The Kidd Family A Family History
The Cadden Family · William & Christina Cadden

A Voice for ‘Home’

Christina Cadden

1865–1934

A schoolgirl singer at Glen Innes, a stolen brooch at a Sydney hotel, and a late marriage to a restless New Zealander that took her to Christchurch, to wartime Melbourne, and finally to the harbourside at North Sydney.

Born
11 June 1865 · Queensland, probably Rockhampton
Died
28 September 1934 · Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney
Married
Ernest William Manning (m. Sydney, 1908)
Lived
69 years

Christina Cadden was named for her mother and was born in Queensland on 11 June 1865, the sixth of the seven children. Her birth was registered as a country registration, not in Brisbane, and her marriage record gives her birthplace as Rockhampton. The family, it seems, had already left Brisbane for central Queensland by the middle of 1865, a few years before her father struck gold at Mount Wheeler.1 As a girl of thirteen she sang in the part-song ‘Home’ at the Glen Innes Public School’s end-of-year concert in December 1878, alongside three other local girls.2

By August 1897, Christina — then thirty-two, and on the balance of the evidence more likely her than her elderly mother — had a gold bar brooch, set with an amethyst, stolen from her at Bowden’s Hotel on Elizabeth Street, Sydney.3 It was not a stranger’s hotel. Her brother William, newly back from the West Australian police, had become proprietor of Bowden’s by February that year, and Christina, it seems, was staying with him — the first sign of a pattern in which the unmarried sister found a place in her brothers’ hotels.13 She was still living with her widowed mother at Glen Innes on the 1903–04 electoral roll, both giving their occupation as ‘domestic duties.’4

Seventeen months after her mother’s death she married Ernest William Manning, a New Zealand-born commercial traveller, at St Michael’s Church, Flinders Street, Surry Hills, on 29 August 1908. She was living, and very likely working, at the National Hotel on George Street — very probably while William held its licence. He signed the register as a witness, and it may well have been in his hotel, where commercial travellers lodged, that she had met her husband.13 Christina gave her age as forty, three years short of the truth; Ernest, the youngest son of John Manning, a Christchurch brewer, was thirty-eight. It was a family occasion: the witnesses were her brothers William and Frank and her niece Elsie Knox, a daughter of her eldest sister Mary. The minister, the Rev. Dr James N. Manning, shared the groom’s surname, and the marriage was announced at home in the Glen Innes Examiner.56

Ernest had already lived several lives. In 1896, as a ‘veterinary expert’ of Hunter’s Hill, he registered the trade mark for Manning’s Embrocation, a liniment invented by his father, whose portrait was on the label. He had served with the Wellington Volunteer Rifles in New Zealand and in the South African War with mounted troops, including the 3rd Commonwealth Horse.79 Soon after the wedding the couple moved to his home city. Around 1911 they were living at 430 Cashel Street, Linwood, Christchurch, and in April that year Christina herself had the Sydney marriage register corrected: Ernest’s mother was Mary Ann Craythorn, not ‘Stapleton,’ as had been written.58

By 1915 the Mannings were in Melbourne, where Ernest, a stock and station agent and then an engineer, was a company commander of Senior Cadets. In January 1916, aged forty-five and over the AIF’s age limit, he moved his birth year from 1870 to 1871 and enlisted. He was appointed Second Lieutenant in the 2nd Reinforcements of the 2nd Pioneer Battalion and sailed from Melbourne on the Aeneas on 8 April 1916, leaving Christina at 3 Fenwick Street, Kew, as his next of kin. He hurt his chest in Egypt, trained in England, and reached France in November 1916, only to go into hospital four days later with myalgia and rheumatism. After four months in English hospitals he was invalided home, and in July 1917 his appointment was ended, ‘medically unfit for further service.’ Both he and Christina were granted war pensions.910

Within weeks Ernest was living in a Sydney hotel, the Carlton Cross in Young Street, while Christina stayed at Kew. By the second half of 1919 army letters sent to both addresses came back unclaimed, and the next fifteen years are largely a blank.10 By 1934 the couple were together at Berry’s Bay, North Sydney, Ernest now ‘Captain W. E. Manning, of the motorship Phoenix.’ Christina died after a short illness at the Royal North Shore Hospital on 28 September 1934, aged sixty-eight, and was privately cremated. A month later the Glen Innes Examiner remembered her as a daughter of ‘pioneers of the Glen Innes district.’11 Ernest outlived her by about eighteen months. He died at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, in May 1936, aged sixty-six, and as ‘William Ernest Manning, late A.I.F.’ was cremated at Rookwood on 13 May.12 No children of the marriage are recorded.

