Sepia Saturday: 500 weeks

Congratulations to the Sepia Saturday team for 500 weeks, launched 10 years ago. I only contributed for several of those years but I really enjoyed reading the blogs of other contributors and the humour of Alan who holds it all together. A medal for consistency is in order.

I continue to scan my old family snaps and buy old snapshots online - the latest purchased package of about 300 photos arrived the other day - because I think it's vital that the cultural heritage in snapshots is preserved.

Found photo: Lady in her back yard. NSW, Australia.

This photo is one from a purchased bundle. I've always been particularly interested in photos that show people at work and this lady appears to be boiling water, maybe for her weekly washing day. I look at her yard and think that my life is so easy compared with hers. Everything has been made by hand, making do with materials to hand. In the context of other photos in the bundle I think she is living in New South Wales, Australia. Her name is not known but she has my respect.

Good luck for the future, Sepia Saturday. Well done.

A twig on the Alford tree

It's taken a while, over 30 years, but I finally got around to having another go at finding a twig on the Alford tree. I first started looking for William James Alford in the pre-computer days and failed but when I checked this week I found him quite quickly. I thought he was a twig but it turns out it was a branch.

William's father, James Alford, had migrated to South Australia with his brother and sister-in-law, William and Ann. They came from a town in north Devon called South Molton and travelled to Australia on the ship 'Rodney' arriving in February 1855. Within the next twelve months William and Ann moved to Brighton in Victoria but James stayed a little longer. He had met Honora Fallon, from Sligo in Ireland, who had arrived in South Australia the previous year. They married at Encounter Bay near Victor Harbor, 26 October 1855. We don't know what work James did at that time but he had worked as an agricultural labourer in Devon so maybe he did the same type of work.

Their first child, William James, was born 26 Jul 1856 at McLaren Vale and in December of that year the family moved over to Brighton, Victoria and lived with William and Ann until their house was built next door. James worked at making bricks.

James wrote a letter home to his father, Jacob, in South Molton and mentions his son:

Brighton March 29^th 1857

Dear father

I write you these few lines hoping [hoping] they will find you and your family in as good health as we remain at present thank God.

My dear father we received your kind letter and sent you the answer of it 7 months ago. We wish to write to you agin [again] to inform you that we left Adelaide and came to Melbourne. We have been here 3 months. We are living at present with Wm [William]. We bought a peace [piece] of land from William Wise 7 lbs [£] and we are going to build a home on it next week. I am working with Mr Thomas Dewson since I came to Melbourne at making bricks. My wages is 3 lbs [£] per week the living is very reasonable flour is 12 … beef and mutton from 3 to 4 per lb, butter 3 per lb eggs 3s per dozen, tea 2s per lb, cheese from 1 to 2 s per lb.

Houses and land are very dear hear [here] also clothing and boots and shoes, so is furniture

Dear father you said in your last letter that sister Mary and Richard was coming out here. I should like to know whether they are coming or no. Give our kind love to Ann and Mary, there [their] husbands and all the children. William and Ann also the 2 children send there [their] kind love to you all. William James is growing a fine little boy. He is now 20 months old and he can walk all round the room by the chairs and call his dada...

And that was the last we knew of William James. The Alford family grew, James had a store at Brighton until at least 1871 and then they moved to land at Parwan near Bacchus Marsh in Victoria. Later they ran a store at Maddingly, Bacchus Marsh. James' wife, Honora, died in 1880 and James married again in 1882 and  some more children were born.

William James must have been with his father in the Bacchus Marsh area because this notice appeared in the paper in 1899, inserted by his sister Mary Ann who was six years younger and his nearest (in age) surviving sibling.

The Argus 29 Apr 1899 (and also The Australasian 6 May 1899)

So I searched the New Zealand newspapers online at Papers Past and found quite a few newspaper notices following his death. It seems that William James Alford had died at the Wellington Hospital because he had cancer of the liver. His occupation was a Sergeant Bombardier in the Permanent Artillery and must have been well respected by others in the Artillery and he must have been a member of several Lodges.

