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James McVicar and Caroline Janet McNab according to the British records, were married at St. Sepulchre's Parish Church in Holborn, London on 13 February 1853. For more information on St. Sepulchre Church see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate . It's a beautiful church, amazingly almost untouched by German bombing, whereas much of the surrounding area was obliterated. I was able to attend most of a service there in August 2016, and take many photos. For more information on the PARISH of St. Sephulchre, try https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/St_Sepulchre,_Middlesex_Genealogy, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre_(parish)
On the Marriage Certificate, James was listed as being of "full" age, a bachelor, a bookbinder, living at 11 Seacoal Lane (which was just off Fleet Street, close to several large printing works), the son of a Neil McVicar. Why he was in London at the time of his marriage is unknown. Perhaps he had moved to London because bookbinders fared better in the city which was the centre of the burgeoning, increasingly literate Empire. One wonders how he fared with his accent, given that for most of his life, there was no sound media to familiarise accent groups with each other.
The earliest record of him found so far is the first British census, in 1841, where adult ages were rounded, names and occupations were recorded, but relationships were not. He was recorded as James McVicar, a bookbinder's apprentice, aged 10, in the house in Great Hamilton Street, Glasgow, of a Neil McVicar, a porter, and Agnes McVicar, both aged 50, with Daniel McVicar, an iron moulder's apprenctice, aged 15, and Alexander, aged 8. The children were born in the County, but the adults were not.
The repetition of the forenames Neil/Neal, and Alexander in later generations in Australia adds to the evidence that this is the correct family group. The non-reuse of Daniel's name , which is found in other McVicar families in Australia, could be a result of a falling-out. It's also been suggested that Daniel was seen as a another form of Neil.
In all records, bar those of James, his father Neil is described as " a porter". Whilst it is possible that Neil was promoted in his late fifties, it may be that James, for his marriage certificate, far away from other, correcting family members, elevated his father's employment to "mercantile clerk", or that that was the closest London equivalent of the Glasgow registered occupation of "porter," It's also possible that this was the result of confusion, driven by very different accents of James and the wedding registrar. Scottish records also show that several Neil McVicars on the West coast of Scotland, around two generations back from James, were mariners, and that one married a Catherine Clerk at Greenock in 1791. Should these be James grandparents, the possibility of verbal confusion between James and the Registrar increases greatly.
In the 1851 Census, James was a bookbinder, born in Glasgow and aged 23, the unmarried lodger of a Neil and Catherine Shaw at 66 Queen Street, Lambeth. The Shaws were also Scottish, with Neil also born in Glasgow and Catherine in Coldstream, and were only a little older than James. Neil was also a bookbinder. Queen St has disappeared from the maps I have found, at least under that name, but nearby Short Street & Mitre Road still exist, between Waterloo Rd, The Cut, Blackfriars Rd. and Ufford St., Lambeth.
On the marriage certificate, Caroline Janet was listed as being of "full" age, a spinster of no occupation, the daughter of William McNab, a baker, deceased (in 1840). She was also living as 11 Seacoal Lane, although the building was a tenement, so she may not have lived in the same apartment as James. The certificate was amended the same day, by the official striking out the second "b" in McNabb.
The earliest definite record we have of Caroline Janet is of her christening, at St. James, Clerkenwell, London on 4th July 1837, where her parents were listed as William Macnab (sic), baker, and Sarah, of 22 Clerkenwell Close. "Caroline Jannet"'s birthdate was recorded as July 29 1834. This is consistent with her ages of 6 and 16 on the 1841 and 1851 censuses.
In the first, 1841 English census, Janet was recorded as a 6 year old living with her widowed mother Sarah Macnab, a laundress aged 48, and brother George, aged 11, at 41 Eagle Street, St George the Martyr Parish (now St.George's Holborn), not far from the Seacoal Lane of later records. In the summer of 1843, George was stunned in a recreational boating accident on the Thames, and drowned. In the 1851 census, Janet was recorded as Caroline, the unmarried daughter of a Sarah McNab at 11 Seacoal Lane, St.Sephulcre's Parish, a bookfolder and servant, born in Clerkenwell, London, aged 16. Sarah was recorded as a 59 year old widow, a laundress, born in the parish of St. James Westminster, London.
