Regular readers of this blog will notice that I skipped #52 Ancestors Week 9.

The prompt was "Disaster"

This year, I  have enrolled in the University of Tasmania Diploma in Family History.  This will be a bit time consuming so  I've decided that I can skip the occasional #52 Ancestors week when I don't think there is an clear story in my family that relates to the prompt.

I think that while there are accidents, bad timings, poor judgments and other mishaps throughout my family story, there aren't any real "disasters".

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 10 Strong Woman

#52 Ancestors 2020


Week 10 Strong Woman

Elizabeth White (nee Stanford) 

In family history there are always questions that have no answers.  For me, one of those questions is addressed to my great grandmother, Elizabeth Stanford.

Why did your parents withhold permission for you to marry Robert White, even when you were clearly pregnant?

Robert White has been the subject of several previous posts (see #52 Ancestors 2019 – “I’d Like to Meet” and “Rich man”.)  It’s difficult to understand what Charles and Susan, Elizabeth’s parents, could have had against him.  He was a hard worker, he wasn’t the wrong religion, his family and theirs came from the same part of town and the same kind of background.  Robert and Elizabeth had known each other since childhood.

And yet the marriage took place quietly on 19 June,1888, the day after Elizabeth turned 21 and no longer needed her parent’s permission to marry.  She was 6 months pregnant.

The first of their children was Ellen (Nellie) born in September of 1888.  Over the next 15 years, six more children were born.  My grandmother Alice was the second, born in 1890.  She was undoubtedly a strong woman, so I thought I should have a closer look at her mother, to see if she had been Alice’s role model.

Elizabeth Stanford was the second of 15 children, born to Charles and Susan Stanford in 1867.  Her father was born in Kempsey, NSW, the oldest child of English immigrant parents.  Susan came to NSW as a child – her parents were also assisted immigrants from Suffolk in England.  Charles was a small farmer and a timber getter, first at Casino and then at South Lismore, where Elizabeth was born.  She spent her entire life in this area.

As the oldest girl in a large family, Elizabeth would have carried some of the responsibility of child care and house work.  We know nothing about her education, but I assume she had only basic primary schooling until the age of 12, and then left to help at home.  At the time of her marriage, she had three siblings under 5, and one of her little sisters had recently died.  (Her mother went on to have three more children who were roughly the same ages as Elizabeth's first three - Nellie, Alice and Violet).

Robert spent most of his adult life involved in his community.  He was a passionate supporter of the Manchester Unity Friendly Society and an Alderman of Lismore Council.  He was President of the Lismore Show Society and the Horticultural Society.  The Northern Star (Lismore’s newspaper) has pages of references to him over 40 years from 1890 until his death in 1932. 

There are almost no references to Elizabeth as a separate person, yet she managed to raise seven children and have her own outside activities.  She too was involved in the Manchester Unity, and was one of the first women to be initiated as a member.  She was also a member of the Red Cross and was made a Life Member of this organisation, of the Lismore Hospital, for which she was a tireless worker and of South Lismore Public School, which was attended by all her children and many of her grandchildren.

From many postcards I now have, it seems that Robert spent a lot of time away from home, particularly when he was NSW Grand Master of the M.U.I.O.O.F.(1912-13)  Elizabeth would have been left with the children and the running of the household many times.  I have only one postcard from her to Alice, so she managed to go at least once to Sydney with her husband.  It must have been written before 1911, the year Alice was married, as she has been left in charge of the younger ones.

St Andrews Cathedral Sydney

Elizabeth's card to Alice

Elizabeth lived for 25 years after Robert’s death.  She was clearly very involved in the lives of her children and grandchildren, most of whom lived within walking distance of the family home. From Dad, I had the impression that her advice and approval were important to all of them.  Nellie’s daughter Annie lived with her when she first left school and went to work as a florist, and other members of the family apparently came and went.  She died in 1957, just before her 90^th birthday.

#52Ancestors 2020 Week 8 Prosperity

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 8 Prosperity

Prosperity is relative.  Many of my early ancestors would have considered themselves prosperous if they had a safe roof over their heads and enough food on the table for all the people sitting around it.

