Quamby Place – Named after the brook which ran beside the Tasmanian home of Thomas Gregory Russell (1850-1935). Russell came to Christchurch to live on five acres of land in the 1870s, naming his property, Quamby. A son was born to the Russells at Quamby in 1892. The property was sold to the McLean Institute in 1909 and re-named Holly Lea. Quamby Place was formed in 1983 from Holly Lea land. First appears in street directories in 1987.
A reasonable amount of information from library website. I will take the library’s word about the reason for the name and I could only find Quamby House in Tasmania on Papers Past.
There was a small piece on the library website about Quamby Place but they focused on Allan McLean and Holly Lea and I wanted information on Thomas Russell. I eventually found a piece on the library website about a house called Knowlescourt on Papanui Rd. Looks like it was a gorgeous building and sadly it has been demolished. This information led me on a total wild goose chase as it said that the house was built for Thomas Russell and his wife Doris in 1910.
Nearly two hours later after searching Papers Past, cemetery database and the Ancestry website I have it clear in my head.
Knowlescourt was built for Thomas Russell but he was still married to his first wife Helen Stringer who he married in 1874 and she died in 1915. They had several children.
Thomas married Doris Pearce Baldwin in 1917 and she died on Oct 17th 1918 in New York. Death notice said At New York Doris Pearce wife of T G Russell of Knowlescourt, only daughter of Major and Mrs Pearce Baldwin late of Raratonga. Couldn’t find a grave for Doris.
Thomas then married Gertrude Brown in 1919 and she was the younger daughter of Professor F D Brown. Gertrude possibly died in 1960 but can’t find a grave. At one stage she was living at the Clarendon Hotel.
Thomas died in December 1935 and cemetery database has his details as solicitor and aged 85. It also said that he had lived in NZ for 70 years.He is buried with his first wife Helen and their children are mentioned on the headstone. Note the cemetery record has Thomas as being born at Colchester in Essex.
There are several family trees on the ancestry website for this man but none mention the second or third wives.These wives just disappeared into oblivion. These same family trees have him born in Shoreditch, Middlesex. Also none of these family trees mention Tasmania.
Found out a little bit more information. Thomas Russell went to Tasmania in 1855 at the age of 4 years with his parents and a brother and a sister. They were on the ship Whirlwind and under the Indenture System. Can’t find when and how they came to NZ but his parents ended up living in Wellington along with the rest of his family. Parents died in Wellington and were buried at Bolton Cemetery. I got confused here as cemetery records also had them buried at Linwood. The ashes of Thomas’s parents and siblings were reinterred at Linwood in 1969 and this information is on the headstone. The family possibly went to Otago in 1864 on the ship City of Hobart. Note none of the public family trees have this information.
Quamby means lie down especially in order to sleep
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 