Hamilton

Augustus James Hamilton Courbarron was born 12th June 1863 on a farm in Millbrook, St Helier Jersey, to parents Mary Hamilton and Frederick Courbarron. His father, Frederick, was a farmer and the son of French immigrants to the Channel Islands in the early 1800’s. Mother, Mary, born in 1825, was the daughter of landowner John Hamilton and raised at ‘Brownhall’ in Co Donegal Ireland.

Brother Stanhope Frederick was born 1865 followed by John Edward and sister Helen.

Not a great amount of detail is available about the family’s life in St Helier but it is known that they led the lives of typical farming folk of the day. Many French arrived in the Channel islands from nearby Brittany to work on the potato harvests; the Courbarrons were originally from Brittany having arrived and settled in 1802.

In 1877 the lives of the four children were to change forever. The family, en route to visiting Mary’s brother in Ireland, made a stopover in Landulph, Cornwall England. It was during their time here that Mary and Frederick were stricken with typhoid and tragically died within weeks of each other. They were buried in a churchyard at Landulph, near Saltash in Cornwall.

The orphaned James, 14, Stanhope, Edward and Helen were sent to live with their mother’s brother James Hamilton at the family estate of Brownhall in Co Donegal Ireland. Here they were cared for in a loving family atmosphere; the Hamiltons having always been a close knit and caring family. It must have been quite a change for the four children to go from a farming community to living on the substantial estate of Brownhall. The children resided in the family’s private residence of St Ernans House on a small island in the estuary near Donegal Town. Their uncle, James Hamilton and his wife, took the children into their home and began to plan to future of the 14 year old James. Young James had professed a love of the sea whereupon he was sent to England to begin the gruelling life of an apprentice seaman in the merchant navy.

Stanhope and John (known as Edward) chose to go to Canada eventually; Helen married, and as Mrs Helen Moody, spent her life in America. Throughout her life Helen remained in contact with her brothers, particularly Augustus James, writing a steady flow of letters from her homes in New York and Paris. Stanhope also went to Canada and settled in Ontario where he graduated from Gulphs Agricultural College. He died in a farming accident in 1899.

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