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.

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

D is for Dublin

Ellen Murray, one of Greg’s great great grandmothers, arrived in Victoria in 1854 as an assisted immigrant on the ‘Persian‘. Also on board was her sister Bridget. The passenger list records Bridget and Ellen Murray as both from Dublin. Their religion was Catholic; both could read and Ellen could also write; Bridget was twenty-four (which means that she was born about 1830) and Ellen was eighteen (born about 1836).

Ellen married James Cross, a gold digger, at Buninyong in 1856. The marriage certificate states her father was George Murray, a glassblower, and Ellen nee Dory.

On 1 May 1825 George Murray married Eleanor Doyle at St Mary’s (Pro-Cathedral), Dublin. Witnesses to their marriage were Joseph Carolan and Margaret Ryan. I believe these are Ellen Cross nee Murray’s parents and that Doyle was mistranscribed on the marriage certificate.

George and Ellen (Eleanor) Murray had the following children baptised mostly at St Mary’s

• Mary, baptised 18 March 1826
• Peter, baptised 17 May 1827 at  St Michael and John’s, Dublin
• Bridget, baptised 12 November 1828
• Peter, baptised 21 February 1831 (2 records for same name and date)
• Joseph, baptised 3 April 1834
• Ellen, baptised 21 May 1836

In 1826 at the time of Mary Murray’s baptism the family were living at McLinburg Street. This is probably Mecklenburg Street which later had an unsavoury reputation.

The back gate of the Gloucester Street laundry, where the delivery vans once came and went, is on Railway Street, formerly called Mecklenburg Street. In 1904, Mecklenburg Street was a terrace of grand but fading Georgian houses, and it was here that James Joyce set the “nighttown” section of his novel “Ulysses,” a phantasmagoric visit to a brothel run by “a massive whoremistress” called Bella Cohen.

She was a historical figure. And Mecklenburg Street was the heart of a square mile of brothels, speakeasies and slums that took its informal name — Monto — from Montgomery Street, the next street over. It was here, when southern Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, and when Dublin was a major garrison town of the British Empire, that the authorities tolerated, even encouraged, what was often described as the biggest red-light district in Europe.

Monto was a last resort for runaways, widows and abandoned wives. Madams like Bella Cohen controlled them with violence and money, keeping them in debt to pay for clothes and lodgings. As they left their prime teen years, lost their health and their looks, the women passed from “flash houses” for the wealthy to the cheap “shilling houses” and then to the alleys. Those who became pregnant were dumped on the street. 

From the New York Times DUBLIN JOURNAL “A Blot on Ireland’s Past, Facing Demolition” January 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/world/europe/magdalene-laundries-ireland.html

Georgian houses in 1826 of course would have been relatively new and perhaps the neighbourhood was not so run down at the time.

Georgian housing in Summerhill, Dublin. Image from Flickr, taken by Sean Bonner 2013. CC by 2.0.

Glassmaking in Dublin probably began about 1675. There were many glass houses in Dublin in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many products were produced in Dublin including bottles, cut glass, decanters and goblets, looking glass, plate glass for coaches.

Dublin glass houses from Irish glass : an account of glass-making in Ireland from the XVIth century to the present day page 29 from archive.org
Irwin’s Glass-House, Potter’s Alley, Dublin; Whyte’s Glass Shop, Marlborough Street, Dublin, and Glass- 
House at Ringsend. From 1845 advertisements.

Interior of a glass-house, showing the furnace with openings to the pots, workmen at the chairs making glass objects, blowing glass, mavering glass on the maver in the foreground, the various tools used, and, to the left, the annealing oven. From Irish Glass page 38.

Sources

• Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915 retrieved through ancestry.com
• Westropp, Michael Seymour Dudley (1920). Irish glass : an account of glass-making in Ireland from the XVIth century to the present day. Herbert Jenkins, London. Retrieved through archive.org.

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Wikitree:

• Ellen Cross nee Murray
• George Murray

Should I accept this Ancestry.com ‘hint’?