The above information corresponds with that given by James and Caroline Janet's daughter, Agnes Janet, at their deaths in Victoria, Australia so many years later. No photographs of James or Caroline as young people seem to exist. Caroline seems to have been known informally as Janet, but from what time is unknown. The first evidence is the record of a letter posted to her as Mrs. C. Janet McVicar in 1860. However it is more likely that the change occurred earlier and therefore this website will refer to her as Janet from this point.
St. James, Clerkenwell, London, reopened after rebuilding in 1792, baptism place of Caroline Janet McNab 14/7/1837.
In 1854, James and Janet's first child, Janet Caroline, was born and died in Sydney, New South Wales, being christened in and buried from Scots Church. These are the only records found so far of their living in NSW. They may be an indication that they first arrived in Sydney, where James, who stated on his baby daughter's baptism reJa also be a connection with Janet's half brother, William McNab's, end of sentence as a convict on 15 May 1850. We don't know where William was between that time and being recorded as mining with James in 1858.
Govt Camp Creswick Creek - when it was new.
Their early life in Victoria - Creswick
We don’t know when or how James and Janet moved to Victoria. Their second child, Caroline Agnes was registered at Creswick, born 30 March 1855. Creswick had been rushed in late 1851, so by 1855 was an "old goldfield", and the local First Nations people almost totally depleted by disease and dispossession. To see something of life on the Victorian Goldfields, try http://www.egold.net.au/home.html
At Creswick, James ran a store named the Glasgow Store. Around the time he McVicars left there, a storekeeping family named Hartnell arrived from 15 years in Adelaide. They had emigrated to Adelaide from Devon on the Resource in 1839, along with a George McVicar and family (connection unknown). The Hartnells were a generation older, with adult children, and possibly came to know our McVicars. before the latter moved on. Twenty five or so years later the lives of the two families were to be entwined in an unexpected way, and remain so.
Chinaman's Flat (now part of Bowenvale), and White Hills (between Maryborough and Havelock).
Caroline and James' third child, James Neil, (Jamsie) was registered in 1857 at Maryborough. James' death registration listed him as having been born at Chinaman's Flat, in the creek valley of the same name, five kilometres north west of Maryborough. It was rushed in October 1856. The easy gold at Chinaman's Flat was won by the winter of 1857, and machinery was needed to work the increasingly wet gold-bearing lead, but the area of each claim was far too small. In addition, machinery required capital and was beyond the capabilities of most individual miners. (Please note that a "gold lead" has nothing to do with the heavy soft metal "lead".. which rhymes with head. A gold lead .. rhymes with bead... is a line of gold bearing ground, usually formed by an underground river. Various texts, such as James Flett's "Maryborough" , give details of these rushes, fields and leads).
It is highly likely that the McVicars (James, Janet, Carrie and baby Jamsie) moved from Chinaman's Flat to White Hills, in the Four Mile Creek valley, 5 kilometres away, in the spring of 1857 or summer of 1858. White Hills was just north of Maryborough, on the newly surveyed road to Dunolly and is not to be confused with the current White Hills, a northern suburb of Bendigo.
It seems to have been a time of more than usual lawlessness. Osborn & DuBourg in their "Maryborough a Social History 1854-1904" describe several violent incidents in the area which contained the localities of Newtown, Simson, White Hills and Havelock. The last name related to Sir Henry Havelock of the 1857-9 Indian Mutiny fame.
Whether the McVicars were at White Hills on the night of 31 January, 1858 is unknown, that night being the night of the murder of Charles Lopez, the lodging house proprietor, and Edward Barnett, the pursuing policeman. Riots followed, which destroyed several “suspect” businesses and premises during that night. Barnett was later buried in the Carisbrook Cemetery, with an impressive tombstone erected.
James and Janet's fourth child, Adelaide Mary (known in the family as Mary), was born in July 1858 at White Hill.
James' & William's prospecting & mining in the now Landsborough Valley, 70km from Janet, Carrie, Jamsie & new Adelaide Mary at White Hills, just north of Maryborough.