Evening Post, New Zealand 4 Mar 1899

New Zealand Times, 3 March 1899

Evening Post 4 Mar 1899

William James' wife, Emma, inserted a thankyou notice a few days later.

Evening Post 8 Mar 1899

I also found a notice announcing the marriage of Emma and William ten years earlier. The only notice I found was in the Auckland newspaper so maybe William was living there at that time and he certainly had property in Auckland when he died.

Auckland Star 29 Jun 1889

The family gets bigger.  I found the births of two children. Ruby Eleanor Alford was born 1890 and Arthur Vincent Alford was born in 1892. At the time of his death the Alford family was living at 14 Sussex Square but his probate papers mention a house on land in Albert Rd, North Shore, Auckland and land with two houses in St Aubyns Rd, North Shore, Auckland. (Both streets are in the Devonport area of Auckland) He was living in Auckland when he was promoted from Gunner to Acting-Bombadier a year before he died.

New Zealand Herald 11 Jan 1898

Ruby Alford married George Francis Watt in New Zealand in 1914 and died in 1949 aged 59. She had a daughter called Nina born in 1915 who died in 1933 and a son born 1923.

Arthur worked as a carpenter and enlisted in the army in WW1. He served in Egypt and France. He also enlisted in WW2 and served in the home militia. According to his army papers he married in 1940 but the name of his wife is not given. Arthur died 17 Feb 1979 in Auckland, New Zealand.

William's widow, Emma, married again in 1900 to Berry Osgood Cozens. She died in 1935 aged 70. She must have been born about 1865 making her ten years younger than William James Alford.

Foster and Honeyman family in Tasmania

Have you heard of two large farming properties near Bothwell in Tasmania called ‘Dennistoun’ and ‘Ratho’? Both had Scottish owners in the 1800s. ‘Ratho’ is famous as the birthplace of golf in Australia and ‘Dennistoun’ is famous as the birthplace of Aberdeen Angus cattle in Australia. And both feature in the story of our ancestors in Australia.

Triton

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser 23 Jan 1824

Triton passengers, including our James Foster. 

The ship Triton arrived at Hobart, Tasmania on 20 Jan 1824, having left Leith, Scotland on 7 September 1823 and called at Teneriffe (the Canary Islands) and the Cape of Good Hope. On board were eight Black Angus cattle, six heifers and two bulls, imported by Captain Patrick Wood and in the charge of James Foster who was 25 years old. They were the first Angus cattle in Australia and there a plaque to commemorate the event has been placed in Bothwell by the Angus Society of Australia.

Hobart Town Gazette 30 Jan 1824 

Commemorative plaque, Bothwell

The total number of people on board, including crew, was 80. James Augustus Robinson, later appointed Protector of Aborigines, was a passenger on the Triton and he wrote a comprehensive diary of the voyage. The following quote is from an article written about the voyage of the Triton based on Robinson’s diary:

Probably due to prevailing winds the course was set northwards up the east coast of Scotland, with easy sailing until they reached Pentland Firth on the north-eastern tip of Scotland. Here William Hutton and his shipmates experienced their first battering from gales and heavy seas which lasted a fortnight, including a storm off the Hebrides. Confined below deck the steerage passengers could not even find shelter in their bunks…Heading south, the Triton cleared the west coast of Ireland and with fairer weather set course for Tenerife. The better weather allowed divine service to be held for the first time at 10.30am on Sunday 28 September…Approaching Tenerife the Triton was shadowed for most of the day by what was thought to be a pirate vessel, and they subsequently learned that it belonged to Spanish insurgents who had captured a French ship the day before. The visit to Tenerife disappointed the passengers who found that the Triton did not had quarantine clearance, and on the way had exchanged letters with the Snipe that had come from the fever port of Honduras. In consequence they could not go ashore, though they could admire the pink, blue and white buildings of Santa Cruz, and they were able to buy personal provisions while the ship lay at anchor, albeit at prices that exploited their inability to bargain in the town. Victualled with fresh provisions, including some sheep brought on board for fresh meat, the Triton left Tenerife after two days on Sunday 12 October. The episode involving pirates and known dangers of the region caused Captain Crear to issue arms to the passengers… At last on 5 December, after 12 weeks at sea, the Triton anchored in Table Bay at Cape Town and the next day the passengers were allowed ashore and some of them took the opportunity to sleep for a night or two in lodgings… From Cape Town the prevailing south-easterlies sped the ship towards Van Diemen’s Land at up to 200 nautical miles in 24 hours. The consequence was an increased frequency of storms, during which the ship suffered damage such as torn sails and broken fittings. There were compensations – on one day of fair weather two sperm whales came close enough to the Triton to provide a diversion for the passengers, and on December 22 there was fresh meat from the slaughter of a bullock that had been taken on board at Cape Town. 

