B is for Buntingdale

Mid-Victorian England supported more than 20,000 Established Church clergymen—perhaps twice this number counting ministers of Dissenters and various other unorthodox sects—so I’d expect to see a few in my tree.

And there are. One, on my husband’s side, married to Greg’s third great grand aunt, was a Methodist minister named Francis Tuckfield (1808–1865), who in early colonial times set up an Aboriginal mission near Colac, in Victoria.

Tuckfield was a Cornish miner and fisherman who at the age of 18 became deeply convinced of the truth of Wesley‘s message. In 1835 he was accepted as a candidate for the Ministry and, following two years training at the Hoxton Theological Institution, was selected to serve as a missionary to the Aboriginals of the Port Phillip District (from 1851 the colony of Victoria).

On 13 October 1837, less than a month before sailing for Australia, he married Sarah Gilbart (1808–1854), the daughter of a Cornish Copper Company (CCC) manager at the Rolling Mills at St Erth, Cornwall. They were both 29 years old.

In March 1838 the Tuckfields landed in Hobart, and in July crossed Bass Strait to Melbourne on the ‘Adelaide‘. Their first child, a daughter, was born at Geelong on 12 August 1838.

Tuckfield made several exploratory trips in the Port Phillip district looking for a suitable place to establish a mission station, employing, it is said, William Buckley as translator. Buckley was an escaped convict, now pardoned and appointed government interpreter, who for a time had lived with Aboriginals.

In 1839 Tuckfield chose a site for his mission near Birregurra, ‘kangaroo camp’, five miles east of Colac. Governor Gipps granted the mission 640 acres, a square mile, with a large boundary reserve to prevent settlers from encroaching on mission land.

Tuckfield’s Aboriginal mission, the first in Victoria, was named Buntingdale, in honour of the Reverend Jabez Bunting, who after the death of John Wesley had become the most prominent Methodist in England.

The tribes of this area were nomadic, which made Tuckfield’s work at a single settled place difficult, and though the mission site had been carefully chosen to be at the junction of three or four tribal territories, rivalry and intertribal conflict was common. The Colac tribe (Gulidjan) offered most hope of success and at times Tuckfield travelled and lived with this group.

In 1840, scarcely a year after the mission was established, a fire destroyed many of its buildings.

By 1841 Tuckfield had become convinced that mission work could be satisfactory only among tribes completely divorced from white settlement. In 1842, with Superintendent Charles La Trobe’s approval, he travelled to Echuca, near the junction of the Goulburn and Murray Rivers seeking a more suitable place a mission. However, neither the government nor the committee overseeing Tuckfield’s missionary endeavours favoured this idea. Many believed his missionary project had no hope of success.

Tuckfield continued at Buntingdale, keeping a small number of Aboriginals around him, attending to his school and gradually developing the area into a farming property.

The Birregurra experiment, however, was finally deemed a failure by the Victorian Government. In 1848 the site was abandoned, and in 1850 the mission grazing licence was cancelled. In 1851 the mission buildings were destroyed in the ‘Black Thursday’ bushfires.

The site of Tuckfield’s mission is now remembered with a small memorial cairn. The mission bell is housed in Christ Church, Birregurra.

Portraits of Francis and Sarah Tuckfield now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra

Francis Tuckfield was afterwards appointed to a succession of churches, first in Victoria and later in New South Wales. On 6 June 1854 Sarah died at the age of 45 in Maitland, New South Wales. She and Francis had eight children.

In 1857 Francis remarried, to Mary Stevens (1823-1886). They had three children.

In 1864 Tuckfield was appointed to the Portland Church, Victoria. In the following year he contracted pneumonia after attending a funeral, and died on 21 October 1865. He was buried in the Methodist section of the Portland cemetery.

The entry for Tuckfield in the Australian Dictionary of Biography summarises his achievements:

Tuckfield was an able and zealous missionary with a gift for native languages; the failure at Buntingdale must fairly be ascribed to causes beyond his control. Later he showed himself to be a greatly loved and self-sacrificing pastor.

Related posts and further reading

• Trove Tuesday: Arrival of Francis and Sarah Tuckfield
• Trove Tuesday: Cornish memorial and Ballarat pioneer

• C. A. McCallum, ‘Tuckfield, Francis (1808–1865)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tuckfield-francis-2747/text3887, published first in hardcopy 1967

Wikitree:

• Francis Tuckfield (1808 – 1865)
• Sarah (Gilbart) Tuckfield (1808 – 1854)
• Jabez Bunting (1779 – 1858)

Trove Tuesday: Cornish memorial and Ballarat pioneer

Last month, when we visited the St Erth Methodist Church in Cornwall, I noticed that one of the plaques on the wall was a memorial to Francis Tuckfield erected by James Oddie and Benjamin Bonney, passengers on the Larpent in 1849.

A similar plaque was unveiled in the Yarra Street Methodist Church, Geelong in 1906.

A MURAL TABLET. (1906, March 20). Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 – 1929), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149169675

 

The plaque was to honour Reverend Francis Tuckfield (1808 – 1865) and his wife, Sarah Tuckfield nee Gilbart (1808 – 1854), who threw their house open to passengers from the Larpent who had been afflicted by fever.

