DARVALL

 

Anthony Darvall was born in 1650 and was a member of the landed gentry in Lincolnshire.

 

He married aa Miss Monke and had a son, Anthony Darvall. This son, Anthony Darvall, first married Mary Anther.

       

Mary Anther was the daughter of John Anther of Beverley, and was sister to the Reverend J. Anther.

       

Mary Darvall, neé Anther, died in 1774. Anthony Darvall remarried, this time to Mary Tolson. Mary Tolson was born in 1718. She died in 1788, aged 70.

       

Children from the union of Anthony Darvall and his first wife, Mary Anther, were:

1

Joseph Darvall

2

Mary Darvall

3

Eliza Darvall,

4

a son, whose name is not known, but who died at Bencoolen.

       

JOSEPH DARVALL

       

Joseph Darvall was the first born, and only son, of Anthony Darvall and his first wife Mary Anther.

       

Joseph Darvall was born in 1726. He was to be married three times, bearing children by his first two marriages.

       

His first wife, whom Joseph Darvall married in 1750, was Elizabeth Goodwin.

       

Elizabeth was the daughter of Richard Goodwin of St. Helena. She was married at Bencoolen and was to die there, five years later, in 1755, but not before bearing a son, Roger Anthony Darvall, in 1751.

       

Joseph Darvall, now a widower, was to remarry. In 1762, he married his second wife, Anne Owen.

       

Anne Owen was the niece by marriage to Laurence Sullivan MP, who was eight times chairman of the British East India Company, the rival of Clive, and patron and friend of Warren Hastings.

       

Joseph and Anne Darvall, neé Owen, were to have a son and a daughter. The son was Joseph Laurence Darvall, and the daughter was Eliza Darvall.

       

Anne Darvall, neé Owen then died.

       

Her twice bereaved husband, Joseph Darvall, remarried, for a third time, in 1771, Eliza Salmon, but had no further children.

       

Eliza Salmon was the sister of George Salmon, a Member of the Council at Bencoolen.

       

Joseph Darvall was to die himself in 1772, a year after his third marriage in 1771.

       

His widow, Eliza Darvall, neé Salmon, remarried, to William Broff, Governor of Bencoolen.

       

During his lifetime, Joseph Darvall was Second in Council at Bencoolen, having been made a Member of the Council in 1755.

       

Joseph Darvall made a Marriage Settlement before his second marriage, to Anne Owen. The Trustee under the Deed of Settlement were Sir W. Falk, Baronet, Governor of Madras, and C. Bowichier, Governor of Bombay.

       

There was a tradition that Joseph Darvall was one time Governor of Pondicherry.

       

Darvall Bay in North East Borneo was named after Joseph Darvall.

       

When Joseph Darvall died in 1772, he left a Will whose Executors were Laurence Sullivan MP, Stephen Sullivan, General J. Wood the British resident at Tanjarr (his brother in law) and Governor Carter.

       

Joseph Darvall had two sisters, Mary and Eliza.

 

MARY DARVALL

       

Mary Darvall was the eldest daughter of Anthony and Mary Darvall (neé Anther).

 

She married C. Watson.

       

They had a daughter, Penelope Watson, born in 1758.

 

ELIZA DARVALL

       

Eliza Darvall, second daughter of Anthony and Mary Darvall, neé  Anther, married J. Anther, presumably a cousin.

 

                                        NEXT GENERATION

 

ROGER ANTHONY DARVALL

       

Roger Anthony Darvall was the only son and issue of Joseph Darvall and his first wife Elizabeth Goodwin, whom he had married in 1750.

       

Roger Anthony Darvall was born in 1751.

       

At age 21, he, in 1772, married Orme Bigland.

       

Orme Bigland was from the Bigland family.

       

Orme was the daughter of Edward Bigland of Long Whatton and Peterboro. She was descended from the Biglands of Bigland, County Lancashire.

       

Sir Edward Bigland (Byglande) of Byglande Hall in the Parish of Cartinel, County of Lancashire, England, lived in the reign of Henry VII.

