Rats! Beseiged in Tobruk

Today is the 82nd anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Tobruk in 1941. My grandfather Richard Geoffrey Champion de Crespigny (1907 – 1966), known as Geoff de Crespigny, who served in the Second Australian Imperial Force as a doctor, was in Tobruk for nine months through the siege. His long enforced stay there earned him the nickname of `The old man of Tobruk’. He was mentioned in dispatches. Below is an extract from his diary.

5 Apr

The threat of attack by German and Iti forces has been growing the last few days, and today we felt the effects, as people started to return from forward area with various stories. Hundreds of sick are to be sent to 4 AGH. Luckily a hospital ship is expected soon.

6 Apr

The “flap” is on. The hospital took in about 400 patients in the last 24 hrs, and units and base personnel are streaming in. The air is full of rumours, and German patrols have been playing old Harry with our L of C [lines of communication], people leaving all at news of them and making for Tobruk.

2/3 CCS turned up again, less some equipment, and the rear party of the hospital likewise. An enemy patrol was captured just SW [southwest] of Tobruk. At one stage it was feared that an armoured column (Hun [i.e. German]) was on its way here direct across the desert. Since we had nothing to stop tanks, things looked sticky and it appeared to be more than likely that we would all become POW. Felt a bit disturbed, naturally, but there was nothing to be done about it. Talk of sending the nurses away on an awful little cargo boat, but the patrol turned out to be only a patrol, and it was decided, very wisely, to send them by Hosp[ital] Ship next day. I went about a bit on Alice [his motorcycle] on sundry commissions.

7 Apr

DDMS and DADMS Cyrcom [Colonels Walker and Furnell] turned up – very fed up at the nature of the rout which seems to have been quite complete, and we have lost much valuable equipment and personnel as POW. The 9 Div[ision: infantry] have done very well but were hopelessly under-equipped to withstand AFVs [armoured fighting vehicles: i.e. tanks, armoured cars etc] and the 2 Arm[oured] Div[ision], much of it in Iti tanks, had a hiding alas.

A hospital ship arrived and I went to 4 AGH to tee things up. Then to the wharf where no sign could be seen from the ship. She turned out to be the Vita – a hospital carrier, with accommodation for only 240 pts [patients], and we had over 400 and the nurses to go! Prepared to get all possible aboard, but matters held up as the ship’s launches broke down. Eventually got a large number aboard using various craft – the nurses went in a schooner! 18 Bde [Brigade] arrived, and I saw Gregory Bruer on the docks.

8 Apr

Arose early and got the remainder of the sick and the baggage aboard. We put 324 and the nurses onto the poor little chap.

Had a confab with McQuillan of 2/4 Field Hygiene Section as to functions. All POW labour has gone and we have to use Libyans, which makes things rather difficult. There are still many tales of the flap. The opposition is closing in, and all our troops that got away are now in Tobruk area. Heard, to my distress, that Roy Binns and his co[ompan]y of 2/8 Field Ambulance were captured. Also it appears that we have lost two generals, and poor old Colonel Godding, who stayed with us at HQ, was also captured. At the same time there have been remarkable escapes.

9 Apr

An air raid early in the morning. Nothing much happened. Rode out to POW cage to see about cleaning it. Frieberg [Fryberg] is to superintend. Did some more beetling about in the afternoon, and in the evening went to the hospital. When nearly home found a shoe heel missing, so returned and found it where I had started the bicycle. Nearly back again when the fireworks started and I spent a perfectly horrid ¾ hour lying in a shallow depression and hoping no AA stuff would land on me. Some bombs fell moderately close. Made one dash for it but was forced to ground again. Eventually got in, and went to the docks to inspect damage. There was an enormous hole on the dock – a 500 lb bomb it was thought.

10 Apr

A horrid dusty day, and spent most of the time indoors. Hoped to get out to the POW cage but dust prevented it. There was a lot of artillery fire all day. Ours we think! At 1800 hrs there was a fierce air raid, the objectives being apparently the two hospitals at town and beach – no other places attacked and it seemed quite deliberate. Chambers and Schwartz were killed and Row from 2/2 CCS severely wounded, and there were a number of casualties among patients and staff. Eric Cooper had an amazing escape, as a bomb fell within feet, and didn’t go off. We all felt very sick about it. Another raid in the evening, but no damage although bombs fell.