Ref: 'William Hutton and Ann Partridge’ by Karen Wilson

There was also an anecdote about the shenanigans that occurred when the ship crossed the Equator. Many of the 'victims' had their faces smeared with cow dung so it is tempting to think that the source of the dung was the Angus cattle in the care of James Foster.

James Foster was born 27 Dec 1799 in Auchtertool, Fife, Scotland and baptised a year later, 7 Dec 1800, in Aberdour, Fife, Scotland. His parents were John Foster and Johanna Smith and James had seven brothers, one of whom, George, migrated to Wisconsin, USA.

Captain Patrick Wood had a large property called Dennistoun eight kilometres north of Bothwell, Tasmania and it appears that James Foster remained in his employment after he drove the cattle up to Dennistoun from the wharf at Hobart in the summer of January 1824. The distance was about 70 kms and it is interesting to speculate on how it was done because there would have just been a track through bush at that stage and James Foster was not familiar with Australian conditions. Some of the descendants of those cattle still graze the paddocks of ‘Dennistoun’. The original homestead was destroyed by fire in 1909.

Dennistoun, 2019

Dennistoun, 2019

Angus cattle grazing on a paddock near Dennistoun homestead.

In a letter of 29 December 1825 to the local government, Captain Patrick Wood, of Dennistoun, River Clyde, asked that small grants of land should be made to three servants of his, one of whom was James FOSTER.

James Foster, one of my servants, nearly two years ago brought out eight cattle and on my speaking to Colonel Sorell (the then Governor) for a grant of 200 acres for him; he replied that he would comply with my request as he considered it right to reward a man of good character who brought out stock safe... the character I gave Foster on his arrival was on the authority of others particularly that of Captain Crear of the 'Triton', and his behaviour since has been such as fully to warrant my recommendation. In 1825 James Foster was granted 200 acres at Clyde.

James Foster's land was at Green Ponds (Dysart). He called his property 'Woodville' but by 1842 it was called 'Mimosa Banks'.

The old Foster property, 'The Basin' Fosters Road,  Dysart

Marriage of James Foster and Margaret Honeyman

A year later, on 6 Nov 1826 at St Davids, Hobart, James Foster married Margaret Honeyman aged 15. James was 27 years old.

Margaret had arrived on the ship Castle Forbes 1 Mar 1822 as one of 33 steerage passengers in the entourage of Alexander Reid, a free settler, and his family. Margaret, aged 11, was travelling with her mother Jean, her sister Anne aged 10 and two brothers, Alexander aged 7 and William aged 5.

Hobart Town Gazette and VDL Advertiser

Also on board the Castle Forbes was the above-mentioned Captain Patrick Wood of ‘Dennistoun’ (a retired officer of the East Indian Army), as well as other middle-class Scottish settlers including Myles Patterson and his family, Phillip Russell, Adam Smith, Captain and Mrs Sockett, William Kinghorne (landowner and whaling station proprietor). The ship’s surgeon was Robert Officer who later became the Speaker of the Assembly. He married one of the daughters of Myles Patterson and Patrick Wood married another. Castle Forbes was 106'7" (33 metres) long, 31' (9.4 metres) wide and 14' (4.3 metres) deep. She weighed 443 tons. The ship left Leith harbour, near Edinburgh, 27 Aug 1821 and arrived 1 Mar 1822 having called in to the ports of Cape Verde Islands and Cape Town. There were 76 passengers including the 33 unnamed steerage passengers as well as crew and cargo. It appears that Margaret Honeyman and her younger sister Anne Honeyman left the ship at Hobert in the service of the Reid family while their mother and two younger brothers went on to Sydney.

