John (Captain) Grono was born on 1 January 1763 in Trefdraeth, Newport, Pembrokeshire, WALES.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 He and
Elizabeth Bristow were married on 20 July 1790 in St Mary, Rotherhithe, LON, SRRY, ENG.
5 He died on 4 May 1847, at age 84, in NSW, AUS, died aged 84.
4 Captain of 18t schooner sealer Speedwell 1805
Captain Governor Bligh 1809 -
Captain Elizabeth 1823 RR2
7 daughters HMO
from WIKI
John Grono (c. 1763?4 May 1847) was a settler, sailor, ship builder, ship captain, sealer, whaler and farmer who migrated to Australia in 1799 from Wales. Captaining the ship Governor Bligh, he would later go on to be the first European to fully explore and name parts of the southwestern coast of New Zealand's south island including Milford Sound, Bligh Sound and Elizabeth Island.
extensive details on family in WIKI tree. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grono-13
John GRONO and sealing adventures
In July 1805, his intended departure 'for the Southward', as John Grono (master), with John Robinson, John Brown, George Lisk, John Connor, Nicholas Dukes, Charles Fever, William Carswell, Thomas McCabe, John Wade, Edward Dunn, Evan Evans, Abraham Moseley and Samuel Symmonds, was reported.[9] The ship was not named in that notice.
On Saturday, 10 March 1810, John was the master of the Colonial Schooner Unity. He was recruiting "active sealers and seamen".[11]
John acquired a crew of fourteen men, being John Stuart, Evan Evans, Henry Branch, James McNathy, W. Needham, Thomas Hambleton, Gilbert Grant, Thomas Arnett, Charles Chambers, Robert Jones, James Hutton, James Mooney, Michael Murphy and John Thorn. They announced their intended departure on the Unity in the SG&NSWA of Saturday 24 March 1810, page 2.
In 1813, Grono again returned with a cargo of 14,000 seal pelts as well as ten stranded sealers who he rescued from Open Bay Islands. The survivors had been left on the island by the ill-fated ship The Active, which sailed away and was never heard from again. The men survived for three years on a diet of seal meat and ferns. Convinced the sealers were escaped convicts and despite their protests he took them back to Sydney to the chains. He later learnt of their innocence and was overcome with remorse, giving two of the men, Alexander Books and Robert Mckenzie, employment. The two men would go on to become Grono's sons-in-law. The tale of the stranded sealers is recounted in the New Zealand folk song Davy Lowston. John (Captain) Grono was a sealer and captain of Speedwell and Governor Bligh in 1808.
1,7 He was a Captain of the Elizabeth in 1824.
8