Today on my Ancestry.com family tree today I noticed a new hint for my husband’s 3rd great grandmother Ellen née Dony or Dory, wife of a glassblower named George Murray. (Their daughter Ellen Murray provided information about her parents when she married James Cross, a gold digger, at Buninyong in 1856.)

1856 marriage certificate for James Cross and Ellen Murray

The younger Ellen Murray arrived in Victoria in 1854 as an assisted immigrant on the ‘Persian‘. Also on board was her sister Bridget. The passenger list records Bridget and Ellen Murray as both from Dublin. Their religion was Catholic; both could read and Ellen could also write; Bridget was twenty-four (which means that she was born about 1830) and Ellen was eighteen (born about 1836).

To date I have had no luck in finding what happened to Bridget, nor have I been able to track down their family in Ireland.

Today’s hint for Ellen Dony or Dory was a baptism record for a daughter called Ellen with parents George and Ellen Murray. The baptism was in 1836 in Dublin. The father’s occupation is not given.

Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915 retrieved through ancestry.com. Detail: National Library of Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Microfilm Number: Microfilm 09151 / 02 Name Ellen Murray Baptism Age 0 Event Type Baptism Birth Date 1836 Baptism Date 21/05/1836 Baptism Place St Mary’s (Pro-Cathedral)Diocese Dublin Father George Murray Mother Ellen Murray

At first I didn’t feel completely confident that these were Greg’s forebears. Murray is a common surname in Dublin, and I thought that at the time there was probably more than one couple called George and Ellen with a child named Ellen.

So I decided to search the Ireland Catholic Parish Registers 1655-1915 for all children born with the surname Murray, father George and mother Ellen. I did not restrict the search by place or time. If there were many children belonging to many couples with the same names it would be a mistake to assume that the baptism belonged to Greg’s great great grandmother and her parents.

There were only five records, with two belonging to the same child. All baptisms were at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

• Bridget, baptised 12 November 1828
• Peter, baptised 21 February 1831 (2 records for same name and date)
• Josh, baptised 3 April 1834
• Ellen, baptised 21 May 1836

I have not found any other couples named George and Ellen Murray having children baptised in Dublin at this time. I was very pleased that Bridget’s baptism turned up in the results, for she appears to have been roughly the right age to be the Bridget recorded on the Persian‘s passenger list.

I have concluded that there is a strong chance the Bridget and Ellen of these baptisms are indeed Greg’s relatives and that they had two brothers, Peter and Josh, probably Joseph.

I have decided to accept the hint and use the information to try to make make further progress on this branch of the tree.

Related post

• M is for Arrival in Melbourne of the Persian in 1854

Carngham

James  Cross (1828 – 1882) and his wife Ellen Cross née Murray (1837 – 1901), the great great grandparents of my husband Greg, moved to Carngham between the births of their first and second children. Frederick James Cross, their oldest son, was born on 1 April 1857 at Green Hills near Buninyong. Their daughter Ellen was born on 27 May 1859 at Carngham. James and Ellen had nine more children all born at Carngham. James Cross died at Carngham in 1882. Ellen Cross died in Ballarat in 1901.

 

From Lost and almost forgotten towns of Colonial Victoria : a comprehensive analysis of Census results for Victoria, 1841-1901 by Angus B.Watson.

Carngham, 27 km west of Ballarat, about 30 km from Buninyong, and 4 km north of Snake Valley, was a mining township, surveyed and proclaimed in 1855. State School number 146 operated at Carngham from 1856 until 1911.

Snake Valley was not proclaimed a township. It was a mining centre, surveyed as a hamlet. State School number 574, which began in 1854, is now part of the Woady Yaloak school.

