Lieutenant John Walker R.N.

On 17 May 1838 at Launceston, Tasmania, one of my fourth great aunts, Theresa Susannah Eunice Snell Chauncy (1807-1876), married John Walker (1796-1855), a retired officer of the Royal Navy. He was forty-two; she was thirty-one.

The Naval Biographical Dictionary compiled in 1849 by William Richard O’Byrne, has a brief account of Walker’s career.

At the age of ten or so, he entered the Royal Navy on 9 May 1806 as a First class volunteer [cadet] on the Swallow sloop (387 tonnes, 121 men) under Captain Alexander Milner. The Swallow patrolled the Channel and the coasts of Spain and Portugal. He attained the rating of midshipman in early 1809.

In August 1809, five months later, he was transferred to HMS Norge, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line. The Norge was commanded as follows:

• 1808 – 1809 Captain Edmund Boger
• 1810 – 1811 Captain John Sprat Rainier
• 1811 Captain William Waller
• 1812 – 1814 Captain Samuel Jackson
• 1814 – 1815 Captain Charles Dashwood

Walker served on the Norge off Lisbon, at the defence of Cadiz, in the Mediterranean, in the North Sea, and on the North American and West India stations. From late 1813 held the rank of Master’s Mate, a midshipman who had passed the exam for Lieutenant, and was eligible for promotion when a vacancy became available. In 1814-15 he took part in the operations against New Orleans. HMS Norge was paid off in August 1815. On leaving the Norge Walker was presented with a commission bearing the date 17 February 1815. He was on half-pay from 1815.

In 1821 the crew of the Norge and other members of an 1814 convoy shared in the distribution of head-money arising from the capture of American gun-boats and sundry bales of cotton. In 1847 the Admiralty issued a clasp (or bar) marked “14 Dec. Boat Service 1814” to survivors of the boat service, including the crew of the Norge, who claimed the clasp to the Naval General Service Medal.

HMS ‘Norge’ (captured from the Danes 1807) off Pendennis Castle. 1811 watercolour by artist W.H.
In the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London Object: PAF5858

When John Walker married Theresa Chauncy on 17 May 1838 in Launceston, Tasmania, the Launceston Advertiser of 24 May 1838 reported:

MARRIED.—At St. John's Church, on the 17th inst., Lieut. JOHN WALKER, R.N., to THERESA, daughter of W.S. CHAUNCY, Esq., of London.

John and Theresa Walker moved to Adelaide, where John Walker carried on business as a general merchant and shipping agent. The Walkers established a farm called Havering on the banks of the River Torrens.

Havering about 1839 pastel on paper by Theresa Walker. Havering was a farm established by the Walkers on the banks of the River Torrens, Adelaide.

John Walker chaired a local landowners meeting and in 1839 the village of Walkerville was named after him.

From The Colonist (Sydney, NSW), Saturday 19 January 1839, page 3:

WALKERVILLE.-At a recent meeting of the proprietors of the preliminary section on the Torrens, immediately adjoining North Adelaide, purchased from Governor Hindmarsh for 1100l,. and now laid out by Messrs, Hindmarsh and Lindsay, surveyors, as a village, containing 100 acre allotments, it was proposed that the name of Walkerville should be given to the property, in compliment to our excellent colonist, Captain Walker, R. N., who is also a considerable proprietor. The proposal was agreed to unanimously; and Walkerville promises speedily to rival Hindmarsh Town, and become the most delightful suburb of Adelaide. Allotments, we are informed, are selling in both villages at from 25l. to 50l. each, according to situation

During the 1840s, John Walker fell victim to overspeculation in land value and a South Australian financial depression. He was imprisoned briefly for debt in 1841. In 1849 he left the colony with wife Theresa to take up a government position in Tasmania.

John Walker painted in 1846 by his sister-in-law Martha Berkeley (Theresa’s sister). The painting is now hanging in the Art Gallery of South Australia.

John Walker died 8 January 1855. From the Hobart Colonial Times of 11 January 1855:

On Monday, the 8th of December, at Government Cottage, Launceston, LIEUT. WALKER, R.N , Port Officer, aged 58 years, deeply lamented by a large circle of friends, whose esteem he had gained by his affability of manner, and his undeviating rectitude in the discharge of his duty The funeral will leave Government Cottage on Wednesday, the 10th instant, at 4 p m. [Should be January but misreported in newspapers.]