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Birth, 1865

    Queensland BDM birth registration 1865/C/1508 (a country, not Brisbane, registration): Christina Cadden, born 11 June 1865; father William Cadden; mother Christina Mitchell. Her death notice gives her age in September 1934 as 68.

  2. 2

    School concert, 1878

    Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser, 17 December 1878: ‘Home’ sung by Jessie Downer, Christina Cadden, Eva Green and Kate M’Rae at the Public School concert.

  3. 3

    Stolen brooch, 1897

    NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 18 August 1897: Christina Cadden, Bowden’s Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Sydney — gold bar brooch, amethyst set, stolen on or about 15 August 1897.

  4. 4

    Electoral roll, 1903–04

    NSW electoral roll, Gough (Glen Innes Division), 1903–1904: Christina Cadden and Christina Cadden junior, both Glen Innes, domestic duties.

  5. 5

    Marriage, 1908, and the 1911 correction

    NSW marriage register, District of Sydney, 1908, no. 79 (NSW BDM 6958/1908):

    • 29 August 1908, St Michael’s Church, Flinders Street, Sydney, Church of England, by the Rev. J. N. Manning, M.A., LL.D. Ernest William Manning, commercial traveller, of 249 George Street, bachelor, born Canterbury, New Zealand, aged 38; father John Manning, brewer, deceased. Christina Cadden, domestic duties, of the National Hotel, George Street, spinster, born Rockhampton, Queensland, aged 40; father William Thomas Cadden, upholsterer, deceased; mother Christina Mitchell, deceased.
    • Witnesses: William Cadden, Frank Cadden, Elsie M. Knox.
    • Margin: for ‘Mary Ann Stapleton’ (the groom’s mother) read ‘Mary Ann Craythorn’, certified by Christina Manning, 430 Cashel Street, Christchurch, New Zealand; Wm. Ridley, Deputy Registrar-General, Sydney, 12 April 1911 (papers no. 2555/11).
  6. 6

    Marriage notice, 1908

    Glen Innes Examiner, 25 September 1908, p. 4: MANNING—CADDEN, 29 August, at St Michael’s C.E., Surry Hills, by the Rev. Dr Manning, Ernest William Manning, commercial traveller, youngest son of the late John Manning, of Christchurch, New Zealand, to Christina, youngest daughter of the late William Thomas Cadden, of Glen Innes.

  7. 7

    Manning’s Embrocation, 1896

    NSW Government Gazette, 1896, p. 7810, trade mark no. 5,749 (Registrar General, 30 October 1896): Ernest William Manning, of Ryde Road, Hunter’s Hill, veterinary expert, and James Joyner, of Balmain, merchant, trading as Manning & Co., applying to register a label for ‘Manning’s Embrocation’ bearing a portrait and facsimile signature of John Manning, ‘the original inventor of the embrocation.’

  8. 8

    New Zealand

    New Zealand records of Ernest and the couple:

    • NZ BDM birth registration 1870/27133: Ernest William Manning; mother Mary Ann, father John. A brother, Oscar Craythorne Manning, 1865/14389, has the same parents.
    • NZ electoral roll, Avon electorate (c. 1911), p. 90: no. 4427, Manning, Christina, 430 Cashel Street, Linwood, married; no. 4428, Manning, Ernest William, 430 Cashel Street, Linwood, traveller.
  9. 9

    Ernest’s war service, 1915–17

    NAA: B2455, MANNING WILLIAM ERNEST (officer’s file; he enlisted with his names reversed):

