The biographies are presented below in the successive generations of Carrolls born in Cork.
- The first generation – children of John & Isaac Carroll
- The second generation – the grandchildren of John & Isaac Carroll
- The third generation – the great grandchildren.
- Descendants of John Thomas Carroll 1852-1941
——— The first generation of Carrolls born in Cork ———
THE CHILDREN OF JOHN & SARAH CARROLL
William Carroll 1777-1800
William was the first child of John and Sarah, born 17 January 1777. He died at the age of 23 on 21 June 1800.
Joshua Carroll 1777-1831
Joshua was born on 23 December 1777 at St.Patrick’s Place, Cork. He went into the timber business with his father and younger brother. They were also corn merchants and then ship builders. Joshua married Sarah Barcroft Haughton on 6 June 1805. She came from a Quaker family who ran a hardware business at North Main Street, Cork, importing hardware from England, Wales and the Baltic countries. A difficult time for commerce in 1822-23 led to her father’s bankruptcy. John Barcroft Haughton was saved by a coalition of his sons-in-law who took his property into a trusteeship.
Joshua and Sarah had nine children (see below). Joshua died on 10 February 1831 at the age of 53.
Deborah Carroll 1779-1787
Deborah was born on 16 November 1779 and died aged 7 on 24 March 1787.
Thomas Corfield Carroll 1784-1832
Thomas was born on 10 August 1784. He married Mary Hatton. He died on 4 August 1832 aged 47 leaving his widow with three young children (see below). He was in business with his brother Joshua who predated him in 1831.
Frederick Carroll 1786-1792
Frederick was born in 1786 and died aged 5 in 1792.
John Carroll 1790-1804
John was born on 27 March 1790. He died age 13 in 1804.
THE CHILDREN OF ISAAC AND ANNE CARROLL
Edward Carroll 1784-1865
Edward was born in 1784 in Cork. He was educated at Ballitore School. He was in partnership with his father in the timber trade.
In 1816 he requested Cork Monthly Meeting to transfer his membership to Longford Monthly Meeting in England, where he was then living. That was the same year that he married Anna, the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Lowe of Worcester. They were probably running a drapery business but dealt in other products also. Edward had a profitable sideline in share-dealing and on several occasions offered railway shares to his brother James. He was also an agent for the St.George Steam Packet Co. of Cork and was active on a number of philanthropic committees, one of which was the ‘Committee for African Instruction’ of which he was a member in 1828. Both Edward and his wife were recorded in ministry. In 1847 he wound up his business and disposed of his stocks of Irish poplins, linens and damasks, as well as of haberdashery, hosiery and gloves. He offered a 10 per cent discount and free carriage.
In 1848 Edward and Anna undertook a big journey ‘under concern’ to visit Friends in England and Scotland and to appoint public meetings where they might feel called on to minister. Often large numbers of non-Friends attended. At one meeting in Glasgow there were between 2,000 and 3,000 people present. Feeling unwell, Anna went to convalesce at Brighton, where she died aged 64 in 1850. A testimony to her work was presented to London Yearly Meeting in 1852 when she was noted as championing traditional Quaker views during the so-called Beaconite Controversy. Edward and Anna must have been very devoted to each other. Within one year of her decease he had a severe mental breakdown and James Backhouse, a relative of his wife, sent him to a mental home at Oswaldwick. His unhappiness there and homesickness for Ireland persuaded Abraham and Jane Fisher to undertake his care in Youghal but the strain was too much for them and he eventually took up residence at Bloomfield Friends Retreat in Dublin, where he would be assured of ongoing kindly attention. He remained there until his death aged 80 in 1865.
Joseph Fisher Carroll 1791-1855
Joseph was born on 17 August 1791 in Cork. He emigrated to the United States of America in 1819 and lived in Pennsylvania where he met and married Amy Hawkhurst. They had a daughter Mary Trimble Carroll born in August 1829. He died on 25 January 1855 in Port Carlton, Penn.
