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

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.

Related posts

• V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen’s Land
• Trove Tuesday: George Taylor (1800 – 1826) killed by aborigines in Tasmania

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:

• George Taylor (1758 – 1828)
• Mary (Low) Gage (abt. 1768 – 1850)
• Their four children who emigrated on the Princess Charlotte:
  • Robert Taylor (1791 – 1861)
  • David Taylor (1796 – 1860)
  • Christian (Taylor) Buist (1798 – 1895)
  • George Taylor (1800 – 1826)

I am descended from the Taylors through:

• Isabella (Taylor) Hutcheson (abt. 1794 – 1876)
• Jeanie (Hutcheson) Hawkins (1824 – 1864)
• Jeanie (Hawkins) Hughes (1862 – 1941)
• Beatrix (Hughes) Champion de Crespigny (1884 – 1943) my great grandmother

Trove Tuesday: fire at Barrington

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.

RELATED POSTS:

• A boshter and other postcards from Bob Whiteman to Jack Young
• Y is for Young family photographs

Wikitree:

• Robert Henry Whiteman (1883 – 1957) 
• Esther Irene (Milton) Whiteman (1894 – 1976)

A boshter and other postcards from Bob Whiteman to Jack Young

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.

Related posts:

• M is for Mary
• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918)
• Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I
• Y is for Young family photographs

• For the etymology and meaning of boshter:
  • Lambert, James. “What Makes a Bonzer Etymology?” Green’s Dictionary of Slang News, 3 Sept. 2020, https://blog.greensdictofslang.com/articles/2020/what-makes-a-bonzer-etymology

Wikitree:

• Robert Henry Whiteman (1883 – 1957) – Bob
• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918) – Jack
• Cecil Ernest Young (1898 – 1975)
• John Young (1856 – 1928) – Father (Bob’s step-father, Jack’s father)
• Charlotte Ethel (Young) Wilkins (1861 – 1925) – Aunty; sister of John Young senior and foster-mother to John and Cecil
• George Edward Wilkins (1857 – 1944) – Uncle
• Laura Eliza (Squires) Wilkins (1878 – 1970) – Lora? ; became the second wife of George Wilkins after Charlotte died

Looking for William Sullivan (1839 – ?)

My husband Greg’s great grandfather Ebenezer Henry Sullivan, known as Henry Sullivan, was born on 7 August 1863 at Gheringhap, a small settlement near Geelong, Victoria.

Henry’s birth was registered by Matilda Hughes, his maternal grandmother. According to the birth certificate, his father was a labourer named William Sullivan, about 24 years old, born in London. His mother was recorded as Matilda Sullivan, maiden surname Hughes (but actually born Darby), aged 18, born in New Zealand. William and Matilda had been married in 1862, the previous year. Matilda had another child, Eleazar Hughes, born in 1861 to a different father, unnamed.

Birth certificate of Ebenezer Henry Sullivan

The 1862 marriage of William Sullivan and Matilda Frances Hughes took place on 6 October 1862 in Herne Hill, a suburb of Geelong, at the residence of the Reverend Mr James Apperley. The marriage certificate records William as 23, labourer, a bachelor, born in London, living at Gheringhap. William’s parents were named as William Sullivan, painter and glazier, and his wife Mary Barry.

1862 marriage certificate of William Sullivan and Matilda Hughes

On 12 June 1865 at Ashby, Geelong, William and Matilda had a daughter, Margaret Maria Sullivan. The informant on the birth certificate was her maternal grandmother Matilda Hughes. The father was named as William Sullivan, farmer, deceased, aged about 25, born in London.

On 20 November 1865 Margaret Maria Sullivan died, five months old. A Coronial inquest was held, where it was revealed that six months after their marriage, a few months before Henry was born, Matilda was deserted by her new husband William. Matilda Sullivan maintained that the father of the baby Margaret Maria was William Sullivan, who had visited her twice since their separation. At the time of the baby’s death Matilda Sullivan worked at Geelong Hospital. Her two younger children were cared for by their grandmother.

