Contents
Rob Roy & Clan MacGregor
Sharpe forebears
The great-grandparents
The young terrors and their lair
James T. Sharpe, commercial artist
The artist and his family
James & Amelia’s children
The youngest, Angus
Wind of Dreams**
**Wind of Dreams is a small book in itself — Douglas Sharpe’s reminiscences of a happy childhood in the 1920s and ’30s. Click the link and enjoy. ~ Ian
Like the McCarrolls and Lamonts, the Sharpes have a family mythology that stretches back hundreds of years. But after being in the family orbit for almost sixty years, and the time I’ve spent researching and writing this, I’m pretty sure the iconic figures for today’s family — certainly the New Zealand branch — are Heather’s grandfather James Thomas Sharpe and his wife Amelia Gartmann. I’ve written about Amelia and her family here, and James Thomas himself is coming up below.
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Names — How do you differentiate between a whole lot of Sharpes named “James”? When Thomas and Mary Sharp’s son was born in 1848 they named him James Grossart, and I’ll stick with that. His son, Heather’s grandfather, gets to be James. James’s son will be Sonny, and his son, my brother-in-law, will be Jim.
I probably haven’t been consistent, but by and large I’ve called the women by their “maiden” names — e.g. Maggie Linklater, not Maggie Sharp. By the way, Sharp isn’t a typo. Sharpe is a latter day change.
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Please and thank you — This is work in progress. I’ll welcome all the comments, corrections, anecdotes and updates you can offer — and if you like it, please share the link.