The effect of a thousand pound bomb on a small ship lying at wharf in Tobruk harbour.
Australian War Memorial Accession Number 007578 Maker Hurley, James Francis (Frank); Place made North Africa: Libya, Cyrenaica, Tobruk Area, Tobruk; Date made 7 May 1941

Tobruk. The town seen from the harbour beach.
Australian War Memorial Accession Number 007510 Maker Anderson, Alan Frederick; Place made North Africa: Libya, Cyrenaica, Tobruk Area, Tobruk; Date made c April 1941

Tobruk. Unloading stores from a transport ship at Tobruk Harbour. Thanks to the navy Tobruk’s sea communications have been kept open.
Australian War Memorial: Accession Number 007501; Maker Hurley, James Francis (Frank); Place made North Africa: Libya, Cyrenaica, Tobruk Area, Tobruk; Date made c April 1941

Related posts:

• Remembering my grandfather at Tobruk
• T is for Tobruk
• Remembering my paternal grandfather on his birthday

Philip Champion Crespigny born 4 January 1850

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:

• Photograph albums from great great aunt Rose
• George Dana 1849 – 1872
• Philip Champion de Crespigny, General Manager of the Bank of Victoria
• BRAVE BOY IN SHOOT-OUT WITH BUSHRANGER, LATEST NEWS
• Trove Tuesday: discreditable conduct in church
• Wedding Wednesday: Philip Champion de Crespigny married Annie Frances Chauncy 25 October 1877
• E is for entertainment in Epsom
• Q is for Queenscliff in 1882
• de Crespigny – Beggs 1891 wedding
• The Bank of Victoria in Collins Street
• O is for ‘Ottawa’ Gladstone Parade Elsternwick

Wikitree: Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927)

The wedding of Rose and Frank Beggs 3 Feb 1876

My great great aunt Helen Rosalie Champion Crespigny, called Rose, was born on 15 October 1858 at Daisy Hill, later known as Amherst, near Talbot, Victoria to Philip Champion Crespigny and Charlotte née Dana, the youngest of their five children.

On 3 February 1876 she married Francis Beggs in Ararat by license, according to the rites of the Church of England. Rose was 17 and her father provided his written consent to the marriage. Rose lived in Ararat, where her father was the Police Magistrate. Francis Beggs was 25, a squatter living at Eurambeen. Eurambeen is about 40 kilometers south-east of Ararat.

Marriage certificate of Francis Beggs and Helen Rosalie Champion Crespigny

From the Melbourne Argus of 9 February 1876:

BEGGS-CRESPIGNY. — On the 3rd inst., at Christ Church, Ararat, by the Rev. Canon Homan, Francis Beggs, eldest son of Francis Beggs, Esq., of Eurambeen, to Helen Rosalie, third daughter of P. C. Crespigny, Esq., P.M., Ararat.

[The marriage notice seems to be in error. The Anglican Church in Ararat was then known as Trinity Church, later Holy Trinity.]

Photographs from the albums of Rose Beggs née Champion Crespigny and Charlotte Champion Crespigny née Dana. The annotations are

The photograph album compiled by Rose Beggs includes photographs of them taken at the time of their wedding. The photographer was Johnstone, O’Shannessy & Co. of 3 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Perhaps they travelled to Melbourne after the wedding and had their photographs taken then as a memento. Or perhaps a photographer from the studio was visiting Ararat at the time.

Frank died in 1921. Rose Beggs died on 28 March 1937 in North Brighton,Victoria. They had no children.

From the Argus 29 March 1937:

DEATHS. 
BEGGS -On the 28th March at her residence St Marnocks, Hampton street, North Brighton, Helen Rosalie, widow of Francis Beggs, of St Marnocks, Beaufort.

From the Argus 6 April 1937:

BEAUFORT.-The death occurred at North Brighton of Mrs. Helen Rosalie Beggs, widow of the late Mr. Francis Beggs, the original owner of St. Marnock's Estate, Beaufort. She lived in the district many years and was closely associated with the local branch of the Australian Women's National League. The burial took place in the family burial ground at Eurambeen Estate.