James Carroll 1795-1874
James was born about 1795 in Cork. He married Susanna Abbott on 29 September 1825. He was described as a pleasant, domesticated sort of man. Most of what is known about him derives from some remaining correspondence and centres on his bakery business and family. The family lived at Clarence Terrace, Cork. Besides his business, James owned some shares in the Patriotic Insurance Company and received rents from a family-owned flour mill. Competition in the Cork bakery business in the 1840s was forcing down prices and profits, he bought a bread van and a ‘tidy bay mare’ to pull it, the plan being that the van would double up as a ‘jaunting car’ to bring the children to Meeting. The downfall of the St. George Steam Packet Company in 1842-3 led to a considerable loss of £392 10s for him, which he had seen as equivalent to a large dowry for his four daughters. In 1844, he was nervous of investing money in any joint-stock companies and felt the best way to make any profit was buy flour cheap before any anticipated price-rise. In 1846 James, like other Friends, was active in trying to promote famine relief. Money was scarce; there was increasing taxation and a depression in trade.
——The second generation of Carrolls born in Cork ———
THE CHILDREN OF JOSHUA & SARAH BARCROFT CARROLL
i. Sarah Carroll 1806-1825
Sarah was born on 1 April 1806 and died age nineteen on 13 June 1825.
ii. John Carroll 1807-1869
John was born 25 July 1807. He married Janetta Harrison Hargrave in the Church of Ireland, St Anne’s, in Cork in January 1830. They had 4 children. The family lived at 20 St. Patrick’s Place, Cork. John died on 16 February 1869 at the Albemarle Hotel, Picadilly, London. His grave memorial was removed from St. Nicholas Church, Cork and is put in storage. The transcription is as follows:
Sacred to the memory of John Carroll Esqre, late of St. Patrick’s Place, Cork. who died February 16th 1869, aged 60 years. And of his eldest son Joshua Carroll Esqre of The Grove, Queenstown, who died December 18th 1870, aged 37 years. Also his youngest son Hargrave Carroll Esqre who died February 20th 1872, aged 30 years. This monument is erected by the widow & mother as a token of her love and a small tribute to their great worth and rectitude.
Their four children were:
a. Joshua Carroll 1833-1870
b. Sarah Haughton Carroll 1835-1899
c. Isabella Hargrave Carroll 1837-1891
d. Hargrave Carroll 1842-1872
iii. Deborah Carroll 1809-1825
Deborah was born on 10 August 1809. She died at the age of 15 on 24 March 1809.
iv. Helena Carroll 1811-1849
Helena was born on 19 January 1811. She married Alfred Greer, a Quaker, and they had five children. Alfred was in partnership with Benjamin Allen manufacturing paper and cardboard at a mill near Blarney. Alfred was disunited from Friends in 1848 for his non-attendance at Meetings. Helena died in Yorkshire on 9 June 1849. There children were:
a. Thomas Greer 1837-1905
b. Joshua Carroll Greer 1838-1853
c. Alfred Greer 1839-1907
d. George Thomas Greer 1843
e. Macgregor Greer 1844-1903
v. Barcroft Haughton Carroll 1812-1862
Barcroft was born 17 October 1812. Barcroft and his brother John owned several ships plying their trade in timber between Cork and Canada. In 1859, Barcroft stood for the London Parliament. The Cork Examiner recorded a lively election address by Barcroft in its edition of 6th May 1859:
“I came forward to obtain for the shipping interest that justice which it demands. I am, as you are aware, largely interested in that interest, and I need to tell you I am a large ship owner.”
It appears that his father, Joshua Carroll 1777-1831, had been mentioned in the debate:
“A report has been circulated and it was asserted at a recent meeting of the Liberal party in the Chamber of Commerce, that when a petition was placed on the table of the Commercial Buildings for the granting of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, my father was the man who chucked it off the table (clamour). My father, sir, was a gentleman, and he would not be guilty of such impropriety, and, therefore, did not act so offensively (cheers and yells).”
