys had by then adopted the surname Matters.

The 1851 Census was recorded just before Martha died at the age of 71. She was still living at the family home and now her profession was listed as ‘Dyer’.


5.

Why did Richard Metters officially change his surname to Matters? Who can say?

The Metters line stretches back. Richard’s father was David Metters (1745-1820), also a shoemaker, who married Elizabeth Higgins at Launceston six weeks before Richard, their eldest child, was born.

Richard’s brother John (1787-1869) is interesting. A schoolteacher in Cornwall, then a Methodist missionary in London, he remained behind when the others immigrated and reverted to calling himself Metters.

Richard’s brother James (1821-1881) emigrated to Australia four years after the first Matters/Adams voyages. He settled his young family in Melbourne as ‘Matters’ but then changed back to ‘Metters’. He was the founder of Metters Stoves, found in almost every home throughout Australia during the late 19th to the mid 20th Century.

This Metters/Matters name-changing had made tracing the family ancestry more complex. Judy’s revelations ease the way. There is so much to learn from her labours and anyone interested would profitably spend some time on her website. Start here:

members.westnet.com.au/judyada/ADAMS%20MATTERS%20Thomas%20&%20Mary%20SA.html


F.H. 20-01-10