My great grandfather
Joseph Stokes
1878-1944

A fanfare for the common man

This is the story of an ordinary man, the son of a nineteenth century Irish immigrant to New Zealand. Not a politician, not a scholar, not a rich man—no diaries or essays or speeches or letters have survived—but a working man, a fireman, an engine driver, publican, shopkeeper. Such men formed this country
and they too should be celebrated.

Fortunately for my record, he lived at a time when every town had a newspaper and every newspaperman was alert for local stories and gossip. Much of what I have found is derived from Papers Past, so inevitably this account overemphasises the newsworthy and sensational rather than the everyday activities, the appetites, the opinions, the emotions and the personal and human aspects of the lives of my ancestors. Further, the mores of the time tended to exclude women from the news in favour of men, so the sources for the women in my family tree are even more scarce.