Author Archives: Anne Young

Don’t trust chatbots

25 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in genealogy tools

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If you write seriously you’ve probably had occasion to look up the meaning of a word in a dictionary, and you’ve probably gone to a thesaurus for the the word that expresses precisely what you want to say.

If you write with a computer word-processing program you may have used its online dictionaries, online thesauruses, and similar aids, and you have possibly allowed your writing to be corrected by helpful extras that detect mis-spellings and grammatical errors. You may have consented to have your prose ‘improved’ by programs that detect weak verbs, excessive use of the passive voice, and so on.

Are you wondering what’s next? Will it ever be possible to instruct a computer to compose meaningful, grammatically correct, and idiomatically proper English on some subject with no further intervention from the human writer?

The answer is yes, sort of, and the development has some implications for genealogists.

Programs designed to write prose are called ‘chatbots‘. One of the more successful is ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool currently being trialled, which, given an initial text prompt, is able to produce prose that continues the prompt.

It is sometimes claimed that chatbots are able to understand human language as it is spoken and written, and on this basis have the ability to compose meaningful prose. This is not so; a chatbot constructs sentences using patterns it has detected in text it has examined, constrained by rules imposed by its developers.

Chatbots seem clever, but their output is unreliable, often misleading, and from time to time egregiously and dangerously false.

A new group on Facebook has been set up to explore the ChatGPT tool from a genealogy perspective [https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogyandai].

To demonstrate the dangers of using chatbots, my daughter had a ChatGPT chatbot write a biography of Christine Anne Young—me—complete with cited sources.

It produced a biography without a single correct fact. The sources were entirely made up.

[The chatbot was given my unmarried name.] My date and place of birth were wrong, and my education and achievements were given incorrectly. Publications said to be mine were falsely credited to me.

‘Champion de Crespigny’ is reasonably easy to research, for very few people have this surname, so I am confident that ChatGPT is not confusing me with someone who has the same name.

ChatGPT cannot be relied on for research. It is a prose-construction writing-aid, which exploits language-pattern recognition. It does not understand facts. It produces authoritative-looking text, but it cannot be trusted. It is certainly not a substitute for real research.

Further reading

The Beggs family on the SS Great Britain passenger list in 1868

15 Sunday Jan 2023

Posted by in Beggs

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Image of the SS Great Britain from Great Great Aunt Rose’s photograph album

A few days ago, when I was researching the Beggs family voyage to Australia—on the SS Great Britain in 1868—I couldn’t find them on the passenger list.

I believed—mistakenly, as it turned out—that first-class passengers, paying their own way, and so not registered as assisted immigrants, were listed separately or not at all.

The explanation is simpler. The clerk or clerks responsible for compiling the passenger list wrote the surname ‘Beggs’ as ‘Briggs’. They were described as ‘English’ not ‘Irish’ or ‘Australian’, and Frank Beggs, a boy of 18, became a young lady of 18.

A very helpful collections officer of the SS Great Britain Trust pointed me to the correct entries on the passenger list. Mis-spellings were quite common, she said.

from Public Record Office Victoria; North Melbourne, Victoria; Inward Overseas Passenger Lists (British Ports) [Microfiche Copy of VPRS 947]; Series: VPRS 7666 Images 122 and 130

The Beggs family, despite the clerical error of the surname and Frank’s gender-reassignment, is obviously the list’s Briggs family. The combination of names and ages completely matches the Beggs family and their 9 children.

As for their nationality, the passenger list has provision for English, Scotch, Irish, or other countries. Frank Beggs senior and his wife Maria were born in Ireland but had emigrated to Australia in 1849, nearly twenty years previously. Their children, except the youngest, Gertrude, were born in Australia. Even so, it would have been unusual at the time to describe them as Australian: they were British or—stretching it a little—English.

