The following was posted August 2011 from updated research done by Judy Buckley throughout 2010 - 11.

People in Looe know about Joseph Thomas's engineering work. If readers of this website are also interested in his family, the great-niece of his grandson Bill Tinkham of Hannafore Point, who has been researching the family for the last 20 years, has written this account.

There were three generations in the Thomas family called Joseph;

Joseph 1st (1813-1892) a Cornish Roads Contractor and Surveyor;

Joseph 2nd (1838-1901) the Civil Engineer who bought the Hannafore Estate from the Duchy of Cornwall), and

Joseph 3rd (1861-1890) a Mechanical Engineer.

Joseph 1st was the seventh child of Nicholas Thomas of Roche (c.1771-1844). His eldest brother, John Menheniot Thomas (1798-1875) was a Cornish farmer who founded a branch of the family who became school masters in South Shields, Newcastle. Of his other brothers, Nicholas (died 1875) was a Tanner in Callington, and Joshua (died 1876) was a Tanner in Sherbourne in Dorset.

Joseph 2nd was the eldest of six children of Joseph 1st and Harriet (Davey or Lavers, 1814-1881). He and his younger brothers all went to sea in their teens, but he returned to work with his father, then became a Civil Engineer.

Mariner Edwin (1840-1873) sadly perished at sea in 1873 leaving his wife Anne (nee Pengelly) with four young children. Some of their descendants emigrated to Queensland, Australia.

Anne (1843-?) was listed, aged 18 in the 1861 census, with the family in Looe, but cannot be traced after that.

Captain Nicholas (1845-1935) sailed ships from Plymouth all over the world, and finally retired to live at Woodquest, Hannafore until his wife Annie died in 1925. He spent his last ten years with his widowed daughter Emma Uren in Torquay.

Emma (1848-1933) married London Butler George Knight (1841-1920). They were childless and retired to Hannafore in the early 1900s, becoming regular attenders at St Martin's church.

Mary Elizabeth (1854-1932) married London Policeman Samuel Pascoe (1850-1938) of Callington. Also childless, they retired to Saltash.

Joseph 2nd (1838-1901) married Mary Anne Rollings (1841-1903) from Pelynt in 1859 and had three children. At first they lived in Looe, then in Plymouth, then they moved to Camberwell in South London. When Joseph II was appointed Resident Engineer of the Royal Albert Dock in 1878 the moved again to West Ham, and finally to Herne Hill.

Philippa Harriett (1859-1940) who was a dressmaker, left England for New South Wales, Australia, in the early 1880s and married Draper Alfred Scrooby in 1885 at Kelso, Bathurst. Tragically Alfred died in 1887 of typhoid fever, and their baby daughter Hudora died later the same year. Philippa stayed in Australia, and married John Moorhead of Maclean in 1890. They lived in Grafton, and had three children, Hudora, Hilda and John. Their descendants live in Australia.

Joseph Three (1860-1900?) was a Mechanical Engineer who sailed to Buenos Aires in the early 1880s, probably to work on machinery for the new docks at Puerto Madera. He died there, aged 30 and probably unmarried, in 1890.

Mary Anne (1863-1913) married William Tinkham (1862-1925) a Solicitor's Clerk in London. Their only son William (1887-1949) was born in his grandparent's house in West Ham. He attended Christ's Hospital School in London, worked in Insurance and married Annie Elizabeth Noon (1883-1977) in Dulwich in 1916. In WW1 her served as a Second Lieutenant with the

Worcestershire Regiment. Billy and Betty owned and ran Hannafore Point Hotel 1924-1942. Sadly they had no children. During WW2 when Hannafore point was requisitioned, they lived for a while at Kabo, and afterwards retired to Plaidy.

Joseph II's brothers-in-law were his executors. George Knight, living in Saltash in 1901, was the active one, probably because Samuel Pascoe was still living in London. Both couples, the Knights and Pascoes, seem to have been childless. The Knights retired to Hannafore and shared a house with Captain Nicholas, and their grave and a memorial pew can be seen at St Martin's, where they worshipped regularly.