From the The Cornwall Chronicle of 10 January 1855 and repeated in the Adelaide Times 27 January 1855 :

DEATH OF LIEUT. JOHN WALKER, R.N.
The death of this gentleman, who was formerly a well known merchant of this city, is thus recorded in the Launceston Cornwall Chronicle of the 10th inst. :—
It is our painful duty to record the death on Monday evening, of Lieutenant John Walker, who for some years past has filled the appointments of Port Officer of Hobart Town, and Harbour Master of this port. Lieutenant Walker, as will be seen by the following extract from O'Byrne, has been on half-pay since 1815. He commanded in the mercantile marine, trading to India and these colonies, until about the year 1839, when he removed to Adelaide, and entered largely into mercantile transactions, in which not being successful he returned to this colony, where he has since been employed in the Port Office department. Lieutenant Walker was of amiable temperament, and accommodating and courteous in the discharge of his official duties. In private life he was the warm hearted friend and excellent companion. He lived respected and died lamented. O'Byrne furnishes the following brief sketch of Lieutenant Walker's naval career :—
WALKER (Lieut. 1815, F-P., 10 ; H-P., 31.) — John Walker, (a) entered the Navy 9th May, 1806, as Fst-cl. Vol. on board the Swallow sloop, Capt. Alex. Milner, employed in the channel, and off the coast of Spain and Portugal. In August, 1809, five months after he had attained the rating of Midshipman, he removed to the Norge, 74; and in that ship commanded by Capts. John Sprat, Rainer, and Chas. Dashwood, he continued to serve off Lisbon, at the defence of Cadiz, in the Mediterranean, and North Sea, and on the North American and West India stations, until August, 1815 —the last 19 months in the capacity of Master's Mate. He took part, in 1814 15, in the operations against New Orleans, including the Battle of Lake Borgne in 1815. On leaving the Norge he was presented with a commission bearing date 17th February, 1815. He has since been on half-pay.

John Walker and his wife had no children, and he appears never to have made a Will. After his death his widow lodged a claim for oustanding half-pay from the navy. She received 28 pounds 5 shillings.

RELATED POST AND FURTHER READING:

• T is for Theresa

• O’Byrne, William R. (1849). “Walker, John (a)” . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray. p. 1239. retrieved through Wikisource.org
• Harrison, Cy. “British Third Rate Ship of the Line ‘Norge’ (1807).” Three Decks – Warships in the Age of Sail, https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=5577
• Wikipedia entry for HMS Norge (1807)

Wikitree:

• John Walker (abt. 1796 – 1855)

Mary Cudmore née Nihill (1811 – 1893)

My third great grandmother Mary Cudmore née Nihill (1811 – 1893) was born near Adare, County Limerick, Ireland, to Daniel James Nihill (1761 – 1846) and Dymphna Nihill née Gardiner (1790 – 1866). Mary was the oldest of their eight children, seven of whom were girls.

Mary Cudmore née Nihill probably photographed in the 1850s

For some period, Mary’s father Daniel James Nihill, was employed as a schoolmaster at Cahirclough (Caherclogh), Upper Connello, about ten miles south of Adare. Daniel’s father James owned a large stone farmhouse near Adare called ‘Rockville’. Daniel and his family lived with James Nihill and cared for him until his death in 1835. The house and its associated estate, Barnalicka, were then passed to the daughters of Daniel’s older brother Patrick Nihill (died 1822).

[Rockville House, now known as Barnalick House, operates as bed-and-breakfast tourist accommodation.]

On 15 January 1835 Mary married Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore who was from a village near Cahirclough, called Manister.

The Limerick Chronicle of 24 January 1835 reported the marriage:

At Drehedtarsna Church, in this County, by the Rev. S. Lennard, Daniel Cudmore, Esq. son of the late Patrick Cudmore, of Manister, Esq. to Mary, eldest daughter of Daniel Nihill, of Rockville, near Adare, Esq.

The Cudmores were poorer than the Nihills. Daniel’s parents had separated and his father had died in 1827 . About 1822 their mother, a Quaker, sent Daniel and his older brother Milo to be educated by fellow Quakers in Essex, England. In 1830, when Milo finished his apprenticeship to a baker and flour dealer, Daniel and Milo returned to Ireland.

Daniel seems not to have trained for a trade, but his mother found a position for him with John Abell, a family friend, who ran a hardware store in Rutland Street, Limerick. There he gained a working knowledge of the hardware business, which perhaps proved useful to him in his later career.