The passenger list has the port of embarkation Liverpool and date of departure 8 July 1868. There were 612 on board of whom 72 were saloon passengers including the Briggs family. The Briggs were described as English and were contracted to land at Melbourne

  • Mr F Briggs adult profession, occupation, or calling of passenger: Gentleman
  • Mrs Briggs adult Lady
  • Fras Briggs 18 female Lady
  • Elizth Briggs 16 female Lady
  • Charlotte Briggs 14 female Lady
  • Maria Briggs 11 female child
  • Clamina Briggs 10 female child
  • Theodore Briggs 8 male child
  • Robt Briggs 6 male child
  • Hugh Briggs 4 male child
  • Gertrude Briggs 2 female child

There appears to be no nurse or governess travelling with the Beggs family in the saloon.

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An incentive to marry – a free ticket to Australia

13 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by in immigration, Wedding

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On 15 January 1835, my 3rd great grandparents Daniel Cudmore (1811 – 1891) and Mary Nihill (1811 – 1893) were married, at Drehidtarsrna, County Limerick. On 11 February 1835, less than a month afterwards, the newly-wedded couple, with Mary’s mother and two of her sisters, left Ireland on the John Denniston for Hobart Town, Tasmania. (Mary’s father and her other sisters later joined them there.) Daniel Cudmore applied for a free passage to Australia in 1834 as his means were ‘very limited’. They arrived on 7 June, after a voyage of more than four months.

Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore and his wife Mary probably taken in the 1850s

This sequence—marriage followed immediately by emigration—occurs several times in our family tree.

John Way (1835 – 1911) and Sarah Daw (1837 – 1895), the great great grandparents of my husband Greg, were married at Wendron, Cornwall, on 2 March 1854 and left Plymouth, England as Government or assisted emigrants on the Trafalgar four days later. They arrived in Adelaide on 28 June 1854.

On 10 June 1854, some two years after the death of her husband Kenneth Budge, my 3rd great grandmother Margaret Budge née Gunn (1819 – 1863) married for a second time, to Ewan Rankin (1825- ?), a carpenter in Wick in the far north of Scotland. Soon afterwards she and her new husband, with the four surviving children of her first marriage, made the five-hundred mile journey from Wick to Liverpool, planning to emigrate from there to South Australia.

The family sailed as assisted immigrants, whose fare was paid by a Government body. The ship Dirigo was to have been ready for the reception of passengers at noon on Friday 23 June, and though this was very soon— within a fortnight—of their marriage I am sure that the Rankins were at Liverpool ready to embark. The voyage did not start as planned (but that is another story: M is for Merseyside – 1854 departure of the “Dirigo”).

Preferred candidates for assisted emigration were “respectable young women trained for domestic or farm service, and young married couples without children.” A shortage of single women in the colonies meant that single men would not be accepted as assisted emigrants “without a corresponding number of young single women of good character to equalize the sexes”. Widowers and widows with young children were also forbidden to apply. In order to become a preferred candidate and gain the benefits, including free passage, of assisted emigration it was definitely an advantage to be married.

In these three cases the marriages lasted the usual term, certainly beyond the journey of emigration, until the death either of the husband or the wife. Although the marriage and emigration may have seemed hasty, the decisions and plans had clearly been carefully made.

Related posts:

Further reading:

  • Russell, Roslyn & National Library of Australia, (issuing body.) (2016). High seas & high teas : voyaging to Australia. NLA Publishing, Canberra, ACT. page 37.

Wikitree:

200 years since the arrival of the Taylor family on the Princess Charlotte

12 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in immigration, Tasmania, Taylor

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Two hundred years ago, on Friday 10 January 1823, after a voyage of almost four months, my fifth great grandparents George Taylor (1758 – 1828) and Mary Taylor née Low (1768 – 1850), accompanied by four of their eight adult children, arrived in Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land.

With forty other free emigrants they had sailed on the Princess Charlotte from Leith, the port of Edinburgh, departing in October 1822.  The Princess Charlotte, 401 tons, built in Sunderland in 1813, was named after Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796 – 1817), only child of George Prince of Wales (later George IV). Several ships of the period had this name.

