I have written before (Week 21 – Military) about several family
members who joined up to fight in WW1, and a little about William Johnson, Paul’s
3 x great grandfather who was a regular soldier for some years in the 19th
century.
William was born in Essex, England to Joseph Johnson and his
wife Esther Monks. According to William’s
death certificate, Joseph was also a soldier although we don’t know much about
him as he disappears from the records.
Perhaps he was also fighting in the Napoleonic Wars.
William enlisted in the Royal Staff Corps, probably when he was
very young. This was a messenger and orderly
regiment of the Defence Services which began its military term in 1813. After the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815,
the Regiment served in different parts of the British Empire including
Australia and the West Indies.
William was serving in Barbados when he met his future wife,
Martha Sarsfield Donovan. She was a young
widow who had given birth to two children but by the time she met William her
husband and daughter had died and her son was to die the following year.*(1) We
know that Martha’s family had been in Barbados for several generations and that
some of them were plantation owners so we must assume that they were also slave
owners. Martha’s death certificate
states that her father was a schoolteacher, but this may not be correct as the informant made other errors.
Martha and William’s first son, William, was born in January
1821, and the couple was married the following February 1822 when Martha was
25, and William 19.
Towards the end of 1825, No 3 Company, Royal Staff Corps was
posted to Australia. The officers were
either civil engineers or surveyors and the NCOs and Privates were skilled or
semi-skilled tradesmen. It was intended
that the Corps would, in part, replace a number of the civilian Overseers of
Convicts and thereby reduce costs but this scheme was unsuccessful. The majority of the Staff Corps men were
young and inexperienced and unable to control the convict labour. The Company was ordered to disband and the
men given the option of settling in Australia or staying in the army to be
posted elsewhere. Grants of land were
given to encourage them to stay.
William was a blacksmith and a First Classman of the Royal
Staff Corps. In Sydney they had two more
children (Mary Ann 1826 -28 and Mary 1828).
When the regiment disbanded, he
was discharged (on 24 June 1829). The
family chose to stay but unfortunately, William’s small land grant was at the
area then known as Maroota, 49kms north west of Sydney on an early road
constructed by convict gangs to link Sydney with the fertile Hunter Valley.
Attempts to settle this land failed as it was barren and sandy and could not
support soldier settlers and their families*(2).
William found work in the Hunter Valley and his next two
children were born there *(3)on a property owned by a fellow soldier called Archibald
Bell (whose name records his crossing of the Blue Mountains now known as Bell’s
Line of Road). The next daughter Martha was also born in this area, then the
last child, John was born at Port Macquarie in 1838.
At about this time, William petitioned the new Governor of
NSW, George Gipps for another land grant, but it was refused. Gipps noted on the petition that “Grants of
land are discontinued and it it is not in my power to give..”
 |
| Governor Gipps' note on William's petition |
By this time the eldest daughter, Mary was married to Charles McCann, a
wheelwright. The whole family seems to have packed up with them and moved
south to the goldfields of Ballarat. Family
legend has it that Charles and William combined their two skills to create the large
carriage vehicles known on the goldfields as McCann Wagons.
The birth records of Charles and Mary’s children show that
from the early 1850s until the late 1860s the family moved between the
goldfields of central Victoria and the Northern Rivers of NSW. On modern highways, this is a distance of
1700 kms – it is difficult to imagine how complicated and difficult it would
have been by horse drawn wagon, wearing cumbersome clothing and accompanied by
several small children. There was the
option of coming by boat – also a long and hazardous journey which we know
other family members did in this period.
Despite the difficulties the extended family seems to have done
the trip at least twice. William and
Martha finally settled with many of their children and grandchildren in the rich
cedar country around Teven Creek near Ballina, where most of the men were
engaged in timber cutting.
We know from the diaries of William Glascott (Week 24 – Dear
Diary) that William Johnson was in the area, and that he was still plying his
trade as a blacksmith, with a “shop” in Ballina.
William died on 29 May 1873.
The cause of death was given as chronic gout, from which he had suffered
for 26 years. Martha outlived him by 8
years, and they were both buried in the East Ballina cemetery.
*(2)Later this land proved ideal for a variety of crops
including orchards and it is now known as the Hills District, a wealthy
residential area of Sydney
*(3) Jane 1831 and Esther 1833
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