In January 1834 Daniel Cudmore sought permission to emigrate as an assisted immigrant to New South Wales, proposing that he would undertake to ‘explore the interior of New Holland’. His application was turned down. A newspaper notice in the Freemans’ Journal of 15 April 1834 made it clear that assisted emigration was available only to young and married agricultural labourers who intended to take their wives and families with them.

Daniel had known Mary Nihill for a some time. In 1833 he wrote a poem to her:

To Mis N—-l
Dear Mary, since thy beaming eye
First raised within my heart a sigh –
Since first thy tender accents clear,
More sweet than music, charm’d my ear,
My heart beat but for thee, love.

This heart which once so blythe and gay,
Ne’er owned before Love’s gentle sway,
Now bound by Cupid’s magic spell!
O! Words would fail were I to tell
The half I felt for thee, love.

Though far from Erin’s vales I stray’d,
I never met so fond a maid;
Though England’s fair ones vaunt their gold,
With all their wealth their hearts are cold –
I leave them all for thee, love.

And should Australia be my lot,
To dwell in some secluded spot,
Content and free from want and care,
Would’st then my humble fortune share? –
My hopes all rest on thee, love!

The handwritten original is in the possession of one of my cousins. It appears that ‘Australia’ in the last verse was added well after its composition. This suggests that Daniel had decided to emigrate but had not yet decided where.

In 1835, as Mary’s grandfather James Nihill approached the end of his life, Daniel Nihill, perhaps recognising that he could have no expectations, and with little to keep him in Ireland, decided to emigrate to Australia. By their marriage, Mary and Daniel Cudmore qualified for assistance. On 11 February 1835 they left on the “John Denniston” for Hobart Town. Mary’s mother and two of her sisters travelled with them.

Six months later, after the death of Daniel’s father James in July, Daniel Nihill and Mary’s other sisters followed.

On his arrival in Hobart Daniel Cudmore applied for a teaching position. However, a review of his application found that it was not written by himself. Mary had written the document on his behalf. Nevertheless, such was the shortage of trained people, Daniel was engaged as a teacher and clerk at Ross, in the Midlands, seventy miles north of Hobart.

On 22 July 1836 Mary gave birth to her first child, a daughter called Dymphna Maria, at George Town, where Mary’s parents were teachers. George Town was a small settlement on the Tamar River thirty miles north of Launceston.

By the end of 1836, however, Daniel had moved back to Hobart, where he found work at De Graves Brewery, later to be known as Cascade Brewery.

A year later Daniel and Mary decided to try their luck in Adelaide, which had been proclaimed a colony on 28 December 1836. Daniel arrived on 15 April 1837. Mary, leaving her 14 month old daughter in the care of her mother, travelled on the “Siren” from Launceston to Adelaide with her father and sister Rebekah. Mary was pregnant, and on 11 October 1837 gave birth prematurely to a son, James Francis, on the “Siren” off Kangaroo Island.

On 3 December 1837 visitors from England, who were friends of Daniel’s mother Jane, called on the Cudmores. They wrote:

… at a hut we saw an elderly man sitting at the door, reading, we found it was the dwelling of Daniel Cudmore, son of Jane Cudmore of Ireland…and the old man was his father-in-law. D. Cudmore has greatly improved his prospects temporally by removing from Tasmania, where he was an assistant in the undesirable business of a brewer; he is here occupied in erecting Terra Pisa buildings and both himself and his wife are much respected.

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

Daniel acquired his first block of land in North Adelaide in December 1837. By 1838 he was a partner in a new brewing company. Daniel farmed at Modbury, ten miles north-east of the main Adelaide settlement. In 1847 he inherited property in Ireland. This he sold to take up a pastoral lease in South Australia. In the 1850s and 1860s he acquired more pastoral leases in Queensland and New South Wales. Mary Cudmore appears to have had an active involvement in the management of the Cudmore properties. In 1868, for example, it was she who gave the instructions for the sale of a farm called Yongalain 1868.

Beside the two children mentioned above Mary Cudmore had 7 more:

• Mary Jane Cudmore 1839–1912
• Margaret Alice Cudmore 1842–1871
• Daniel Henry Cashel Cudmore 1844–1913
• Sara Elizabeth (Rosy) Cudmore 1846–1930
• Robert Cudmore 1848–1849
• Milo Robert Cudmore 1852–1913
• Arthur Frederick Cudmore 1854–1919

Mary Cudmore née Nihill (1811-1893): portrait in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia donated by her grandson Collier Cudmore

In 1862 Daniel Cudmore bought and extended a villa in the Adelaide Hills
at Claremont, Glen Osmond, five miles south-east of the city. There he
retired with Mary. Daniel died in 1891, she in 1893. They were buried in
the Anglican cemetery at Mitcham. In his retirement he had published a
volume of poetry, including the poem he wrote to Mary in 1833.

