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| Percival Milverton |
The mystery box
Sometimes we are given objects in boxes about the past we do
not really comprehend the contents of until we go rummaging through. They may
sometimes be something that would help as the building blocks to learning more
about family member’s lives and where they had lived. Pictures, school
certificates and even house insurance receipts fill in the gaps that might be
in the families lives like where they lived down to the street and suburb. When
families move house or pass away many of these records do have a tendency to disappear
into storage or even taken to the local dump without thought. What doesn’t seem
to be of value, could actually be valuable to many family historians in the
form of primary sources.
When I was holidaying in New Zealand, I stayed with my
grandparents for around five days before I would travel to Auckland and then
home in Australia. Not long after I had arrived at their place, my grandmother
pulled out a box that was sitting under the computer desk. It was a jumble of
things that had been placed in there and on top were several old photos with
the edges torn folded to the shape of the box. These photos I had recognised
their importance as I knew the subject matter, these a2 size photos were of
firemen sitting in front of a camera. I knew these photos were of my great,
great grandfather, Percival Milverton when he was involved with the fire
brigade in Palmerston North between 1900 and 1945. One other item was a photo
album, which had many pictures that I had never seen before. Some of these were
of the Milverton family members with several that were from the late 1800s. One
of the pictures was of Queen Victoria for her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
It actually took me several days before I was able to have
the time for an in-depth look through this box. It didn’t help that I had
started just before 10pm and it took me longer than I had expected. Luckily on
my person I had several folders one was a normal one and the other was one of
the big A2 folders for the bigger sheets of paper. I had used this on other
parts of my trip especially when getting some information on another branch of
the family while in Wanganui with the surname of Watt through the local
archives. As I was pulling things out of the box, many of the loose documents I
was placing into folders as I did not want them to become torn or fall apart
once I put everything back into the box neatly. I was allowed to take a few of
the things I found home, which would be around 5 days away. The folders
actually started filling up with many school certificates and other documents
from around 1912 to 1980.
I did not take every file or document home with me as there
were still stuff in the box when I left mainly as my bag would end up becoming
over weight when I left on the plane. Some of the heavier items I did leave
letting my grandmother know that I would collect them at a later date. What was
left behind was interesting in their own right. Some of these items included
seven motor Caravan association bulletins between 1979 and 1981, A ribbon and
ribbon case for the Ancient Order of Foresters, two books about stock and
purchase prices including if the animal was lost in the bush or died, various
letters that had been written around the 1940s and two telegrams. I did find
another two photo albums down towards the bottom of the box, which had pictures
from my great grandmother’s younger days just before she was married. Not that
most of the text helped me very much when it had the usual that people write is
“me”.
The next morning I showed what I had found to my grandmother
and said she had not actually been through the box herself. I surprised her
with many of the photos and we set out with identifying many of them especially
since she knew a lot of the people. I had never seen these photos before and
not many of them did identify who the characters were. On several of the
photos, I wrote the names of the people along the borders or on the back of the
picture themselves. It did take several hours to actually look through the
photos and I made sure the albums, I was taking with me home were safe in my
bag. Before leaving I did place the loose photos that I was not taking with me
back into the box, but into a bubble wrap bag, where I hope they would be safe
from the elements. The return home would be several days in Auckland before
flying back to Australia with the albums in my hand luggage.
The copying of the letters, photos and other documents did
take several days to complete. I was careful when removing loose photos from
the albums to places them back into their exact place they were. On closer
inspection several photos from my great, great grandfather’s album had pictures
of locations from America, which included early ones of fire brigades. These
could only have come from the uncle who had gone to America. I had assumed the
family had been estranged when Frederick Milverton had been left behind in
England. Several pieces of evidence recently have shown this was not the case.
Frederick had two photos in Percival’s album including a portrait wearing the
uniform of what I soon learnt was that of a Judge Advocate in the US, several
photos showing American landmarks and fire brigades. Another was as witness in
the 1904 wedding of Amelia Milverton to John Harold Watt in Palmerston North and
the death notice of Frederick within the Palmerston North paper clippings for the
Palmerston North fire brigade, where Percival Milverton was Superintendent.
The records I have received will lead to further enquiries
for further research. The portrait of Frederick Milverton has led to contact
within the United States to learn more about his service within the Judge
Advocate beginning from WWI, through a historian familiar with the records. The
correct storage of old photos to preserve them for longer, while in storage or
someplace safe. The pictures of the other Milverton’s and even several
Lissington’s will eventually lead to more people in the pictures being
identified. Research into Percival Milverton has already shown results
especially when pictures have been discovered of him when he was younger.
Research into his record through the Fire brigade in Palmerston North has been
fruitful especially when records are found in Newspapers and National Archives
in New Zealand. This does not mean the research has been concluded as there
will always be questions, which need to be answered.
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| One of the records I found |