George Taylor’s son Robert kept a diary of the voyage, writing mostly about the weather. A fortnight out they ran into a gale in the Bay of and the ship narrowly escaped going ashore at Cape Finisterre. A fortnight later the ship was becalmed for days near Madeira. A gale soon afterwards broke the main topgallant mast.

The diary also mentions troubles among the second class passengers; a cabin-boy being given a dozen lashes for cutting the first mate’s overcoat; a child’s death and the sea-burial, the sighting of two ships and speculation about their nationality; trouble over the distribution of spirits; shooting bottles for amusement; and betting as to when the ship would arrive in Hobart (Robert lost).

The Princess Charlotte dropped anchor in the Derwent River on 1 January.

The Taylor family landed on 10 January. 

George and Mary Taylor lived at the Macquarie Hotel, Hobart Town, for two or three months before receiving their grants of land. (The building stood at 151 Macquarie Street but has been replaced.)

View from the top of Mount Nelson with Hobart Town, and circumjacent country Van Diemen’s Land painted by Joseph Lycett about 1823. Image retrieved from Parliament of Tasmania.
North East View of Hobart-Town, Van Dieman’s Land. by J. Lycett about 1823. Retrieved through Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales.

The 100th and 150th anniversaries of the arrival were celebrated by descendants of these emigrants. The 200th anniversary  will be celebrated on 28 January, at the end of this month, at Campbell Town.

It is difficult for us now to see Van Diemen’s Land—later officially known as ‘Tasmania’—through the eyes of the recently arrived immigrants. What stood out?

There were sheep, more and more of the woolly chaps, and wheat: 

In 1820 the fine-wool industry in Van Diemen’s Land had been founded with the introduction of 300 of Merino sheep bred by the Camden wool pioneer John Macarthur. In the same year Van Diemen’s Land became Australia’s major wheat producer; it remained so until 1850.

There were more and more farmer settlers: 

By 1823 pastoralists were beginning to farm the Midlands, and many had settled in the country between Launceston and Hobart. On 30 June 1823 George Taylor received an 800 acre grant of land about 30 miles south of Launceston on the Macquarie River near Campbell Town. He named his property ‘Valley-Field’. His three sons, George, David, and Robert, each received 700 acre grants of land nearby.

In a letter of about 1825 George Taylor describes his early farming results:

This has been an early harvest. I began to cut barley on the 16th, and I have threshed and delivered 53 bolts and a half to the Thomsons Newbragh, for which I have received 30 / p bolt. It weighed 19 stones 4lb clutch. I think I shall have 10 … p acre. I should have it all in today but it rained in the morning. The first shower since the 17th. It has been a very dry season. In the spring we had not a shower to lay the dust for 43 days. The Barley is excellent, the wheat nearly an average of fine quality, Oats short in straw, much under an average. Peas and Beans in some places good, Turnips good, Potatoes supposed to be a short crop. I sold old wheat @36/-, 34/9d, 33/ last week.
George Taylor Esq.
Van Diemen’s Land.

The Colonial population had increased, with a large number of transported convicts, and the Aboriginal population had declined: 

In September 1823 the Colonial population of Tasmania was enumerated as 10,009, excluding Aboriginal people, military and their families; there were 6850 men, 1379 women, 1780 children. The majority of the population were convicts. Convict immigration to Australia exceeded free immigration until the 1840s. In the 1820s there were 10, 570 convicts arriving in Van Diemen’s Land and 2,900 free immigrants. From 1801 to 1820 2,430 convicts had arrived and 700 free settlers.

In the 1820s about 3000 Scots migrated to Australia, most settled at first in Van Diemen’s Land. By the end of the decade a third of all landowners in Van Diemans’ Land and in New South Wales were Scots born.

My Taylor 5th great grandparents were the first of my ancestors to come to Australia. In the history of European colonisation this was early: Australia had been colonised by white settlers for only 35 years. It was still a wild place. The Taylors were attacked by bushrangers, and one of their sons was killed by Aborigines. They prospered, however, despite the hardships and their descendants continued on the land, breeding sheep at Valleyfield until 2005, when the property, in the Taylor family  for 182 years, was sold out of the family.