Related posts:

• Photograph albums from great great aunt Rose
• Aunt Rose’s teapot
• St Marnocks

Wikitree:

• Helen Rosalie (Champion Crespigny) Beggs (1858 – 1937)
• Francis Beggs (1851 – 1921)

Photograph albums from great great aunt Rose

A few weeks ago I received an email from my father’s cousin, the son of my great aunt Nancy Movius nee Champion de Crespigny (1910-2003), offering me the custody of several collections of photographs:

“We have unearthed three Victorian photo albums that my mother seems to have brought from Adelaide with her.  They came to light when we moved out of our house by the seaside, and are filled with deC's and others among our forebears. We are no longer living in space sufficient to store them safely. You should have them for your archive. It would be a shame not to have them preserved and I am happy to ship them to you. Please say you want them and furnish an address.

The three albums have arrived, a most exciting event. They include more than 200 photographs, most of them cartes de visite, with some cabinet cards.

Pages of cartes de visite. Not all the photos are identified.

Cabinet cards of Rose and Frank Beggs

Cartes de visite, first produced in the 1850s, were small photographs. They were usually made of an albumen print, with the thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. Cabinet cards, of a larger format, date from the 1870s.

One the albums is inscribed “Rose from her brother Loo”. Loo or Loup was the pet name for my great great grandfather Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850-1927). Rose (1858-1937) was his youngest sister. She married Frank Beggs. This album has an index to people in the photos, and my great aunt Nancy has also annotated some of the photographs.

The second album has no inscriptions nor annotations.

The third album has been partly annotated by Nancy, who refers to the album as belonging to Charlotte Frances Champion de Crespigny nee Dana. Charlotte was my third great grandmother, the mother of Philip and Rose.

Rose Beggs nee CdeC on her wedding day

Charlotte CdeC nee Dana

Philip CdeC (Loo)

I think that Rose gave the albums to Nancy, her great niece.

Most of the photographs are new to me. It is marvellous to be able to see photographs of people I had previously only known as names. I look forward to sharing the photographs, and perhaps some of the stories that go with them, in forthcoming posts.

Related posts:

• Aunt Rose’s teapot
• St Marnocks
• Philip Champion de Crespigny, General Manager of the Bank of Victoria
• Trove Tuesday: Nancy de Crespigny at Salt Creek 1936

Wikitree:

• Charlotte Frances (Dana) Champion Crespigny (1820 – 1904)
• Helen Rosalie (Champion Crespigny) Beggs (1858 – 1937)
• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927)
• Nancy (Champion de Crespigny) Movius (1910 – 2003)

Philip Champion de Crespigny, General Manager of the Bank of Victoria

My great great grandfather Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927) was General Manager of the Bank of Victoria.

One of my cousins recently obtained a photograph of the staff of the bank in 1917 from the Historical Services Curator of the National Australia Bank (which was formed by the amalgamation of the Bank of Victoria with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in 1927 and the National Bank of Australasia in 1982).

Staff of the Bank of Victoria in 1917

The photo appears to have been taken on the roof of the bank’s head office in Collins Street. There are no names with the photo, but clearly recognisable seated at the centre is Philip Champion de Crespigny.

Philip Champion de Crespigny in 1917

His obituary notice in the Argus (Melbourne), on 12 March 1927, outlines Philip de Crespigny’s banking career:

[Crespigny] joined the service of the Bank of Victoria in June, 1866, as a junior clerk. After spending a few years in country districts in service of the bank he was promoted to the position of manager at Epsom, and he filled a similar position at other country towns. Subsequently he was placed in charge of the South Melbourne branch of the bank. At the end of 1892 he was appointed assistant inspector, and he continued to act in that capacity until 1908, when he took the office of chief inspector. In 1916 he became general manager of the bank in succession to Mr George Stewart.

At the time of his first marriage, to Annie Frances Chauncy in 1877, Philip de Crespigny was the manager of the Bank of Victoria branch at Epsom five miles north-east of Bendigo. His oldest son Philip was born there in 1879. In early 1882 Philip moved from Epsom to Queenscliff, a small town on the Bellarine Peninsula, 30 kilometres south-east of Geelong. The Bank of Victoria was at 76 Hesse Street. Philip’s son, my great grandfather Constantine Trent, was born at Queenscliff in March 1882. Philip’s wife Annie died at Queenscliff in 1883.

In 1886 Philip transferred to be manager of the Elmore branch, forty kilometres northeast of Bendigo. In 1887 he was appointed manager of the South Melbourne branch. In 1888 he became Assistant Inspector of Branches, and was appointed Inspector of Branches in 1908. In 1916 he became the bank’s General Manager.