Claremont, Glen Osmond

The Advertiser TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1893. (1893, March 7). The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1931), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25351396

Grave of Daniel and Mary Cudmore Mitcham (St Michaels Anglican) Cemetery

Grave of Daniel and Mary Cudmore Mitcham (St Michaels Anglican) Cemetery

The theme of this week’s post is ‘prosperity’. It is pleasing to suppose that beside Daniel and Mary’s material success, they prospered as a couple, joined together, through richer and poorer, for fifty-six years.

Related posts

• Portraits of Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore and his wife Mary in the Art Gallery of South Australia
• H is for the Cudmore family arrival in Hobart in 1835
• Q is for questing in Queensland

Sources

• In the 1990s James Kenneth Cudmore (1926 – 2013), my second cousin once removed, of Quirindi New South Wales, commissioned Elsie Ritchie to write the Cudmore family history. The work built on the family history efforts of many family members. It was published in 2000. It is a very large and comprehensive work and includes many Cudmore family stories and transcripts of letters and documents. (Ritchie, Elsie B. (Elsie Barbara) For the love of the land: the history of the Cudmore family. E. Ritchie, [Ermington, N.S.W.], 2000.)
• P. A. Howell, ‘Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cudmore-daniel-michael-6335/text9913, published first in hardcopy 1981
• Gunton, Eric Gracious homes of colonial Adelaide (1st ed). E. Gunton, [Adelaide], 1983.

Further reading

• Cudmore, Daniel.  A few poetical scraps : from the portfolio of an Australian pioneer : who arrived at Adelaide in the year 1837  Printed by Walker, May &Co Melbourne 1882

John Narroway Darby

One of my husband’s 3rd great-grandfathers was a compositor and printer named John Narroway Darby.

John Darby was born in 1823 in Exeter, Devon, son of a joiner and carpenter named Joseph Darby (abt 1780 – 1865) and his wife Sarah Darby née Narroway [sometimes spelled Narraway]. Joseph and Sarah were married in 1807. They had at least six children of whom John, baptised on 3 March 1823 at Saint Mary Major, Exeter, was the third.

At the time of the English census of 1841, John, then a printer’s apprentice, was living in Exeter with his parents and three siblings.

In July 1842 following the publication of banns, John married Matilda Priscilla Moggridge (1825 – 1868) at St Mary Arches, Exeter. The consent of Matilda’s parents had been given.

Five months later Matilda and John emigrated on the Westminster to New Zealand. The Westminster was the first planned emigrant ship from England to Auckland. It sailed from Plymouth on 4 December 1842 and arrived 31 March 1843.

On a February 1844 list of all men within the District and Town of Auckland in the Colony of New Zealand and liable to serve on juries, there is a John N. Derby, compositor, living in Queen Street, Auckland.

Queen Street Auckland in 1843 from page 53 of The Project Gutenberg EBook of The City of Auckland, by John Barr, first published 1922 and retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46925/46925-h/46925-h.htm#Page_53

In April 1844 John Darby wrote to the editor of the Auckland Chronicle with his views on the future of the Government Printing Office.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 37, 18 April 1844, Page 2

In December 1844 John Narroway Darby was in court over a forged promissory note, and in March 1845 he was indicted for issuing a shilling forged debenture. He was acquitted by the jury.

On 12 April 1845 Darby, with his wife and two children, left Auckland on the Sir John Franklin for Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land [Tasmania]. The Hobart Courier described the voyage as “a tedious passage of twenty five days.” The schooner carried 33 passengers, including 26 children, with a cargo of 12,000 feet of New Zealand timber and 12 parcels of printing apparatus. The ship brought news of the Maori Wars. The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review stated that the schooner was “laden with families flying from the Maories”

Matilda Frances Darby, the younger child of John Narroway Darby and Matilda Darby, was baptised in Hobart on 30 November 1845. She had been born on 14 March 1845.

from Tasmanian Lincs database https://stors.tas.gov.au/NI/1089444 Name: Darby, Matilda Frances Record Type: Births Gender: Female Father: Darby, John Harroway Mother: Matilda, Elizabeth Date of birth: 14 Mar 1845 Registered: Hobart Registration year: 1845 Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1089444 Resource: RGD32/1/3/ no 2603

Apart from a mention on the shipping record, I have found very little about the other child of John and Matilda Darby. He, or she, appears to have been born in New Zealand about 1844 and seems to have died in Australia before 1855.