He received 22.5% of the vote, slightly below the other 3 candidates who were evenly split. The Liberals won the two seats for Cork. He died suddenly in a Brighton hotel aged 49.
vi. William Carroll 1814-1851
William was born in 1814 and was married by a priest to Susan Elizabeth Grubb in 1843. She was his first cousin which caused him to be disunited. They had three children. He died in a riding accident on 13 April 1851. The children were:
a. William Carroll 1844-1863
b. Wilhelmina Carroll 1848-1863
c. Susan St. Leger Carroll d.1853
vii. Susanna Carroll 1816-1887
Susanna was born 16 April 1816. She married Alexander Wrightson Lawe on 1 March 1840. They had two sons and five daughters. She died on 7 December 1887 at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The children were:
a. Alexander Wrightson Lawe 1856-1920
b. Sarah Caroline Lawe 1842-1919.
c. Helen Shaw Lawe
d. Robert Lawe d. 1906
e. Francis Smith Lawe
f. Christine Lawe
g. Susana Lawe.
viii. Elizabeth Carroll 1817-1875
Elizabeth was born on 21 July 1817. She married Henry Baldwin Olliffe in Killarney, co. Kerry on 26 November 1837. They had two daughters. She died on 3 October 1875. The children were:
a. Sarah Cambridge Olliffe 1842-1856
b. Laura Olliffe 1848-1910
ix. Mary Anne Carroll 1819-1890
Mary was born on 15 March 1819. She married Thomas Manly on 5 June 1845 in St. Anne’s, Shandon, Cork. She died on 2 April 1890 in Dublin. They had two children:
a. Thomas Manly 1846-1910
b. Joshua Carroll Manly 1855-1946
THE CHILDREN OF THOMAS & MARY CARROLL
i. John Thomas Carroll 1817-1845
John was born on 8 August 1817. He married Anne Hatton on 19 May 1840 at Frankfort, co. Cork. John died in 1845 aged 27. They had one child:
a. Thomas Carroll 1841-1921.
ii. Sarah Corfield Carroll 1819-1823
Sarah was born on 25 March 1819 and died aged 4 in 1823.
iii. Joseph Hatton Carroll 1820-1905
Joseph was born on 16 September 1820. He married Caroline Hatton, his first cousin, on 26 November 1845 in St. Anne’s, Shandon, Cork. They had three children:
a. Theodore Frederick Carroll 1850-1938
b. John Thomas Carroll 1852-1941
c. Joseph Hatton Carroll 1855-1929
iv. Joshua Carroll 1823-1885
Joshua was born on 22 May 1823. He never married. He died in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire on 24 February 1885; his name remained on the book of members of the Society.
THE CHILDREN OF JAMES & SUSANNA CARROLL
i. Elizabeth Carroll
Little is known about Elizabeth and her three sisters. Elizabeth had been for a while at the Suir Island School but her father sent her temporarily to a Friends’ School at Croydon, where to her dislike she was called ‘Irish Paddy.’ In 1880 she was living at Sunday’s Well, Cork and named as the sole beneficiary of her brother’s will.
ii. Isaac Carroll 1828-1880
Isaac was born in 1828 in Cork. During his youth he suffered much from sore eyes. His mother had died on the eve of his apprenticeship to Shackleton’s of Ballitore in the milling business. Isaac removed to Ballitore in June 1845. Isaac’s residence was later at Aghada and he made many significant contributions to botany. Botanical travels took him to Norway, Iceland and Lapland. A correspondent with D. Moore, Admiral Jones, Nylander and other botanists, his intention was to produce a Lichenses Hibemicae Exsiccati, or study of Irish Lichens, of which only the first part appeared in 1859. At the time of his death in 1880 he was collaborating with an Anglican clergyman, T. Allin, in the production of a general flora of Co. Cork. A collection of 4,000 of his lichen specimens was sold to the Natural History Museum, London, in 1874-5 and smaller collections deposited in the herbarium of University College, Cork, but later transferred to Trinity College, Dublin.
——— The third generation of Carrolls born in Cork ———
THE CHILDREN OF JOHN & JANETTA CARROLL
i. Joshua Carroll 1833-1870
ii. Sarah Haughton Carroll 1835-1899
iii. Isabella Hargrave Carroll 1837-1891
iv. Hargrave Carroll 1842-1872
THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM & SUSAN CARROLL
Little is known of these children. Their mother was widowed after the untimely death of their father in a riding accident. None of the children lived to adulthood.
i. William Carroll 1844-1863
ii. Wilhemina Carroll 1848-1863
iii. Susan St. Leger Carroll d. 1853
THE CHILDREN OF JOHN THOMAS & ANNE CARROLL
i. Thomas Carroll 1841-1912
Thomas was born in Cork on 27 July 1841. His father died in 1845. He was sent to Edinburgh Academy and then Trinity, Cambridge. In 1861 he married Mary Roe in City of Norwich. They had six children. [see Chapter 5]
He was ordained a Deacon in 1866 and served the church in Stroud, Gloucestershire and Whitton, Middlesex. By the time of the 1871 census he was curate of Stone in Kent, England. Between 1873-1888 he was vicar of Whitton. By 1891 he was vicar of St.Phillips & St. James,Twickenham later retiring to Parkstone, Dorset.