Another obituary, in the Melbourne Herald of 11 March 1927, notes that Philip was remembered for his “ability as a financial expert [and this] was known throughout Australia. During the war period, he gave his services freely to the Government, his advice having been of the greatest value to the country.”

A 1918 photograph of the Bank of Victoria’s office in Collins Street shows an advertisement for the 7th War loan.

In its half-yearly reports during the war the Bank made mention of employees who had been killed in action or died of wounds.

Philip had six sons of whom the four eldest served in the war and one, Philip, was killed in 1918.

RELATED POSTS

• BRAVE BOY IN SHOOT-OUT WITH BUSHRANGER, LATEST NEWS
• Trove Tuesday: discreditable conduct in church
• Wedding Wednesday: Philip Champion de Crespigny married Annie Frances Chauncy 25 October 1877
• E is for entertainment in Epsom
• Q is for Queenscliff in 1882
• de Crespigny – Beggs 1891 wedding
• The Bank of Victoria in Collins Street
• O is for ‘Ottawa’ Gladstone Parade Elsternwick

Wikitree:

• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927)

Anniversary of the marriage of Philip Crespigny and Charlotte Dana

Today in 1849, 173 years ago, my 3rd great grandparents Philip Robert Champion Crespigny and Charlotte Frances Dana were married at the British Embassy in Paris.

The official residence of the British ambassador to France since 1814 has been the Hôtel de Charost, located at 39 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, just a few doors down from the Élysée Palace. It was built in 1720 and bought by the Duke of Wellington in 1814.

Ambassade du Royaume-Uni à Paris.
Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user Chabe01 in 2017. CC-BY-SA-4.0

Hôtel de Charost, residence of the British Ambassador, view from the garden.
Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, photographed by user Croquant in 2010 CC BY-SA 3.0

The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns; Class: RG 33; Piece: 69 retrieved through ancestry.com

Philip was recorded as bachelor of Boulogne-sur-mer. Charlotte was a spinster of Albrighton in the County of Salop. Her previous marriage had ended in divorce. This was not mentioned on the registration.

The marriage was performed by Archdeacon Michael Keating, witnessed by a Fred Shanney or Channey. I do not know who he was.

Soon after their marriage Philip and Charlotte Crespigny emigrated to Australia.

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photographed probably in the late 1850s

Philip Robert Champion Crespigny in 1879

Related posts:

• Divorce of John James and Charlotte Frances née Dana
• Australian arrival of the Champion Crespigny family on the ‘Cambodia’ 31 March 1852
• 170 years since the Australian arrival of the Crespigny family on the ‘Cambodia’ 31 March 1852
• Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820-1904) and her family in Australia

Wikitree:

• Philip Robert Champion Crespigny (1817 – 1889)
• Charlotte Frances (Dana) Champion Crespigny (1820 – 1904)

O is for ‘Ottawa’ Gladstone Parade Elsternwick

My great great grandfather Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850-1927) worked for the Bank of Victoria. His obituary in the Argus (Melbourne), on 12 March 1927, outlines his career:

[Crespigny] joined the service of the Bank of Victoria in June, 1866, as a junior clerk. After spending a few years in country districts in service of the bank he was promoted to the position of manager at Epsom, and he filled a similar position at other country towns. Subsequently he was placed in charge of the South Melbourne branch of the bank. At the end of 1892 he was appointed assistant inspector, and he continued to act in that capacity until 1908, when he took the office of chief inspector. In 1916 he became general manager of the bank in succession to Mr George Stewart.

As a branch manager Philip was entitled to accommodation provided by the bank. In 1887 he moved from the Elmore to the South Melbourne Branch. In 1888 he was appointed Assistant Inspector of the Bank of Victoria. This position no longer came with a house.

The 1889 rate books for the City of Brighton record Philip C Crespigny, Banker, renting a 9-room brick house on the Esplanade.

The household comprised Philip, who had been widowed since 1883, his two sons Philip and Constantine Trent (known as Con when young) who were aged aged 10 and 7 in 1889. Philip’s mother Charlotte had been widowed in September 1889. She probably spent time helping Philip raise the two boys but at some stage seems to have moved to live with her married daughter Rose at Eurambeen near Beaufort. Viola, one of her two unmarried daughters, was also living there. Charlotte’s second unmarried daughter, Ada, probably lived with her brother Philip.