       

Sir John Bigland died at Chelmsford, Essex, in 1559.

       

Edward Bigland was M.P. for Nottingham. He died in 1704. His son, Henry, married Orme Wyngate, who was a lineal descendant of Sir Humphry Orme of Peterboro.

       

Henry Bigland, and his wife, Orme, neé Wyngate, had a son, Edward Bigland. This son, Edward Bigland, had a daughter, Orme Bigland, who married Roger Darvall.

       

Orme Bigland's niece, Mary Ann Squire, married Sir Charles M. Clarke, Baronet. Her great niece, Fanny Squire, married George Murr of Hemmingswell, in the County of Suffolk, first cousin of George, 4th  Earl of Glasgow.

       

Mrs. Wilberforce, wife of the Bishop of Winchester, is said by Burke’s Peerage, to be a representative of the Ormes of Peterboro.

       

Orme Darvall, neé Bigland, was first cousin of John Bailey of Elton, father of Sir John Bailey, Baronet, a Judge.

       

Her sister, Mary Bigland, married her first cousin, Isaac Bayley, uncle of the Judge.

       

The office and title of Garter, King at Arms, was hereditary in the family of Bigland.

       

A later possessor of Bigland Hall was Wilson Henry John Bigland.

       

Wilson Henry John Bigland was born in 1824, the son of Vice Admiral Wilson Braddyl Bigland K.H.

       

The Arms of Orme Bigland, wife of Roger Darvall, were Azure- two ears of wheat, or Crest- Lion passant, Regardant Gurles, holding in his fore-paw an ear of wheat, quartered with the Darvall’s own arms.

       

In Gloucester Cathedral, there was a tablet inscribed:

       

“This are deposited the remains of Ralph Bigland, Garter Principal King of Arms descended from the family of Bigland of Bigland in the County Palature of Lancaster. He was the only son of Richard Bigland late of Grey’s Inn, by Mary, third daughter and co-heiress of George Errington of Errington in Northumberland and Jane his wife only daughter and heiress of Robert Babington of Babington in the said County. He was born 29 January 1711. Married Anne daughter co-heiress of John Wilkins of Frocester in this County, by whom he left one son only, Richard Bigland of Frocester. He died at Heralds Office, London 27 March 1784. Appointed Blue Mantle pursuivant, 23 February 1757 Somerset Herald 15 January 1759. Created Norry King of Arms 27 March 1773, Clarence King of Arms, 12 September 1774 and Garter, Principal King of Arms, March 1780."

       

Roger Anthony Darvall married Orme Bigland in 1772.

       

They were to have two children, Edward Darvall, born in 1775, and a daughter, Cathrine Darvall.

       

In January 1773, Roger Darvall was Collector of the Northern Division of Jaqhire.

       

In July 1773, Roger Anthony Darvall was a Junior Member of the Board of Trade, and Superintendent of the Export Warehouse. He was also a Member of the Council of Madras.

       

Upon his return to England, Roger Anthony Darvall resided at York, and had an estate at Green Hammerton. We shall turn to his offspring Edward Darvall and Cathrine Darvall, but before doing so, study his half brother Joseph Laurence Darvall and half sister Eliza Darvall.

 

JOSEPH LAURENCE DARVALL

       

This is a continuation of the same generation of Roger Anthony Darvall.

       

Recapitulating, Roger Anthony Darvall was the only son and issue of Joseph Darvall and his first wife Elizabeth Goodwin, who he had married in 1750.

       

Joseph Laurence Darvall and his sister Eliza Darvall are the issue of Roger Anthony Darvall by his second wife Anne Owen.

       

Joseph Darvall married his second wife, Anne Owen, in 1762.

       

The son, Joseph Laurence Darvall, was to marry twice.

       

His first wife was Maria Wilkenson, his second wife was a Miss Kingsbury.

       

Maria Wilkenson was the daughter of J. Wilkenson of Roehampton Park, in the County of Surrey.

