www.nickhodge.com

This is page 2 of a con­tract between Charles and Robert Fall of Dun­bar, Scot­land and the fish­er­men of Crail, Fife, Scot­land.

Charles and Robert Fall held many interests in Dun­bar in the 18^th Cen­tury. They also had fam­ily con­nec­tions in Fife. In an agree­ment signed by them on the 9^th Novem­ber 1745, the fish­er­men of Crail agreed to deliver their catch of white fish to them for a period of 6 years. This shows the final part of the con­tract made between the Falls and the fish­er­men of Crail. Here, agree­ment is made for the car­riage of fish, not­ably saithe, to the Fall’s cel­lars, to be paid by them. At the end are the sig­na­tures or ‘marks’ of the fish­er­men of Crail. The most east­erly of Fife’s fish­ing ports, Crail Har­bour dates back to the 16^th cen­tury. At one time the vil­lage was an import­ant her­ring sta­tion. The few fish­er­men left today fish inshore, mainly for shellfish.

On the left hand side, just below the fold, there is the fol­low text: “George GH Hodge mark.” In this instance, George Hodge could not sign his name, and there­fore marked with a “GH”. I am related to this George Hodge.

George Hodge was born in 1717 to George Hodge (him­self born in 1686) and mother Kath­erin Mon­crief in Crail/Fife, Scot­land. He was 32 when he marked this doc­u­ment. His younger brother was a James Hodge, where my paternal line descends.

Crail Har­bour: The har­bour was ‘new foundit’ in 1610, des­troyed in 1707, and what is shown here dates from the rebuild of 1728.

The fish stocks in this area star­ted to drop in the later part of the 18^th Cen­tury, and there­fore there was not enough room in the fam­ily busi­ness. As the younger brother, James Hodge left the fam­ily busi­ness and slowly drif­ted north to St Andrews in the lat­ter half of the 18^th Cen­tury. From 1764 in Crail, 1766 in Kings­barns (3.5km north of Crail) and 1771 in Brown Hills (just south of St Andrews). This George Hodge is also the wit­ness to the birth of James Hodge’s first and second chil­dren: Andrew and Mary. The third child of James Hodge is a John Hodge; again from where my paternal line des­cends. This John’s son, Melville, emig­rated to South Aus­tralia in 1853.

In the 1841 census, Mary Hodge (daugh­ter of James Hodge, born in Kings­barns in 1766) is lis­ted as liv­ing in Thor­gate, Crail. Based on the pos­i­tion in the census, it is likey she was liv­ing with the Scotts of Crail at this time.

I sus­pect that James trav­elled north either as a farm labourer, or as a hand loom linen weaver; as was his son. Kings­barns has a noted his­tory of both. And golf­ing, but I doubt my fam­ily was of the cor­rect glass for golfing.

Note: This inform­a­tion was found using the http://scran.ac.uk sys­tem. Scran is:

Scran — part of the Royal Com­mis­sion on the Ancient and His­tor­ical Monu­ments of Scot­land — aims to provide edu­ca­tional access to digital mater­i­als rep­res­ent­ing our mater­ial cul­ture and his­tory. This is provided through the wholly owned trad­ing arm Scran Ltd. We are one of the largest edu­ca­tional online ser­vices in the UK sup­port­ing over 4,000 schools, lib­rar­ies, col­leges and universities.

In the recent research of my paternal fam­ily his­tory, I found ref­er­ence to David Melville Hodge sign­ing the papers for an Angus Hodge. These papers were per­mis­sion given by David for Angus to join the Aus­tralian Infantry in 1916 for ser­vice abroad. He was only 18 years and 2 months old.

Private Angus Hodge was my Great-Grand Uncle.

Based on my recent research into a Private Albert Lock, I knew I could find Private Angus Hodge’s ser­vice records at the National Archives. A few per­sonal notes where an injured right leg from a hors­ing acci­dent in 1912, and many teeth miss­ing. He was also noted as “stocky” at only 5 and a half feet tall. His denom­in­a­tion was lis­ted as Meth­od­ist.

Private Angus Hodge became a part of the 6^th rein­force­ments for the South Aus­tralian 43^rd Bat­talion, AIF. The 43^rd Bat­talion made up the 11^th Infantry Bri­gade, 3^rd Divi­sion of the AIF. Landed in the UK dur­ing the early part of 1917. (note: This Order of Battle is extremely use­ful and the War Diar­ies of the 43^rd Bat­talion are insight­ful)

At this stage, Private Hodge star­ted to have a bout of Measles and Mumps and finally arrived in France 30^th July 1917. He joined the front line on 24^th August 1917. Just in time for the 3^rd Battle of Ypres. (also known to Aus­trali­ans as Passchendaele)

From this time, there were many times in hosip­ital lis­ted as “NYD” and “PUO” : not yet determ­ined and pyr­exia unknown ori­gin (ie: fever)

Then there is a note from 18^th August 1918 “admit­ted old wounded leg, slight” back in the UK ; frac­ture from tibia, based on the fall from a horse some 6 years earlier. Repat­ri­ated back to the UK, Private Hodge spent time get­ting bet­ter at the end of the first world war.