After only a year or two Philip was renting “Wyndcote”, a 7-room weatherboard house on Tennyson Street in Brighton.

In June 1891 Ada lost a bracelet and advertised for its return in The Age:

LOST, lady's Bracelet, Brighton, between St. Andrew's Church and Tennison sts., Sunday. Reward. Miss De Crespigny, Tennison st, Brighton.

Philip married for a second time on 2 November 1891 to Sophia Beggs .

CRESPIGNY—BEGGS.—On the 2nd inst., at Holy Trinity Church, Balaclava, by the Rev. Dr. Torrance, Philip, only surviving son of the late Philip Robert Champion Crespigny, police magistrate, to Sophia Gratton Montgomery Beggs, fourth daughter of the late Hugh Lyons Montgomery Beggs, of Bushy Creek Station, Glenthompson.

Philip and Sophia’s son Frank was born in September 1892. From The Argus 27 September 1892:

CRESPIGNY. —At Wyndcote, Tennyson-street, Brighton, the wife of Philip Champion Crespigny—a son.

In July 1892 Mrs Crespigny advertised in The Age newspaper for a general servant:

SERVANT, general, wanted, must be good cook. Mrs Crespigny, Wyncote, Tennyson-st. Brighton Beach.

In January 1893 the Crespigny family sought a nursegirl in The Age and placed a similar advertisement in The Argus:

NURSEGIRL, young, wanted. Mrs. Crespigny, Wyncote, Tennyson-st., Brighton Beach.

Less than a year later, in June 1893, Mrs Crespigny advertised again in The Age newspaper for a general servant:

SERVANT, general, must be good cook. With references, Mrs. Crespigny, Wyndcote, Tennyson-st., Brighton Beach.

Philip Crespigny at “Wyndcote”, Tennyson Street in Brighton with members of his family in 1894: Constantine Trent, Sophia Montgomery Grattan nee Beggs, and Francis George Travers

The boys, Philip and Con, attended Brighton Grammar School. The family were parishioners of St Andrews Brighton.

In 1894 Philip and his family moved to ‘Ottawa’, a 10-room brick house at 16 – 18 Gladstone Parade, Elsternwick, leased from Alfred Felton, a wealthy businessman, remembered for his philanthropy. The villa was built between 1890 – 3; Philip Crespigny was the first recorded occupant.

A photograph of Ottawa, then named Kambroona, when it was being sold in 1933.

In September 1894 Sophia Crespigny was again advertising in The Age and in The Argus for a nursemaid, from the new address:

NURSEGIRL wanted. With references, Mrs. Crespigny, Ottawa. Gladstone-par., Elsternwick.

The Crespigny family seems to have been a little careless about its portable property, scarcely able to venture abroad without losing something. In 1896 there was a reward offered in The Age for a lost brooch:

LOST, between Elsternwick station and Gladstone-par., gold Brooch. Return to Ottawa, Gladstone-par. Reward.

In 1897 Con lost a bicycle cape:

LOST, on Saturday, Boy's Bicycle CAPE, on Mornington-rd. Apply C. Crespigney, Gladstone-parade, Elsternwick

In 1901 a puppy went missing:

LOST, Sunday, between Regent-st., Elsternwick, and Balaclava, Black Cocker Spaniel Puppy. Reward. Ottawa, Gladstone-par., Elsternwick.

In July 1906 another brooch was lost and a reward offered in The Age:

LOST, in St. Mary's Church, Caulfield, or between it and Gladstone-par., Elsternwick. Gold Brooch, with diamond in centre. Finder rewarded on returning to Mrs. de Crespigny, Ottawa, Gladstone-par., Elsternwick.

The same month there was an advertisement for lost eyeglasses:

LOST, Eyeglasses, Elsternwick, between Gladstone-par. and station. Return Ottawa, Gladstone-par

I wonder if any of the advertisements produced results and the items were returned?

In 1907 more staff were sought through The Age:

SERVANT, general; also Nursery House Maid. Crespigny, Ottawa, Gladstone-par., Elsternwick.

Philip and Sophia had two more sons in Elsternwick: Hugh Vivian on 8 April 1897 and Royalieu Dana on 11 November 1905. On 15 March 1908 their youngest son, Claude Montgomery, was born in “Vierville”, 20 Black Street.