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Further reading

  • Hudson, Helen Lesley Cherry stones : adventures in genealogy of Taylor, Hutcheson, Hawkins of Scotland, Plaisted, Green, Hughes of England and Wales … who immigrated to Australia between 1822 and 1850. H.L. Hudson, [Berwick] Vic, 1985.
  • A. W. Taylor, ‘Taylor, George (1758–1828)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/taylor-george-2717/text3825, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 12 January 2023.
  • Clark, Andrew. “Person Page 225.” BACK WE GO – My Family Research,  https://www.my-site.net.au/g0/p225.htm Accessed 12 January 2023
  • Vamplew, Wray, 1943- (1987). Australians, historical statistics. Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, N.S.W., Australia
  • Fraser, Bryce & Atkinson, Ann (1997). The Macquarie encyclopedia of Australian events (Rev. ed). Macquarie Library, Macquarie University, N.S.W

Wikitree:

I am descended from the Taylors through:

Trove Tuesday: fire at Barrington

10 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by in Tasmania, Trove Tuesday, Whiteman

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Robert Henry (Bob) Whiteman (1883 – 1957), one of Greg’s great uncles, was a labourer from Parkes in New South Wales, the son of a miner. On 29 March 1911 at the Registrar’s Office, Devonport, Tasmania, he married Esther Irene Milton (1894 – 1976), a farmer’s daughter. He was 28 years old; she was 16.

Their children were:

  • Cyril Ernest 1911–1987
  • Irene May 1912–1985
  • Robert Edward 1914–1914
  • Kenneth James (Ken) 1915–1991
  • Percival Robert (Bob) 1917–2000
  • Iris Emily 1919–1924
  • Ivy Jean 1920–1921
  • Myrtle Charlotte 1923–1986

The first two children were born in Launceston. About 1913 the Whiteman family moved to Barrington, a small farming settlement fifty miles west. In 1922 Bob Whiteman and Esther Irene were recorded as living there, with his occupation on the electoral roll as ‘labourer’.

Barrington in 1906 photographed by Stephen Spurling. Image retrieved through the National Library of Australia. A coloured postcard was later produced from this photograph.
Mt. Roland from Barrington photographed 1906 by Stephen Spurling. Image retrieved through the National Library of Australia.
Lake Barrington with Mt. Roland in background in 2019. Image by Guido Rudolph retrieved through Wikimedia Commons
Lake Barrington was created in 1969 for hydro-electric power production.

Bob had lived in Moriarty, a small village 15 miles northwest of Barrington before his marriage to Esther, and she had family there, including a sister, Bertha Emily Walker nee Milton (1892 – 1922), who was very sick with pleurisy.

On Sunday 23 July 1922, while the Whitemans, with five children aged between 2 and 11, were away visiting Esther’s ill sister Bertha their cottage in Barrington (rented) burnt down and the contents were destroyed.

From the Burnie Advocate of Tuesday 25 July 1922:

A fire occurred at Barrington on Sunday night, which completely destroyed a "cottage and contents. The building was owned by Mr. D. Mason, of Barrington, and occupied by Mr. B. Whiteman. The latter was away at Moriarty, together with his family, and the house was unoccupied when the fire occurred. The furniture, which was owned by the tenant, was partly covered by insurance. Much sympathy will be extended to Mr. Whiteman over his severe loss. He is a married man with five small children.

After the fire, the family moved to Northcote in Melbourne. On the 1924 electoral roll Robert Henry Whiteman, labourer, is recorded as living there, at 8 Robbs Parade.

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A boshter and other postcards from Bob Whiteman to Jack Young

08 Sunday Jan 2023

Posted by in postcards, Tasmania, Whiteman, Young

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When more than thirty years ago I began researching the family history of my husband Greg I was given some postcards belonging to his grandfather, Cecil Young (1898-1975) which had been handed down to father, Peter Young (1920-1988).

