James Golding, my 3x great grandfather, was the first of my English ancestors to arrive in Australia. He and his wife, Eliza ( née Dare) arrived on the “Hornet” on 3 March, 1859. Their children, Susan (11) Eliza (8) and John (1) were with them; their 4 year old daughter, Deborah, had died on the voyage.
James described himself as a “Bullock driver/ labourer” and declared that he had a relative in the colony. This was his brother-in-law, Samuel Sheppard, married to Eliza’s sister, Mary Ann. The Sheppard’s had arrived in 1855, and were working on the large property, Tomki Station, near Casino, NSW, where the Golding’s first went after their arrival. They eventually settled nearer to Lismore, and had another child, Emily, born in 1865.
Eliza died in1867, aged only 39, and is buried in the North Lismore cemetery.
James lived until 1908. There is a photo of him, with my great aunt Nellie, taken about 5 years before his death, when she was about 15.
Until James and Eliza came to Australia, their families had lived for hundreds of years in the villages of Cavendish and Glemsford, in Suffolk. ( We know as far back as my 9x great grandfather, Mark Golding, born in 1599, who was also an unskilled agricultural labourer of Cavendish). It is reasonable to assume that there were few, if any, in that long line who were literate. James and Eliza may never have written a letter home to their families, and they certainly knew that when they left England they would never see any of them again.