James wasn't available to sign Adelaide Mary's birth registration until November 1858. We know from the December 31st issue of the "Mount Ararat Advertiser and Chronicle for the District of the Wimmera,'' which can be found online at the National Library of Australia at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280024773 that in early December, James, his brother-in-law, Mc Nab, and another were near what’s now Landsborough, neat Ararat. Flett in his The History of Gold Discovery in Victoria, p.447, wrote, “Towards the end of 1858 the old Malakoff Lead was struck further down the valley, and it became known as the Glasgow Lead, and the short-lived township of Edinburgh. The prospectors were a party from White Hills, Havelock, consisting of James McVicar, McNabb, and Reither,” (McNab(b) being James' brother in law, the already mentioned William Crawford McNab).
We do know that James was still at the Glasgow Lead, Edinburgh, in January 1859, when the Maryborough Hospital canvasser collected donations from people in Avoca, and further afield, Burnt Creek/Lexton, and Edinburgh, a place which Flett in his Old Pubs – Inns, Taverns and Grog Houses on the Victorian Gold Diggings, p.71 as a half mile of the usual stores, blacksmiths and grog houses, called Edinburgh”.
The Maryborough & Dunolly Advertiser of February 25, 1859 included James in its list of unclaimed letters at Maryborough, suggesting that the McVicars were not regulars there.
Here's the Maryborough Hospital's acknowledgement of donations, in the Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser of Friday 21 January 1859. At the time, the Hospital was involved in an extensive building program, as were those at Ararat, Amherst and Dunolly.
MARYBOROUGH DISTRICT HOSPITAL.
The Committee of Management beg to acknowledge
the following Donations and Subscriptions to the above Institution :
Glasgow Lead, Edinburgh.—P H Salmon £1, Al Alston 10s, John Croad £1, John Wilkins 5s, Wm Winspear 5s, Mr Whitecross 5s. Mr Warren 5s, Mr Torrens 5s, Wm Thomas £1, E Macintosh 10s, J McLean Dalling 5s, Julius Seehof 5s, Wm Herrick 5s, J Lennon 10s, J Johnstone 10s, Jas Nicholls 10s, Robt James 5s, T Feddar 5s, Jas Mc Vicar 10s, Thos Hudson 5s, Jas Ranger 5s.
Burn Bank, Lexton.— Mrs Anderson 10s, John Milrea 21s, J Crowtber 10s, Edwd Williamson 10s, Mrs Bourke 10s, J Creech 5s, Jas Brennan £1, Mrs McKeam 10s, Wm Loft 6s, Alex Wier £1, J E Payne 10s, John Flugg 10s, Mrs Thos Martin 10s, Mrs Grayling 10s, Andrew Wallace 10s, G Burdsall 5s, Marcis Aitkin £1, Robt Ecclestone £2, Williamson and Mc Lauren 21s, David Anderson (Wallaloo) £1, Jas Rupkins 10s.
Avoca.—Brown and Co 30s, Harrison and Co £2, John Cameron 5s, Peter Bostock £1, Mr Henry 5s, A Friend 5s, R Campbell £1, Nathl Levi (Melbourne) £2 2s, Thomas Bannester (Jones's Creek) £1.
Total, £32 14s 0d.
HUGH MACBEAN, Secretary.
Maryborough, 30th January, 1859.
Together again at Lamplough, south of Avoca.
The late Denis Strangman, in his excellent detailed article, A Forgotten Victorian Gold Rush: Lamplough, via Avoca, 1859 – 60, http://home.vicnet.net.au/~adhs/article-the-gold-rush-to-lamplough-1859-1860/ reported on the rush to Lamplough on 26-27 November 1859, which resulted in approximately 3000 people arriving there by the third day. A vigorous community developed, including James McVicar as keeper of his Glasgow Store, but by December 1860 the crowd had rushed elsewhere, and by the census of April 1861 only about 600 remained in the vicinity.
James' and Janet’s daughter Florence Amy was born on 3 September 1860, probably at Mountain Hut, but not registered, suggesting that the family was under some stress. We know that by 1861 James was a storekeeper at Mountain Hut. Some time in the previous year, an unclaimed letter had awaited Mrs. C Janet McVicar at the Avoca Post Office, but given that that was a useful address for not just Lamplough but all areas surrounding Avoca, including Mountain Hut, it provides no evidence as to their location at that time.
Next page: Where they settled - long term
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