The Reids were a family of free settlers and lived in Hobart for a short time until he was granted land on the Clyde River (now Rothwell). Their property was called ‘Ratho’. The family lived in a mud cottage for three years until a more permanent homestead was built. Family hearsay is that Margaret was employed as nursemaid to the family and it must be assumed that Jean Honeyman left both her daughters with the Reids while she went to Sydney to locate William, her husband. He had been convicted of theft on Scotland and sent to Sydney on the Sir William Bensley arriving 10 Mar 1817. William Honeyman died 16 Aug 1821, before his family arrived in Sydney. Alexander Reid established a golf course on ‘Ratho’ in 1837 and it is the oldest in the southern Hemisphere. Golf can still be played there today.

Margaret Honeyman could not sign her name when she married, indicating that she was illiterate. Her younger sister Anne, aged 16, also married in St Davids Church, Hobart. She married Campbell Roy in May 1828. Campbell Roy, who was born in Glasgow, Scotland, was convicted of theft 1823 and transported to Tasmania in 1825 when he was 17 years old. He was assigned to Patrick Wood of ‘Dennistoun’, Bothwell.

The reason for Anne's marriage soon became apparent as she died barely seven months later while giving birth to her son, Timothy, who was later admitted to the Queen's Orphan School in Hobart. She is buried in the private graveyard on the lovely 'Dennistoun Estate', with Captain Wood's own wife, Jane, and another mother, Mary Daniell, and her twin babies, killed by natives at The Den Hill. Anne Roy has a well-preserved gravestone, but no other record of the death has been found. It reads: Here lies Anne wife of Campbell Roy, who died November 2nd 1828, aged 17 years.

The loss of her sister must have been traumatic for Margaret who had herself given birth to a daughter the previous year. Margaret now had no family in Tasmania as her mother and brothers were in New South Wales. Both Margaret and Anne were pregnant when they married.

The Mercury 7 Mar 1933

Margaret and James Foster lived at ‘Mimosa Bank’ and 'The Basin' near Dysart and had a family of 13 children, six girls and seven boys (including three sons died as infants). James was 83 when he died in 1882 and Margaret died in 1884 aged 73. Two of their daughters, Margaret and Chistianna, married into Stone family who lived nearby. They all moved to the Woodstock area of Victoria. The other siblings remained in Tasmania.

When he died in 1882 James Foster left property to four of his sons: 'Mimosa Bank', 160 acres in Parish of Huntingdon, 'The Basin' 160 acres in Parish of Huntingdon and 780 acres at Old Beach. Thomas Stone, father-in-law of Margaret and Chistianna, was one of the executors of his estate. The death notice stated that James Foster ‘ was greatly respected by all who knew him’. Margaret Foster nee Honeyman died in 1884.

Trove Tuesday: More about Dave Taylor

I was searching, with some success, the newspaper files on Trove for mention of my great-grandparents when they lived at Lismore, Victoria early in the 1900s. Just following rabbits down various burrows as you do.

Henry and Martha Taylor seem to have had a fruit and vegetable shop in Lismore - Henry was a market gardener - while maintaining a connection with properties at Ecklin South and Cobden.

One of the newspaper items I found was a letter from a soldier, local Lismore lad Patrick Leslie McGowan known as Les, written to his mother from Egypt and published in the local rag in August 1915. He was a soldier in the AIF in World War 1. Les is not a relation of ours but in his letter he mentions Henry and Martha Taylor's son, Dave.

I've previously written a blog post about Dave because he too served in WW1 but, unlike Les, he was killed in action in France. Les' letter adds a little more detail to Dave's story.