THE CHILDREN OF JOSEPH HATTON AND CAROLINE CARROLL
i. Theodore Frederick Carroll 1850-1938
Theodore was born at Ringacoltig, Rushbrooke, co. Cork; son of Joseph H. Carroll, of Carrollina, Cork; born February 2nd, 1850; educated privately.
He was a land agent and senior partner in the firm J.H.Carroll and sons; Deputy Chairman of the Cork and Bandon Railway; Director of the Cork and Passage Railway.
On June 6th 1872 he married Laura Olliffe, daughter of late Henry Baldwin Olliffe, JP, of Mount Vernon, Cork and Elizabeth Carroll. and niece of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, Physician to the British Embassy, Paris. They had five children, three sons: Joshua, born August 30th, 1876, died abroad; Joseph, born December 8th, 1877; and Theodore Frederick, late Lieutenant R.N., born October 10th, 1881, died at the Royal Naval Barracks, Chatham, March 8th, 1906; and two daughters, Mary and Laura. Clubs: County and Royal Cork Yacht.
ii. John Thomas Carroll 1852 – 1941
John Thomas was born in Cork in Ireland in 1852 and died in England in 1941. He was the son of Joseph H. Carroll and Caroline Hatton. As a young man he spent some time in France learning the language. He founded the stockbroking firm of Carroll & Co in London.
He had three children by his first wife Annie Ferns and two children by his second wife Martha Lansac, who was born in France and had been the governess for his children.
iii. Joseph Hatton Carroll jnr. 1855-1929
Joseph Hatton Carroll was born in Cork in 1855. He became a Land Agent with his father. On 26 August 1892 he was married in Whitton, Middlesex by his cousin Rev. Thomas Carroll. His marriage record shows that he was living in Whitton and his bride Mary Burgers, living in county Dublin. They had one daughter, Nesta Josephine born in Rushbrooke, Queenstown in 1893.
Descendants of John Thomas Carroll 1852-1941
CHARLES BRIAN O’CARROLL [1917-2010] was born on 2 March 1917 in Oxford son of Claude St. John O’Carroll. He spent his early years in Oxford until the family moved to Wimbledon in the1920s. He was educated first in Oxford and then at Radley where he became an oarsman.
At the outbreak of the second World War he was at Barts Hospital and studying for his FRCS. He was entered on the Medical Register on 15 January 1941. During this time he met his future wife, a nurse at Barts, Mildred née Jones and they were married in 1942. On joining the Royal Army Medical Corps he was posted to West Africa. He also served in Normandy and Italy.
Brian and Mildred had two children, Jennifer (born 17 February 1943) and Timothy (born 15 April 1947 in Wimbledon). In the 1950s the family moved to Truro and then Redruth in Cornwall where Brian became a partner in an NHS general practice. He was chairman of the governors of Redruth School and a member of the parish council of St.Andrew’s Church. In 1971 Mildred died.
He sailed his boat Faria for many years from Mylor Yacht Harbour. In 1979 he married Clare Jocelyn O’Carroll née Gall, his brother’s widow. He died in Cornwall on 10 May 2010.
CLAUDE ST. JOHN O’CARROLL [1880-1963] was born in Queenstown (Cobh), Cork on 26 March 1880 and died in London on 15 April 1962 in London. He was baptised at Christ Church, Rushbrook on 22 April 1880. He was the son of John Thomas Carroll (later O’Carroll) and Annie Sophia née Ferns. He married Edith Bywater née Bywater- Ward in Oxford on 19 April 1911. He met his future wife skiing in Switzerland. He was a keen oarsman rowing for the amateur club Molesey Boat Club, Surrey.
