Carroll/Carrell/Carrel Book
John and Talitha Carroll - From Jersey to Wanganui
This book, written by Anthony Carrell, was first published in September 2019. Sadly, Anthony passed away less than three years later.
Due to demand, the book became out of print. Brian Oliver of nzolivers, in September 2024, republished it, with the support of Anthony's wife, forwarding working material, research, some digital files, and original papers.
To find out more about the book and ordering information, please see here:
https://nzolivers.com/carrollbook.html
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Name and date and country of birth from Jenny Smith whose late husband, John Monro Menzies, was the grandson of Telitha Carrel (b. 1885), sister of Maud Oliver (nee Carrel).

Date of death from headstone in Heads Road Cemetery in Wanganui, New Zealand.

Jenny says Talitha and husband John, and family arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, on the "Soukar" on 2 December 1874. Talitha would of been 44 years of age.

Place of birth (Somerset), occupation and marriage in Jersey from Marriage Certificate received in the mail on 2 July 2010 from Brian Carrell. Brian Carrell is the grandson of George Robert Carrel, George being a son of John and Talitha (nee Hutchings) Carroll.
At time of marriage, living on Old St John’s Road, St Helier, Jersey.

Brian Carrell says in an email dated 22 June 2010, that in the 1841 Census:
“Talitha is recorded as ‘Julia’! Did she change her name at some stage after this Census, and if so, why? In the next 1851 Census returns she is listed as ‘Talitha’, now aged 21, along with her sister Mary (15) living with her presumably widowed mother at Old St Johns Road, St Heliers, where another widow, Mrs Pigeon and her two sons John (21) and Edward (14) also boarded with them”.

When then, between 1841-51, did Talitha’s father Charles die? (Born in 1801, at his death he must have been only in his 40s.) Where in 1851 were her older brother Robert and sister Martha? (No entry fits the description of either Robert or Martha in not only the Channel Islands Census but any of the returns for all of England)”.

“At the 1861 Census Mary Hutchings was living with her daughter Talitha and son-in-law John and their five children in the incredibly small Marsh Cottage. (We know this because this was the birth place of their youngest child, Ernest who was only 7 months old at the time the census was taken.) Mary Hutchings by this time was 60 years of age. Later when the 1871 Census is taken there is no entry for Mary. At some time in her 60s it seems likely that she died. And with her ended any trace that we can readily discover of the continuing Winsham Somerset Hutchings”.

“The family give every indication of being well-educated. Talitha herself signs her own name in the 1853 Marriage Register with a strong confident hand, whereas John Carroll as groom and his sister Mary as witness only leave their ‘mark’, countersigned by the marriage registrar. (Even as a mature adult living in Wanganui in 1876, and just two years before his own death, John Carroll was still not able to sign his name on the form registering his youngest son William’s birth, but left his ‘mark’)”.

“On the other hand Talitha as a widow in Wanganui kept as a centrepiece in her living room a picture of Handel playing the clavichord in his father’s attic – an indication that she was in fact a woman of cultural discernment and some learning”.

Brian Carrell also ponders:
“Was Talitha in fact ‘Julia’ - who subsequently came to be known as Talitha Cumi? Was this the result of a miraculous recovery of Julia/Talitha from a near-death illness - as in the account of the raising of Jairus daughter in Mark Chapter 5 [verse 41] where the words of Jesus to the twelve year old lass are ‘Talitha, cumi.”
'Talitha cumi' is interpreted, “Little girl, I say to you, arise”.
Our Talitha would of turned twelve just after the 1841 census.

Brian Carrell’s brother, Anthony Carrell, writes in an email dated 3 May 2018, “There has been a suggestion that Talitha was originally named Julia, and that as a result of a significant heath issue, at a later date she was renamed Talitha Cumi. My research casts serous doubt on this. She was born in late February 1830 and 45 days later at her baptism she was named Talitha. (Online transcript of Baptism entry gives spelling as ‘Tabitha’.) The first reference I can find is in the 1841 Jersey Census where, among other of the Hutchings family, Talitha doesn’t appear, but Julia does.
I think she was always called Talitha and never Julia. I ran this past my brother Brian, and he responded -
I had accept the fact that she was Talitha Cumi from birth, the transcript of Julia coming when a thick-headed clerk misread an original record and wrote her name as Julia”.

Brian of nzolivers.com notes that the sound of the names Talitha and Julia could be confused, as often names were given verbally to the Census clerks.

Date of baptism as 9 April 1830 from Anthony Carrell in the email dated 3 May 2018 that attached an online transcript of Talitha’s Baptism entry.

Village of birth (Winsham ), place of baptism, in a paper called, “Hutchings family in England - Talitha’s England Story” received from Anthony Carrell in an email dated 28 May 2018.

in the paper, “Hutchings family in England - Talitha’s England Story”, Anthony writes, “When Talitha was born, wool had made Winsham a prosperous village”. “But during her childhood, the boom decreased markedly and in 1850 the [Woollen] mill closed”. Anthony wonders whether the decline was, “the catalyst that saw family to move to Jersey?”.
Anthony goes on to write, “…towards the late 1830s… her parents decided to leave Somerset and move to Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. What prompted this we do not know. Perhaps it was the inevitable decline in Walsham employment from the collapsed wool mill industry? We know there were other Hutchings families in Jersey. Were any of these relations? If so, had they suggested better prospects existed in Jersey? “.

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Result from death search on New Zealand BDM website in March 2022:
1910/9505. Carroll, Talitha. Died age 81Y

Full date of death of 6 August 1910 confirmed from further searching in March 2022 on BDM Search by incrementally changing the date range for the death.