       

Roehampton Park belonged in the time of Charles I to the Earls of Portland, and afterwards, to Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire.

       

Maria Wilkenson was married to Joseph Darvall in a private chapel attached to the House at Roehampton Park, in 1790.

       

Upon the death of her father, her mother remarried to J. Davison of Beamish, County Durham.

       

Her mother was the niece of Lord Auckland.

       

Maria Wilkenson's sister, Anne Wilkenson, married Dr. R. J. Carr, Bishop of Chichester and Worcester. Their only son was Colonel G. Carr Lloyd of Lancing Manor, Sheriff of Sussex, 1869. Their daughter Maria married J. Lashett of Aborton Hall, M.P. for Worcester.

       

Maria Wilkenson's brother, the Reverend Marmaduke Wilkenson, married Eliza Danvers, daughter of Sir Charles Danvers, Baronet, and niece of Frederick August, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry.

       

Maria Wilkenson's brother, Jacob Wilkenson, of Springfield, near Bath, M.P., married Olivia Stephen, niece of Admiral Sir John Rowley, Baronet, and cousin of the Countess of Kinnoul and of Sir James Stephen the Historian.

       

The Wilkensons were also connected to the Earl of Buckinghamshire, Duke of Somerset, Lord Gardner, Sir. J. Andrey, Sir L. Verstwince, Lord Ravensworth, the Marquis of Anglesea, Sir. J. Osborn, Baronet, and Sir H. Cumming.

       

Bishop Carr's brother, Sir Henry Carr, K.C.B., was a Colonel in the Guards and was desperately wounded at Orther. He married the widow of the Right Honourable Spencer Percival, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, who was shot by Bellingham in 1812, she being the daughter of Sir T. T. Wilson, Baronet.

       

Bishop Carr's sister married Sir James Martin Lloyd, Baronet, of Lancing Manor.

       

Maria Wilkenson was the first wife of Joseph Laurence Darvall.

       

They had three children:

 

1

Joseph Darvall

2

George Darvall

3

Maria Darvall.

 

After the death of his first wife, Maria, neé Wilkenson, Joseph Laurence Darvall married the daughter of the Reverend William Kingsbury.

       

Of the Kingsbury family, W. J. Kingsbury married, in 1859, Caroline, daughter of the Honourable Reverend H. E. Bridgeman, brother of the Earl of Bradford (deceased), and first cousin of the Duke of Bedford, Earl Russell, Duchess of Buccheuch, Marquis of Bath.

 

The offspring of Joseph Laurence Darvall and his first wife, Maria Wilkenson, were Joseph Darvall, George Darvall and Maria Darvall.

       

Each of these survived to adulthood and married.

       

Joseph Darvall married F. Hall.

       

George Darvall married E. Aberdein, bearing three sons and a daughter,

 

Mary Darvall, who married Nichols.

       

Maria Darvall married W. Wakeford.

       

Joseph Darvall and his wife F. Hall had at least two daughters.

       

Joseph Darvall lived at Reading and died in 1859, survived by two daughters, Adelaide and Eleanor.

       

Adelaide was married to the Reverend W. J. Newham, Vicar of Barrow on Soar, Leicester, late Fellow of St. John's college, Canterbury, where he took a double first class honours.

       

Eleanor married A. Graham Hogg, a merchant at Hong Kong, cousin of Sir Archibald Galloway (deceased), and lineal descendant of Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundas whose signet ring came into the possession of Mr. Hogg.

       

The second son of Joseph Laurence Darvall and Maria Wilkenson, namely George Darvall, married E. Aberdein.

       

E. Aberdein was a relative of Sir R. Puisant of Burton Puisant, who left his estate to William Pitt.

       

Her brother R. H. Aberdein, was Commissioner of Titles for Devon and Somerset, and was for thirty years Coroner for Devon. His daughter Mary (Aberdein), married Major P. McPherson of the 17th Regiment, eldest son of General McPherson, C. B., Colonel Commanding the 13th Foot.