Francis Tuckfield, portrait in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia

Sarah Tuckfield, portrait in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia

 

The Larpent had arrived in Geelong on 28 June 1849. Among the passengers was James Oddie (1824 – 1911) with his wife and child. The Larpent’s emigrants had been selected by the Presbyterian minister John Dunmore Lang, a promoter of emigration. During the voyage many passengers became ill with what was thought to be typhoid. Sadly both Oddie’s wife and child died.

James Oddie was among the earliest gold miners arriving at the newly opened Ballarat diggings in August 1851. He became very rich and was later a great philanthropist. He founded the Art Gallery of Ballarat. His portrait hangs there.

James Oddie’s obituary in the Geelong Advertiser of 4 March 1911 stated that Oddie had instituted an annual reunion of passengers of the Larpent and their descendants to meet at Mack’s Hotel, Geelong.

Trove Tuesday: Arrival of Francis and Sarah Tuckfield

One of my husband Greg’s fourth great aunts was a Cornishwoman, Sarah Tuckfield née Gilbart  (1808-1854).

Sarah and her twin sister Thomasine were born on 22 July 1808 at St Erth, a sand and clay mining town about 5 km from St Ives. They were the seventh and eighth children of John Gilbart (1761-1837) and Elizabeth Gilbart née Huthnance (1774-1847).

John Gilbart was manager of a copper rolling mill at St Erth. He had been a member of the first Copperhouse Methodist Society (Copperhouse was a foundry and its associated district in east Hayle), and in 1783 he had founded the St Erth Methodist Class, the local Wesleyan group meeting.

Francis Tuckfield (1808-1865) was a miner and fisherman, who at the age of 18 was convinced by the truths of  Methodist nonconformism. He became an active local preacher and in 1835, at the age of 27, was accepted as a candidate for the Ministry. He received two years training at the Wesleyan Theological Institution in Hoxton in London. On the completion of his studies Tuckfield was selected to be a missionary to the Aboriginals of the Port Phillip District (later became the colony of Victoria, Australia).

On 13 October 1837, less than a month before his departure, Sarah Gilbart and Francis Tuckfield were married at St Erth. They were then both 29 years old.

SHIP NEWS (1838, March 20). The Austral-Asiatic Review, Tasmanian and Australian Advertiser (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1837 – 1844), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232476273

In March 1838 after a long sea voyage Francis and Sarah Tuckfield landed in Hobart, Tasmania. In July the Tuckfields crossed Bass Strait to Melbourne on board the Adelaide. Sarah’s first child, a daughter, was born at Geelong on 12 August 1838.

Tuckfield made several exploratory trips about the Port Philip district looking for a suitable place to establish a mission station. (He is said to have employed William Buckley as a translator on these journeys. Buckley was an escaped convict who for a time had lived with Aboriginals. He had since been pardoned and given a job as a government interpreter.)

In 1839 he chose a site near Birregurra, 10 km east of Colac. Governor Gipps granted the mission 640 acres, a square mile.

The Birregurra experiment, however, was rapidly deemed a failure by the Victorian Government. In 1848 it was abandoned, and in 1850 the mission grazing licence was cancelled.

 

SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 1. (1848, July 1). Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1847 – 1851), p. 2 (MORNING). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91457661

 

Francis Tuckfield was afterwards appointed to a succession of churches, first in Victoria and later in New South Wales. On 6 June 1854 Sarah died at the age of 45 in West Maitland, New South Wales. She and Francis had eight children.

 

Family Notices (1854, June 7). The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843 – 1893), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article690022

 

In 1857 Francis remarried, to Mary Stevens (1823-1886). Eight years later, in 1865, he died at Portland, Victoria.

Portraits of Francis and Sarah Tuckfield are held by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

Francis Tuckfield, portrait in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia

Sarah Tuckfield, portrait in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia

With only the bare facts of her life to draw on, it is very difficult to form an impression of Sarah Tuckfield the person. A history of the Birregurra mission portrays her as a dutiful daughter, devout Methodist, and devoted and capable wife and mother:

Sarah shared not only her father’s love of music and deep Christian conviction, but also his generous strength of character. She was a practical girl, who made an excellent teacher in the Sunday School, and was thoroughly trained in the housewifely arts by her mother. She also took an interest in the sick and incapacitated people in St Earth, who loved her for her kind ways and skills in nursing.

Le Griffon, Heather and Orton, Joseph Campfires at the cross : an account of the Bunting Dale Aboriginal Mission 1839-1951 at Birregurra, near Colac, Victoria : with a biography of Francis Tuckfield. Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic, 2006. page 18.

But this – no doubt well-meant – encomium gets us no further. ‘Love of music’ to a Methodist meant hymn-singing; ‘deep Christian conviction’ covers everything from humble faith to pharisaical self-righteousness; ‘generous strength of character’ sounds suspiciously like stubbornness; ‘thoroughly trained in the housewifely arts’ might mean a drudge; and her kind ways with the sick and infirm makes her look like the village Lady Bountiful.

