A boshter and other postcards from Bob Whiteman to Jack Young

When more than thirty years ago I began researching the family history of my husband Greg I was given some postcards belonging to his grandfather, Cecil Young (1898-1975) which had been handed down to father, Peter Young (1920-1988).

At that time I didn’t know much at all about the people and places mentioned on the cards. They were from Bob. Who was he? They referred to Homebush. Was this the Sydney suburb of that name?

I now know much more. Bob was Cecil’s older half-brother. Homebush was a gold-mining town in central Victoria.

Bob, born Robert Henry Whiteman on 10 March 1883 at Parkes, New South Wales, was the oldest child of Sarah Jane (1863 – 1898) and Robert Henry Whiteman (1839 – 1884), a miner. In February 1884 Robert Henry Whiteman senior died of pneumonia. Bob was eleven months old. His sister Mary was born six months later.

In Melbourne in September 1894 Sarah Jane married John Young, a gold miner. Bob was then aged eleven and Mary was ten. In 1894 Sarah Jane had given birth out of wedlock to another child (who came to be known as Leslie Leister). She left this child in Parkes, where he was brought up by her mother and sister. It appears that Bob and Mary came to Victoria to live with John Young and Sarah Jane.

John Young and Sarah Jane had three children together:

• Caroline 1895-1895, born and died at Timor aged one month
• John Percy (Jack), 1896-1918 born at Bowenvale near Timor
• Cecil Ernest 1898-1975, born at Rokewood

Sarah Jane died of postpartum haemorrhage the day after Cecil was born, leaving John Young a widower with two step-children: Bob now aged 14 and Mary 13, and two infants: Jack, almost two, and the newborn Cecil. John’s sisters appeared to have taken care of these children. Jack and Cecil grew up in Homebush with their aunt Charlotte.

John Young in 1899, his two sons Cecil and Jack, and his two step-children Bob and Mary Ann Whiteman. Photo colourised using the MyHeritage photo tool.

The postcard collection has five written by Bob Whiteman to his half-brother Jack. Jack’s birthday was 24 August; three are birthday cards. All five were written between 1906 and 1911. Most are from Moriarty in northern Tasmania, a small settlement fourteen kilometres east of Devonport.

The post card album

16.9.06
Dear Brother Jack
I think you have been a long time answering that postcard that I sent you. So I think when you get this boshter you ought to write.
Give my best respects to all.
Good Bye for the present.
Your loving brother B. W.

(Boshter’ was Australasian slang for someone or something first-class or impressive. See: Green’s Dictionary of Slang https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/6mealla)

Road near Cora Lynn, Tas. painted by L H Davey. The State Library of Victoria has a copy of this postcard.

Moriarty 21st 9th 1908
Dear Brother Jack
I hope you don’t think that I have forgotten you I have been very busy lately one way and another. I have got my potatoes in I will have to chance what they turn out like now. Hoping you are well as I am myself at present I will say Good Bye.
Bob

Moriarty 8th 12th 1909
Dear Jack I suppose you thought I had forgotten you. We are having dreadful cold weather over here for this time of the year. Wish Aunt and Uncle and Lora a Happy xmas and a prosperous new year for me and accept the same for yourself and Cecil. All this time Good Bye Bob.

(Aunty and Uncle were Charlotte Wilkins née Young and her husband George Wilkins the Lower Homebush schoolmaster. ‘Lora’ was almost certainly Laura Squires, the school sewing mistress. In 1925 she married George Wilkins after the death of Charlotte.)

Moriarty 12.9.1910
Dear Jack
No doubt you will think it funny me sending you a birthday card after letting it pass so long but better late than never I suppose you are both growing fine big boys by this time. I will write you a letter when you answer this so don’t be too long. Have you seen Father lately.
Bob.

Moriarty 8th 1st 1911
Dear Jack, I suppose you were beginning to think I was never going to write but I hope you had a Merry Xmas & New Year. Things were quite enough over this way. How is Aunty & Uncle & Lora getting on wish them all the compliments of the season for me it is rather late but better that than never. I hope you enjoy your holidays. All this time so Good Bye Bob.

