Birdseye, Cornelius

A full account of Cornelius Birdseye’s life is not available and we must make do with the snippets of information that have survived. Birdseye was the overseer of the South Australian Company’s flocks and herds and he sailed to South Australia in 1836 on the Lady Mary Pelham. On board he had charge of a flock of the company’s sheep, much to the annoyance of Captain Ross and his crew. They claimed that the sheep’s presence limited their ability to catch a whale, should the opportunity arise. This led to friction throughout the voyage. In the first few weeks after arrival at Kangaroo Island, Birdseye was one of the officers with whom Samuel Stephens had a number of issues.

C Birdseye had emigrated to SA by 1837, when he bought Town Acre 55 in Hindley St (north-western corner of Hindley and Morphett Sts). Here, he farmed until the late 1840s, when he prospered greatly and began buying large tracts of land elsewhere in the colony. By the 1850s, the Birdseyes had shifted to South Road, where official documents record Cornelius as a gentleman. A decade later, Cornelius had made enough money to retire in England.

His first wife, Charlotte, a daughter of William Wright, of Wymondly Bury, Herts, died in 1864. At this time, the Birdseyes were living in Burton Rd, Brixton. C Birdseye re-married, and when he died in 1880, he left all of his property, including the SA land, to his second wife, Emma. Apart from the small portion of Section 1142 (for the Lion Mill 1854) and the whole of Section he sold to William Wailes to build the Lion Flour Mill during 1854, Cornelius retained the rest of his substantial strip of land along the New Mt Barker Rd between Bridgewater and Aldgate. These assets included the Birdseye Quarry, managed by John Widgery of Grünthal for the Birdseye Quarry Company. Emma Birdseye sold a strip through the centre of her late husband’s land to the SA Government for the Aldgate-Nairne railway line during 1881. In 1883, she disposed of the remaining portions in a series of sales.