According to the census of 29 March 1857 there were 459 people in Carngham, 292 males and 167 females. This figure probably includes the population of Snake Valley. In 1854 there had been 58 people, 15 males and 13 females.   There are no 1854 figures for Snake Valley. In 1861 there were 22 dwellings counted in Carngham with 92 people of whom 54 were male and 38 female. Snake Valley had 204 dwellings housing 714 people: 454 males and 260 females. In 1871 Carngham and Snake Valley were counted together, with 384 dwellings housing 1,693 people of whom 958 were male and 735 female. In 1881 there were only 133 dwellings housing 611 people, 313 males and 298 females. In 1891 Carngham had 30 dwellings housing 126 people and Snake Valley had 92 dwellings housing 333 people. Watson, Angus B Lost & almost forgotten towns of colonial Victoria : a comprehensive anaysis of census results for Victoria, 1841-1901. Angus B. Watson and Andrew MacMillan Art & Design, [Victoria, Australia], 2003. Pages 84, 408.

Today Carngham amounts to little more than a few houses where the Snake Valley – Trawalla road crosses the route from Ballarat to Beaufort.  Snake Valley is still the larger settlement. Overlooking Carngham is a cemetery where James Cross, his wife Ellen and some of his children and their families are buried.

The name Carngham is said to derive from the Wathawurrung people’s word for house or hut.  In 1838 James and Thomas Baillie squatted there and adopted the Aboriginal place name for their property. The local clan was the Karrungum baluk or Carringum balug. Clark, Ian, and Toby Heydon. “Historical Information – Carngham.” VICNAMES. Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (State Government of Victoria), 2011. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. <http://services.land.vic.gov.au/vicnames/historicalInformation.html?method=edit&id=3226>.

Snake Valley is said to have got its name when a gold miner found snakes in a shaft he was sinking. Clark, Ian, and Toby Heydon. “Historical Information – Snake Valley.” VICNAMES. Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (State Government of Victoria), 2011. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. <http://services.land.vic.gov.au/vicnames/historicalInformation.html?method=edit&id=5118>.In turn citing Porteous in Smyth 1878b: 179. 

The Ballarat Star reported on the gold rush to Carngham in November 1857. CARNGHAM. (1857, November 23). The Star (Ballarat, Vic. : 1855 – 1864), p. 2. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66045316

 

 

M is for Arrival in Melbourne of the Persian in 1854

Western End of Queens Wharf Melbourne 1854 by S.T. Gill retrieved from MossGreen auctioneers

Ellen Murray (1837 – 1901) and Margaret Smyth (1834 – 1897), two of my husband’s great grandmothers, sailed from England to Melbourne, Victoria, on the Persian, arriving on 9 April 1854. Ellen’s sister Bridget and an infant surnamed Smyth traveled with them.

The Persian left Southampton on 2 January 1854 with 448 government immigrants, of whom 200 were single women. Eight people died on the 97 day voyage and five babies were born. The Croesus, which sailed from Southampton more than a week after the Persian, arrived the same day.

PORT PHILLIP HEADS. (1854, April 11). Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer (Vic. : 1851 – 1856), p. 4 Edition: DAILY. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91932661

The Persian collided with another ship, the Cheshire Witch, in Port Phillip.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. (1854, April 11). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4805696

From the passenger list of the Persian, Margaret Smyth and infant are at the bottom of the screenshot , record retrieved through ancestry.com (click to enlarge)

Margaret Smyth was recorded as having given birth on board. She was from Cavan; her religion was Church of England; she could read and write; and she was 20 years old. She did not find a job immediately on landing, but went to stay with her cousin. His name on the record appears to be ‘John Hunter’, though the surname is not clearly legible.

I know nothing more about this cousin, nor have I have discovered anything more about Margaret’s baby. There seems to be no death certificate, but the baby may have died without its death registered, for in 1854 civil registration of deaths was not yet in force in Victoria.

From the passenger list disposal summary Margaret Smyth and infant went to her cousin.

On 19 November 1855 Margaret Smyth, dressmaker from Cavan, aged 22, married John Plowright, also 22, a gold digger. Their wedding was held at the residence of John Plowright, Magpie, Ballarat. On the certificate Margaret’s parents are given as William Smyth, farmer, and Mary nee Cox.