Related posts:

• M is for Mary
• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918)
• Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I
• Y is for Young family photographs

• For the etymology and meaning of boshter:
  • Lambert, James. “What Makes a Bonzer Etymology?” Green’s Dictionary of Slang News, 3 Sept. 2020, https://blog.greensdictofslang.com/articles/2020/what-makes-a-bonzer-etymology

Wikitree:

• Robert Henry Whiteman (1883 – 1957) – Bob
• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918) – Jack
• Cecil Ernest Young (1898 – 1975)
• John Young (1856 – 1928) – Father (Bob’s step-father, Jack’s father)
• Charlotte Ethel (Young) Wilkins (1861 – 1925) – Aunty; sister of John Young senior and foster-mother to John and Cecil
• George Edward Wilkins (1857 – 1944) – Uncle
• Laura Eliza (Squires) Wilkins (1878 – 1970) – Lora? ; became the second wife of George Wilkins after Charlotte died

D is for Drummond Street

My husband Greg was born in the Ballarat Base Hospital in Drummond Street, one of the main north-south streets in the west part of the city.

The hospital is not far from where we live now in Mair Street; Greg likes to joke that for seventy-one years he’s moved himself an average of only three metres a year from his place of birth.

Ballarat Hospital on the corner of Sturt and Drummond streets

When he was born the Young family lived at 505 Drummond Street, five blocks south of the hospital.

505 Drummond Street in the 1990s

505 Drummond Street in 2017

In those days Ballarat had a network of trams. One ran along Drummond Street. This was very useful to a family without a car. The Ballarat trams were replaced by buses in 1971.

From a map of the Ballarat tramways in the collection of the Ballarat Tramways museum and used with permission. 505 Drummond Street, the hospital (H), and the SEC depot are marked in red.

A tram on Sturt Street Ballarat in 1945. Photograph from the National Archives of Australia, A1200, L2579, id 6816240

After the War, Greg’s father Peter was employed as an S.E.C. (State Electricity Commission) linesman. His gang had its base at an electricity power station, now gone, on the corner of Ripon Street and Wendouree Parade, a block north of where we live.

Peter travelled to work by bicycle. The S.E.C. depot was a mile or so from the Drummond Street house, ten minute’s pedal.

In 1953, when Greg was three, the Young family moved to Shepparton, then, a year later, to Albury, over the border in NSW. Greg has some memories of this move, but almost none of the house in Drummond Street.

Wendouree Parade looking at East power station on the corner of Ripon Street in the 1930s or 40s. Image from Rotary Club of Ballarat. A flour mill occupied the site before the Ballarat ‘A’ Power Station was constructed on the site in 1904. Part of the mill was used for the main power station building. The State Electricity Commission of Victoria took over operations of the station in the 1930s from the Electricity Supply Company Ballarat. The station ceased operation in
the 1950s and the site became the Mid Western Electricity Supply Region Office and Depot. In 1983 the major portion of activities conducted on the site were transferred to a new depot
in Norman Street Ballarat and the site completely closed in 1993. It has since been redeveloped for housing. From 1994 Environmental Audit report.

Related posts

• N is for New Guinea
• A picnic in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens
• S is for Sebastapol school records

Wikitree:

• Peter Young

Looking for George

My husband Greg’s great-great grandfather George Young (1826 – 1890) was from Liverpool. George probably arrived in Australia at the time of the gold discoveries in Victoria, perhaps lured by the chance of striking it rich, though it’s hard to be sure, for as yet I don’t know exactly when or why he emigrated, and I know nothing about his parents or his family.

This photo of George Young was passed to us by Noel Tunks of Maryborough

In any case, by 1853 George, following the rushes, was trying his luck on the  goldfields. He met his wife-to-be Caroline Clarke on the Ovens diggings, near the border with New South Wales. Their first child was a boy, George, who was born and died as an infant at Beechworth in 1854. George and Caroline had twelve more children. Greg is descended from their oldest surviving child John Young (1856 – 1928).

