#52 Ancestors 2021 Week 22
Military
I didn’t think we had any interesting military careers in the family. There are a few undistinguished ones, (Michael Gleeson comes to mind) but recently I found out a little about two great grand uncles, brothers called John and Ernest Black, also known as Rose.
Our 2x great grandmother was called Elizabeth Jane “Eliza”
Wilson. She was born in 1836 in Donegal,
Ireland and she married John Black in Greenock, Scotland. Greenock was a convenient port for the Irish
crossing the water. Eliza and John had
two children, Susannah and William, but Susannah died in 1860 and shortly
afterwards the family emigrated to Australia.
They arrived in Sydney on the “Hotspur” on 24 February 1861. Mary Jane (our great grandmother) was born in
December of that year, followed by James (1864), Michael (1866), John (1869),
Margaret 1872 and George (1876)
There is some doubt about George’s paternity. Some time around 1876, Eliza took up with
Anthony Rose. Her husband John was still
alive until 1899, so it doesn’t seem as if a marriage was contracted.
Two more children were born – Ernest Anthony in 1877 and
Mabel Elizabeth In 1882.
Ernest Anthony enlisted in the NSW Lancers under the name
Ernest Rose. He was a Farrier
Sergeant. The photo was taken in 1899 when his
regiment stopped over in London for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations on
their way to the Boer War in South Africa.
The records show that Ernest was invalided home to Australia on 17 February 1901. Later that year he married, using the name Ernest Black. I am assuming that this was the name on his birth certificate, which would support the view that his mother remained legally married to John Black.
The bride was Mabel Ermintrude Read and together they had
three children – Muriel, Jack and Ermintrude Jean (thankfully, known as Jean)
It appears that Ernest had had enough of war. He is not listed in the nominal rolls for WWI
under either of his surnames.
By 1912, Ernest’s marriage was over and he remarried – as
Ernest Rose – to Marion Smith. It occurs
to me that he may not have legally divorced and that a change of name was
simpler, but he seems to have maintained contact with his first family who are
named in his death notice (in 1951).
There were two children of the second marriage, I think. Athol was born in 1914, and another child, Lee,
is named in the death notice.
John Black (Rose) did enlist in WWI. He joined the 1st Australian Infantry
reinforcements and embarked from Sydney on 11 February 1915. Three months later he was killed in the third
attack by the Turks on the Anzac’s position at Gallipoli (he was at the area known
as Quinn’s Post). There were 3000
Turkish deaths and 700 Anzac casualties in the battle, in which the Anzac’s
succeeded in holding their position.
John is buried in the Commonwealth War Grave known as
Shrapnel Valley cemetery. He was 46
years old, and unmarried.
So Mary Jane lost both a brother, John, and her son Edward Morgan in WWI.
For few years after the
War she placed “In Memoriam” notices in the Sydney Morning Herald for both of
them. Interestingly I had trouble
finding the notices about her son until I looked under the name “Ellis”. Edward was actually the son of Mary Jane’s
first husband, George Morgan, and had enlisted and married using that name, but
he had grown up believing that George Ellis was his father, so it seems as if his
mother was more comfortable with continuing to use that name.