The inquest heard medical opinion that the baby had starved to death. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the grandmother [Matilda Hughes], and the mother [Matilda Sullivan], as being an accessory to it.

In April 1866 Matilda Hughes and her daughter Matilda Sullivan were called upon to surrender to their bail, but they did not answer to their names.

On the 15th May 1866 the ‘Geelong Advertiser‘ reported on court proceedings relating to the abandonment of two year old Henry Sullivan. It was said of his mother, Matilda, that “her husband had left her, and was supposed to have gone to New Zealand, whence no tidings were heard of him, and she had recently left Geelong with some man with whom she had formed an intimacy, and had deserted her children”. The child, Henry Sullivan, was admitted to the orphanage.

I have found no subsequent trace of William and Matilda. Nor have I found any record in London of William Sullivan before he arrived in Australia. I have also not been able to trace his parents William Sullivan, painter and glazier, and his mother Mary Barry.

Moreover, other than as descendants of Henry Sullivan, neither Greg nor any of his Sullivan cousins have any Sullivan relatives among their DNA matches.

When Greg first tested his DNA he had a strong match to Helen F. from New Zealand and also to her great uncle Alan W. Since 2016 I have been in correspondence with Helen who, with me, is attempting to discover how we are related. Helen has a comprehensive family tree. We have since narrowed the relationship to her McNamara Durham line.

Helen recently wrote to tell me that she had noticed some matches descended from a William Durham, son of a Patrick Durham. Patrick Durham, it seems, was the brother of Joanna NcNamara nee Durham, Helen’s 3rd great grandmother.

I have placed the matches in DNAPainter’s ‘What are the odds?’ tool. It appears likely that Greg and his Sullivan cousins are descended from Patrick Durham. We don’t yet have quite enough data to be sure whether they descend from William Durham or one of his cousins.

What are the Odds tree (tool by DNAPainter.com) with shared DNA matches of Greg with descendants of Joanna Durham; at the moment we do not have a great enough number of sufficiently large matches to form a definite conclusion. The cousin connections are a bit too distant.

William Durham was born about 1840 in Finsbury, Middlesex, England, to Patrick Durham and Mary Durham née Barry. When William Durham married Jemima Flower on 9 April 1860, he stated that his father was William Durham, a painter and glazier. (There are several other records where Patrick Durham is recorded as William Durham but is clearly the same man.)

1860 marriage of William Durham to Jemima Flowers

Comparing the signatures of William Durham on the 1860 marriage certificate to William Sullivan on the 1862 marriage certificate. They seem to be similar.

William and Jemima had two children together, one of whom appears to have died in infancy. The other, also called William Durham, left descendants, and some of these share DNA with Greg and his Sullivan cousins and also with Helen and her Durham cousins.

On 19 October 1861 William Durham, his wife and two children, were subject to a poor law removal. The record mentions his parents.

London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; London Poor Law Registers; Reference: BEBG/267/019 retrieved through ancestry.com

Jemima died about a week later and was buried 27 October 1861 at Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney.

I have found no trace of William Durham after the Poor Law removal. Did he emigrate to Australia and change his name?

Related posts

• Poor little chap
• From the Geelong orphanage to gardener
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA
• John Narroway Darby

Wikitree: are these two the same man?

• William Sullivan (abt. 1839 – ?)
• William Durham (1840 – ?)

Visiting the Avoca and District Historical Society

In the 1850s and 1860s George Young, my husband Greg’s great great grandfather, followed the Victorian gold rushes from Beechworth to Maryborough. He settled finally at Lamplough, a few miles south-east of Avoca.

On his father’s mother’s side Greg’s great grandfather Frederick James Cross, who had been born at Buninyong near Ballarat to a gold miner, took up mining and later farming near Homebush, a few miles north-east of Avoca. John Plowright, another of Greg’s great great grandfathers, also worked as a miner at Homebush.

The Avoca and District Historical Society http://home.vicnet.net.au/~adhs/ was founded in 1984. It has amassed an extensive card-index of references to Avoca people and events, compiled from many differerent sources. This material has not been published online, so if you are researching Avoca family history it is well worth a visit. For a small fee the Society will look up material on your behalf.