Greg has had his DNA analysed by Ancestry.com. I have uploaded the results to Family Tree DNA, My Heritage, and GedMatch. His aunt B S has also tested her DNA. Through the DNA results we have connected with cousins descended from George Young and Caroline Clarke. This confirms the documentary evidence for the Young family in Australia, such as it is. 

spreadsheet of DNA cousins who are descendants of George Young and Caroline Clarke and have tested at either AncestryDNA or MyHeritage

Greg and the cousins descended from George Young also share DNA with descendants of two men, James Young, born about 1838 in Liverpool, and Philip Young born about 1837 or a few years later in Liverpool. 

We don’t yet know how George, James, and Philip are related.

From the amount of the DNA they share we know that B S and her second cousin P L (both great granddaughters of George Young) can be estimated to be about fourth cousins of A A, who is descended from James, and of H S F, who is descended from Philip. H S F and A A can be estimated from the DNA evidence to be about second cousins. Fourth cousins share third great grandparents and second cousins share great grandparents.

spreadsheet showing DNA matches with great grand daughters of George Young and descendants of John Young from Liverpool, plus some other matches that are related but we don’t yet know how.

H S F and A A are likely to share great grandparents, so it is possible that James Young born about 1838 and Philip Young born about 1840 were brothers.

If B S and P L are 4th cousins of H S F and A A, then it seems possible that George Young’s grandfather was also the grandfather of James and Philip Young. That is George was a first cousin of James and Philip.

I have traced the forebears of A A and I P. They are both grand daughters of Christopher Young (1875 – 1927),  the son of Philip Young (born about 1837-1840, died 1910). 

In 1862, when Philip Young married Mary Code (also spelt Coad)  he gave his father’s name as John Young. [Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Liverpool Catholic Parish Registers; Reference Number: 282 NIC/2/2 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the forebears of H S F. She is the daughter of Gerald Salter (1903 – 1986). Gerald was the son of Ellen Alice Young (1871 – 1962). She was the daughter of James Young born 1839, a seaman rigger. When James married Mary Martin in 1864 he stated he was a mariner living at Cropper Street Liverpool and his father was John Young, an engineer. [ Liverpool, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Reference Number: 283-PET-3-67 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

Another researcher has suggested that James Young’s marriage record is in error and his father was in fact James Young, engineer/engine turner, who was born about 1810 in Dundee and died in 1859 (‘late of Monks Coppenhall in Cheshire’). James had a son named James who in 1859 was named as one of the executors in his estate. He was described in the will as an engine fitter of 46 Manchester Street Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. [England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1860 for James Young retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the family of James Young 1810 – 1859. In 1861 some of the children were living with their widowed mother, Mary Young nee Harrison, at Manchester Street, Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. James, then twenty-three and unmarried was an engine fitter living with his mother. [1861 census viewed through ancestry.com Class: RG 9; Piece: 2616; Folio: 74; Page: 24; GSU roll: 543000]

I have not yet found the death of Mary Young nee Harrison. She does not seem to be on the 1871 census. A possible death is 
Name: Mary Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1813
Registration Year: 1869 Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar
Age at Death: 56
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 224

It is possible that James Young, engine fitter, died before marrying and before the 1871 census.  I cannot find him on the 1871 census in Crewe, Cheshire. A possible death of James Young engine fitter is :
Name: James Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1838
Registration Year: 1868 Registration Quarter: Jul-Aug-Sep
Age at Death: 30
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 236
It seems unlikely that James Young engine fitter moved away from Crewe Cheshire and changed occupation to mariner, and it is also unlikely that his father’s name was wrongly recorded on the marriage document.

The family of James Young engineer does not include a Philip Young. The DNA evidence and the evidence of one Canadian shipping record supports the conclusion that James and Philip Young were probably brothers.