Claude joined the army in 1916 in the Royal Dublin Fusileers. He fought inFrance and was gassed at Amiens. He then served in the Royal Army Pay Corps. After the war he joined the Stock Exchange where he became senior partner in Carroll & Co. He retired in 1959.
He lived in Wimbledon for most of his married life first in Raymond Road and then in Drax Avenue where he had a house built in 1928. The garden was always well kept and was an interesting place for dogs and children to play in. Claude considered emigrating to Africa visiting Rhodesia and South Africa during 1947-48 Returned as his wife Edith did not like apartheid and missed the grandchildren. He spent his last years in an apartment at the top of The Downs, Wimbledon.
COLIN REGINALD O’CARROLL [1934-2001] was born in Turkey on 2 November 1934, the son of John Vivian O’Carroll and Helen Edith Turrell. The family moved to England in 1935 and then in 1937 they sailed from London to Natal in South Africa. Colin celebrated his 3rd birthday on-board. They journeyed on from Durban to Beira in Mozambique and from there to Rhodesia. In 1946 the family moved to Cape Town, South Africa. Colin attended Sea Point Boys’ High School where he enjoyed playing cricket and rugby.
He became an insurance broker and transferred with his job to Johannesburg in 1956. He married Nan Aspinall in 1962 and they had four children. Colin had an interest in family history from a young age and he visited family in the UK and Ireland on several occasions, doing research at Somerset House in London and interviewing people. He also tracked people down, writing to and emailing distant relatives, piecing together an enormous amount of genealogical information. He died in 2001 in South Africa.
JOHN FERNS O’CARROLL [1912-2012] was born on 9 February 1912 in Richmond, Surrey, the son of Wilfred Vivian Ferns O’Carroll. He went to Magdalene College School, Oxford. He had a scholarship as a choir boy. When he left school he worked in insurance until the 2nd WW when he joined Queens Own Royal Regiment. He ended the war as a major. He saw action at Dunkirk where he was shot in the ankle. He returned to Northern France for the end of the war.
In 1942 he married Beatrice Mary GRESTY from Cheshire. John was stationed in Manchester at the time and met his future wife in a Manchester hotel. They stayed with Uncle Claude for a while before renting the house opposite in Drax Avenue, Wimbledon and by 1948/49 they moved to live in Dorking, Surrey. He took up his job as an insurance salesman. They then moved to Brighton where they brought up their two children Patricia (b 1950) and Michael (b.1951).
In the late 1950s they holidayed in Spain and by the mid-1970s he retired from Norwich Union and John and Betty set up a business looking after holiday properties in Spain. They lived in Palamos. By the late 1980s they decided to return to the UK and lived in Hove. John survived his wife by two years, living to celebrate his one hundredth birthday in 2012.
JOHN VIVIAN O’CARROLL [1900-1984] was the youngest son of John Thomas O’Carroll and his second wife Martha née Lansac. She had been hired as a French governess. After the death of Annie in 1898 John Thomas married Martha Lansac in 1899 and Jack was born on 3 July 1900 and his sister Eileen on 21 January1903.
Jack went to school at Durstan House, Ealing and St.Paul’s School, London. At 18 he joined the Royal Navy as soon as he finished school, four months before the end of WWI. After the war ended, he attended St John’s College, Cambridge. He qualified and became articled as a chartered accountant.
Jack left England in 1926 and went to work as an accountant for the Turkish Railways. He married Helen Edith Turrell who had been born in Turkey, in 1931 and honeymooned on the nearby island of Rhodes. Their first two children, Terence and Colin, were born in Turkey. In 1935 the family went to live in England at Hindhead before moving to Llandudno, Wales where Jack became the bursar at Louther College, a school for girls. David O’Carroll was born in Wimbledon on 3 July 1937 a few months before the family sailed for Africa.
Mr Buckle, a school friend of Jack owned a farm. It was just off the Marandellas road about 30-40 miles outside Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). For about six months the family lived there until Jack decided he was not cut out to be a farmer. He bought a house in Mount Pleasant, Salisbury and joined the Rhodesian Airways. It became the Rhodesian Air Force when the second world war broke out in 1939. (He was a senior accountant for the Air Force and the paymaster for the duration of the war). Jack was demobbed in September 1945. The house in Salisbury was sold and another was bought at 54, Avenue Fresnaye, Seapoint, Capetown, South Africa in October 1945. On 1 October 1947 Joseph Robert O’Carroll was born to complete the family.