At that time I didn’t know much at all about the people and places mentioned on the cards. They were from Bob. Who was he? They referred to Homebush. Was this the Sydney suburb of that name?

I now know much more. Bob was Cecil’s older half-brother. Homebush was a gold-mining town in central Victoria.

Bob, born Robert Henry Whiteman on 10 March 1883 at Parkes, New South Wales, was the oldest child of Sarah Jane (1863 – 1898) and Robert Henry Whiteman (1839 – 1884), a miner. In February 1884 Robert Henry Whiteman senior died of pneumonia. Bob was eleven months old. His sister Mary was born six months later.

In Melbourne in September 1894 Sarah Jane married John Young, a gold miner. Bob was then aged eleven and Mary was ten. In 1894 Sarah Jane had given birth out of wedlock to another child (who came to be known as Leslie Leister). She left this child in Parkes, where he was brought up by her mother and sister. It appears that Bob and Mary came to Victoria to live with John Young and Sarah Jane.

John Young and Sarah Jane had three children together:

  • Caroline 1895-1895, born and died at Timor aged one month
  • John Percy (Jack), 1896-1918 born at Bowenvale near Timor
  • Cecil Ernest 1898-1975, born at Rokewood

Sarah Jane died of postpartum haemorrhage the day after Cecil was born, leaving John Young a widower with two step-children: Bob now aged 14 and Mary 13, and two infants: Jack, almost two, and the newborn Cecil. John’s sisters appeared to have taken care of these children. Jack and Cecil grew up in Homebush with their aunt Charlotte.

John Young in 1899, his two sons Cecil and Jack, and his two step-children Bob and Mary Ann Whiteman. Photo colourised using the MyHeritage photo tool.

The postcard collection has five written by Bob Whiteman to his half-brother Jack. Jack’s birthday was 24 August; three are birthday cards. All five were written between 1906 and 1911. Most are from Moriarty in northern Tasmania, a small settlement fourteen kilometres east of Devonport.

The post card album
16.9.06
Dear Brother Jack
I think you have been a long time answering that postcard that I sent you. So I think when you get this boshter you ought to write.
Give my best respects to all.
Good Bye for the present.
Your loving brother B. W.

(Boshter’ was Australasian slang for someone or something first-class or impressive. See: Green’s Dictionary of Slang https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/6mealla)

Road near Cora Lynn, Tas. painted by L H Davey. The State Library of Victoria has a copy of this postcard.
Moriarty 21st 9th 1908
Dear Brother Jack
I hope you don’t think that I have forgotten you I have been very busy lately one way and another. I have got my potatoes in I will have to chance what they turn out like now. Hoping you are well as I am myself at present I will say Good Bye.
Bob
Moriarty 8th 12th 1909
Dear Jack I suppose you thought I had forgotten you. We are having dreadful cold weather over here for this time of the year. Wish Aunt and Uncle and Lora a Happy xmas and a prosperous new year for me and accept the same for yourself and Cecil. All this time Good Bye Bob.

(Aunty and Uncle were Charlotte Wilkins née Young and her husband George Wilkins the Lower Homebush schoolmaster. ‘Lora’ was almost certainly Laura Squires, the school sewing mistress. In 1925 she married George Wilkins after the death of Charlotte.)

Moriarty 12.9.1910
Dear Jack
No doubt you will think it funny me sending you a birthday card after letting it pass so long but better late than never I suppose you are both growing fine big boys by this time. I will write you a letter when you answer this so don’t be too long. Have you seen Father lately.
Bob.
Moriarty 8th 1st 1911
Dear Jack, I suppose you were beginning to think I was never going to write but I hope you had a Merry Xmas & New Year. Things were quite enough over this way. How is Aunty & Uncle & Lora getting on wish them all the compliments of the season for me it is rather late but better that than never. I hope you enjoy your holidays. All this time so Good Bye Bob.