The Canada, Seafarers of the Atlantic Provinces, 1789-1935 records retrieved from ancestry.com have a James Young age 43 (born about 1845) on board the barque “Olive Mount” which departed Liverpool 19 March 1888 (discharged with mutual consent).  He was discharged 12 March 1888 at Penarth Wales. He was not literate, he signed his name with an x. He was related to another crew member aboard. James was crew number 12 and his rank was able-bodied seaman. Also on board was Philip Young, crew number 11 – I believe this is James’s brother. Although the age is young, I suspect there was pressure for the men to understate their age so as to appear fit for the job.

It is my guess that James Young, forebear of H S F and also A O and  P N is the son of a John Young engineer, not James Young (c 1811 – 1859).

Hypothesis: John Young is George Young’s uncle; John Young is father to Philip and James and George Young is their cousin -> A A and H S F are 3rd cousins. B S and P L 4th cousins to A A and H S F. As far as I know A O and P N have not tested their DNA.

Update: A O and P N have tested their DNA with AncestryDNA but neither shares DNA with Greg or his aunt B S. A O and P N are 1st cousins and share 1.104 centimorgans. P N shares 42 cM DNA with I P thus they are estimated 4th cousins. M F C, another descendant of Philip Young, also shares DNA with P N; they share 66 cM – also estimated 4th cousins. M F C shares a small amount of DNA with Greg but does not share DNA with Greg’s aunt B S.

It could be useful if A O and P N could upload their results to MyHeritage, or FTDNA or GedMatch so we could look at a chromosome browser and also see if they share DNA with other descendants of George Young, for example P L.

V is for volunteer

Between 1914 and 1918, 350,000 Australians enlisted in the armed services to fight for their country and the Empire.

Among these were my husband’s grandfather, Cecil Young (1898 – 1975) and his brother, John Percy (Jack) Young (1896 – 1918).

Both men and both their parents were been born in Australia.

When war threatened in August 1914, Australia, a Dominion of the British Empire, knew she was bound to join in. On 31 July 1914 in an election speech at Colac in Victoria, the Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher (ALP) famously declared that ‘… Australians will stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling’. A few days later, on 4 August 1914, Britain declared war against Germany. On 5 August, attempting to prevent a German ship escaping from Port Phillip, Australia fired her first shot against the enemy.

In October 1916 Jack Young, aged 20, signed up, becoming, as a member of the Australian Imperial Force, a soldier of Australia and the Empire.

The war was not going well for the Allies.

On 19-20 July that year Australians had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Fromelles in France. The cost in Australian lives was the highest in any 24 hour period of the war. Among those killed in the fighting was Jack’s half-brother Leslie Leister.

From 23 July to 3 September 1916 Australian forces suffered badly at the Battle of Pozières in northern France. The Australian official historian Charles Bean wrote that Pozières ridge “is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth.” Among those killed were Wes Rowlands of Homebush, an acquaintance of Jack and Cecil.

The slaughter in France left the Australian forces under-strength, and it was widely believed that conscription was necessary to maintain troop levels. This was view of the Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, which the losses at Pozières seemed to confirm. Not all Federal politicians supported Hughes, however, and the matter was put to a
plebiscite. After a divisive public debate and strong campaigning on both sides, on 28 October 1916, the “No” vote narrowly prevailed

Jack Young’s enlistment – he signed his attestation papers on 3 October 1916 – came at the height of this conscription debate.

Jack Young was not yet 21 and would not have been conscripted anyway.

After 6 weeks in the AIF Signal School Jack sailed on the ‘Medic’, leaving on 16 December and disembarking in Plymouth 18 February 1917. He was first at Hurdcott camp, 7 miles from Salisbury. A few weeks later he marched out to Sutton Mandeville, 15 miles west. There was a camp at Fovant nearby. From Fovant he was transferred on 7 April to Durrington 20 miles to the north-east; the military settlement of Larkhill is nearby. On 1 January 1918 he sailed for France.