Sometime before 1850 John and Matilda Darby separated. In 1850 Matilda had a child, Margaret Hughes, born at Ashby near Geelong, Victoria. The father’s name was David Hughes. Margaret died in 1858. Ten years later, on 4 May 1868, Matilda Darby, claiming to be a spinster, married David Hughes. She died one month later, on 5 June.

It seems to me likely that Matilda Darby, knowing a formal union with David Hughes would be bigamous, refused to marry him until she had news that her first husband John Darby was dead. It is also possible that Matilda Darby, very ill, with not long to live, sought to regularise her relationship with Hughes as best she could. They had lived together for nineteen years; a form of marriage was possibly a kind of consolation
for them both.

John Darby appears to have been less concerned than his wife Matilda about committing the crime of bigamy. When on 21 July 1855 in Portland, Victoria, he went through the form of marriage with a woman called Catherine Murphy he claimed he was a widower, the father of two children, one living and one dead.

Name John Darby Spouse Name Catherine Murphy Registration Place Victoria Registration Year 1855 Registration Number 2765

In August 1855 John Darby of the Portland Guardian advertised for a printer’s apprentice.

In 1856 John Darby was listed on the electoral roll in Portland, living at Gawler Street, printer, entitled to vote as receiving a salary of £100 from T.E. Richardson.

I have found no further mentions of John Darby or  Catherine in Australian birth, death or marriage indexes, nor in other records.

In the Tumut and Adelong Times of 22 October 1866 a John Darby is recorded as having successfully sued the printer of the Braidwood News for £6 3s. wages. It is possible that this is our John Darby but I have found no further records of John or Catherine Darby in New South Wales.

DNA evidence links Greg and his cousins to Matilda Frances Sullivan née Darby but as yet no further back on the Darby line.

Related posts

• Poor little chap
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA

Sources

• FindMyPast  
  • Record set Devon Baptisms  First name(s) John Narroway  Last name Derby Birth year 1823  Baptism year 1823 Denomination Anglican  County Devon Baptism place Exeter, St Mary Major  Mother’s first name(s) Sarah Father’s first name(s) Joseph
  • Matilda  Last name Mogridge  Banns year 1842 Banns date 03 Jul 1842  Parish Exeter, St Mary Arches Spouse’s first name John  Spouse’s last name Darby Residence Exeter St Mary Steps Spouse’s residence Exeter St Mary Steps  Denomination Anglican County Devon Country England Archive reference 332A/PR/1/13 Archive South West Heritage Trust  Record set Devon Banns Category Life Events (BDMs)
• Ancestry.com
  • English 1841 census Class: HO107; Piece: 267; Book: 4; Civil Parish: St Mary Major; County: Devon; Enumeration District: 14; Folio: 25; Page: 45; Line: 23; GSU roll: 241331
  • Jury Lists: Auckland 1842-1853
  • Tasmania, Australia, Passenger Arrivals, 1829-1957 Reports of ships arrivals with lists of passengers; Film Number: SLTX/AO/MB/3; Series Number: MB2/39/1/8
  • 1856 electoral roll for Portland, Victoria, Australia
• Whyte, Carol. “Passenger List of Westminster, Cork, 4 December 1842 to Auckland.” New ZealandGenWeb Project, Carol Whyte, 2014, www.newzealandgenweb.org/index.php/regions/auckland/44-source-records-auckland/60-passenger-list-of-westminster-cork-4-december-1842-to-auckland.
• PapersPast – an online collection of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals
  • Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 37, 18 April 1844, Page 2 retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ACNZC18440418.2.9 
  • Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 72, 19 December 1844, Page 2 retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ACNZC18441219.2.7 
  • Auckland Times, Volume 3, Issue 112, 4 March 1845, Page 3 retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AKTIM18450304.2.13 
  • Daily Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 99, 8 March 1845, Page 2 retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DSC18450308.2.10 
• Trove – online Australian digital reproductions of newspapers, journals, books, maps, personal papers, as well as archived websites and other born-digital content compiled by the National Library of Australia
  • THE COURIER. (1845, May 8). The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 – 1859), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2948660 
  • SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. (1845, May 10). The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 – 1859), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2948650 
  • To the Editor of the Review. (1845, May 8). The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1844 – 1845), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233612148 
  • Family Notices (1855, July 23). Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser (Vic. : 1842 – 1843; 1854 – 1876), p. 2 (EVENING). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71572567 
  • Advertising (1855, August 9). Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser (Vic. : 1842 – 1843; 1854 – 1876), p. 1 (EVENING). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71572645 
  • SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20TH. (1866, October 22). The Tumut and Adelong Times (NSW : 1864 – 1867; 1899 – 1950), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article144775228 
• from Tasmanian Lincs database https://stors.tas.gov.au/NI/1089444   Name:  Darby, Matilda Frances  Record Type: Births Gender:  Female Father: Darby, John Harroway  Mother: Matilda, Elizabeth Date of birth:  14 Mar 1845 Registered: Hobart Registration year:  1845 Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1089444 Resource: RGD32/1/3/ no 2603
• Victorian births, deaths and marriages
  • • Name Margaret Hughes Birth Date Abt 1850 Birth Place Ashby, Victoria Registration Year 1850 Registration Place Victoria, Australia Father David Hughes Mother Matilda Registration Number 22395
    • Name Matilda Priscilla Craddock Spouse Name David Hughes Marriage Place Victoria Registration Place Victoria Registration Year 1868 Registration Number 1485
    • Name Matilda Hughes Birth Year abt 1825 Age 43 Death Place Victoria Father’s Name Mogridge John Registration Year 1868 Registration Place Victoria Registration Number 3957
    • Name John Darby Spouse Name Catherine Murphy Marriage Place Victoria Registration Place Victoria Registration Year 1855 Registration Number 2765

