Wheatfield Gardens

In a letter to the Belfast Telegraph (4 November 1910), Rev John Gailey, minister of Ballysillan Presbyterian Church, noted that 'a new avenue - Wheatfield Avenue - was opened up a short time ago, and already five new detached residences have been built.' 

 

The 1910 Belfast and Ulster Street Directory includes Wheatfield Avenue, with Cahereen (Hugh O'Neill, publican) and Freeman William Archer, clerk, on the right hand side and Claremount (A Kinkead, traveller) and a vacant house on the left hand side.

By 1912 the name had changed to Wheatfield Gardens and seven residents of Wheatfield Gardens signed the Ulster Covenant:

1. Alfred H Kinkead of Claremount signed in the Old Town Hall.
2. Andrew Kinkead of Wheatfield Gardens, Ballysillan, signed in Ligoniel Orange Hall
3. George W Kinkead of Claremount signed in the City Hall
4. William McVicker of 2 Wheatfield Gardens signed in the Old Town Hall
5. Samuel Robert Boyd of 6 Wheatfield Gardens signed in Woodvale Presbyterian Church
6. James Hanna of 8 Wheatfield Gardens signed in the City Hall
7. Robert Stevenson of Wheatfield Gardens, Ballysillan, signed in the Old Town Hall

Three members of the Kinkead family signed the Covenant.  They were a Presbyterian family and the father, Andrew James Kinkead (44), was a manufacturing chemist who came to Belfast from county Armagh.  His son George Wilfred Kinkead (17) was an apprentice manufacturing chemist and the other signatory was Alfred Harper Kinkead, who was just 14 years old and therefore too young to sign the Covenant.  It is interesting to see that the three members of the family, the father and the two sons, signed in different places.  Did Alfred, who was too young, not want his father and his brother to know that he had signed?

Andrew Francis Kinkead of 62 Whiterock Street Liverpool also signed in Ligoniel Orange Hall and signed on the same sheet as Andrew Kinkead and directly below him.  He had probably travelled home from Liverpool especially to sign the Covenant and was probably related to the family although according to the 1911 census he could not have been a son.

The firm of Kinkead & Co, in Hamilton Place West, off Boundary Street, were manufacturing chemists, drysalters, mill furnishers, oil merchants and importers.

By the time of the 1915 Belfast and Ulster Street Directory more houses had been built in Wheatfield Gardens.

 

On the right hand side the houses and their occupants were Lann Roe (Hugh O'Neill, publican), Cahereen (Robert Stevenson, engineer), 5 and 7 appear to have been semi-detached houses (Joseph Donohoe, clerk, and W McKnight, plasterer) and Edenvale (Richard Hay, postal official). 

 

On the left hand side there were Glenmurray (William Murray), Claremont and 4 and 6 (A Kinkead, traveller, and Samuel R Boyd, contractor), Lauriston, a terrace of three houses numbered 8, 10 and 12, Dunelm (William McVicker, house-builder), Iona (Mrs McVicker), Roseneath (John A Dunn) and Cill-na-Hard (David Waugh, linen manufacturer and finisher).

1918 Street Directory

Lann Roe (Hugh O'Neill, publican), Cahereen (Robert Stevenson, engineer), 5 (Freeman William Archer, county court clerk), 7 (W McKnight, plasterer) and Edenvale (Richard Hay, postal official).

2 Monellan (J J Houston), 4 Claremount (Mrs Kinkead), 6 (Samuel R Boyd, contractor), 8 (J E McIlroy, merchant), 10 (Miss McHarry), 12 (Henry M Wilson of Wilson & Campbell, valuator), Dunelm (W McVicker, builder and contractor), Iona (Mrs McVicker), Roseneath (Jos Coulter, weaving factory manager), Cill-na-Hard (David Waugh, linen manufacturer and finsher).
 

Cahereen is still there with the name above the front door.
 

 

Lann Roe

Cahereen

Edenvale - townland in county Antrim

Glenmurray

Monellan - a mansion in Killygrdon, county Donegal

Claremont - a mansion in Surrey

Lauriston - 16th century tower house, with 19th century extension, in Edinburgh

Dunelm

Iona - island off the coast of Scotland

Roseneath - a village in Scotland

Cill-na-Hard