Philip had been promoted to Chief Inspector at the Bank of Victoria in 1908, and perhaps on the strength of this, he purchased a house in Black Street, which remembering the family origins in France, he named “Vierville”. Philip lived in the house until his death in 1927.

“Vierville” in Black Street, Brighton, photographed in 2019
20 Black Street, Brighton [now renumbered as 18 Black Street]
Philip and his wife Sophia lived here from 1908 until his death in 1927

“Ottawa” is still standing. It was sold in 2014; the real estate advertisement described it as:

'Ottawa' Circa 1885 - A Grand Victorian Mansion Home Unlike Any Other
The unique romance and whimsical character of this 14-room home will appeal to families requiring versatile accommodation in a prize position.
Set amongst quality homes within easy walking distance of the best schools, Glenhuntly Road, Martin Street, parkland and bayside.
The property is sited on 915m2 with a broad frontage of 24.4m, charming gardens and views of the bay.

The house was converted into flats and altered in the 1930s, given what the Heritage report describes as ‘an eclectic make-over’.

Google Street view of Ottawa in 2010. The tower-like bay at the front is a 1930s addition.

Maps showing Philip Crespigny’s addresses in Melbourne. The headquarters of the Bank of Victoria where he worked was in the city.

Related posts

• BRAVE BOY IN SHOOT-OUT WITH BUSHRANGER, LATEST NEWS
• Trove Tuesday: discreditable conduct in church
• Wedding Wednesday: Philip Champion de Crespigny married Annie Frances Chauncy 25 October 1877
• E is for entertainment in Epsom
• Q is for Queenscliff in 1882
• de Crespigny – Beggs 1891 wedding
• The Bank of Victoria in Collins Street

Wikitree:

• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1850 – 1927)
• Sophia Montgomery Grattan (Beggs) Champion de Crespigny (1870 – 1936)

G is for Glenthompson

My great grandfather Trent de Crespigny (1882 – 1952) was a doctor. He studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne, graduating with first-class honours in 1903. His first position was on the staff of the Melbourne Hospital.

Report of Brighton Grammar School prize distribution
Our Schools (1904, December 17). Brighton Southern Cross (Vic.), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165442751

Three years later, in 1906, he married Beatrix Hughes, daughter of E. W. Hughes, manager of the Bank of Victoria in Beaufort, about a hundred miles west of Melbourne. By then Trent de Crespigny had gone into private practice in Glenthompson, a small settlement about sixty miles further west, near the southern end of the Grampians.

Approaching Glenthompson from the west on the Glenelg Highway. From Wikimedia Commons, by user Melburnian. CC BY 3.0

1906 wedding of Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny to Beatrix Hughes at Beaufort, Victoria.

WEDDINGS. (1906, September 15). The Ballarat Star (Vic.), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article210684752

Trent and Beatrix de Crespigny’s first child, my grandfather Geoff, was born in Glenthompson on 16 June 1907.

Family Notices (1907, June 22). Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic.), p. 12. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article221258251

Geoff de Crespigny at St Marnocks near Beaufort in 1908 with his great uncle Frank Beggs.

Towards the end of 1907 Trent de Crespigny sold his Glenthompson practice and moved back to Melbourne, where he established himself in Fitzroy. In addition to this local practice, de Crespigny worked as Health Officer of the Fitzroy Council, and he became an honorary physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

In 1909 he moved from Melbourne to Adelaide in South Australia to take up an appointment as Superintendent of Adelaide Hospital.

CONCERNING PEOPLE. (1909, June 18). The Register (Adelaide, SA), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57857621

Related posts:

• Wednesday Wedding : 11 September 1906 de Crespigny and Hughes
• B is for Beatrix
• Remembering my paternal grandfather on his birthday
• Miniature portrait of Geoff de Crespigny by Olive A Chatfield
• A miniature note
• Deckchairs on the Mooltan
• No 3 AGH (Australian General Hospital) Lemnos Christmas Day
• R is for No. 1 Australian General Hospital at Rouen
• U is for Unibic biscuit tin

Entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography

Wikitree:

• Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882 – 1952)
• Beatrix (Hughes) Champion de Crespigny (1884 – 1943)
• Geoff Champion de Crespigny

C F C Crespigny nee Dana (1820 – 1904): paperback book available

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820 – 1904) : and her family in Australia by Rafe de Crespigny and Anne Young

The paperback edition of the history of the Dana and Champion de Crespigny families in Australia is now available. The ebook was published 30 December 2020 and a PDF can be downloaded for free.