V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen’s Land

The first of my forebears to migrate to Australia was my fifth  great grandfather George Taylor (1758 – 1828), who arrived in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen’s Land, in 1823. With him was his wife Mary née Low (1765 -1850) and some of his family. My fourth great grandmother, his daughter, Isabella Hutcheson née Taylor (1794-1876), followed ten years later, arriving about 1833.

 

“Valleyfield” Epping Tas. The “Taylors” have lived here for over 100 years. , about 1914 – about 1941 Photograph in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. Accession number H22546. A.C. Dreier postcard collection. Retrieved from https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab47005

The Taylor family’s arrival in Hobart on the Princess Charlotte on 10 January 1823 was reported in the Sydney Gazette. George Taylor’s son, Robert, wrote a diary about their four-month voyage, mostly concerned with the weather. (Helen Hudson, a Taylor family descendant, covers the Taylor’s voyage in her family history book Cherry Stones, basing her account on Robert’s diary.)

MAGISTRATE FOR THE WEEK—JOHN PIPER, Esq. (1823, February 13). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2181641

George Taylor received a grant of land about 30 miles south of Launceston on the Macquarie River. He named his property ‘Valley-Field’. Three of his sons, George, David, and Robert, received grants of land nearby.

The land grant to George Taylor senior signed 30 June 1823 by Governor Brisbane. Image retrieved from ancestry.com (Copies of land grants issued 1804-1823. LSD354. Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, Tasmania, Australia.)

In January 1923 and January 1973 there were large family reunions to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the Taylor family in Australia.

After 182 years in the Taylor family the Valleyfield property was sold in 2005.

Further reading

• TASMANIAN FAMILY’S CENTENARY. (1923, January 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23613784
• A more complete family history and full page spread on the reunion appeared on page 2 of the Launceston Examiner: (1923, January 11). Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 – 1954), p. 2 (DAILY). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page3215437
• FAMOUS PASTORAL PROPERTIES: Valleyfield (T) Has Been in the Possession of the Taylor Family Since 1823 (1941, September 13). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 – 1946), p. 28. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142144917
• Pioneer family remembers (1973, March 21). The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), p. 88. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51268754
• Hudson, Helen Lesley (1985). 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
• Valley field Epping Forest
• Companion to Tasmanian History: The Taylor family

Related posts

• Trove Tuesday: George Taylor (1800 – 1826) killed by aborigines in Tasmania
• Australia Day: Climbing our family’s gum tree

H is for the Cudmore family arrival in Hobart in 1835

Engraving of Hobarttown, Vandiemensland in the 1830s from the Rex Nan Kivell collection held by the National Library of Australia image reference PIC Drawer 3080 #S3410

Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore (1811 – 1891) and his wife Mary Nihill (1811-1893) were my great great great grandparents. Daniel and Mary married on 15 January 1835 in County Limerick, not long before embarking on the John Denniston which left Liverpool on 11 February. They arrived in Van Diemen’s Land on 7 June, after a voyage of more than four months.

