When Charles Sproule of Lackbeg House died in 1861, 5 years
after his wife Mary Ann, he left 6
children behind. All were living in Lackbeg House, Burtonport, County Donegal, except
for George who was in Dublin at that time. By 1888, all of the Sproules had
gone from Lackbeg House. In this post we follow the girls of the family, who all went to New Zealand, to live in a place with a very familiar name!
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Lackbeg House, taken from Inishcoo, pic by Patrick Boner
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All four girls left Lackbeg House some time between 1861 and 1868, bound for New
Zealand. I have not yet found any clues as to why they chose New Zealand, but they seem to have had a plan before they left. There was Mary Ann Sproule, the eldest, aged 37, Martha
DeVere, 36, Anna, 33, and the baby of the family, one of the twins, Catherine
Elizabeth, aged 26.
The sisters settled in Dunedin, Otago, on the South Island of New Zealand. Two
of the sisters married within a few years. Anna met Henry Steven, a captain on the SS Wakatipu. They
married in 1872 and they made their home in Dunedin. Sadly, Henry died young in
1880 at just 36 years old.
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| Queenstown
& lake Wakatipu, South Island |
Catherine Elizabeth, known as Cassie, married in 1873, to a German gentleman called Lewis Hotop. He had a chemist business in Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu, about 150 miles away, where the couple settled. Mary Ann, Anna and Martha remained in Dunedin.
One of this family's descendants, Sue Gress, had told me that the Sproule ladies had a very exclusive boarding school in Dunedin. Sue had also told me the name of this boarding school, so I went searching for it.
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| New
Zealand, City & Area Directories, 1878, Ancestry.com |
We find Mary Ann in the1878 city directory of Dunedin, living in Walker Street, at the junction with Maitland
Street, and sure enough, the entry says 'Boarding School'. In later entries we find that Martha is the music teacher there. The Directories do not name the boarding school, only the address of 119 Walker Street. However, I did find it in the local newspapers, and Sue Gress was quite correct, as always!
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| From Bruce Herald, 25 Nov 1868, National Library of New Zealand. |
The 'Misses Sproule' had indeed called their boarding school in Walker Street, Dunedin after their beloved Donegal home, 'Lackbeg House'! This first advertisement appears in 1868, so the ladies were established by then. And it was from here, this Dunedin Lackbeg House, that Anna got married in 1872. Both 'Lackbeg Houses' appear here in the newspaper announcement;
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| Otago
Daily Times,30 Nov 1872, National Library of New Zealand |
After the death of her husband, Anna moved into Lackbeg House with her two sisters and it was from this Dunedin Lackbeg House that Anna
wrote this very sad letter to her sister-in-law Kate Sproule in Philadelpia. She was giving details of the painful death of her sister Cassie in July 1895;
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| Letter from Anna Steven to Kate Sproule, from Sue Gress |
The school in Lackbeg House continues throughout the 1870s, and I believe the ladies remained in Walker Street after this.
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| Evening Star, 20 Jan 1879 |
There is a lovely long description in the local paper of 1899 about the Misses Sproule giving a large musical matinee to introduce their niece;
Cassie, the mother of Miss Hotop above, was buried with her husband Lewis Hotop in Queenstown.
The other 3 ladies, those ladies who had lived all of their lives in one or the other of the two Lackbeg Houses, were buried in Dunedin, together forever.
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| Northern Cemetry, Dunedin, Ancestry Cemetery Records |
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