Jessie Campbell

Biography contributed by Tony Garstang (great-grandson)

Born in Rothesay, the main town on the Isle of Bute just off the Scottish mainland and in the Firth of Clyde. Her Gaelic speaking parents were true Hebridean Islanders. Father Charles came from the tiny Isle of Coll. Mother Janet Campbell (nee McKinnon) originated from the nearby Isle of Tiree.

Jessie came to New Zealand as a 5-year-old on the ‘Cartsburn’ arriving at Port Chalmers on 14 July 1874. She came with her brother and sisters Lauchlan 13 years, Christina 10 years, and Sara three years. It’s likely the severe economic pressure on crofters like the Campbells on the islands off west Scotland forced the move initially to Glasgow for work, then Rothesay and latterly to Dunedin, the Edinburgh of the South.

Jessie and her new immigrant family found themselves in the working-class South Dunedin suburb of Roslyn very soon. Charles worked in Dunedin as a labourer. Wises  directories for Dunedin show the Campbell Family at Harbour Terrace in 1875 and at Anderston Road Roslyn for a 23-year period from 1878 to 1903 where Jessie and her mother signed the 1893 Suffrage petition. Its likely Jessie attended the Kaikorai Valley school from 1875.

On 30 March 1892, at the age of 23, Jessie gave birth in Caversham, South Dunedin to a daughter Janet Sheila Campbell. *The mother/daughter relationship between Jessie and Sheila remained hidden for some 70 years. When Sheila started at Kaikorai Valley school in April 1897, her caregiver was her Grandmother Janet Campbell.

Shortly before Sheila turned three, Jessie now 26, married another Scot, John Swan. John was then 27. Jessie Swan had a son John ('Sonny' or 'Jack') born in 1905 and three daughters Jessie born 1901, Elizabeth (Lizzie) born 1896 and Irene born 1898. The Swan family saw and wrote to Sheila regularly, but it was hidden from the Swan children that Sheila was their sister. They called her 'Cous'. The oldest Swan daughter was only four years younger than Sheila.

Always remaining in South Dunedin, Jessie’s family grew, and she had several Grandchildren who called her 'Gang'. Jessie’s mother Janet died in Dunedin on 10 June 1903 and her father Charles died on 20 November 1906 at Roslyn leaving his modest estate to 14-year-old Sheila who was now alone. The obvious did not occur – Sheila did not go to live with her mother Jessie. Rather she lived with friends until her 1916 marriage

John Swan died in 1908. For a 39-year-old widow Jessie endured hard times with four children to raise alone – she took in washing to earn some money. Later in life Jessie lived at Waikouiti to become a housekeeper to Bob McLew. Jessie married Bob in 1938. She was 70 and lived happily with Bob until her death at Windsor Terrace Dunedin on 30 October 1945 aged 74. She is buried in the North cemetery Dunedin with her first husband John Swan.

Jessie’s death certificate perpetuates the family secret recording four children John, Irene, Lizzie and Jessie and omitting the first of her five children – Sheila.

*The father’s family has been revealed by DNA as one of the sons of James and Louisa Brown of Waikaouiti.

Sources

Family interviews, genealogy research, BDM certificates.

Image

Photo courtesy Irene Ruth (granddaughter)