The Avoca and District Historical Society is located in the former Avoca Court House on High Street
The Society is open the first and third Wednesday of each month from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm from February to mid-December but special openings or research by the Society can be arranged

Greg and I have visited the society many times. Some of the index material there includes information from

• Church congregations
• Funeral arrangements
• Lower Homebush school register
• Honor Roll
• letters
• Newspapers
• petitions
• Photograph collection
• Police
• Rates books
• School committee
• Vaccinations register

A sample of the index cards held by the Avoca and District Historical Society concrning the Cross family

I also belong to the:

• Genealogical Society of Victoria https://www.gsv.org.au/
• Snake Valley & District Historical Society https://www.facebook.com/snakevalleyhistoricalsociety/
• Ballarat and District Genealogical Society https://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/
• The C. J. Latrobe Society https://www.latrobesociety.org.au/

200th birthday of Wentworth Cavenagh 1822 – 1895

My great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh (1822 – 1895) was born 200 years ago on 13 November 1822 at Hythe, Kent, England to James Gordon Cavenagh and Ann Cavenagh nee Coates, the fifth of their eight children. He was baptised on 12 March 1823 at St Leonard’s, Hythe.

Wentworth’s father James Gordon, born Irish, was a surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, an army engineering corps with its headquarters in Hythe, responsible in part for supervising the construction of static defence measures including the Royal Military Canal against Napoleon’s threatened invasion.

After their marriage in March 1815, the Cavenaghs lived at Hythe. In 1825 Cavenagh retired on half pay.

The Cavenagh family returned to Wexford in Ireland in 1837 and lived at Castle House. Wentworth Cavenagh attended the Ferns Diocesan School. It is believed he began training as a pharmacist in Wexford, but after the potato famine struck in the 1840s the economy was so bad he realised there was no future for him in Ireland and emigrated.

Wentworth Cavenagh emigrated to Canada, hoping to become a farmer there. He later moved to Ceylon to take up coffee-planting, then to Calcutta where he unsuccessfully sought a Government appointment. In 1852 he sailed from Calcutta to Australia and joined the gold rush to Bendigo then moved to South Australia to farm at Peachey Belt some twenty miles north of Adelaide.

Map of Wentworth Cavenagh’s travels

In 1863 Cavenagh was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for the District of Yatala. He served in the Legislature for nineteen years, including period as Commissioner of Crown Lands from 1868 to 1870 in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works from 1872 to 1873 in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. At the time Darwin was surveyed in 1869 Cavenagh was Commissioner of Crown Lands; a main street is named after him.

In 1865 at the age of 42 he married Ellen Mainwaring, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. They had ten children.

Portrait of Wentworth Cavenagh, from the collection of a cousin

Wentworth Cavenagh returned to England in 1892. On his departure the Adelaide Evening Journal of 27 April 1892 published a brief biography:

PASSENGERS BY THE BALLAARAT.—The following. are the passengers booked to leave Adelaide by the Ballaarat to-day:—For London —Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Misses Eva, May, Kathleen, Helen, Queenie, and Gertrude, and Master Hugh Cavenagh-Mainwaring, and Misses Herring, Schomburgk, and Horn. For Albany—Messrs. Green, Richards, and Radcliffe.