Dave Taylor

Dave sailed to Egypt on the 'Clan Macgillivray', arriving March 1915, and then immediately sailed to Australia and then back to Egypt as a Military Policeman (Provost) on the 'Ulysses'. Les McGowan had enlisted in April 1915 and also sailed on the 'Ulysses' from Melbourne. Like Dave he was a Military Policeman on the ship, and off and on throughout the war ( he also served as a shoeing smith at times), when he served at Gallipoli, France and India.

This is Les McGowan's letter in which describes the journey from Melbourne to Egypt and something of the life of a soldier in Eygpt. A month or so later both Les and Dave went to Gallipoli.

Les McGowan's letter published in
 the Lismore, Derrinallum and Cressy Advertiser
18 August 1915

Elizabeth Ryland nee Withers

As mentioned in the previous post another of the Withers siblings came to Australia, the third of the children of John Withers and Susannah Cooke of Bristol, England. Joseph Withers and his sister Ann (Stone) arrived at Hobart, Tasmania in 1819. Over thirty years later their younger sister, Elizabeth, arrived in Victoria, Australia. It is not known whether Elizabeth went to Tasmania to meet her sister. Her brother Joseph later moved to Ararat, Victoria so they may have met.

John Withers was a tophat manufacturer and two of his sons, George and John stayed in Bristol and followed him into the business.

George and John Withers, hat manufacturers, 81 Castle St, Bristol in 1836

George and John Withers dissolving their partnership 1841,
 The London Gazette Vol 2 1841

Elizabeth Withers was born in Bristol about 1812 and married in 1849 in Clifton, Gloucestershire to David Brainerd Ryland. David was the son of a stationer who also conducted a post office and owned a circulating library. At 14 years of age he had been apprenticed to a chemist and druggist but appears to have been tied up with his father's stationer's business in 1851 when this advertisement appeared.

Bristol Advertisement, 1851

Elizabeth and David Ryland would have heard about Australia from their correspondence with relatives already there. Gold was found in Victoria in 1851 and several of Elizabeth's Stone nephews lived in Victoria. Her siblings, Ann and Joseph were living in Tasmania. David and Elizabeth Ryland decided to migrate and arrived in Melbourne, Victoria on 16 October 1852 on the ship Panama.

They firstly set up business in Melbourne as stationers but they were not successful so they decided to follow the hordes of people moving up to the goldfields. David had a go at gold digging but in 1855 when the position of School Master at a National School at Forest Creek goldfield (now Chewton) near Castlemaine. His wife, Elizabeth, was appointed as Work Mistress. National School fees came in part from the National Board of Education and in part from fees paid in advance by each child.

It wasn't easy. The schoolroom had an attached dwelling but it was all in extremely poor condition and, even though the Rylands ran a very good school, no extra funds for repairs or equipment were forthcoming. Parents weren't keen to send their children to such a place so attendances gradually diminished. The Rylands built a new school on their own land but then the National Board were reluctant to provide assistance. By 1860 things started to improve and David and Elizabeth had a better house to live in. In 1860 David was appointed Town Clerk of the Borough of Chewton.

David Ryland, Town Clerk Mount Alexander Mail 6 May 1863

There was ongoing correspondence to the National Board about the fact that some children attended school even though they didn't pay their fees and, because of the appalling living conditions on the goldfields, many children didn't go to school because they were ill. The death rate of children on the goldfields was very high. Elizabeth Ryland was dismissed by the Board because of the student numbers but continued to work at the school for no wages.

In 1862 the Common Schools Act was passed by the Victorian Parliament so the National Board and the Denominational Board ceased to exist, replaced by a Board of Education. The Forest Creek National School closed in June 1863.

In February 1864 David Ryland opened a new school at the rural community of Laanacoorie under the Board of Education. Laanacoorie is the area where Elizabeth's nephews were farming. As well as teaching David Ryland used his skills as a druggist and chemist in the area because there was no doctor nearby. In October 1868 he was appointed Deputy Electoral Registrar for the Marong Division of the Mandurang District and North-Western Province.