But Nicholas McCann, son of two convicts, became genuinely prosperous in his lifetime.  Described in the electoral roll of 1856 as a “gentleman”, he owned a house, land and a business and was highly regarded in his community.

Nicholas was born in 1803 to Peter McCann and Mary Fitzgerald, both Irish convicts.  He was baptised at St Johns Church, Parramatta on the day of his parent’s marriage – 9 January 1804. 

Peter drowned in October 1806, leaving Mary with two small children (Catherine was born in July 1805).  We will never know if Nicholas’ life would have been very different had Peter lived, but what we do know is that he was very lucky that John Norris, his godfather, took a great interest in him.

John Norris, a former convict, was a stone mason who operated a Monumental and Builders Yard on the main road between Sydney and Parramatta.  He is described in (the second) Peter McCann’s memoir as ”an splendid tradesman– sober, industrious and methodical (with ) a capacity for making money, and at the same time, the ability to take care of it – a wise principle not adopted by many in the early days of colonisation.”*(1)

Nicholas seems to have been “adopted” by John Norris who taught him the trades of masonry and building which were to stand him in good stead all his working life.

By 1827, Nicholas was married to his first wife, Catherine Johnston and his first child, Charles, had been born.  He applied for a land grant in Parramatta, and was described by a local magistrate who supported his application as, “an industrious clever tradesman …I do not hesitate to recommend him for the indulgence applied for”*(2)

At about this time Nicholas constructed a sandstone altar for the grave of wealthy grazier, Robert Townson which is still there in the St Johns Parramatta cemetery.  The sandstone altar is weathered but it is still possible to read the carving on its top, “Nicl McCann Sculpt”.  This is the first known example of Nicholas’ work in this field.

In 1828/29 Nicholas was consumed by a court case involving a wealthy landowner, James Elder and Nicholas’ alleged illegal acquisition of sandstone from land which Elder claimed was his.  There were three judgements and ultimately Nicholas was vindicated but it was obviously too much for him and he looked elsewhere for a new opportunity.

 John Batman, who was from Parramatta and a friend of Nicholas, had settled in Tasmania and sent back glowing reports.  Nicholas went to Tasmania, and Catherine, Peter (born 1828) and baby Anne (born 1831) followed shortly afterwards.  For reasons which have never been clear, Charles remained in Sydney in the care of his grandparents.  He never saw his mother again, as she died in Tasmania three months after their arrival.  Peter was sent to a terrible “boarding school” for about a year, and Nicholas gave up his baby daughter Anne*(3) to the care of a couple called Hopkins, who took her to England.

Nicholas married his second wife, Catherine Nelson in October 1836.  Catherine was eleven years his junior, Scottish, and had been a nursery governess before her marriage.  Nicholas, Catherine and Peter (then 9 years old) left Tasmania in 1837 and after an astonishing voyage (see #52 Ancestors 2019 – Week 42) they arrived at Port Fairy on the western coast of Victoria.  Initially, Nicholas was involved in the whaling industry, and later sheep farming which failed in part because of the hostility of the local native population.  The family, now with William (born 1837)*(4) and Catherine (1839), moved to Geelong.  Here they were to establish a business and a family which maintains connections to Geelong to this day.

Four more children were born in Geelong – Ellen (Helen), Nicholas, James and Janet.  When Catherine died on 7 October 1850, there were six children under the age of thirteen years.

During the 1840s Nicholas carried on in Geelong as a builder and stonemason.  He built some of Geelong’s earliest public buildings – the Gaol, the Hospital, Customs House, Christ Church and the piers for the original bridge across the river.  He also, during this time, made the momentous decision to become a teetotaller.  His action was recorded in the local newspaper reports of the Corio Total Abstinence Society.

“Mr McCann expressed himself happy in having the opportunity of speaking in favour of Total Abstinence. Having himself derived much benefit from it, he could confidently recommend it to all: he considered that no one would be injured by leaving off intoxicating drink at one, as he had abandoned it after fourteen years hard drinking, and found his health and circumstances were improved by the abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and was determined to practice it as long as he lived”*(5)

Nicholas gave the land on which the Temperance Society built their meeting house.

