Hamilton

James Edward Courbarron, my Great Uncle, served in the AIF, 15th Battalion A Company.

He was 24 at the time of enlistment and returned to Australia on December 14th 1918. He married Agnes and had a son, John Courbarron who died 1996.

His brother, Frederick, enlisted at the age of 15 in the AIF in 1915. He served at the Gallipolli Landing on 25th April 1915. He was discharged due to to effects of gassing. He lived in Brunswick Heads and died in 1983. Freddies wife, Mary Ellen, died in 1963 at Brunswick Heads.

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Exactly where, and how, Frederick Courbarron met Mary Hamilton is not really clear. Mary was born and raised in Ballintra, County Donegal Ireland and Frederick was Jersey-born and raised. There are some theories; as he was a farm worker there is the possibility that he travelled to Ireland to work on her father’s estate at some stage and met Mary there. Another theory is that Mary met him on one of the many travels that her family made, and they may have travelled to Jersey and hence she met Frederick.

We do know that Frederick and Mary married in Ballintra, Co. Donegal, and began married life on the Courbarron farm in Millbrook, St Helier. In 1863 their first child, a son Augustus James Hamilton, was born. He was followed by Stanhope Frederick in 1865, John Edward Hamilton in 1866 and finally Helen in 1867.

The family are listed on the British Isles Census for 1871.

In 1877 Frederick and Mary, accompanied by the four children, were en route to Ireland and whilst in Cornwall contracted typhoid. Tragically both Mary and Frederick died within months of each other. Both are buried in Landulph Church, Saltash Cornwall. It was quite some time before a headstone was placed on their grave, the reason being a lack of finances at the time. Their son Augustus James saw to it some twenty years later that a headstone was erected on his parent’s graves.

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This sadly - but only for now - is where we leave the Courbarron family line. My Courbarron ancestors settled in Jersey Channel Islands in the very early 1800’s - 1805 if memory serves me correctly - but at the moment I only have bare details on Frederick A Courbarron. His parents information will take me a while to gather together as it will involves census searches. Fortunately more people from the Channel Island are now posting such info online, a few years back it was not available at all or else you had to pay for such info.

Back in the mid-90’s, and pre-computer, it was a slow process of writing letters by hand (remember doing that?) and waiting for replies to arrive. A basic enquiry would take about 2/3 weeks to go around. That’s how I did my Channel Islands research back then. Well, all my research really. But now, onto Frederick and Mary. This section will go into several chapters I suspect; not so much on Frederick ( until I get more info on his parents, etc) but as Mary was a ‘Brownhall’ Hamilton there is a raft of stuff about her and her very fascinating life.

This is where it all gets fun.

Frederick Augustus Courbarron was born 1826 in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Not alot is known at this stage about his parents but I do know that his father’s name was Augustus Courbarron and he was born around 1805 in Jersey to French parents from Brittany. His mother, too, was born in Jersey of French parentage. His parents arrived in the Channel Islands from France around 1800/01 and Frederick and several siblings are listed on a ‘people count’ (not actually a census) from the year 1805.

Fredericks parents were farmers on the island, possibly in the town of Millbrook as that is where his own children were born later on. Farms tended to remain in families in those days so it is a good assumption that Frederick inherited his father’s farm.

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