Southern Reporter, 1905 August 31
Mr JAMES W. CAVERS, a grandson of the late Mr James Broomfield, Leitholm, and now a well-known inhabitant of Lansing, Iowa, U.S.A., has been married to Miss Martha Intlekofer, of that town.
If I’ve identified him correctly this Cavers was a grandson of Adam Cavers and Janet Clark. For more on his family see the website compiled by his relative.
Again in the Southern Reporter back issues I found this reference. It’s from the 1874 August 6 edition, and is a prize list for Selkirk Grammar School. Elizabeth Cavers won two prizes: Recitation for Class IV, and the second prize for Writing in Class IV.
I’ve looked to see who she might be, and think she was probably the 1862-born daughter of William Cavers shoemaker at Lilliesleaf who I blogged about the other day. By the time of the 1881 census Elizabeth and her father and brother were living in Selkirk. She was recorded as her father’s housekeeper, aged 18. A decade earlier she was recorded in Edinburgh, as 8-year-old Lizzie Cavers, in the home of her older sister Margaret, Mrs Wood. Perhaps Lizzie moved back to live with her widowed father a few years later, and attended the local school in Selkirk for a while? There are no other likely candidates for Elizabeth Cavers in the prize list, so I’m fairly confident the identification is right. For more information about Elizabeth’s life see the Cavers family web page created by her relative.
Another Southern Reporter report, this time concerning, I think, a granddaughter of George Cavers and Annie Richardson of the John Cavers and Elizabeth Hislop line:
Southern Reporter, 1921 September 1
Miss Annie Cavers, daughter of ex-Councillor Walter Cavers, Temperance Hotel, Moffat, has been appointed physical and hygiene instructress at Biggar, under the Lanarkshire Education Authority at the salary of £200 per annum.
If I’ve found the right family, Annie, aged 9 months, appears in the 1901 census for Moffat in Dumfriesshire (where her Cavers grandparents had settled), along with her parents Walter (a tailor) and Euphemia, and older sister Jane. Also living in the house was Walter’s niece Minnie Cavers, born in Brechin: presumably the girl whose birth was registered there as Williamina Murray Cavers in 1887, and married as Wilhelmina Murray Cavers at Moffat in 1909. Minnie was almost certainly the daughter of Walter’s older brother John Cavers, and appears with her parents and siblings at Brechin in the 1891 census.
I previously blogged about known Cavers soldiers in World War One, covering soldiers in the UK, Canada, and Australia. I’ve now learned of a new resource for New Zealanders, who often enlisted in other countries. The Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database, is gathering information on known New Zealand WW1 soldiers.
Searching the database there are currently two Cavers entries in there, and it looks like two brothers from Galashiels, Selkirkshire: Francis Cavers (b. 1891), and David Hunter Cavers (b. 1897), sons of David Cavers the policeman who I blogged about the other day.
Both when they enlisted gave their next of kin as their father David Cavers, of Hauturu, New Zealand. Both were farmers, and both joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, specifically the Mounted Rifles division. Both sailed from Wellington, New Zealand to Egypt: Francis in 1916, David in 1917. I don’t know what happened to them after that.
I wonder if there are more New Zealand World War One soldiers to be uncovered. And I wonder if their service records may yet be digitised, as Canada and the UK have done.
Previously I blogged about the death of Francis Cavers, after being assaulted. I’ve just found another newspaper report which gives more details, particularly of his life and character:
Southern Reporter, 1874 May 28
FATAL RESULT OF PERSONAL INJURIES
Mr Francis Cavers, a native of Tweedside, and for many years gardener at Ashiestiel, and latterly jobbing gardener at Galashiels, and who also acted as sexton at Ladhope, has died from the effects of injuries received in the neighbourhood of Hawick. He was set upon one evening by a party (now in custody) on the way from Hawick to Wilton Dean, and so brutally maltreated that he died on Saturday last. He was interred yesterday. He was a quiet, industrious man, very peaceable and obliging in disposition; and much regret is felt for his widow and family.
Francis has descendants living today. I descend from his younger sister Margaret, Mrs Hall, who lived not far from Francis when he died. Both were great-grandchildren of James Cavers and Isabella Coltherd.
Southern Reporter, 1863 December 10
LILLIESLEAF. THE SEASON… In the garden of Mr William Cavers here, a late cabbage was taken up weighing 33 lbs and in the same garden a drill of “Dalmahoy” potatoes, 24 yards in length, taken up early in October, produced nearly 3 1/2 bushels, the largest single potatoe weighing 2 lbs.
This would have been William Cavers (ca1818-1886), shoemaker at Lilliesleaf in Roxburghshire, and husband of Margaret Grieve. For more information on this family see his descendant Sheila’s web page.
I stumbled across this newspaper advert the other day:
Southern Reporter, 1896 November 19
LOST, Black and White Collie Dog; string on neck. Communicate with Hall, Gattonside Mains, Melrose.
This would have almost certainly belonged to my great-great grandfather Thomas Cavers Hall (1850-1917) who farmed at Gattonside Mains. It's possible Thomas had only moved to Gattonside shortly before this, but I need to research that more.
