TORKINGTON, John

1865 - 1938  (72 years)

• Name	TORKINGTON, John
  Birth	06 Nov 1865	England
  Gender	Male
  Occupation	1881  [1]
  	Tailor's Assistant.
  Reference Number	55
  Residence	1881	270 Catherine St, Ashton Under Lyne   [2]
  Residence	1891	270 Catherine St, Ashton Under Lyne
  	Printer
  	1891 England Census Living with Sarah A Torkington and Ann M Torkington. (added by Raewyn March 2016)
  Residence	1896	Omaha
  	Farmer
  	NZ Electoral Rolls. (added by Raewyn March 2016)
  Residence	Apr 1916	Shanty, Point Wells
  	CS Clarke diary entry 4th April 1916. He describes visiting the gum flats and having lunch at John Torkington's shanty. (added by Raewyn March 2016)
  Death	14 May 1938	Ti Point, NZ   [3, 4]
  Burial	Abt 16 May 1938
  	I've not yet found the plot in the Whangateau Cemetery. I recall Alma saying that Harold had said, 'Let him be buried asa pauper!'
  Person ID	I55	Main Tree
  Last Modified	18 Mar 2016

  
  

  Father	TORKINGTON, Joseph,   b. 18 Jul 1821, Ashton Under Lyne d. 07 Jul 1872, Aston Under Lyne (Age 50 years)
  Mother	COLLINS, Sarah Ann,   b. 03 Dec 1820, Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire, England d. 28 Jun 1901, 47 Nixbridge [?] Street, Ashton Under Lyne (Age 80 years)
  Marriage	8 Jan1843	Middleton, St Leonard, Lancashire, England
  	England & Wales marriages 1837-2008 Transcription obtained from FindMyPast. Manchester, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1930, obtained from Ancestry
  Family ID	F2	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Death - 14 May 1938 - Ti Point, NZ  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  This is uncle John, whom I remember as the same age as Joe. There will be a mention of him in Dorry Davie's notes. Deathdate: Mavis Russel gives 13 May 1938. His body was found 20 May 1938. By C E Torkington, as I remember the family talk at the time. [5] From Dorothy Davies account of her Torkington family: The same Uncle John was a very clever, brainy kind of fellow. He was the youngest of a family of 8, and had been highly educated, for those days. He had learned French and shorthand and was a journalist and a lino typist working on the Middleton Guardian before he came out to N.Z. He was a great mathematician and it was reckoned that he could solve any mathematical problem one liked to give him. He always knew when eclipses of the sun and moon were going to occur, just by his reckoning. He told the time of day by a sundial he had made. That was quite good for a sunshine day but not much good for a dull or wet day. He was a confirmed bachelor and was rather fond of his grog although I must say that I never once saw him drunk or the worse for liquor. All round, his cleverness and knowledge was rather wasted as he made no use of it whatsoever. The rest of family reckoned that when he was young, being the baby of the family, his mother spoiled him dreadfully. When I first remember him he was living in one of the places that William, his brother, had built, where Dawsie Birdsall's orchard is now. The second one with the pink roses and may bushes in the front garden. I remember he used to bake large sultana cakes in a baking dish and when we children visited him he would give us a good big slice of this cake which we reckoned was about the best cake we had ever tasted; especially when it was just fresh out of the oven. At one time, when he was older, he lived in a kind of shanty shack place on the gum flat. It is now called Pt. Wells. (added by Raewyn March 2016)

  
  

• Sources

  [S309] Census 1881, CD, s.v. Sarah A Torkington. [S309] Census 1881, CD, s.v.Sarah A Torkington. [S1] Russell, Mavis, notes, She gives a death date of 13 May 1938. [S229] Rodney Times, There is a report of the finding of the body in the local paper, and I've got a xerox of the report. There is also areport of the inquest, in the Rodney Times of 1 June 1938. His age there is given as 74. [S229] Rodney Times, 1 June 1938, in the report on the inquest.