On the 23^rd Novem­ber 1918, exactly 90 years ago today, the Med­ical Board in the UK awar­ded Private Angus Hodge a 20% per­man­ent dis­ab­il­ity due to ser­vice; fit for home ser­vice.  He would have limped for the rest of his life.

Dis­charged from the AIF on 19^th March 1919 in Adelaide. Merely a year after return­ing to Aus­tralia, Angus was dead.

Nearly 3 years away from home, Private Hodge served his coun­try. The records fail to detail the men­tal and other injur­ies suffered whilst in France.

Angus Hodge died ages 22 and is bur­ied 23^rd March 1920. The grave­stone states “Son of DM and FJ.” Last res­id­ence is recor­ded as Gul­nare South Aus­tralia. Where David Melville Hodge was farm­ing at the time.

Lest We Forget.

As pre­vi­ously blogged, my ancest­ors hailed from the east­ern shores of Fife, Scot­land. Exactly where golf was invented.

NB: this page will be updated as more info is found. Dots will join back to here

Inspired by recent fam­ily events, I decided to revisit my June 2006 research and go fur­ther back. The pre­vi­ous searches had stopped at David Melville’s grand­father: John Hodge

Thanks to Scot­lands People, the offi­cial gov­ern­ment source of births, deaths, mar­riages, census data and other bits and pieces: search­ing is easy and rel­at­ively cheap. Cer­tainly saves trav­el­ling to Scot­land and spend­ing days in a lib­rary or archive.

My ancest­ors were not cath­olic but rather “free kirk” Pres­by­ters, they freely recor­ded their details in the Old Par­ish Records kept since 1553 in Scot­land. I am 100% of my ancest­ors to 1734; The move­ments prior to Crail in 1662 is a little more tenu­ous, although this was a time of much upheavel in Scotland.

Using Maps.live.com, I have cre­ated a visual map col­lec­tion that details the move­ments of these people in Scotland.

So, this is where we are in reverse chro­no­lo­gical order; the left hand column has the male line and birth year, with the fol­low­ing row their respect­ive father. The num­ber is the gen­er­a­tion from Liam back (ie: Liam is zero, and I am num­ber 1)

Edna Dutschke (nee Elix) passed away peace­fully in her sleep, and under med­ical care dur­ing the early hours of 14^th Novem­ber 2008. She was 95, and had seen much in her life. Includ­ing giv­ing life to two sons and a daugh­ter. Her daugh­ter is my Mum. Edna was by Nana.

Her grand­par­ents immig­rated from what is now Ger­many and reli­gious intol­er­ance to South Australia’s Barossa Valley.

A jolly per­son with a cheeky sense of humour. A hard worked who never suffered fools gladly. Along with her late hus­band, Arnold (passed on Decem­ber 1984) she taught at many Lutheran Primary Schools in South Australia.

She had a sweet tooth (a trait passed on to her grand­son, but don’t tell my Mum), a love of garden­ing, Inspector Rex, the Port Power, her fam­ily and keep­ing emp­ties under her bed (last one is a fam­ily joke)

In her final years she was quietly frus­trated by her body fail­ing her act­ive mind. Walk­ers and wheel­chairs aided her mobil­ity and did little to slow her down. A keen eye was watch­ing every­one when the hear­ing aid’s bat­tery failed.

My memor­ies of her are all pleas­ant. As her first grand­son, I am sure I had a spe­cial place in her heart. She put up with me and passed on some les­sons in life. I lived with Nana from 1985 through to 1988 at a time I com­pleted my Matric­u­la­tion (HSC) through to find­ing Avril. Nana was the first in my fam­ily to meet Avril and provide approval.

Her phys­ical pres­ence will be missed. Memor­ies, stor­ies and thoughts remain.

Many memor­ies.

The Head­mas­ter for my last years at Immanuel Col­lege recently passed on from a short ill­ness. (pre­vi­ous ref­er­ences here and here)

Con­trary to pop­u­lar memes, I have noth­ing but fond memor­ies of Mr Volk, or Noel as he pre­ferred I called him in 2005.

Mr Volk was one of those highly influ­en­tial people in my life. He was one of a small hand­ful of people made an impact on my per­sona, from an intel­lec­tual per­spect­ive. A learned man, he daily demon­strated that geeky people mattered in the world. A great man.

Ave, Mr Volk. Noel.

Thoughts are with the Volk family.

Update: Novem­ber 2008: I have a scanned copy of the obit from The Advertiser

(thanks Mum for the sad info)