Thomas Neill

Thomas Neill was born in 1840 at Tandragee, County Armagh in Northern Ireland. In 1858 at the age of 18 he emigrated to South Australia where he worked on a farm before moving on to Melbourne to do masonary work. When the Otago Gold Rush broke out, he left for New Zealand and landed in Dunedin in 1861. He immediately went to Gabriel's Gully, the scene of the Gold Rush. He worked on various other fields in Otago, including the Dunstan, Maori Gully, Millars Flat and the Shotover. He then went up to the Wakamarina in Marlborough but did not strike anything good so returned to Dunedin. In 1865, he came to the West Coast, packing his way over Arthurs Pass and having a very hard struggle, crossing the rivers , travelling over rough tracks. He worked in Hokitika, Okarito further down the Coast and also at Brighton and Charleston. He landed in Westport near the close of 1866, at the Rush at Caledonian Terrace. Finding the gold elusive, he returned to Charleston and, while he was there, the Addison's Rush broke out at Addison's Flat. He managed to get a Prospecting Claim close to where the gold was originally found. Thomas remained at Addison's being a party in one of the big sluicing claims. He was for a time, a member of the Buller County Council. Sometime after the turn of the century, he and his wife Janet, took up residence in Westport, where they lived until their respective deaths. (the above was extracted from the Obituary for Mr Thomas Neill published at the time of his death in 1929)

Although Thomas left Ireland in 1858, before his Sister Mary emigrated, it looks as though he arrived in New Zealand after she and her family arrived here. However, with Mary in Christchurch and Thomas in Dunedin, it is probable that they did not meet for some time, years in fact. Thomas spent many years as a single man working in the goldfields but on 2 Oct 1879, when he was 39, he married Janet Richardson at Cape Foulwind near Westport. Janet was born on 15 Nov 1859 at Bathwell, Lanark, in Lanarkshire, Scotland and was 19 years younger than her husband. She was the daughter of William Richardson and Margaret Whyte Johnston who came out from Scotland with their children. William died at Blacks (now Ophur) on the Dunstan goldfields. Margaret remarried Mr Fitzroy Montague Smith a lighthouse keeper. Fitzroy tended the lighthouse at Cape Foulwind from 1 Mar 1877 through to 15 Jun 1882. Thomas and Janet settled at Addisons Flat in their own house and raised five children.

GEDCOM Note

≤p>Arrived South Australia 1858 then went Melbourne≤/p>