1855 marriage certificate of John Plowright and Margaret Smyth (click to enlarge)

Passenger list from the Persian showing Bridget and Ellen Murray at the bottom of the image. Retrieved through ancestry.com (click to enlarge).

Bridget and Ellen Murray were both from Dublin. Their religion was Catholic; both could read and Ellen could also write; Bridget was 24 and Ellen 18. Both found jobs on 15 April, within a week of their arrival. Bridget was engaged by S. Marcus of Prahran for a term of 1 month with a wage of 28 shillings and rations. Ellen was similarly employed by Mrs Ireland of St Kilda, with a wage of 30 shillings.

I have not been able to find anything more about Bridget Murray.

On 28 March 1856, two years after her arrival in the colony, Ellen Murray married James Cross, a gold digger, at Buninyong . Their wedding was at the residence of John Plowright, Black Lead Buninyong, in the presence of John and Margaret Plowright. Ellen gave her residence as Buninyong and her occupation as dressmaker. She was born in Dublin, aged 21, and her parents were George Murray, glass blower, and Ellen nee Dory.

1856 marriage certificate for James Cross and Ellen Murray (click to enlarge)

It seems that Margaret Smyth and Ellen Murray, who had emigrated to Victoria on the same ship, remained friends. Later the son of Ellen Cross nee Murray, Frederick James Cross, married Ann Jane Plowright, the daughter of Margaret Plowright nee Smyth.

Hunter Smyth connection?

I think I have found a connection between the Hunter and Smyth families but I can’t link Margaret Smyth to it, at least not yet.

On other certificates Margaret Smyth states she was born in Bailieborough, County Cavan. I found a John Hunter associated with Bailieborough.

I have not been able to find a death of this John Hunter.

Family Notices (1866, December 27). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5782047

I ordered the marriage certificate and discovered Elizabeth Grace Hunter, age 27 had been born in Bailieborough. Her parents were John Hunter and Eliza Hunter nee Carmichael.

I ordered her 1897 death certificate and found Elizabeth had been in the colony 34 years. The informant on her death certificate was Charles Smyth, nephew, of Albury, New South Wales.

I found H. Hunter on the death indexes. He was Henry Hunter who died 1875. Henry was Elizabeth’s brother, also the son of John Hunter and Eliza Carmichael.

I hope further research will uncover the connection and I can learn more about Margaret Smyth’s family.

Trove Tuesday: a splinter

A hundred and fifty years ago there were no effective antibiotics. Brandy didn’t help.

James Cross (1828 – 1882), the great great grandfather of my husband Greg, lost the use of a hand through an infection that would have healed quickly with modern antibiotics.

NEWS AND NOTES. (1869, February 16). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 – 1870), p. 2. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article112883353

The Genealogical Index of Names (GIN) compiled by the Genealogical Society of Victoria (GSV) includes an index record of his hospital admission.

James Cross, at the time of his accident a miner, was born on 22 March 1828 at Windle, near Liverpool. I have no information about his immigration to Victoria but other sources such as his death record and newspaper notices from his brother and concerning unclaimed letters, suggest that he arrived around 1853, a date consistent with the ’16 years in the colony’ note on his hospital admission record.  

James Cross married Ellen Murray on 28 November 1856 at Black Lead, Bunninyong. By 1869 they had seven children, with the youngest, Mary Gore Cross, born 28 September 1868 at Carngham, less than six months old at the time of her father’s accident.

When as a result of the infection James lost the use of his hand, a local singing group called the Carngham Amateur Ethiopian Minstrels gave a charity concert to raise money for him.

NEWS AND NOTES. (1869, August 27). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 – 1870), p. 2. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article112891859

NEWS AND NOTES. (1869, August 31). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 – 1870), p. 2. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article112891979

On 31 January 1882, thirteen years after this unfortunate encounter with the ineffective medical remedies of his time, James Cross died in Carngham of dysentery.