One eveneing David Ryland died suddenly 23 July 1871 at the home, of an aneurysm of the aorta, at the age of 51. Over five hundred people attended his funeral.

Death notice, Mount Alexander Mail  25 Jul 1871

After David's death Elizabeth lived with her nephew, Edward Stone, at Laanacoorie. Seven years later, in May 1878, she was admitted to the Kew Asylum, Melbourne because she'd been found 'wandering at large'. On the admittance file she was noted as 'temperate and quiet', that this was her first attack of lunacy but that it had lasted for two years. The doctor testified that she had dementia and was said to be destructive. Her nephew, Edward, stated that he was unable to attend to her because 'she leaves my house at all times of the night, and goes away in the bush. I am willing to pay anything reasonable while she is in the asylum'. Edward and his wife Chrissy had a young family of six at the time. [Edward's brother Joseph and his wife Margaret also lived in the area. Also their brother Alfred and his wife Sophie and their sister Lucy and her husband William Field.]

Elizabeth was admitted to Kew Asylum on 11 May 1878 and died there in 1881 aged 69 years. Her brother Joseph died the same year. Their sister Ann Stone had died in Tasmania in 1856 following a stroke.

Reference: A journal article 'A Schoolmaster in Goldrush Victoria: David Ryland at Forest Creek 1856-1863' by Alex Stone in Victorian Historical Journal Vol 58, No. 1, March 1987. And also the asylum admission papers.

Whither Catherine Withers nee Scott

Joseph Withers is my husband's 4th great-uncle or, to put it another way, the brother of his great-grandmother's grandmother. Either way it takes us back two centuries.

Joseph was born in 1805 in Bristol, England. His parents were John Withers, a hat manufacturer, and Susannah Cooke. Joseph had six siblings including Ann who married Thomas Stone and migrated to Hobart, Tasmania. Their story can be found at this webpage. Joseph's brothers, John and George, stayed in Bristol and continued their father's hat manufacturing business and his younger sister, Elizabeth, married David Ryland and migrated to Victoria, Australia in 1852 but that's another story. This post is about Joseph.

Two hundred years ago Joseph Withers, his sister Ann and her husband Thomas Stone sailed from Portsmouth on the 11 June 1819 in the David Shaw heading for Sydney, New South Wales as free settlers.

The journey took four months, a long monotonous journey with only one port of call, St Jago (now known as Sao Tiago), a small island of the Cape Verde group of the west coast of Africa. Their intended destination was Port Jackson but the long journey had taken toll of Ann’s health and she was expecting their first child.

When the David Shaw berthed at Hobart Town the three young people applied to Lieutenant Governor William Sorell for permission to land and settle there. This was granted and the Lieutenant Governor reported his actions to Governor Macquarie in Sydney in a dispatch:

Mr. T. Stone and Wife, and Mr. Withers, his brother-in-law, brought no letter from the Secy. of State, and I was therefore doubtful of the propriety of allowing them to land here; but upon considering the hardship which they might feel and represent of being forced from hence at the end of a long voyage without any charge, I judged it best to accede to their application and to report their situation to Your Excellency.
It does not appear from these persons coming out that any restriction exists, and if the only means of preventing those who venture to this Country without the Secy. of State’s Authority, be that of sending them away on arrival, it would be one which in many cases would be impractible and in most involving questions which would be painful to the Chief Colonial Authority. Should Your Excellency disapprove of the permission to land, which I gave to Mr. Stone, I request to be honored with your instructions.

Less than a month after arriving in Hobart Town the following advertisement appeared which shows that Joseph Withers had found accommodation and was ready to set up in business.

Hobart Town Gazette, and Southern Reporter November 13, 1819

The Public are respectfully informed, that J. Withers, recently from England, has commenced his Business as a Cooper, at a new brick house in Bridge Street, corner of Liverpool Street, where every Article in that Line will be made in the neatest Manner, and on the most moderate Terms,—Tubs, Buckets, Pails, Churns, &c. ready made,—Jobs, and Work by the Day, performed reasonably.
N.B.—Old Casks, Staves, Iron-hoops, &c. bought, or taken in exchange.