Fovant Badges The badges were cut into the chalk hills near the miltary camp and originate from 1916. From the left:- The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, 6th London Regiment and the Australian Commonwealth Military Forces.

The Australian Rising Sun emblem cut in the side of a hill. Australian War Memorial ID number H13577

Group portrait of the Signal Section of the 10th Infantry Brigade, outside the Chateau at Querrieu, 7 July 1918. Pte J. Young is in the back row eighth from the left (fourth from the right). Australian War Memorial photograph E03830

On 26 August, wounded in a mustard gas attack, Jack was admitted to a Line of Communications hospital. On 28 August he was invalided to England and admitted to Beaufort Hospital near Bristol.

On 26 September Jack was discharged on furlough from Beaufort hospital, but on 6 November he was in hospital again, the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital Dartford. At 11:40 a.m. on 9 November 1918, two days before the war ended, Jack died of pneumonia. He is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

Wooden crosses mark graves in the AIF section at Brookwood Cemetery January 1919. Photograph from the Australian War Memorial Accession Number D00190

I have written about Cecil’s war experience at Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I . I have previously remembered Jack at John Percival Young (1896 – 1918).

Trove Tuesday: 35 years ago

It is disconcerting to see personal experiences fading into the historical past.

Yesterday, 18 February, was my wedding anniversary; Greg and I have been married for 35 years.

My memories, of course, are of the church, the bells, the gown and so forth, while the historical fact is now an item in the National Library’s digitised collection of Australian newspapers (most cease at 1956, but the Canberra Times, where our wedding news was reported, has been digitised up to 1995).

(1984, February 19). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), p. 18 (SUNDAY EDITION). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article116390954

In the newspaper wedding photograph I am wearing a Honiton lace veil that my grandmother wore at her wedding and was worn by various ladies of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family. My English cousins kindly sent it to Australia for me to continue the tradition.

Greg and me on our wedding day with his nieces Cassandra and Jodie and my cousin Vanessa.

Me on my wedding day with the veil

my grandmother Kathleen Cudmore on her wedding day 10 June 1933

Yesterday, 35 years later, Greg and I had lunch with friends and spent an enjoyable afternoon at the National Gallery of Victoria. These events will not reach the newspapers, though perhaps this blog might help to make them discoverable, a (very little) part of history.

Greg at the National Gallery of Victoria on our wedding anniversary

Remembering John Percival Young died 9 November 1918

With next Sunday Armistice Day it seems appropriate to recall that today is the hundredth anniversary of the death of one of our family’s WW1 soldiers, Jack Young, brother of my husband’s grandfather.

Jack – John Percival Young – enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces on 6 October 1916. On 25 August 1918, while serving with HQ 10th Brigade – taking part in the so-called Hundred Days Offensive, the Allied attacks that brought the war to an end – he was wounded in a mustard gas attack and was admitted to a Line of Communications hospital. Three days later he was invalided to England, sent to Beaufort Hospital near Bristol.

He was discharged from Beaufort after a month, but within a few weeks he was back in hospital, the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital Dartford.

On 9 November 1918, two days before the war ended, Jack died of influenza and pneumonia. He is buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery.

Group portrait of the Signal Section of the 10th Infantry Brigade, outside the Chateau at Querrieu, 7 July 1918. Pte J. Young is in the back row eighth from the left (fourth from the right).

 

Related post

• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918)
• Q is for Querrieu

My Most Recent Unknown Ancestors

This week in his regular post ‘Saturday Night Genealogy Fun’ Randy Seaver asks “Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?”

The mission:
1) Who is your MRUA – your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.

2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don’t you scan it again just to see if there’s something you have missed?

3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?

The starting point for my ahnentafel list is my children, the list formed by combining my tree with that of my husband Greg.

I know all the names of our children’s 3rd great grandparents.

In the next generation, however, I don’t know the parents of George Young (c.1826-1890), Greg’s great great grandfather. George is number 32 on the index; I don’t know the names of his parents, numbers 64 and 65.

