The Myers Family History

The Myers Family History: Outline of Relationships

My name is Cathy Clarke and my maternal grandmother was a Myers. When she died we found many old letters written by her father back to his family in England which describe his struggle to make to make ends meet and raise his three children after his wife died in 1918. The letters fascinated me and I decided to find out more. I had caught the genealogy bug. This website is the results of my research.

Many people have helped me with information but I would especially like to thank Noel Myers and Beau Maurice in New Zealand, David Eckersley-Maslin in England, Connie Pickering Stover in the USA, Ana Gray-Doughty in Australia, and of course my Mum, Pat Thompson, all of whom shared their precious family treasures with me.

Click on the pictures below for links to some of my favourite ancestors or delve deeper using the menu in the top header.

Please contact me here.

Revd John Myers

A man who, from a low beginning, amassed a large fortune - mostly from his four wives. In his convivial hours he used to say "If I survive I will have five". Death, however, prevented him fulfilling this wish as he survived his fourth wife by only a few days.

Cutlers indenture 1757

Joseph Ward promised: "Fornication he shall not commit, nor Matrimony contract; Taverns and Ale-Houses he shall not frequent; at any unlawful Game he shall not play, nor absent himself from his Master's Service by Day or Night, without the Consent of his said Master, but in all Things as a good and faithfull Apprentice and servant, shall gently and dutifully demean and behave himself during the said Term" - of eight years.

Revd Charles Myers

The curmudgeonly vicar, who from his assiduous "study of economy" left £20,000 in railway shares at his death.

John Harrison

The natives of Otaheite (Tahiti) attacking Captain Wallis in the Dolphin. John Harrison was the purser on this voyage in 1767. He was skilled in mathematics and took readings when they observed the eclipse.

Captain James Montagu

The statue in Westminster Abbey to commemorate his death on his own ship, "Montagu" at the Battle of the Glorious 1794

Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden

Lumsden served in the Bengal army, raising the Queen's Own Corps of Guides in 1846. He is credited with the introduction of the khaki uniform (dyed with river mud) worn extensively during the Indian Mutiny.

Nell Gwyn

Nell Gwyn, mistress of King Charles II. When confused with her Catholic rival by an abusive mob, she put her head out the coach window and said, "Good people, you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore."

David Thompson Myers

D. T. Myers was the last man to be executed in Peterborough, hanged in public in 1812 before a crowd of 6,000. This confession was printed and sold to the crowd as a souvenir. His ‘crime’ was sodomy.

George Edward Sykes

Used the stage name J. K. Murray. An obituary in The Era (supplied by his wife) describes him as one of the finest broadsword combat fighters on the British stage, but neglects to mention his three illegitimate daughters with an actress twenty years his junior. One of them was my great-grandmother.

D H Macarthur

''A man of probity and worth", Macarthur was agent for the Emigrants and Colonists' Loan Corporation, the first Mayor of Feilding and Member of the NZ House of Representatives.

F. P. Myers

Fred Myers refused to follow his forbears into the Church and came to NZ. He inherited the Dunningwell estate on the death of his aunt in 1944.

Maurice Family

The Maurice children attended Christ's Hospital School after their father died in 1913. My grandfather is standing at the back.