John Walter Danher ( Danaher )

John Walter Danher (Danaher)

John Walter Danher was born in Middlesbrough, England 1866 to John Danher and Jane Baines. He was the eldest of 16 children. He was the great uncle to Paul McCartney and brother to Paul's Maternal Grandmother Mary Theresa Danher, one of his many younger sisters. John Danher and Jane Baines married in 1865 in Stockton,  England and had John Walter Danher that following year. John Walter Danher grew up for a time in Durham and did what his father did and that was coal mining and blacksmithing.. they were men of the north and they had a desire to work with iron ore and steel. They were Irishmen from County and City of Limerick, Ireland and emigrated to the United Kingdom via Scotland in the mid 1840's, when his grandfather again, one John Dana(g)her moved his family post potatoe famine to the U.K. Note the change in the surname. It went from Danagher (recorded in some records) to Danaher in Ireland, to Danher in England and then as my great granddad John Walter Danher emigrated to Canada, he reverted the name back to Danaher. It was a social economic reason of the period for the name changes, as the bigotry and racism dominated the day in England against all outsiders seeking employment, education, religious and addresses to live in the industrial age of England. When John Walter Danaher (Danher) came to Canada he changed his name back to the original Irish form as he felt the bias and bigotry ways waned in Canada and he could live with his normal name. My Great Granddad was enticed by his younger brother Thomas Luke Danher to come to Canada to replace him in his post with the Standard Electric and Gas Company in Montreal Quebec Canada, as Thomas Luke returned to England on his wife's orders as the weather did not agree with her. John Walter started with this company in place of Thomas Luke and eventually invented and patented the first Gas Meter. The patent was held with Archives Canada and he was known then in the 1890's to 1900's as the 'Meterman'.