There’s no help from his death certificate; the informant does not name his parents. Other information about him is scanty. From his death certificate I know that he was born in Liverpool, and this corresponds with details that he provided on the birth certificates of his children, but I have not found his marriage certificate. The reason may be that he and his wife Caroline Clarke were married before compulsory civil registration was introduced in Victoria in 1855, or perhaps they never formally married. I have not found a shipping record for him, and I have no evidence that he had any near relations in Australia. Land records, and I have several that concern him, give no relevant information. George did not leave a will. Frustratingly, the name Young is too common to identify George from the many other births in Liverpool about the same time or from people with the same name listed on the United Kingdom 1841 census.

I feel my best hope in identifying George’s parents and finding out more about his life before he emigrated to Australia is through DNA. Several of Greg’s cousins descended from George have tested their DNA. I hope that DNA will lead me to one or more of the descendants of George Young’s siblings.  Their research might get me past the dead end I have come to with George himself.

Greg has a number of shared DNA matches (shown in green on the chart). I have not yet identified anybody descending from a brother or sister of George Young.

I do have some DNA matches from people with the surname Young who were born in Liverpool, descendants of Philip Young (1840-1910). I have not yet found the parents and grandparents of Philip to allow me to make the connection between our two trees, although we have several DNA matches. However, having an additional line to search, which appears to be connected by name, place and shared DNA, gives me a better chance of finding the family of George Young.

M is for Mary

My husband Greg’s great aunt was Mary Ann Nichols, formerly Lack nee Whiteman (1884-1945). She was the daughter of Robert Henry Whiteman (1839-1884) and Sarah Jane Young formerly Whiteman nee Way (1863-1898).

When I first started researching our family history Greg and I looked through a postcard collection that his father Peter Young (1920-1988) was given by Greg’s grandfather Cecil Young (1898-1975). At first we didn’t know who the people mentioned on the cards were. Nor did we recognise the place names. When we saw ‘Timor’ on one of the cards we thought it was a reference to the island of Timor to the north of Australia, not – what it was – a gold mining town in central Victoria!

The notes from our research 25 years ago show some of the things we learned from  reading the cards carefully and looking carefully at the postmarks and addresses.

Conclusions from the transcribed postcard collection. This collection was passed from Cecil to his son Peter. The postcards were mainly addressed to Cecil’s brother Jack. From at least July 1906 to after 1911, Jack and Cecil lived with a Mrs GE Wilkens in Lower Homebush. Bob Whiteman (Jack and Cecil’s half brother) referred to them as Aunty and Uncle. He also referred to Lora (a daughter?). Mr George E Wilkens is a teacher at Lower Homebush school from at least 1899 to at least 1916 according to Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory. In ‘Avoca the Early Years’ a George Wilkens is mentioned playing the cornet. Cecil and Jack’s father, John Young, was not living with his sons. In 1907 he was in Barringhup, Victoria. In 1909 he was at Burnt Creek or Middlebridge. After 1911 Jack and Cecil moved to Clunes. At one stage they are with or near Aunt Harriet and her children. At another stage Jack lived in Service Street Clunes. According to another post card Cecil lived with a Mr Thomas, Fraser Street, Clunes. Bob Whiteman (Jack and Cecil’s half brother) was living at Moriarty in Tasmania at least between 1906 and 1911. Jack and Cecil’s half sister, Mary, lived at Homebush in 1909.

We have since learned much more. We now know that Mrs G.E. Wilkins was Charlotte Wilkins nee Young (1861-1925), who was married to George Wilkins (1857-1944), a schoolteacher at Homebush, Victoria, not far from Avoca. Charlotte was the sister of John Young (1856-1928), father of Cecil and Jack. She was the twin sister of Harriet Richards nee Young (1861-1926) who lived at Clunes.

Mary Ann Whiteman was born 19 August 1884 at Parkes, New South Wales, the second child of Sarah Jane and Robert Henry Whiteman, a miner. Robert Henry Whiteman had died of pneumonia in February 1884, six months before Mary was born. Mary had an older brother, Robert Henry (Bob) 1883-1957).

