The Eaton Families Association

Julia Eaton b. 1836 in Ireland and d. 17 Jul 1913 in Kawakawa Cem, Northland, New Zealand. Julia was daughter of Matthew Eaton b. 1803 in Tralee, Kerry, Ireland and Mary Casey b. circa 1806 in Kerry, Killarney, Ireland. Matthew Eaton had been tried and convicted in Ireland and sentenced to 14 years. He arrived in Sydney, Australia aboard the convict ship Surry on the 17th of May 1836. His wife, Mary and 6 children arrived on the Panama in 1849. Their daughter, Julia, married William Smith on May 26, 1854 in South Creek, NSW, and they had 7 children: Ann b: 1854 in NSW, Sarah Ann b: 1855 in South Creek, NSW, Thomas b. 1857 in Braidwood, NSW, Phoebe E. b: 1859, Joseph b: 1862 in Wollongong, NSW, Elizabeth H. b: 1864 and Mary Ellen a/ka Aka Morgan b: 1867 in Sydney, Australia.

Sometime during 1870, Julia met Albert Morgan b. 1835 and left with him for New Zealand taking her youngest 2 children, Elizabeth and Mary Ellen along. Both girls were bought up as Morgans: they married as Morgans and on their death certificate, they are listed as Morgans.

In New Zealand, Julia and Albert Morgan had Albert Henry b: 1870, Charles b: 1873, Joseph b: 1876, May b: 1879 and Etta b: 1882.

John Eyton born 13 May 1823, Warrington, Lancaster. Enlisted 13 Sept 1841 at Birmingham in the 2nd Reg. Foot (age 18). Transferred to 86th Reg Foot - landed in India 2nd Sept 1842. Served in India for 11 years and discharged on 14 Nov 1853. Next of kin (sister Sarah Johnson of Warrington). John married Mary Connolly of Dublin. They lived in Melbourne Aust and in 1864 he joined and served in the 4th Waikato Reg during the 1860 Maori land wars. Arrived in Auckland 17 Feb 1864. I do not know how many children he had but my great grandfather, William Eyton was born in Melbourne in 1862. He was a bushman in the town of Thames, New Zealand and married Polly Price. They had 4 boys and 2 girls. The eldest, William John, was my grandfather and he was born in Thames on 24 June 1888. The other boys were George, Arthur and Philip and the girls were Kate and (????) All 4 boys served in France during the Great War and all returned to NZ. My grandfather met and married my grandmother, Lavinia Hastings, in the UK and they returned to NZ to live. My father, Peter George, was born 15 July 1925 and his brother, Anthony, two years prior. Neither are now living. I am one of three, older brother Paul and younger sister Margaret. My daughter Megan is the only great grandchild of William John (my grandfather). We have not maintained very close links with other family members so therefore am unable to fill in background on other branches. There are still several living in NZ but it has never been a really big group - one of those names that nobody else seems to have, few can spell it first time and even fewer can pronounce it (we pronounce it eyeton - I presume that is how others pronounce it too. The info relating to the first John Eyton above is from his account book with the 86th Foot Reg. which I have. Hope this helps.

Regards, Judith Eyton

Walter Nash was a clerk, commercial traveller, shopkeeper, politician and prime minister of New Zealand. Walter was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, on 12 February 1882, the fifth of six children of Alfred Arthur Nash and his wife, Amelia Randle. On 16 June 1906, at Selly Oak, he married Lotty May Eaton, a post office clerk. In 1908, Lot and their first child, a son, were both ill and a second child, a daughter, died shortly after birth. When a brief but severe economic recession hit Selly Oak in 1909, Walter and Lot decided to emigrate to New Zealand. The family left Tilbury in April 1909 and arrived in Wellington in mid May.

Settling in Brooklyn, two more sons were born, and Nash became the secretary and a shareholder of a small tailoring business, Jones and Ashdown. The family started attending St Matthew's Church. Walter was confirmed, taught Sunday school, was elected to the vestry, and joined the Church of England Men's Society, whose medallion he wore on his watch-chain for much of his life. He had a simple faith in a divine power to whom he prayed regularly, and he accepted that it was a Christian's duty to work to bring about God's kingdom on earth. Puritanical in many ways, he was more concerned with Christian morality and ethics than with the supernatural and ritual. He became an advocate of the views of Leo Tolstoy on pacifism.

In 1911, Nash assisted the recently formed New Zealand Labour Party in its election campaign in Wellington, but he was distracted from further political activity by the deteriorating business fortunes of Jones and Ashdown. By March 1913, he shifted the family to Palmerston North and became a commercial traveller for Miller and Ahearn, a woollen merchant and cloth importer. He continued to improve his education through the WEA, where he met 'Red Fed' Marxists including Peter Fraser and Bob Semple, and Harry Holland, to whom he had been introduced in 1913. Throughout the First World War Nash adopted a pacifist position. In March 1920, Walter and Lot Nash travelled to England via the United States, leaving their three boys at boarding schools.

Nash stood for Parliament unsuccessfully as candidate for the Hutt electorate in 1925 and 1928 before winning the seat at a by-election in 1929. He represented Hutt until his death. At the 1935 elections, Nash became minister of finance, customs, government life insurance, state advances and land and income tax, and was ranked third in the government after Michael Joseph Savage and Fraser. Nash celebrated his first year as finance minister by writing a pamphlet, Labour Rule in New Zealand.

During 1939 and early 1940, Fraser became prime minister and Nash, who retained the finance portfolio, was unanimously elected deputy prime minister. Fraser decided to send Nash to Washington as New Zealand's resident minister in the United States.

After the war Nash continued to spend considerable time overseas. Shortly afterwards, in December 1950, Fraser died. In January 1951 Nash, then aged 68, was elected unopposed as Labour's leader. In June 1954, Nash retained the leadership with two-thirds of the vote.

At the 1957 election, Nash, at the age of 75, became prime minister. Although Nash was a limited and at times reluctant contributor to the formulation of the economic policies of the first Labour government, he was responsible for putting them into effect. He was energetic and meticulous in detail and fervent, principled and moralistic in his political and religious views. Few New Zealand politicians in the twentieth century had such an impact over such a long time.

BARRY GUSTAFSON