THE HON. WENTWORTH CAVENAGH-MAINWARING.—This gentleman, accompanied by his wife, six daughters, and one son, leaves by the Ballarat to-day for England, where he is about, to take up his residence at Whitmore Hall. He is a son of James Gordon Cavenagh, who was army surgeon in the Royal Staff Corps. He served in the army for thirty-five years, and went all through the Peninsula War. while he was also present at the Battle of Waterloo and the taking of Paris. He was a brother of General Sir Orfeur Cavenagh, K.C.S.I., lately deceased, who served in India in various campaigns, and who, as Town Major of Fort William, is supposed to have saved Calcutta during the mutiny. He was afterwards for several years Governor of the Straits Settlements. Another brother, General Gordon Cavenagh, served in various actions in China and India. The Hon. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring was born at Hyde, Kent, on November 13, 1822. He was educated at Ferns Diocesan School, County Wexford, Ireland, and when eighteen years of age he left home for Canada, where he was engaged for some years farming. He subsequently relinquished this occupation and started coffee planting in Ceylon. Afterwards he tried to obtain a Government appointment at Calcutta, but was unsuccessful. Attracted by a Government advertisement he came to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in 1852. Thence he went to the Bendigo diggings, and from there he came to South Australia and started farming at Peachy Belt. He stopped there for several years, and in 1863 was elected to Parliament with the late Hon. L. Glyde for the District of Yatala. For nineteen years he remained in the Legislature without a break, and during that period he was Commissioner of Crown Lands in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. In the elections of 1881 he was rejected when the Hon. D. Murray and Mr. Gilbert (the present member) were elected On February 16, 1865, he married Ellen Jane, the eldest daughter of Gordon Mainwaring, an officer in the East Indian Civil Service, who was at one time Inspector of Police in the early days of South Australia, and on the death of his father, Admiral Mainwaring, he succeeded to the family estates in Staffordshire. On the death of her brothers without heirs Mrs. Cavenagh-Mainwaring became entitled to the estates and adopted the name and arms of Mainwaring.

Wentworth Cavenagh died at the age of 72 in Southsea. He was buried in Whitmore, Staffordshire.

Related posts

• N is for neighbours
• W is for Wexford
• E is for Eden Park, home of Wentworth Cavenagh
• 1892 journey on the ”Ballaarat”

Wikitree: Wentworth (Cavenagh) Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822 – 1895)

The 1898 will of Ellen Cross

In May 1898, three years before her death, my husband Greg’s great great grandmother Ellen Cross née Murray (1836–1901) made a will providing for her unmarried daughters and leaving two specific bequests, her piano and her husband’s medicine chest.

Ellen, born in Dublin, emigrated to Australia in 1854 She was 17 years old and her occupation on the passenger list was domestic servant. In 1856 at Buninyong near Ballarat she married James Cross, a gold miner from Liverpool, trained as a chemist (druggist). They had eleven children, ten of them born in the small mining town of Carngham, west of Ballarat, where she and James had settled with their first child in about 1858.

James died of dysentery in 1882, and Ellen, forty-five years old, became a widow with ten children (one child had died young). The youngest child was three. Ellen continued to live in Carngham. I do not know how she managed to support herself and her large family.

From her will it appears that Ellen was a straightforward and practical woman. I was interested that she had a piano. I am not sure when she would have learned to play. Also caring for so many young children as a widow, when she might have had a chance to play.

As they grew older the children remained close and in touch with each other. Most of them, however, moved away from Carngham.

Ellen Cross and family about 1890. Picture from a great grand daughter of Frederick James Cross and great great grand daughter of Ellen.

Public Record Office Victoria: Wills (VPRS7591) 78/447 Ellen Cross: Will; Grant of probate; Residence : Snake Valley ; Occupation : Widow ; Nature of grant : Probate Date of grant: 16 Apr 1901 ; Date of death: 4 Mar 1901

This is the last Will and 
Testament of me 
Ellen Cross 
of Snake Valley 
Widow of the late James Cross.

After payment of all my just debts and funeral & testamentary expenses I Give Devise and Bequeath unto my children Frederick James Cross, Ellen Hawkins, George Murray Cross, Ann Bailey Cross, Elizabeth Grapel Cross, Jane Bailey Snell, Mary Gore Cross, Isabella Murray Bowes, Harriet Mercer Cross, and Margaret Plowright Cross, all monies now in my possession, or that I may become possessed of, to be divided in equal parts among them.

I devise my house & furniture to my unmarried daughters, Ann Bailey, Elizabeth Grapel, Mary Gore, Harriet Mercer and Margaret Plowright. In the event of either of these marrying, the property shall remain for the benefit of those still unmarried, and in the event of all marrying, the house and furniture shall be sold and the proceeds divided among all my children then living, in equal parts.

I will and devise my “Piano” to my two daughters Harriet Mercer and Margaret Plowright, jointly.