Sarah’s marriage at the age of 29 to a penniless Methodist preacher and her willingness to endure the hardships of missionary life on the far side of the world seem rather noble and self-sacrificing, but these were the usages of the times. She was getting no younger, and her prospects, probably never great, were shrinking. Wives followed their husbands, and she perhaps found some satisfaction in being able to help with his missionary endeavours.

Sometimes, of course, images delineate character better than words. The National Portrait Gallery painting of Sarah Tuckfield conveys a certain measure of self-assurance and sense of purpose, especially when her image is viewed with that of her husband. The artist has drawn them with much the same mouth, giving her an air of steadfastness and strength of will; he looks feminine and ineffectual. He looks coyly at the viewer; she stares beyond, into the future.

We’re left wondering. Could it be that it was Sarah who turned the Cornish miner into the Methodist preacher, urged him to attend the Hoxton Institution, encouraged him to emigrate, and supported him in his mission?

Sources

• C. A. McCallum, ‘Tuckfield, Francis (1808–1865)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tuckfield-francis-2747/text3887, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 5 June 2018.
• Le Griffon, Heather and Orton, Joseph Campfires at the cross : an account of the Bunting Dale Aboriginal Mission 1839-1951 at Birregurra, near Colac, Victoria : with a biography of Francis Tuckfield. Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic, 2006.
• Wikipedia contributors. (2017, December 13). Gulidjan. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:27, June 5, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gulidjan&oldid=815258681
• “St.Erth Methodist Church.” St Erth Parish Council, St Erth Parish Council, 31 Aug. 2013, sterth-pc.gov.uk/st-erth-methodist-church/.
• “St. Erth Methodist Church.” About Us – St. Erth Methodist Church, St. Erth Methodist Church, www.sterthmethodists.co.uk/aboutus.htm.

Edwards family immigration on the Lysander arriving in the Port Phillip District in 1849

My husband’s great great great grandparents were Thomas Edwards (1794-1871) and Mary née Gilbart (1805-1867) from St Erth in Cornwall.

They were married on 14 March 1826 in the parish church St Erth.

St Erth Church dates from the 14th century. St Erth was an Irish saint, said to have been an acquaintance of St Patrick. His remains are supposedly buried under this church, seen here from across the River Hayle. Picture retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, taken by Stephen McKay and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license

Thomas and Mary’s oldest son Thomas was baptised at St Erth on 27 August 1826.

On the 1841 census Thomas was a carpenter living with his wife Mary and  five children at Bridge Terrace St Erth.

The youngest of the nine children of Thomas and Mary, Francis Gilbart Edwards, was born 21 January 1848 at St Erth, he was christened at the parish church.

Shortly after the birth of Francis, the family emigrated to Victoria, sailing on the Lysander from Plymouth on 21 September 1848 and arriving at Port Phillip on 13 January 1849.

PORT PHILLIP. (1849, January 24). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), p. 2. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28646624

In 1837 Mary’s sister Sarah (1808-1854) had married Francis Tuckfield (1808-1865) who was a Methodist missionary to the Aborigines at Buntingdale near Geelong. The Tuckfields had been in the colony since 1838.

The passenger list of the Lysander shows the Edwards family were Wesleyan and their native place was given as St Ives. Thomas was 53 and his occupation was wheelwright. Mary was 43. The passenger list records that they were accompanied by:

• Thomas, age 22, farm labourer
• John, age 19, mason
• Elisabeth, age 17, nursemaid
• James, age 13
• Mary, age 11
• William, age 9
• Benjamin, age 5
• Francis, infant

The older children could both read and write, William and Benjamin could read. One child, Francis, had died at the age of 3 in St Erth in 1844.

On arrival it seems there was some difficulty with the immigration of passengers from the Lysander. At the time of the arrival the Lysander, La Trobe was meeting with the people of the Portland district.

Domestic Intelligence. (1849, February 6). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 2. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4772171

The Launceston Examiner on the 14th of February gives us a little more information. The Superintendant of the Port Phillip District, Charles La Trobe, wanted the immigrants to proceed to Portland but they were refusing to do so.

PORT PHILLIP. (1849, February 14). Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 – 1899), p. 4 Edition: AFTERNOON. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36256707

An article in The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 – 1880), Saturday 17 February 1849, page 377 goes into further detail.

However, on 26 January, the Argus had reported that

The project of sending a shipment of the recently arrived immigrants to Portland has been abandoned, the number willing to proceed to that port being found insufficient to warrant the chartering of a vessel for the purpose.

As Superintendent of the Port Phillip district, Charles la Trobe was

responsible for administering immigration in conjunction with the British Emigration Agent in London who supervised the selection of applicants and arranged for their passage. The Superintendent’s responsibilities included local administration of Government funded assisted immigration schemes, reception and initial settlement of immigrants as well as monitoring immigrant arrivals, including inspection of ships, certification of passenger lists, and regulating alien immigration. Locally appointed Immigration Agents assisted the Superintendent with many of these responsibilities.

I assume the Edwards family may not have been caught up in this immigration delay as they already had connections in the colony.