D is for drama in Dunolly

Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy (1816-1880), a surveyor who came to Australia in 1839, was my great great great grandfather. He lived for fourteen years in South Australia and Western Australia before coming to Victoria in 1853.

Chauncy kept diaries and in 1873, based on these, he published the Memoirs of Mrs Chauncy, a brief life of his second wife, Susan Augusta née Mitchell (1828-1867). Chauncy’s account of his time in Dunolly (below) is taken from his Memoirs.

In 1853 Chauncy was appointed as Surveyor-in-Chief for the McIvor district. He and his family moved to Heathcote. While there he surveyed the town of Heathcote and selected and surveyed Echuca.

In 1860 he was put in charge of the Dunolly Survey District and moved to Dunolly.In 1861 Chauncy

… bought a substantial stone house, unfinished, which had been built for an inn, and was in a municipal street. [Chauncy’s emphasis]

My dear Susie, with her characteristic energy, began at once, without waiting for it to be finished, to remove into it; but while we were getting in the furniture it was “jumped” by a pettyfogging lawyer, who sent up a well-known character, known as “Fighting Jack,” to take possession of it.

On the gold-fields, where the population is wandering, houses used often to be erected on Crown lands without sufficient authority, and in such cases the person actually in possession could not well be ejected, especially if he held a miner’s right to legalise his tenure.

This limb of the law, being a daring and unscrupulous man, made it part of his business to take possession of every place to which he thought no one could show a better title than himself. The fact of my having purchased the house gave me no title to the ground on which it stood, and I would not resort to the subterfuge of taking out a miner’s right or a business license, not being a miner or a store-keeper, and it was quite possible that “Fighting Jack” held a miner’s right, and so had a better title to the ground than I had.

However, I sent for two constables, and gave the man in charge. Next morning he was brought before the Police Court, when I adduced proofs that I had bought and paid for the house, but it being a question of title, the court was not competent to deal with the case, and dismissed it ; which was in fact all that I required, for I remained in undisturbed possession until I so narrowed the street as to exclude the house, and then purchased the land on which it stood from the Crown.

The position is beautiful and commanding. I subsequently erected four more rooms of brick and stone, stable, outhouses, brick tank, &c., and made an ornamental garden and vinery. The recollection of the happy time we spent in this place moves me as I write. It used to be her delight to stroll through the garden and admire the flowers and other plants ; and then, how cleverly and wisely she managed the house, and for the welfare of the children. In the evening, when they were in bed, it used to be her delight to sit and converse with me at the fireside. The six years at Dunolly were among the happiest of my life.

There is no account of this legal dispute in the digitised newspapers available through Trove.

Chauncy was an amateur photographer and took a photograph of his cottage in 1865. Members of his family can be seen on the verandah.

The Chauncy cottage in Dunolly photographed by Philip Chauncy in 1865. Image from http://members.westnet.com.au/likelyprospects/dunolly_buildings.htm . The original image is said to be held by the Dunolly Museum of the Goldfields Historical & Arts Society Inc.

I have visited Dunolly and the cottage several times. The cottage is located at 8 Havelock Street. Below are some photographs I have taken of it.

The Chauncy cottage in 2007

the view from the Chauncy cottage in 2007

When I visited in 2012 the cottage was unoccupied and for sale. I had a look around the back.

On the ground and from a map showing Havelock Street  it is not easy to see how Chauncy narrowed the road to exclude the cottage.

Further reading

• Chauncy, Philip Lamothe Snell Memoirs of Mrs Poole and Mrs Chauncy. Lowden, Kilmore, Vic, 1976. pages 50-51. 
• Entry for Philip Chauncy in Design & Art Australia online database https://www.daao.org.au/bio/philip-lamothe-snell-chauncy/biography/

Concerning the Chauncy house at Heathcote

• “Heritage Listing Bestowed.” Bendigo Advertiser.13 July 2010. <http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/709709/heritage-listing-bestowed/>. 
• Victorian Heritage Database Report on the former survey office at Heathcote

Trove Tuesday: Obituary for John Young (1856 – 1928)

From OBITUARY. (1928, November 3). Williamstown Chronicle (Vic. : 1856 – 1954), p. 2. Retrieved August 27, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69525217

John Young was my husband’s great grandfather.

He was the oldest surviving son of George Young and Caroline née Clarke. He was born at Dunolly on 27 August 1856. His father was a gold miner and the family moved around the rushes until settling at Lamplough as can be seen from the birth places of the children:

• George born and died at Beechworth about 1854
• John born 27 August 1856 at Dunolly
• Alice born  1859 at White Hills near Maryborough
• Charlotte and Harriet, twins, born 1861 at Lamplough
• Maria born 1863 at Lamplough
• Rachel born 1865 at Lamplough
• Caroline born 1867 at Lamplough, died 1876
• Edmond born 1870 at Lamplough died 1876
• Annie born 1872 at Lamplough and died 1873
• Laura  born 1874 at Lamplough and died 1876
• William Robert born 1876 at Lamplough
• James Ernest born 1878 at Lamplough

With the birth of the twins at the Lamplough rush of 1860, the family didn’t move on. George bought land and the family settled in the district.

John worked as a miner.

He travelled to New South Wales and, according to his death certificate, spent six years there.  In Parkes he met a widow, Sarah Jane Whiteman née Way. They married in Melbourne on 26 September 1894 at 430 Bourke Street according to the rites of the Church of Christ.   Their residences stated on the marriage certificate was that he was living at Bowenvale and she was at the Mechanics Hotel, Bourke Street.

Sarah Jane had two children by her first marriage, Robert born 1883 and Mary Ann Whiteman, Mary Ann was born on 19 August 1884, seven months after Sarah Jane’s first husband died of pneumonia. Sarah Jane had a third child, Jack Walsh Whiteman born 13 August 1894 at Parkes, just weeks before her marriage to John Young. The child was born to an unknown father and stayed in Parkes to be brought up by Sarah Jane’s parents and sister. He was renamed Leslie Leister; Sarah Jane’s sister Eliza marrying Robert Leister and the two of them brought up the boy.

John and Sarah Jane had three children together:

• Caroline born and died 1895 at Timor (near Bowenvale)
• John Percy 24 August 1896 at Bowenvale
• Cecil born 5 July 1898 at Rokewood

Sarah Jane died of following the birth of Cecil on 6 July 1898 at Rokewood.

The two young boys were brought up by John’s sisters. In particular by Charlotte who had married George Wilkins and lived at Homebush, near Avoca. The boys also spent time with Harriet who had married William Richards and lived at Clunes.  The era was not one where widowed fathers brought up their children.  John continued to work as a miner at Bowenvale and Betley just south of Dunolly.

Sarah Jane’s oldest two children stayed very close to the Young family; for example visiting Charlotte and writing frequently to their two young half-brothers (we have a collection of post cards from the young Jack Young which he collected through his child hood).

At the end of his life, John Young lived with his step daughter Mary Ann and her second husband, Henry White Nichols, in Henry’s house in Seddon, also known as Yarraville.  According to the electoral rolls, John was still living at Betley in 1924.  I do not know of any connection to Beveridge as mentioned in the obituary.

John died on 23 October 1928 after a three month illness from arterio sclerosis and cardiac failure.  He is buried at Footscray cemetery.