I bequeath my late husbands medicine chest to my son George Murray Cross for his sole use and benefit.

And I hereby appoint Frederick James Cross and Ann Bailey Cross Executors of this my Will in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 20th day of May 1898

Witnesses to Ellen’s signature were Josephine Margaret Williams and Matthew Daniel Williams of The Vicarage, Smythesdale.

RELATED POSTS

• M is for Arrival in Melbourne of the Persian in 1854
• Should I accept this Ancestry.com ‘hint’?
• D is for Dublin
• Carngham
• Trove Tuesday: a splinter
• Cross and Plowright family index

Wikitree: Ellen (Murray) Cross (1836 – 1901)

Jane Bailey Snell née Cross 1866 – 1930

Several of the great great grandfathers of my husband Greg, attracted by the lure of instant wealth on the goldfields, came to Australia in the 1850s and 1860s.

One was James Cross (1828–1882), from Liverpool, who married a Dublin girl named Ellen Murray (1837–1901) at Buninyong near Ballarat on 28 March 1856.

James and Ellen moved to Carngham from Green Hill at Durham Lead, a few miles south of Ballarat, after the birth of Frederick James Cross (1857–1929), their oldest son. Their second child Ellen (1859–1903), was one of ten more children, all born at Carngham, the youngest in 1878.

Carngham, 27 km west of Ballarat and 4 km north of Snake Valley, was a gold-rush settlement, surveyed and proclaimed a township in 1855. The Ballarat Star reported the rush to Carngham in November 1857; the Cross family’s move from the Green Hill alluvial diggings was probably partly in response to this news.

James Cross died in Carngham from dysentery on 31 January 1882. His youngest child was just three years old.

A photograph of Ellen Cross and ten of her children (Thomas had died young) taken about 1890.

Jane Bailey Cross, the sixth child of James and Ellen, was born on 3 August 1866. She is seated on the right of the above photograph.

On 26 December 1895 Jane Bailey Cross married George Snell at the Anglican Holy Trinity Church, Carngham. A marriage notice placed in the Melbourne Age 25 January 1896 reads:

SNELL—CROSS – On the 26th December, at Holy Trinity Church, Carngham, by Rev. M.D. Williams, George, youngest son of late Richard Snell, to Jane Bailey, daughter of late James Cross, both of Carngham.

Jane Bailey Cross and George Snell on their wedding day.
Photograph kindly provided by a great grand daughter of Jane and George Snell.

Jane Bailey Snell, photograph in the collection of her great grandaughter

George Snell was a Snake Valley butcher.

Jane and George had six children:

• Marjorie Merle 1898–1959
• Richard Murray 1900–1975
• Reginald Cross 1902–1959
• Mona Robina 1904–1905
• Sydney Oswald (Peter) 1905–1946
• Dorothy Isabel (Dorrie) 1905–2001

On a visit to Ballarat in 1993 Greg and I were delighted to meet Dorrie Brumby and her husband John at their home in Snake Valley. Dorrie was kind and warm; John, joking that he was not John Brumby the Leader of the Opposition in Victoria, showed us his collection of home-made windmills.

Jane Snell died on 3 March 1930 at Carngham and was buried in Carngham Cemetery near her parents and her brother Frederick. George Snell died in 1944.

The grave of Jane Bailey Snell and her husband George in Carngham cemetery photographed in 2011. The grave is next to that of Frederick James Cross (Jane’s brother) and three along from James Cross and his wife Ellen (Jane’s parents).

Recently I was contacted by a great granddaughter of Jane who shared the two photographs of Jane and photographs of other family members. She wrote “It has always seemed like something of a lottery in families as to who ends up with the photos so sharing images seems like the sensible thing to do.” I am very grateful to members of our extended family who help to preserve our history by sharing their photographs.

Related posts

• Carngham
• Cross and Plowright family index

Wikitree: Jane Bailey (Cross) Snell (1866 – 1930)

From the Geelong orphanage to gardener

My husband Greg’s great grandfather was Ebenezer Henry Sullivan, born at Gheringhap near Geelong on 7 August 1863. Ebenezer’s father was William Sullivan, aged about 24 years, a Londoner. His mother was Matilda Sullivan nee Darby, age 18, born in New Zealand. The birth of Ebenezer was registered on 3 September 1863 by his grandmother Matilda Hughes of Gheringhap; there were no other children from the marriage at that time.