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Beggs family visit to Ireland

07 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by in Beggs, Great great Aunt Rose's photograph album

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On the reverse of the picture, which is the size of a carte de visite or visiting card, is a plan; the cabins occupied by the Beggs family appear to be indicated with red ticks.

My great-great Aunt Rose’s photograph album consists mostly of portraits of members of her family, but it does include one picture of a ship, Brunel’s SS Great Britain. This has the caption:

S.S. Great Britain 1868
September 1868. We all returned from Ireland in the Great Britain.

The ‘we’ is the Beggs family; the caption was probably inserted by Rose’s husband Frank Beggs, a boy of seventeen at the time of their long journey back to Australia.

From the Geelong Advertiser, Tuesday 8 September 1868, page 2:

The following old colonists, late residents in Geelong and the "Western District, returned to the colony by the steamer Great Britain;—Hon. Niel Black, of Glenormiston, Mrs Black, Masters Archibald, Stewart and Niel Black, and servant; Mr and Mrs F. Beggs, of Beaufort, Misses Elizabeth, Charlotte, Maria, Clamma, Gertrude, Masters F., H., R. and J. Beggs; Mr. and Mrs D. Stead, of Ballan; Mr Robert Richardson, formerly Inspector of Police, Geelong; Mr Fairfax Fenwick, of Chevy; Mr Alex. Hunter, and Mr George Staveley of Geelong, also Master E. G. Staveley.

The SS Great Britain was a steamship designed by the famous Victorian-era engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Launched in 1845, until 1854 she was the largest passenger ship in the world. The Great Britain made her first voyage to Australia in 1852 and operated on the England–Australia route for almost 30 years. Still afloat, she is now part of a Bristol maritime museum. (The Great Britain was not Brunel’s famous SS Great Eastern, a different vessel.)

The Beggs family left Australia for Southampton on 26 January 1865 on the ‘Bombay‘, a steamship of 608 tons. The passenger list includes Mr and Mrs Beggs, a daughter and son aged over twelve years old, three daughters aged between one and twelve, two sons aged between one and twelve, one infant daughter: eight children altogether.

In 1866 the Beggs’s youngest child, Gertude, was born in Ireland during their stay there.

The photograph album contains many portraits of the Beggs’s relatives and friends from Ireland, presumably people Frank Beggs and his family met at the time of their 1860s visit.

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Wikitree:

Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs (1815 – 1885)

06 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by in Beggs, Great great Aunt Rose's photograph album

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My great great aunt Rose’s photograph album has a picture of Hugh Beggs (1815 – 1885), her husband’s uncle.

Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs was born 15 June 1815 in County Dublin, Ireland, fifth son of a Linen Hall linen-factor (dealer, chapman) named Francis Beggs (1766 – 1839), of The Grange, Portmarnock, Dublin, and his second wife Clamina Lyons née Montgomery (1786 – 1821).

Hugh’s brothers Francis, George, and his sister Sophia, emigrated to Victoria, Australia, on the Statesman, arriving in March 1850.

Hugh followed his brothers and sister three years later on the Africa, arriving in Melbourne on 16 April 1853.

In that year, Hugh Beggs, in partnership with a man called Precious Willan (1812 – 1900), purchased the Bushy Creek property of John Kidd, near Glenthompson in Western Victoria.

In 1860 Beggs bought out his partner and expanded the property from 8,000 to 14,700 acres. Bushy Creek remained in the Beggs family for 125 years. 

On 27 April 1853, shortly after his arrival, Hugh, then thirty-eight years old, married Elizabeth Smith (c. 1830 – 1864), twenty three, in St James’s Church, Melbourne.

At St. James's Church, Melbourne, on the 27th inst., by the Rev. George Studdart, Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, Esq., of Malahide, County Dublin, to Elizabeth Smith, second daughter of Richard Horner Smith, Esq., late of Tullaghcop, County Meath, Ireland.