In September 1894 Sarah Jane married John Young, a gold miner, in Melbourne, Victoria. Mary was then aged ten and her brother Bob aged 11. Sarah Jane had earlier given birth out of wedlock to another child (Leslie Leister) in 1894, but left him in Parkes to be brought up by her mother and sister. It seems that Bob and Mary came to Victoria to live with John Young and Sarah Jane.

John Young and Sarah Jane had three children together:

• Caroline 1895-1895 born and died at Timor aged one month
• John Percy (Jack) 1896-1918 born at Bowenvale near Timor
• Cecil Ernest 1898-1975 born at Rokewood, Victoria

Sarah Jane died of postpartum haemorrhage the day after Cecil was born.

John Young was left a widower with two step-children, Bob aged 14 and Mary aged 13, and two infants: Jack, almost two, and the newborn Cecil. It appears that John’s sisters looked after the children. Jack and Cecil grew up mainly in Homebush, cared for by their aunt Charlotte.

John Young with his step children Bob and Mary Whiteman and his sons Jack and Cecil Young. Photograph taken 1898-9. A copy of this photograph came from the Tunks family (relatives on the Young side) but a copy is also held by the Way family (relatives of the children’s mother).

The post card album

There are four postcards in the collection signed by Mary. It seems that Mary called Charlotte ‘Aunty’ and spent time at Homebush.

It is hard to tell in what order the postcards were sent. Mary, it appears, was living with a Mrs Thomas in Stawell (75 kilometres west of Homebush and Avoca). She was presumably Mrs Thomas’s servant.

Silver Creek Weir is in Kinglake National Park 260 kilometres east of Stawell

My address c/o Mrs Thomas Childe Street Stawell

Dear Jack I am sending you this to let you see that I have not forgotten you, I do wish the you Cecil would write me a letter and tell Aunty to write also I do wish I could see you. I hope to come down at Xmas time. Love to all your loving sister Mary.

Addressed to Master J Young c/o Mrs Wilkins Post Office Lr Homebush

….

Dear Aunty Just a line to let you know that I will be coming down to see you on Friday morning. Mr T is in Avoca and Mrs T is going down so she is going to pay my fare and I am coming down to see you. Hope all are, love from Mary.

….

My dear brother Jack. Just a card hoping you are all well as it leaves us all nicely at present, how do you like being at Clunes. I think that you will like it better than Homebush. It will be livelier for you, give our love to Harriet and all the children, how did you spend Xmas. Well dear wish you all a happy new year, with love from Jim and Mary.

[In 1911 Mary married James Theodore Lack (1887-1971) at St Arnaud, 60 kilometres north of Avoca. I assume this is Jim.]

….

The fourth card is to Miss Eva Hogan (1889-1913). She lived at Homebush and in 1910 married James John Cross (1886-1963), also a relative of Greg’s, his great uncle, but on a different branch of the family.

Dear Eva Just a line hoping you all are doing well, & did not get washed away. Tell dad Gus wrote to Charlie to give him a show if he gets it, that is all we know at present. When are you coming to see us. Give love to all from all yours Mary.

Addressed to Miss E Hogan Bromley near Dunolly and postmarked 6 August 1909.

[I have not yet worked out who Gus and Charlie are or what “give him a show if he gets it” could refer to.]

….

 

Mary and Jim Lack had three boys.

In 1925 she and Jim Lack were divorced. In the same year she remarried Henry White Nichols (1873-1959), a widower. They had one daughter.

John Young lived with the Nichols family in Melbourne for the last years of his life. He died at the age of 72 in 1928.

In 1945 Mary died aged 63.

John Young and Mary Nichols are buried together in  Footscray cemetery.