William Sullivan labourer and Matilda Frances Hughes (in fact Matilda Darby, for her stepfather was David Hughes) both of Gheringhap, had been married on 6 October 1862.

In 1861, two years previously, Matilda had given birth to a child, Eleazer surnamed Hughes, by a different father. The baby Eleazar was farmed out, cared for by a woman in the country—a ‘nurse’—for 5 shillings a week.

Six months after their marriage, a few months before Ebenezer Henry was born, Matilda was deserted by her new husband. About a year later, on 12 June 1865, Matilda gave birth to a third child, given the name Margaret Maria Sullivan. The father, she said, was William Sullivan, who had ‘visited’ her twice since their separation.

Matilda Sullivan worked at Geelong Hospital. Her two younger children were cared for by their grandmother.

On 20 November 1865 Margaret Maria Sullivan died, four months old. At the inquest, medical opinion was that the baby had starved to death, and the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the grandmother [Matilda Hughes], and the mother [Matilda Sullivan], as being an accessory to it.

In April 1866 Matilda Hughes and her daughter Matilda Sullivan were called upon to surrender to their bail, but they did not answer to their names. I have found no further trace of Matilda Sullivan née Darby.

On 28 May 1866 the Geelong Advertiser reported on the case of Mary Sullivan, an unmarried mother of three, who was charged with stealing. Mary was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment. A “poor old woman” who lived in the house with Mary was left in charge of these children and another child who had been abandoned by another woman named Sullivan. I do not know if this Mary Sullivan is connected to William.

On the 15th May 1866 there had been another report in the Geelong Advertiser of a child and a young woman called Sullivan:

The attention of the Bench was again called, yesterday, to the case of the young child left in the care of a woman named Sullivan, who now seeks to shift the responsibility she undertook to Mr Hughes, the stepfather of the mother. Mr Hughes appeared in the Court and refused the charge of the child, who, he said, had been placed collusively by the mother with the woman, with a foregone intent to abandon it. He had undertaken the care and education of an elder child to save his stepdaughter from shame; but her subsequent career had been of a nature to preclude any further favourable consideration of her conduct. She had been twice married, and her husband had left her, and was supposed to have gone to New Zealand, whence no tidings were heard of him, and she had recently left Geelong with some man with whom she had formed an intimacy, and had deserted her children, leaving the one in question with the woman Sullivan, who had been pre paid for its keep for a fortnight, at the end of which time it was planned that the child should be left with the stepfather, a scheme that was defeated by Constable Collins, who saw the woman depositing the child at the stepfather’s premises, and warned her of the consequences of the act. The Bench refused the application of the woman Sullivan, who avows that she will not keep the child any longer. A warrant will be issued for the apprehension of the mother, who, it will be remembered, was the parent of the infant upon, whom an inquest was held at Ashby some time ago.

On 11 June 1866 Henry Sullivan, whose parents had deserted him, was committed as a state ward to Geelong Orphanage. His birthdate was given as 1862 but in fact he had been born in 1863, so he was a little less three years old. He was blind in one eye; family stories have this the result of a magpie attack.

Geelong orphanage buildings photographed October 2022

On 23 June 1873 Henry Sullivan was recommitted for a further five years.

On 28 April 1876 Henry Sullivan was licensed out to Mr Jas M Jenkins, a market gardener in Moorabbin.

On 28 May 1878 Henry Sullivan was licensed out to Mr Wm George of 72 Brunswick St Fitzroy for one month at 4/- per week.

On 23 June 1878 Henry Sullivan was discharged as a state ward. He was just under 15 years old.

Henry continued to work as a gardener. He married Anne Morley on 17 February 1887 in Victoria. They had five children and 27 grandchildren. He died on 1 June 1943 in Victoria at the age of 79, and was buried in Cheltenham Cemetery.