Temperance Hall at Ceres

By the early 1850s, Peter McCann had joined Nicholas in his business and together they looked for a suitable quarry to provide stone for the burgeoning building industry.  They found land at Ceres, about six miles from Geelong in the Barrabool Hills.  Demand for this stone grew so fast that Nicholas gave up contracting and built a family home at Ceres.  The stone from his quarries was used in the building of many of Melbourne’s fine colonial buildings including Scots Church, St Paul’s Cathedral and Ormond College. 

Nicholas was prosperous enough in the early 50s to send his son Peter to England on a trip to bring back Annie, his little sister.  While he was there Peter met and married Elizabeth Begley. On his return, it was Peter who consolidated the family fortune when he extended the quarry operations and acquired a limestone deposit which became the foundation of the Australian cement industry.

Nicholas died at Ceres on 1 December 1879 and was buried in the Highton cemetery.  When we visited Geelong in 1993 to meet some of the family, the house he had built was still there and it, and much of his land, was still in the family.  He was described by the Geelong Advertiser as “one of the greatest benefactors of Geelong.”

McCann graves at Highton cemetery - both Nicholas and his son Peter are buried here

*(1)”History of Descendants of Peter McCann who Landed in Australia in 1799 and the Establishment of the Cement Industry and its Develeopment in Victoria” By Peter McCann and Wesley McCann

*(2) quoted in “With Conviction” by Richard J (Dick) Sansom

*(3) An indication of the esteem in which Nicholas held John Norris is that Anne was called Anne Norris McCann.

*(4) William Nelson McCann.  At the age of 24, he had become the first Victorian born member of Parliament and he was also a part owner of the “Geelong Register” newspaper at one time.  He was convicted of forgery in 1867 and after serving a short sentence he moved to the United States where he was known as William Nelson/Neilson.  He worked there as a journalist and married a second time after the death of his first wife in 1895.  He died in San Francisco in 1903.

*(5) Geelong Advertiser August 1844

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 7 Favourite Discovery

#52 Ancestors 2020


Week 7 Favourite Discovery

Every new discovery is a favourite, especially at the beginning of your research when you know very little and each new revelation leads to more discoveries.

But recently, having my DNA done led to the discovery of a connection to a very significant man in the history and development of early Australia.

I had read about John Hubert Plunkett a few years ago when I read a book called, “Murder at Myall Creek” by Mark Tedeschi QC.  Myall Creek was the site of a shameful episode in the history of Australia; the murder of at least 28 unarmed indigenous Australians by a group of eleven stockmen.  This was by no means the first (or, sadly, the last)  such massacre, but the reason this one has become infamous is that there were two trials to prosecute the murderers, and after the second trial seven men were hanged for the crime. 

Conspiracies of silence usually shrouded massacres of Aboriginal people and perpetrators were rarely punished.  The main reason why this group was brought to justice was that the Attorney General in charge of prosecuting crime in NSW was John Hubert Plunkett.

Born in Roscommon, Ireland in 1802, Plunkett was fortunate to have been able to take advantage of the relaxation of the penal laws against Catholics and to enrol at Trinity College, Dublin.  He graduated in 1823, was called to both the Irish Bar and then the English Bar,  and was offered the position of Solicitor General of NSW in 1832.  He was the first Catholic to be appointed to high office in the Colony.

He acquitted himself well and in 1836 he was appointed Attorney General.  This was a crucial time in the fledgling colony – As a Catholic lawyer in Ireland, Plunkett had first hand experience of discrimination.  He believed that legislation should promote civil and religious liberty and work to alleviate social inequalities.  Accordingly, he became the architect of legislation which established the equality of all men before the law.  This meant jury rights for emancipists (former convicts) and protection under the law for convicts and assigned servants.

Plunkett extended these same protections to Aboriginals so he set about the prosecution of the Myall Creek murderers.  This was extremely contentious at the time, and the men were acquitted at the first trial.  Undeterred, Plunkett brought a fresh charge and seven of the men were found guilty and hanged.

Plunkett considered the Church Act of 1836 the most important single achievement of his public career. It definitely disestablished the Church of England and established legal equality between Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians; its provisions were later extended to Methodists, and Plunkett himself would gladly have included Jews and Independents. 