    • Application for a commission, 14 September 1915: stock and station agent, business 60 Queen Street, home 112 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy; born 3 June 1870; South African War (N.M.R. and 3rd Commonwealth Horse); Lieutenant, 63rd Battalion Senior Cadets; next of kin Christina Manning.
    • Attestation, joined 17 January 1916, signed 1 April 1916: born Canterbury, New Zealand; engineer; aged ‘44 years 6 months’; next of kin wife, Christina Manning, 3 Fenwick Street, Kew; previously 12 months Wellington Volunteer Rifles and 20 months N.M.R. and 3rd Commonwealth Horse, S.A. A second commission application of the same date gives his birth as 3 June 1871.
    • Second Lieutenant, 2nd Reinforcements, 2nd Pioneer Battalion, 24 March 1916; embarked Melbourne, HMAT A60 Aeneas, 8 April 1916. Contusion of the chest, Abbassia, May–June 1916; Franconia to England, August 1916; Pioneer Training Battalion; to France 13 November 1916; hospital at Étaples 17 November (myalgia); then Northampton War Hospital, 3rd London General and 6th Auxiliary Hospital (rheumatism); invalided home on the Beltana from Plymouth, 17 March 1917, arriving Melbourne 12 May 1917; appointment terminated, medically unfit, 23 July 1917.
    • The same file also holds papers of a namesake, Lieutenant William Ernest Manning (1872–1937) of the 2nd Remount Unit, a Sydney solicitor and son of Sir William Patrick Manning, who served in Egypt in 1915–16. Those entries are not Ernest’s.
  10. 10

    Pensions and addresses, 1917–19

    NAA: B2455, MANNING WILLIAM ERNEST:

    • Department of Defence to Mrs C. Manning, 3 Fenwick Street, Kew, 1 May 1917: her husband due in Melbourne about the middle of May.
    • War Pensions daily statement, Victoria, 1 August 1917: William E. Manning, Kew, 40s. a fortnight; Christina Manning, Kew, wife, 20s. a fortnight, both from 24 July 1917.
    • Base Records to C. T. Marshall, Kerrisdale, 17 July 1917: Lieutenant W. E. Manning’s address is the Carlton Cross Hotel, Young Street, Sydney.
    • Envelopes returned, 1919: to 3 Fenwick Street, Kew — ‘not known by letter carriers’ (August 1919); to the Carlton Cross Hotel — Dead Letter Office (November 1919).
  11. 11

    Death, 1934

    Christina Manning’s death and its notices:

    • NSW BDM death registration 13976/1934 (North Sydney): Christina Manning; father William, mother Christina.
    • Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 29 September 1934, p. 6: MANNING.—28th September, 1934, at Royal North Shore Hospital, Christina (née Cadden), beloved wife of Capt. W. E. Manning, of the motor ship Phoenix, aged 68 years. Privately cremated.
    • Glen Innes Examiner, 30 October 1934, obituary ‘Mrs. E. W. Manning’: died after a short illness, wife of Captain E. W. Manning of Berry’s Bay, North Sydney; a daughter of the late Mr and Mrs W. T. Cadden, ‘pioneers of the Glen Innes district,’ who lived for many years at ‘West Brae,’ Macquarie Street.
  12. 12

    Ernest’s death, 1936

    NSW BDM death registration 7997/1936: William Ernest Manning; father John; aged 66; Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick. Sydney Morning Herald, 13 May 1936, p. 13: the remains of the late William Ernest Manning, late A.I.F., to be privately cremated at the Rookwood Crematorium that afternoon (F. W. Hartley Ltd, Newtown).

  13. 13

    Her brother William’s hotels

    William Mitchell Cadden’s licences, set against Christina’s addresses (see William’s page for full sources):

    • Bowden’s Hotel, Elizabeth Street: National Advocate (Bathurst), 12 February 1897, and Queensland Times, 16 February 1897, describe William Cadden as proprietor of Bowden’s Club Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Sydney. Christina’s brooch was stolen there about 15 August 1897. When William sold Bowden’s is not known.
    • National Hotel, George Street: Gympie Times, 25 September 1909: William’s last licence before applying for the Mondure Hotel, Wondai, was the National Hotel, 392 George Street, Sydney, for twenty months. Christina gave the National as her address at her marriage on 29 August 1908, and William was a witness. The exact dates of his licence are not yet known.