Henry Sullivan about 1940 at his home “Navillus”, 7 Evelyn Street, East Bentleigh with his wife, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter, Elaine Sullivan, from the collection of a cousin and used with permission

Related posts

• Poor little chap
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA
• H is for Henry
• E is for Evelyn Street Bentleigh

Wikitree:

• Henry Sullivan (1863 – 1943)
• Matilda Frances (Darby) Sullivan (abt. 1845 – ?)
• William Sullivan (abt. 1839 – ?)
• Matilda Priscilla (Mogridge) Hughes (abt. 1825 – 1868)

Julia Wilkinson née Mainwaring (1857 – 1907)

My second great grand-aunt Julia Mainwaring, the sixth of seven children of Gordon Mainwaring and Mary Mainwaring née Hickey, died in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire on 17 August 1907, 115 years ago tomorrow.

Julia was born on 10 April 1857 in Peachey Belt, South Australia, then a forested area where firewood and fencing material was gathered, now the industrial suburb of Penfield, 35 kilometres north of central Adelaide. The Mainwarings had a farm there, sold in 1859.

FOR SALE, 60 Acres of LAND (Section 4108) in the PEACHEY BELT, and near the thriving township of Penfield. On it is erected a comfortable 5-roomed Dwelling-house, with an Acre of Garden fenced in, and planted with Vines and Fruit Trees adjoining; also a Well of excellent water, Stockyard, Stackyard, &c. It is subdivided into two paddocks of 40 and 20 acres respectively, the larger of which was fallowed last year, and is now under crop. For further particulars, enquire of H. Gilbert, Esq, solicitor, Adelaide; or to Mr. G. Mainwaring, on the premises.

By 1861 the family lived in Ward Street, North Adelaide, later moving to East Terrace opposite the Botanic Gardens. In 1866 they left for England; Julia was nine years old.

In 1871 the family, including Julia, then thirteen, was living at 94 Grosvenor Place Marylebone. The household included 4 live-in servants.

In 1874 Julia was involved in Shakespearean tableaux with her sister Alice. She appeared as Juliet in a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tableau arranged by Edward Matthew Ward, RA. She also appeared as Anne Page in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor‘, arranged by the author and journalist Edward Dicey; her character was described by The Times as “arch and pretty”.

Portrait of Julia Mainwaring hanging in the Chinese Room at Whitmore Hall

On 12 July 1875 at St Swithin, London Stone, Julia married John Campbell Wilkinson, a retired naval lieutenant:

From the Morning Post of 14 July 1875:

Wilkinson -Mainwaring. -On the 12th inst., at the parish church, St. Swithin's, by the Rev. Edward Allfrey, John Campbell Wilkinson, lieutenant R. N., youngest son of George Yeldham Wilkinson, Esq., of Tapton, Derbyshire, to Julia, youngest daughter of the late Gordon Mainwaring, Esq. of Whitmore, Staffordshire.

In 1891 Julia and her husband were living in Bryanston Street, Marylebone, with two servants. (I have not been able to find John and Julia Wilkinson on the 1881 census)

In February 1900 John Campbell Wilkinson died at the age of fifty-six He was buried in a grave among those of the Mainwaring family, at All Soul’s cemetery in Kensal Green.

In the 1901 census Julia, possibly on holiday, was recorded as staying at Oriental Place in Brighton.

On 17 August 1907 Julia, fifty years old, died at Combe Cottage, Hambleden in Buckinghamshire and was buried with her family at All Soul’s cemetery in Kensal Green. Her probate records give her usual residence as 55 Connaught Street, Hyde Park, London. She left a will, with the executor her brother-in-law Augustus Frederick Wilkinson.

John and Julia Wilkinson had no children.

RELATED POSTS

• A Quiet Life: Gordon Mainwaring (1817-1872)
• J is for Julia Morris nee Hickey (1817 – 1884)
• Alice Moore née Mainwaring (1852 – 1878)

Wikitree:

• Julia (Mainwaring) Wilkinson (1857 – 1907)
• John Campbell Wilkinson (1844 – 1900)