 He advocated for a secular education system along the lines of the National system in Ireland in which children of all religious bodies combined for secular education but separated for religious instruction.  In 1844 Plunkett supported the Lowe committee, of which he was a member, in advocating the National system, and when it came into force in 1848 Plunkett became the first chairman of the board.

When the Sisters of Charity arrived in Sydney from Ireland in 1838, John Plunkett's special interest in their affairs led him to organise a public appeal to establish their first hospital in Sydney. He then helped the Sisters to acquire the narrow strip of land along Victoria Street in Darlinghurst to which the first St. Vincent's Hospital, which had opened its doors in Potts Point, was relocated in 1870. One hundred and fifty years later, St Vincent's Hospital is still there.

Amongst Plunkett’s other achievements were his advocacy for the cessation of convict transportation, which happened in NSW in 1840, despite opposition from the squatter parties (for whom they were a source of cheap labour) and the establishment of Australia’s first University, the University of Sydney in 1850.  He served on its first Senate, was an early Vice-Chancellor and was also a founding fellow of St Johns College.

John Hubert Plunkett was a cousin to my 5 x great grandmother Catherine Plunkett.  Although she and her husband Bernard Murphy never left Ireland many of their children and grandchildren followed their illustrious cousin to the new colony.  As I wrote in #52 Ancestors – Far From Home, 25 of them came on the Crusader to Sydney in 1840.  They included my 3 X great grandparents Peter and Mary Power (nee Murphy) and their children, one of whom was my 2 x great grandmother Bridget (Bedelia) Power.

One of my newfound cousins is already deep into her research of the Power and Plunkett families.  With her, I hope to unravel more details about my connection to this great man.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 6 Same Name

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 6 Same Name

One of the great frustrations of family historians is the propensity of families to perpetuate the same names, generation after generation. 

In my paternal grandmother’s line, the Goldings, Slaters and Brockwells of Glemsford and Cavendish in Suffollk, have men called Luke and Mark, and women called Sarah and Elizabeth, in every generation.  It must have been confusing at the time for cousins living in the same village to have the same name.  I wonder if they adopted nicknames (Mark the Tall, Sarah the Redhead) to identify them.  Now, hundreds of years later, it is still a cause of tearing hair and constantly checking dates to make sure I have the right one.

My 5 x great grandmother Jane Titford was the 5^th generation to have a brother called William.  Her father appears in documentation as “William the Pauper” which at least helps to differentiate him from his forefathers.

In my husband’s family there are four Charles McCanns, but at least they all have different second names – that helps.

The most frustrating case is another of my husband’s family – Amy Havergal McCann, daughter of Jonathan McCann.  Born 1886.  Died 1888.  When I found her marriage in 1913, I was very confused.

Sure enough, there were two Amy Havergal McCanns – the second also born to Jonathan, the year after the first one died. 

All of these are irritations for the genealogist.  I wanted to talk also about the pride inherent in the repetition of a family name through generations.

I wrote last week about the Power and Plunkett families from Ireland, many of whom emigrated to Australia in 1840.  My 2 x great grandmother Bridget Power was one of them.  She married in 1853, and named her first born George Frederick Power Morgan.  Two other sons were Patrick Frederick Power Morgan and Francis Glynn Power Morgan, and a daughter was called Elizabeth Blanche Power Morgan.  Bridget’s son John called his son, Power Goulburn Morgan (he was born in the city of Goulburn).  I understand he was always called “Pat”

In the next generation were Max Pedro Power Morgan, Eileen Power Morgan, Francis Power Wheldon and a family of Power Malones, some of whom incorporated "Power" as part of their surname (Power-Malone).

The Plunkett name similarly recurs through the generations – I have counted 12 in my tree who have Plunkett as a middle name.  Some of the Plunkett family have had prominent legal careers (see 52 Ancestors – Week 5), so it seems to have been something of a badge of honour to perpetuate the name.

In an era when people vie to outdo each other with the “originality” of their baby names (“Apple”, “Raddix” etc) it is quite refreshing to read about families who honoured their forebears by passing their names to the next generation.