In 1827 Joseph was the licensee of the Druid Hotel in Argyle Street, Hobart but may not have been there long because in the early 1830s he appears to have  been a crew member on whaling ships along the east coast of Australia. He was on the Dragon in February 1831 (listed as a cooper) and the William the Fourth in February 1833 (listed as crew) bound for Twofold Bay in New South Wales.

At the age of 39 Joseph married for the first time. On 24 January 1840 in St Davids Church, Hobart Town he married Hannah Mathews (nee Hurst). Hannah, aged 29, was a widow with two young boys, John aged seven and James aged two. She must have been illiterate because she signed the church register with a cross. Her husband, James Mathews, had died in 1839. [There was a man called James Matthews murdered in Argyle St, Hobart in March 1839. He may have been her husband.]

Hannah and Joseph Withers had four children: Joseph (1841), Benjamin (1843), James Frederick (1844) and Hannah (1846 who died at four weeks).

The Courier 8 Feb 1845

The family was living in Argyle St, Hobart and Joseph was working as a cooper when Hannah died 26 May 1847. She was only 36 years old but her death certificate said the cause of her death was angina. Her two boys were under six years of age and her three Mathews sons were still young. Joseph may have had sive boys in his care.

Six months later, in October of 1847, a convict called Catherine Scott asked for permission to marry Joseph Withers. Her application was approved on 23 October 1847 and two weeks later, 8 November 1847, they married at St Johns, Newtown. [The witnesses to the wedding were Benjamin and Eliza Hurst. Hurst was the name of Joseph's first wife so there is a good chance that Benjamin was her relation. Unfortunately in August 1858 Benjamin accidentally drowned and his body was found floating in Constitution Dock. He was a keeper of a public pound in Argyle Street and his wife, Eliza, took over that job after his death.]

Catherine Scott was about 22 years old and Joseph was about 47 when they married. Catherine was born at Burslem in Staffordshire in about 1825 and was working as a housemaid when, in August 1843, she was convicted of larceny, stealing money from a person, and sentenced to 10 years. She was transported to Tasmania from Woolwich on the Angelina and arrived 25 August 1844. After marrying Joseph in 1847 she was granted a Ticket of Leave on 29 August 1849 - a document, based on good conduct, allowing certain freedoms to convicts before the end of their original sentence. On 30 April 1850 Catherine was recommended for a Conditional Pardon and this was applied on 13 August 1851. Catherine was now free but was not allowed to return to England. There is no further record of Catherine at all that I can find. What happened to her?

Meanwhile Joseph must have been finding it difficult to keep his business viable. He appears to have been bankrupted in 1849.

In the 1850s, 1859 possibly, Joseph and his three sons moved to Ararat, Victoria. When he died there in 1881 at Ararat he owned several small blocks of land and his house was on a larger block. He worked as a gardener (not a cooper).

His sons all stayed in Victoria. Joseph (2) never married and died at Ararat in 1879 at the age of 38. Benjamin married Margaret Wilson at Ararat in 1864 and died in 1926 in Preston, Victoria aged 82. James Frederick married Phyllis Wilson at Ararat in 1876 and died there in 1899 aged 54. (Phyllis Wilson and Margaret Wilson were sisters, born in Scotland). Both Benjamin and James had children so there are a number of descendants in Victoria.

There are four newspaper articles that describe the location of Joseph's property in Hobart. The final one is particularly intriguing.

12 perches of land in Hobart Town, Launceston Express 30 May 1839

The Courier (Hobart) 11 Aug 1843

Launceston Examiner 19 June 1852

Launceston Examiner 10 May1882
This is the year after Joseph's death and it appears that
 Benjamin Withers, James Withers and a
William Mathews are claiming title on land in
Campbell Street, Hobart. Richard Hurst may have
been a relative of Joseph's first wife, Joseph Stone
is his sister Ann's husband but why would the
Ann Withers be listed as Ann Withers rather than Ann Stone?