They had five children:

  • Catherine Beggs (1854 – 1939)
  • Rose Ann (Beggs) Wood (1856-1932)
  • Francis Beggs (1858 – 1919)
  • Jane Frances (Beggs) Dodds (1860 – 1934)
  • Martha Florence Beggs (1864 – 1867)

Elizabeth died at the age of thirty-four on 1 August 1864 at Bushy Creek, two months after the birth of her daughter Martha.

The following year on 23 Mar 1865 at Bushy Creek Hugh married again, at Bushy Creek, to Lavinia Mary Eugenia Heney (c. 1839 – 1925). She was twenty-five; he was forty-nine.

BEGGS—HENEY.—On the 23rd March, at his residence, Bushy Creek station, Wickliffe, by the Rev. David Kaye, Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, Esq., to Lavinia Mary Eugenia, fourth daughter of the late William Godwin Heney, Esq., of Dublin.

They had six children:

  • Sophia Beggs (1866 – 1866)
  • Lavinia Beggs (1868 – 1869)
  • Sophia Montgomery Grattan (Beggs) Champion de Crespigny (1870 – 1936)
  • Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs (~1872 – 1949)
  • Matilda Cairns Beggs (1876 – 1969)
  • William Goodwin Beggs (1878 – 1957)

Hugh Beggs died on 13 November 1885 at the age of seventy at Bushy Creek and was buried in the cemetery there. 

BEGGS.—On the 13th inst., at his residence, Bushy Creek, Glenthompson, Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, aged 70, fifth son of the late Francis Beggs, The Grange, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

Hugh Begg’s daughter Sophia was the second wife of my great great grandfather Philip de Crespigny (the bank manager).

Related posts:

See also: Bushy Creek, Victoria. (1901). The Pastoralists’ review : a journal and record of all matters affecting the pastoral and agricultural interests throughout Australasia Retrieved January 6, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-539017377

Wikitree:

Catherine Beggs (1854 – 1939)

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in Beggs, Great great Aunt Rose's photograph album

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The photograph album of my great-great aunt Rose Beggs has several portraits of the relatives of her husband Frank Beggs.

One, a cousin of Frank, is annotated ‘Catherine Beggs, Bushy Creek’.

Called Kitty, Catherine (1854 – 1939) was one of Frank’s cousins, the oldest daughter of Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs and his first wife Elizabeth née Smith.

Catherine’s birth notice appeared on 30 August 1854 in the Empire newspaper (Sydney):

July 27, at Bushby [sic] Creek, Geelong, the wife of Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, Esq., of a daughter.

Hugh Beggs married Elizabeth Smith in Melbourne on 27 April 1853.  The Argus of 29 April 1853 has:

At St. James's Church, Melbourne, on the 27th inst., by the Rev. George Studdart, Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, Esq., of Malahide, County Dublin, to Elizabeth Smith, second daughter of Richard Horner Smith, Esq., late of Tullaghcop, County Meath, Ireland.

In 1853, the year of his marriage, Hugh Beggs purchased the Bushy Creek property of John Kidd, near Glenthompson in Western Victoria. It remained in the Beggs family for 125 years.

Catherine’s mother Elizabeth died in 1864, when Catherine was ten. Her father Hugh remarried the next year.

One of Catherine’s half-sisters was Sophia Montgomery Grattan Beggs, the second wife of my great great grandfather, Philip de Crespigny, a bank manager.

Catherine never married. At the time of her death, on 20 October 1939, she was living in Hawthorn with her niece, Queenie Wood, the daughter of her sister Rose (Annie). She was buried in Box Hill cemetery.

 From the Argus 23 October 1939:

BEGGS.—On the 20th October, at Carboona, Riversdale road, Hawthorn, Katherine (Kitty), eldest daughter of the late Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, Bushy Creek, Glenthompson, aged 85 years. (Privately interred, Box Hill Cemetery.)
BEGGS.—On the 20th October (suddenly), at Carboona, Hawthorn, Catherine, eldest daughter of the late Hugh Lyons Montgomerie and Elizabeth Beggs of Bushy Creek Estate, Glenthompson, loved aunt of Eileen (Mrs. Gordon Langridge).