Van Diemen’s Land. (1835, June 22). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12852462

 

Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore and his wife Mary probably taken in the 1850s.  Image from the Cudmore History For the Love of the Land page 59

Besides Mary, other members of the Nihill family sailed with the newly-married couple on the John Denniston: Mary’s mother Dymphna Nihill née Gardiner (1790-1866), two of Mary’s six sisters, Rebecca (1817-1901) and Sarah (1826-1915), and Mary’s brother James Nihill later Niall (1823-1877). Mary’s father Daniel (1761-1846) and Mary’s other four sisters arrived in Hobart separately six months later.

Classified Advertising. (1835, June 12). The Hobart Town Courier (Tas. : 1827 – 1839), p. 3. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4180594

Hobart was first settled by Europeans in 1804. By the 1830s the town had 29 Government primary schools, a Supreme Court Building, Government House, and the Botanical Gardens had been laid out. In 1835 John Lee Archer designed and oversaw the construction of the sandstone Customs House facing Sullivans Cove, with construction completed in 1840. The building was later used as Tasmania’s parliament house. The economy depended on primary industries, including wheat farming, apple growing, sheep for wool and meat, and whaling, sealing, brewing, and wattle oil extraction.

Not long after the Cudmore and Nihill families arrived, Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town arriving there on 5 February 1836 as part of the HMS Beagle expedition. He wrote about Hobart Town and the Derwent estuary in his Voyage of the Beagle:

…The lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant… I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835, contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505. If I was obliged to emigrate I certainly should prefer this place: the climate & aspect of the country almost alone would determine me.

Pages 470-1 of The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin published about 1909 retrieved through archive.org (click on image to enlarge)

On several occasions both the Cudmores and Nihills applied for government positions. Not all the applications survive, but the following letter to the rural Dean, the Reverend Philip Palmer, has been transcribed:

30 Murray St. 28th July 1835,

Revd. Sir, In respectfully applying for the appointment of Schoolmaster at Ross I beg to assure you that shall you have the goodness to recommend me my conduct shall ever be such as will give you no reason to regret your having done so.

I am married and am twenty four years of age. I was for some time receiving instruction at the Academy of the Reverend Mr. Phillips at Chelsea and others and trust my education has been such as to under me perfectly competent to the proper discharge of the duties of that situation. As to the responsibilities and moral character I can produce testimonials which I hope will induce you to feel sufficient degree of confidence in me.

My wife (who is twenty three years of age) possesses every necessary qualification for instructing children in the rudiments of English and needlework of all descriptions.

I have the honour to be Revd. Sir your most obedient humble Servant (sign) Daniel Cudmore.

On the Reverend Palmer’s recommendation William Bedford, superintendent of schools, interviewed Daniel Cudmore. Bedford wrote to Palmer:

Reverend Sir With reference to your letter of the 3rd instant recommending Mr. Cudmore for the situation of Clerk and schoolmaster at Ross, I have the honour to inform you that on proceeding to examine him in the usual way, I was surprised to find that his application which I forwarded to you on the 28th ultimo was not written by himself. I therefore requested him to write a letter on the same subject in this office, which I herewith transmit to you for your information. He appears to be sufficiently conversant with arithmetic to answer the purposes the appointment for which he is proposed, nut under such circumstances I think it advisable to communicate with you before any decisive step is taken; if you approve I will recommend his appointment on three mont probation.

After more letters, including confirmation of the appointment by the Colonial Secretary’s office, Cudmore was appointed as schoolmaster at Ross,  118 kilometres north of Hobart, at £55 per annum and clerk at £25 per annum.

About the same time, James Nihill was confirmed as the post master at George Town, 128 kilometres north from Ross, at £25 per annum, and Mr and Mrs Nihill were Master and Mistress of the public school at George Town at salaries of £50 and £25 per annum.

In 1836, Daniel Cudmore left his position at Ross and moved back to Hobart, where he became Assistant Brewer at De Graves Brewery, now known as the Cascade Brewery. Daniel Cudmore was a Quaker and attended monthly meetings of the Friends at Hobart. Although many Quakers abstain from drinking alcohol, he seems to have had no objection to working in a brewery.

