My Favourite Ancestor

What an intriguing proposition, to write about my favourite ancestor. Being a 5^th or 6^th generation Australian depending on how you count it then I must pick a favourite ancestor as one who lived at least part of their life in this wonderful country of ours. I have twenty four ancestors who emigrated or were transported from the United Kingdom to Australia. I have seven ancestors who have both parents born overseas and a four more with one parent born overseas. I have a further eight ancestors that were children of Australian born parents. If you can work all that out, then congratulations to you. It means I have 43 ancestors who lived at least part of their life in this country.

If I go back to my earliest ancestor to emigrate, it was John Grills, he emigrated from England with his wife Rebecca (1^st). Following this line down their daughter Rebecca (2^nd), married Thomas Trudgate (1^st, he was transported), their son Thomas Threadgate (3^rd) married Sarah Knight (she was a 2^nd although her mother and grandparents on her mother’s side were immigrants), then their son Francis Threadgate (4^th), married Ida Curtis (4^th), and to my father Raymond (5^th), who married Lillian Matthews (also 5^th) and then to me (6^th).

If you have not worked out that I am an engineer by now, then what is the matter with you?

With forty three Australian ancestors I think you might understand that I may have difficulty in choosing a favourite. Should my favourite be one that I knew, a free or assisted immigrant, a transported immigrant (well convict) or a volunteer in His Majesty’s Service. Should that favourite be someone escaping the poverty of Ireland around 1840 or someone who committed a burglary or stole some linen from her employer or maybe came as a servant girl or governess to the family of a well to do Master Mariner? Maybe it should be a contracted employee of the oldest continuously operating company in Australia. I could choose from any of these.

I must ponder a while and see what emerges. I have an ancestor named Thomas who apparently used an alias when apprehended in Long Sutton, West Norfolk, he was indicted , the charge: having burglariously broken into the dwelling house of Henry Gamble, at Grimston, found guilty and sentenced to death, his sentence commuted to transportation for life, was assigned to the Bailiff for the Sherriff, became a policeman, was discharged for inappropriate behaviour, married the daughter of a volunteer of the Royal NSW Veterans Company and joined the police force again before becoming a farmer. Maybe?

Then I have another named Joe, more precisely Joseph, who had owned a pub in Macclesfield in the east of Cheshire, had a wife named Jane and four children, went bankrupt and stole a horse. He was apprehended trying to sell the horse and gave two false names before admitting as to who he really was. He was indicted and convicted, sentenced to death, wrote a plea for clemency to the King which was supported by a letter from his wife. All to no avail, he was transported leaving the wife and four children to fend for themselves. He subsequently met a poor Irish lass who had escaped the poverty of Ireland and after having several children with her he invoked the “separation by water” law and married his second wife named Jane with whom he had eleven children. He stole cattle and went to goal again. Joe was flamboyant, he would light his smoke with a ten pound note and after his death his ghost would appear on the sliprails above the house of an evening until Jane joined him in the thereafter. I think Joe qualifies for consideration.

I say to myself “what about a woman?” I admire my mother and all my grandmothers although I only knew my direct grandmothers. I have a Great Great Great Grandmother who lived to the age of 95 years, she immigrated with her husband who was contracted to, what is now the oldest continuously operating company in Australia, The Australian Agricultural Company. When Sarah made the 135 day journey in the Barque London in late 1841 and early 1842 she had with her not only her husband, but seven children and she went on to have another five in Australia. They settled in Stroud and are prominent in its history. Sarah must have been a great woman.

My thoughts turn to my other female ancestors, the sad thing is that I know very little of them and almost nothing is recorded. It seems almost as the women did not matter or at least they were taken for granted. Another Sarah comes to mind, born right in the middle of the 19^th century, 1850, the daughter of a former convict and a woman who was part of an assisted immigrant family. In the heart of the Hunter Valley she married on her 20^th birthday to the son of a former convict and had 14 children, thirteen of whom she raised to adults losing just one boy as an infant. This lady supported an industrious husband and had a reputation for helping young mothers get through the difficulties they experienced with their babies. She is the mother of all who carry my name, she must surely have been a matriarch.

This is much harder than I thought. Another of my ancestors, again born in the middle of the 19^th century, George found himself without his mother just after his 10^th birthday. His mother found dead in a paddock near their house in rather suspicious circumstances with a piece of calico tied around her neck. His father was eventually put to trial for murder but acquitted and by all the anecdotes he was not around much after that. George was working for the Police Magistrate before he was a teenager, then as a striker for the local blacksmith before returning to the employ of the Police Magistrate. What little schooling he had was at night by the daughter of the Police Magistrate. George ventured from his home town of Wollombi on the southern edge of the Hunter Valley north to the Casino area before returning to marry a local girl who at the age of just sixteen gave birth to the first of his 13 children. George became a sawyer and a farmer then a selector and pioneer on the Broken Back Range. In his own words “a wilderness swarming with flying foxes”. One of my favourites!

I have not yet touched on any ancestor who has lived in my life experience. I cannot dismiss from consideration Owen, my maternal Grandfather. Another brought up in adversity, he like George, his father, was without his mother at 10 years of age. Owen became a timber getter and bullock driver from the age of 13 and a dairyman in his twenties, milk vending was added to his portfolio of vocations, he selected Crown land and acquired freehold land until he became known as “King of the Mountain”. It would be unfair to his wife to select Owen as my favourite. The support that Lottie gave Owen cannot be overstated. In a conversation with him, sitting on the knoll just below the house, when he was in his early 80’s he said to me “without that old woman up there” glancing at the farm house “I would have achieved nothing”.

There are so many others that I have not touched on who lived through such adversity, in circumstances that I cannot comprehend that I feel it impossible to select a favourite. Those that lost “everything” due to floods, due to bank collapse, due to “the depression”. Many who were without one of their parents due to early death in a country that had little by way of social amenities or infrastructure. I do wonder how they survived.

As I have to pick one then I am forced back to John Grills, John had served in the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners during the Napoleonic wars, he served for almost 15 years. He was a stonemason so I assume that he did not see armed combat but he suffered an arm injury and was discharged on a “out pension” in 1819. John married Rebecca in Sandwich, Kent in the south of England in 1824 and then volunteered service in New South Wales. John and Rebecca emigrated from England in 1826 on the Ship Orpheus and in January 1827 he was signed up in the Royal NSW Veterans Company.

The conditions of this voluntary service in New South Wales were that, he could bring his family and after service of two years, would be granted land in the fledgling colony.

If one drives in a westerly direction on High Street in Maitland and across the well-known “long bridge” you may observe a sign “Veterans Flat”, on either side of the bridge lays an expanse of flat land, on the right or to the north is Oakhampton and the historic Walcha Water Works. It is in this area where the 40 acres granted to John Grills in 1829 was located, a narrow strip of land that ran from the Hunter River in a westerly direction some 800 metres.

John Grills was not a farmer and he sold of most of the land except for 1 ¼ acres on the riverbank, weather he used his stone masonry skills is not known, he did live his life out in this area raising a family on the banks of the Hunter River. John must have been a family minded man as in his last will and testament he provided for his remaining land to be divided into five portions, one each for his four surviving children and one along the riverbank left specifically for his children’s common use.

I admire John for his courage to volunteer for emigration and service and for his consideration in his last will and testament.