The photograph was taken by Stewart & Co at 217 & 219 Bourke Street East. The company operated at these premises from 1881 to 1889.

The photograph shows Catherine Beggs posed in half-profile. She is dressed in the fashion of the early 1880s, firmly corseted, with a very small bustle. Her hair, parted in the middle, seems to end in a small bun. 

Lenore Frost writes in Dating Family Photos 1850-1920: “From late 1870s skirts were no longer full, but rather sheath-like with a train until about 1882 when they again expanded into a bustle. The bustle of the eighties was at times even larger than that of the seventies, reaching its maximum size between 1886 and 1888.”

Catherine’s bustle does not look large suggesting the photograph is from earlier in the decade.

Catherine appears to be wearing a coat-basque, a long, coat-like bodice that fully encased the torso and often extended into coat-tails resembling the back of a man’s frock coat; the coat-basque was extremely fashionable during the 1880s. In the early part of the decade waists were fairly long.

The pleated ruffle at the hem is typical of the early 1880s. The use of gauging, (pleating) was a notable decorative feature between 1880 and 1882. The asymmetrical line is a feature of the early part of the 1880s and apparently swathes of contrasting fabric across the abdomen is a peculiarity of 1882. 

Catherine’s hair, plainly dressed and close to the head with a centre part and small bun is typical of the early 1880s.

Related post:

References

Wikitree: Catherine Beggs (1854 – 1939)

Philip Champion Crespigny born 4 January 1850

04 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in CdeC Australia, Great great Aunt Rose's photograph album

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My great great grandfather Philip Champion de Crespigny was born on 4 January 1850 in St. Malo, Brittany. He was the son of Philip Robert Champion de Crespigny, who later became a police magistrate and goldfields warden in Australia, and his wife Charlotte Frances née Dana. Philip junior was the second of their five children.

With his parents Philip emigrated to Australia, arriving in 1852.

Philip Champion de Crespigny had a long career with the Bank of Victoria from 1866, and he became the bank’s General Manager in 1916. Early in his career, however, he resigned from the bank to travel in the Pacific islands with his cousin George Dana.

On 18 April 1871 P.C. Crespigny sailed on the cutter ‘Gem‘ from Melbourne for Port Resolution, Tanna Island, in the New Hebrides group.

On 28 July 1871 George Dana’s two partners, James Bell and William Ross, were murdered by natives on Tanna island. George Dana gave evidence at the inquest and conducted the burial service. Philip Crespigny is not mentioned in reports, perhaps because was not on Tanna at the time. Many years later he recalled to his grandson Philip George de Crespigny (1906 – 2001) the uneasy feeling of being moored in the evening on a small ship just offshore, with a strong sense of hostile eyes in the jungle a short distance away.

Port Resolution, Tanna, from A year in the New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia by F. A. Campbell (1873) opposite page 32 retrieved though archive.org

With his cousin George, and Henry Bell (brother of James who was murdered), Philip Crespigny, age 21, is recorded on the passenger list of the Gem when it returned from New Caledonia to Melbourne on 4 October 1871.

Philip decided that the life of an island trader was not for him and decided to return to the bank. He regarded himself as very fortunate in being allowed to rejoin, for it was a general rule that a man who had left that service should not be employed again.

Philip presented his sister Rose and his mother with photograph albums. The albums include portraits of Philip as a young man.

abt 1872
abt 1877

One portrait was taken at the studios of J. Botterill in Melbourne between 1869 and 1874 and the other by Bardwell studio in Ballarat, possibly at the time of his marriage to Annie Chauncy in 1877. The studio of J. Botterill was at 19 Collins Street from 1869 and moved to the Bee-Hive Chambers, Elizabeth Street in 1874, the second copy of the portrait is a reprint of the first taken in the early 1870s.

Philip died on 11 March 1927 in Melbourne and was buried in Brighton Cemetery.

Related posts:

Wikitree: Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927)