The first Quaker Meeting House in Hobart. A cottage at 39 Murray Street which was bought by James Backhouse in 1837 with a loan from Meeting for Sufferings, London. Image retrieved from Quaker life in Tasmania webpage by the University of Tasmania

In 1837, shortly after the colony of South Australia was founded, Daniel Cudmore moved to Adelaide, South Australia, where he became a house builder (many of these he built in pise). He also established several breweries, and later became a pastoralist. Mary joined Daniel in Adelaide six months after his arrival; her son James Francis Cudmore was born on the voyage from Tasmania to Adelaide.

Daniel Cudmore’s obituary in the Adelaide Observer of 7 November 1891:

Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)

We regret to have to record the death of Mr. Daniel Cudmore, of Claremont, Glen Osmond, who passed away at the ripe old age of eighty years. Mr. Cudmore was one of South Australia’s pioneers. He arrived with his wife at Hobart in the merchant ship John Denison, Captain Mackie, in 1835, en route to Sydney, but was persuaded by his cousin, Surgeon Russell, of the 63rd Regiment, to try his fortune in Tasmania. When the province of South Australia was proclaimed Mr. Cudmore left for the new country early in 1837. Possessed of indomitable energy and pluck, and gifted with physical strength above the average, Mr. Cudmore was enabled to endure the many rough experiences which were the lot of the first settlers. Soon after coming to the colony he engaged in the pursuit of sheep-farming in the North, being the first to take up the now valuable Yongala Estate. He afterwards acquired large squatting properties in Queensland and New South Wales. He took an active interest in exploring works. About the year 1863 he made a five months’ trip into the interior of Northern Queensland, afterwards publishing a narrative of his experiences, and on other occassions he did no inconsiderable service to the cause of setttlement. In 1864 he went to live at Claremont. He leaves a widow, four sons, and three daughters. The remains of the late Mr. Cudmore were buried on Wednesday afternoon in the Anglican Church Cemetery at Mitcham. Service was first conducted in St. Michael’s Church by the Revs. W. H. Mudie, of Glen Osmond, and F. W. Samwell, of Mitcham, the organist playing the “Dead March in Saul” and other appropriate music. The chief mourners were:– Messrs. Milo and Arthur Cudmore (sons), Dr. Sprod (son-in-law), and Messrs. A. M. Cudmore, H. C. Cudmore, and John Sprod (grandsons of the deceased). At the grave amongst many others who had come to pay their last tribute of respect were Messrs. R. Barr Smith, P. B. Coglin, A. S. Chapman, Peter Waite, George Boothby, J. S. Lloyd, J. Howard, C. Smedley, B. Moulden, J. J. Watson, H. H. Mudie, and R. J. Rigaud. The funeral arrangements were in the hands of Mr. P.Gay.

‘Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/cudmore-daniel-michael-6335/text28381.

 

 

Sources

• In the 1990s James Kenneth Cudmore (1926 – 2013), my second cousin once removed, of Quirindi New South Wales, commissioned Elsie Ritchie to write the Cudmore family history. The work built on the family history efforts of many family members. It was published in 2000. It is a very large and comprehensive work and includes many many Cudmore family stories. (Ritchie, Elsie B. (Elsie Barbara) For the love of the land: the history of the Cudmore family. E. Ritchie, [Ermington, N.S.W.], 2000.) Chapter 4, written by Peter A. Cudmore (1929-1996) my second cousin twice removed, contains an account of the voyage and arrival of the Cudmore and Nihill family.
• P. A. Howell, ‘Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cudmore-daniel-michael-6335/text9913, published first in hardcopy 1981.

Related posts

• Q is for questing in Queensland
• DNA analysis: matching the DNA results to the”paper tree”
• Beginning to look at my Irish family history
• My grandmother’s cousins

Trove Tuesday: George Taylor (1800 – 1826) killed by aborigines in Tasmania

DREADFUL MURDERS. (1826, November 17). Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser (Hobart, Tas. : 1825 – 1827), p. 3. Retrieved August 29, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2448903

George Taylor (1800 – 1826) was my 4th great grand uncle.

His murder was reported in more detail the next day.  

THE BLACK NATIVES,. (1826, November 18). Hobart Town Gazette (Tas. : 1825 – 1827), p. 2. Retrieved August 29, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8790357

A hundred years after the arrival of the Taylor family in Australia, there was a feature on the family history in the Launceston Examiner.  George’s death and burial were remembered. 

   

SPEARED BY BLACKS. (1923, January 11). Examiner(Launceston, Tas. : 1900 – 1954), p. 2 Edition: DAILY. Retrieved August 29, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51204155