The grandest of names

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks | Week 6 - Favourite Name

#52ancestors

Charles Leon Mathurin DeLaine

This week’s challenge is to write about a favourite name. I’m finding it a challenge to differentiate between a favourite name and a favourite ancestor and even then there are so many. So I’m going to write about the ancestor with what is possibly the grandest name in our tree – Charles Leon Mathurin DeLaine, my paternal 3 x great-grandfather. Charles also has the added attraction of purportedly being French which, in my daughter’s eyes, instantly elevates him above other ancestors. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t done a lot of research on this branch of the tree, largely because there is a published history of the DeLaine family in South Australia. However, in reviewing this publication to write this article, I find that there is plenty of scope for further research. But that’s for another day. For now, here’s a brief biography.

Charles Mathurin Leon DeLaine (Sr) is believed to have been born in LeHavre, France in 1818. He arrived in Australia some time before March 1843, when he married Jane Lucas in the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Adelaide, South Australia. There are many stories about how he arrived in Australia, none of which have been able to be verified to date.

Jane Lucas

Charles (as he was known) and Jane lived for the first 30 years of their married life in Sturt Street, Adelaide. They bore 12 children (although Jane’s obituary states she had 13), 10 of whom lived into adulthood. The oldest child, daughter Caroline married George Mills – these were my gr-gr-grandparents. The fourth child, son Charles Mathurin Leon DeLaine Jr married George’s sister Julia.

From 1845 to 1869 Charles was employed in the Metropolitan Police Force. He subsequently returned to his prior trade as a butcher, operating from premises on Sultram Place, Adelaide, from the rear of the family home on Clarke Street, Norwood, and in a shop he had built in 1883 on The Parade, Norwood as an outlet for his growing smallgoods manufacturing business.

Charles died in 1886 of asthma and Jane in 1909 after a brief illness. Charles and Jane are buried together in West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. At the time of Jane’s death in 1909, there were 50 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren. By the time of the publishing of the history of this family, Charles and Jane’s descendants number 1382. I’d say that’s a grand effort befitting of a man with such a grand name.