C F C Crespigny nee Dana 2020 ISBN 978-0-6481917-4-2Download

For those who prefer a hardcopy version the book can be purchased through Amazon:

• Australia for $Au38.50
• United States for $US30
• United Kingdom for £20.00

This biography of Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820 – 1904), also includes her forebears, siblings and descendants. 

Charlotte Frances Dana, of middling gentry background, was married to a county solicitor when she met her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny. After a scandalous divorce and a brief exile in France, they came to Australia in 1852 where Philip Robert became a Warden and Magistrate in the goldfields.

Viewed through the life of Charlotte Frances, this is an account of a migrant Victorian family of the nineteenth century.

• 

• 

  Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photographed probably in the late 1850s

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION vii

CHRONOLOGY ix

CHAPTER ONE Prologue: The family background of Charlotte Frances nee Dana
The Dana family in America 1
Edmund Dana in England and Scotland 3
The children of Edmund Dana and Helen nee Kinnaird 14
William Pulteney Dana, father of Charlotte Frances 31

CHAPTER TWO The Road to Divorce
The Bible and the census 43
Breakdown 53
Divorce 59
France to Australia 67
A note on the Crespigny surname 77

CHAPTER THREE Victoria in the Gold Rush
The Dana brothers and the native police 79
Family in Victoria 95
Commissioner, Magistrate and Warden of the Goldfields 105
Letters from home 113

CHAPTER FOUR Amherst and Talbot 1855-1871
Settlements at Daisy Hill 121
Public and private life 128
Farewell to Talbot 142
In search of Daisy Hill Farm: a note 145
Tragic cousins: George and Augustus, the sons of Henry Dana 149

CHAPTER FIVE Ararat to St Kilda 1871-1889
Bairnsdale, Bendigo and Bright, with a brief return to Talbot 157
Magistrate at Ararat 163
Constantine Trent in Australia 1875-1881 173
Rose Crespigny and Frank Beggs 182
Philip Crespigny and Annie Frances Chauncy 191

CHAPTER SIX Eurambeen 1889-1904
The second marriage of Philip Champion Crespigny 207
The letters of Constantine Trent Champion Crespigny 1889-1896 207
Banks and the land: the crisis of the 1890s 216
The Eurambeen Letters 1898-1904 218

CHAPTER SEVEN Epilogue: The immediate descendants of Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana
Philip Champion de Crespigny 1850-1927 253
Philip Champion de Crespigny 1879-1918 256
Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny 1882-1952 259
Francis George Travers Champion de Crespigny 1892-1968 261
Hugh Vivian Champion de Crespigny 1897-1969 262
Royalieu Dana [Roy] Champion de Crespigny 1905-1985 263
Claude Montgomery Champion de Crespigny 1908-1991 264
Rose (1858-1937) and Frank Beggs (1850-1921) 265
Postscript: Ada, Viola and Rose 266
John Neptune Blood 1869-1942 267

BIBLIOGRAPHY 269

INDEX 275

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820-1904) and her family in Australia

For the past three years my father and I have been working on the history of the  Dana and Champion de Crespigny families in Australia.

Charlotte Frances nee Dana (1820-1904), my third great grandmother, emigrated to Australia at the time of the gold rushes with her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny (1817-1889).

This year is the two-hundredth anniversary of Charlotte’s birth, an appropriate time to recall and document her life and her family.

The book is published in three versions. Below is a link to the pdf version, free to download. Hardback and paperback editions will be available soon. 

C F C Crespigny nee Dana 2020 ISBN 978-0-6481917-4-2Download

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photographed probably in the late 1850s

Introduction

A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the place to which they are going.

Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Charlotte Frances Dana and her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny came to Melbourne in 1852. Through their son Philip, who took the full surname of Champion de Crespigny, they were the founders of the Australian branch of the family.