The unmarked grave of John Young and Mary Ann Nichols, Church of England section, Footscray Cemetery FO-CE*D***755

 

Related posts

• Y is for Young family photographs
• Trove Tuesday: Obituary for John Young (1856 – 1928)
• W is for George Wilkins writing from Western Australia
• Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I
• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918)

 

the name Charlotte

There are 42 people in my tree named Charlotte including my daughter.  She was named after my grandmother Charlotte Hedwig Boltz née Manock (1912-1988)

Charlotte Manock

In naming Charlotte we also remembered her fourth great grandmother Charlotte de Crespigny née Dana (1820-1904) and her great great grand aunt Charlotte Wilkins née Young (1861-1925). Charlotte Wilkins brought up Jack and Cecil Young, my Charlotte’s great grandfather, after their mother had died at the time of Cecil’s birth.

 

The dates of birth of the Charlottes in my tree are as follows

• 1700-1749 : 2
• 1750-1799 : 9
• 1800-1849 : 18
• 1850-1899 : 8
• 1900-1949 : 4
• 1950-1999 : 1

Of the 5,579 people whose birth year is recorded in my family tree, 13% were born before 1800, 56% were born in the nineteenth century, and 53% were born in the twentieth century. The name Charlotte is disproportionately popular in my family in the nineteenth century.

The name Charlotte dates at least  from the fourteenth century and is the feminine form of Charles. Two notable Charlottes were:

• Charlotte of Bourbon, Queen of Cyprus (1388-1422)
• Charlotte of Savoy (1441-1483) wife of King Louis XI of France.

The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics has an interactive graphic of trends in popular baby names since 1904 at https://visual.ons.gov.uk/baby-names-since-1904-how-has-yours-performed/

Charlotte was one of the top 100 names in the early part of the twentieth century but from 1915 was not on the list until 1975.

Charlotte : the popularity of the name Charlotte as ranked in the top 100 names for girls in the United Kingdom graphed for every ten years between 1904 and 1994 and for each year from 1996 onwards from https://visual.ons.gov.uk/baby-names-since-1904-how-has-yours-performed/

Currently Charlotte is an extremely popular baby name in Australia being the most popular name for girls in 2016.

A picnic in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens

I don’t have a favourite photograph but I appreciate the photograph collection of my parents-in-law. I can remember sitting down with my father-in-law Peter Young (1920-1988) and asking him who was who in his collection of photographs. I noted down his answers in pencil on the back of each photo. Because we had that conversation, I have been able to work out the identity of many of those pictured. But despite these annotations there are still many puzzles.

Peter Young (1920-1988) sitting on a lion at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens about 1924

Peter (wearing a tie) and Elizabeth Young nee Cross (wearing a striped dress) sitting on a cannon opposite the Ballarat Botanical Gardens in about 1924

stamped “3 73” on the back, Peter identified this as perhaps Uncle Fred and Maggie. Uncle Fred could have been Fredrick Beswick Cross (1893-1959), brother of Elizabeth, father of Ethel and Freda Cross who might be the two small girls pictured picnicking. But it could also be Frederick Fletcher (1890-1967) who married Margaret Cross (1897-1926), Elizabeth’s sister and Peter’s aunt.

A picnic near the Ballarat Botanical Gardens about 1924. Elizabeth young nee Cross (1900-1949) is wearing a striped dress. Her son Peter is the small boy seated wearing a tie. The older woman in a black dress is probably Anne Jane Cross nee Plowright (1862-1930), Elizabeth’s mother. I suspect the man in the hat might be Frederick James Cross (1857-1929), Elizabeth’s father but I am not sure. The two little girls might be Ethel and Freda Cross, born 1919 and 1920, Peter’s cousins and about the same age. I am not sure about the other two women, though the woman sitting by the tree is most likely one of Elizabeth’s sisters.

 

The last three photographs were all developed from the same roll of film based on the stamp of “3 73” on the back. I assume they were taken on the same day. Perhaps some cousins also have photographs taken on that day and can better identify those pictured.

The locations of these photographs are still recognisable. Children still sit on the lion and have their photos taken when visiting the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.