Jack continued his career as an accountant, apart from a short time when he bought a shop at Gordon’s Bay and operated as a general dealer. They sold the house in Fresnaye and moved to nearby Sea Point when their sons grew up and began leaving home. Jack and Helen joined St James church in Sea Point where Jack became a sub deacon. He eventually returned to accounting and worked for Ernst and Young. In 1956 Colin was transferred to Johannesburg. After Jack retired in 1969 he and Helen visited family in England and France. They moved to Fish Hoek and joined the Anglican church there. He died in Cape Town, South Africa in 1984.
MICHAEL ST. JOHN O’CARROLL [1914-1968] was born on 23 June 1914 in Oxford. Son of Claude St. John O’Carroll and Edith née Bywater-Ward. He was the second born child. The first, Patrick, died as a baby. He first attended the Dragon School in Oxford and then Kings College School, Wimbledon. On leaving school he joined Whitehall Securities, an electrical firm. He then became a stockbroker.
He was keen on amateur dramatics and kept a small motor boat on the Thames. As a member of the RNVR he was called up at the start of the Second World War. He first served on HMS Royal Scott, a troop transport ship from 28 February 1940 to April 1940. Michael joined HMS Black Bear in Scotlandas a sub-Lieutenant on 15 May 1940 just ten days before the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirque. The Royal Scott took part in the evacuation and was later mined and sank in the Bristol Channel in late 1940. Michael sailed in HMS Black Bear from Scotland to the West Indies in November 1940, ending the war as a First Lieutenant. The vessel served as a safety ship for the Fleet Air Arm training in the Carribean and anti-submarine duties. He was transferred to HMS Benbow (Royal Navy base in Trinidad) from September 1945 to April 1946.
Whilst on active service he met his future wife, Clara Jocelyn Gall when his ship was in the screw dock in Bridgetown harbour, Barbados. They married on 27 April 1943 in Bridgetown, Barbados and lived in Trinidad where Michael was based. They travelled to Britain via New York in 1946. They had two children Gillian (born Wimbledon 1948) and David (born Holloway 1951).
Like his parents he enjoyed skiing and was befriended by Walter Ingham who founded the travel firm Inghams. He acted as courier for the skiing trips Walter organised to Austria in the 1930s. He played squash and in his mid-years was a keen golfer, playing on Wimbledon Common in a regulation red sweater.
After the war he joined the family stockbroking firm – Carroll & Co – and was senior partner in the firm (by then Carroll, Buglar, Watson & Swaine) when he died on 13 March 1968. He was a member of the 7th Christian Science Church in London until the mid-1960s, a freemason and took an active part in Dale Carnegie courses. He had a new house built in 1953 at Arthur Road, Wimbledon, designed by his friend in a modern style using exposed white brickwork and large “picture windows” one of which, in the living room, was double-glazed. The house also had coke fired central heating.
TERENCE GORDON O’CARROLL [1932-2000] was born on 27 December 1932, in Bournabat, Izmir, Turkey to John Vivian and Helen O’Carroll. He married Ann Margaret Elizabeth Loxton on 2 September 1961 in Cape Town. They had three daughters between 1963 and 1966.
Terry attended Sea Point Boys High school in Cape Town until about 1950 when he joined Barclays Bank. He completed his bank exams and rose through the bank to become a bank manager with Barclays National Bank in Cape Town. His main hobby was playing golf. He died on 29 January 2000 in South Africa, at the age of 67.
WILFRED VIVIAN FERNS O’CARROLL [1878-1943] was born on 11 December 1878 at Queenstown the son of John Thomas Carroll and Annie Sophia Ferns. He was baptised at Christ Church, Rushbrook on 7 February 1879. Vivian married Ellen Katherine HUNTER in September 1905. They had two children: John Ferns O’Carroll and Ellen Mary O’Carroll.
During the First World War, Vivian served with the British Red Cross and Order of St. Jerusalem as a mechanic on motor launches and ambulances in Egypt, Syria, Damascus and Palestine where he met Lawrence of Arabia. After the war he was a stockbroker working with his brother Claude. He lived in Chichester where he died aged 64 on 28 April 1943.