In Champions from Normandy, published in 2017, Rafe de Crespigny discussed the history of the family, later known by the surname Champion de Crespigny, from the earliest records in France to their forced emigration as Huguenots in the seventeenth century and then the establishment in England during the eighteenth century. The present volume considers the experiences of the first generation in Australia. It is centred upon the life of Charlotte Frances, for she and her brother were central to the decision to emigrate, and she lived to see her first great-grandchildren in the new country and the new century.

Born in 1820, Charlotte died in 1904, and that period of eighty-four years was a time of enormous and dramatic change. She was first a subject of King George IV, former Prince Regent, and she lived through the reigns of William IV and Queen Victoria into the first years of Edward VII. Her voyage to Australia in 1851-52 lasted four months; fifty years later a steamship passage took only six weeks, less than half that time. When she arrived in Victoria, travel was by horse and cart, often no faster than seven miles a day; she would later take a train from the goldfields town of Beaufort and reach Melbourne in a matter of hours; while at the time of her death the Wright brothers in the United States were making their first powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

So it was a time of progress, but it was also an age of uncertainty. Health and medicine were both erratic, and diseases which are now quite easily treated were dangerous and could be fatal. Infant or child mortality was very high – to such a degree that many children were baptised with the name of an older sibling who had gone before them: Charlotte had two brothers christened Francis Richard Benjamin, three called Douglas and two more named William. And even those who grew to maturity could be crippled or killed by accident or sickness: one brother died in his thirties and another at the age of just forty; two young nephews died of scarlet fever and one of tetanus; and Charlotte’s son Constantine Trent Champion Crespigny and her sister-in-law Sophia nee Walsh both died of tuberculosis.

Such dangers applied still more to women of the time. Childbirth always carried a risk and stillbirth was by no means uncommon, while the absence of any practical means of contraception meant that pregnancy was often frequent: Charlotte had seven children, but she had twelve full and half-siblings, both her father and her mother had twelve brothers and sisters, and her mother’s father had sired ten more on another wife. Similarly, in her first marriage she experienced three pregnancies in three years, with one daughter who would live to maturity, a son who died in his very first year, and a third child which was still-born. With the vagaries of midwifery and the chances of infection, many women were weakened or simply worn out by such frequent fertility.

Apart from these physical matters, social and financial life could likewise be a question of fortune, good or ill. Charlotte’s family could fairly be described as gentlefolk: her grand-mother was the daughter of a Scottish baron; her grandfather came from a notable back-ground in the American colonies; one of her uncles was a general in the British army and owned a landed estate; two of her aunts married wealthy men; and in 1839 Charlotte herself was married to a prosperous solicitor in Gloucestershire.

Apparent security, however, could change very quickly. Soon after Charlotte’s wedding her father’s printing business failed, he was sent to prison for debt and was stripped of all property. The last years of his life were survived on a small pension in the home of his daughter and son-in-law.

Bankruptcy and indebtedness were indeed a constant threat: if a bank failed, its notes were worthless – and much of the currency in circulation was issued by private banks; the system of limited liability was not in common use, so the failure of a business could bring ruin to its owner; and a batch of unpaid bills could bring a cascade of misfortune.

The position was even more precarious for women. Until quite recent times, a married woman was identified with her husband, with no separate legal or financial existence, while unmarried women had limited opportunities for a meaningful career which might enable them to support themselves. Married, unmarried or widowed, most women were obliged to rely upon their families. When Charlotte Frances’ husband Philip Robert was taken ill, he was entitled to a pension, but after his death there was no further official or government support; and her unmarried daughters Ada and Viola were equally dependent upon the goodwill of their more prosperous kinfolk.

One question may always be raised of any Australian whose family arrived within the last 250 years: “Why did they come?” For convicts, it was compulsory; very often, notably in the years of gold rush, it was the hope of sudden fortune. For Charlotte’s brother Henry Edmund Dana, educated as a gentleman but with few opportunities at home, it was the hope of better prospects than could be expected in England – and for Charlotte and her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny it was a means to escape the social and financial embarrassment of a dramatic and well-publicised divorce.

Regardless of such an erratic beginning, however, that second marriage was affectionate and companionable, and even after Philip Robert’s sad slow death Charlotte was able to enjoy the support of her daughters and the successes of her son Philip and her grandchildren. In a letter of 1858, her father-in-law wrote in praise of her patience and courage, and of her determination to make the best of everything.

Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny
and Christine Anne Young nee Champion de Crespigny
December 2020