       

The head of the Aberdein family at the turn of the century was Frank A. Aberdein of Keithlock House, Perthshire, who married Julia, daughter of General Cunningham of Newton and Huntingtower, County of Perth.

       

The Aberdeins were also connected with the Carnegie family, Lord Southesk, and Captain Dingwall Fordyce of Brucklay Castle, M.P. for Aberdein.

       

The only daughter of Joseph Laurence Darvall and his first wife, Maria Wilkenson, was Maria Darvall.

       

Maria Darvall married W. Wakeford.

       

W. Wakeford was from East Titherby Park, Hants.

       

East Titherby Park later fell into the hands of Sir F. D. Goldsmith, Baronet. Of the Wakeford family, Henry Wakeford was Comptroller General of Western Australia, and William Wakeford was a Parliamentary Agent of Palace Chambers, Westminster.

 

ELIZA DARVALL

       

Eliza Darvall was sister to Joseph Laurence Darvall, and step-sister to Roger Anthony Darvall. She was the second child of Joseph Darvall by his second wife Anne Owen, Joseph Laurence Darvall being the first and eldest.

       

Eliza Darvall married J. Holland.

       

J. Holland was a merchant in London and left a fortune of £200,000 to his son, George Holland.

 

THE OFFSPRING OF ROGER ANTHONY DARVALL AND HIS WIFE ORME BIGLAND

 

EDWARD DARVALL

 

Edward Darvall was born in 1773, the only son of Roger Anthony Darvall and Orme Bigland.

He was born at Masulipatam in India in 1773.

He became a Lieutenant in the 19th Dragoons in 1794.

He was present at the storming of Seringpatam in 1799.

He was promoted to Captain and later, Major.

He commanded a troop of the 9th Light Dragoons in 1800, was brigaded under Lord Paget on the Sussex Coast in 1802, and commanded a Squadron on King's Duty at Windsor Castle between 1803 and 1804.

In 1805 he married Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

EMILY GODSCHALL JOHNSON:

 

Emily, was born in 1788 in Bloomsbury, the second daughter of Godschall Johnson, Army Officer and Consul to Brussels and his wife Elizabeth Jane Hodges, of Oakley House, Bedfordshire. Her mother died shortly after her birth.

       

On her father’s second marriage to Mary Francis in 1792, the daughters by the first wife, Elizabeth Hodges, were brought up by their aunt, Sarah Hodges, formerly Eyre, neé Johnson, and their great aunt Mrs. Fullerton (Sarah Johnson, wife of Dr. Fullerton), who lived at Richmond.

       

A very entertaining series of letters, published in the Francis Letters from Elizabeth Johnson to Catherine and Elizabeth Francis, daughters of Sir Phillip Francis, were written from Boulney Court 1804, describing their aunt, Sarah Hodges, and her very lively young sister, Emily Johnson, then aged 15 years.

       

From these letters it was said that, when Emily was just 16 years, she fell in love with a handsome and dashing young officer stationed at Richmond. 

       

He was Captain Edward Darvall. Her great aunt Mrs. Fullerton, was accused of fostering the romance.

       

Emily’s father was dead, and the consent of her stepmother and brothers was sought, but was refused, upon grounds of her extreme youth and irresponsibility, and that no one knew anything about Captain Darvall’s family. It was decided, therefore, to remove Emily to her brother Godschall’s house at Halliford-on-Thames, as Captain Darvall was stationed at Richmond where she had been staying with Mrs. Fullerton.

       

At the beginning of June, after staying at Halliford for a month, Emily eloped with Captain Darvall.

       

A vivid account is given of their pursuit by Emily’s brothers and a Rev. Runner. The runaway couple got a good start. They were accompanied by two of Captain Darvall’s fellow officers, and took the road to Oxford, changing horses at Henley. They were 16 hours ahead and were presumed to be heading for Holyhead and Ireland, but were eventually found several days later at Carlisle, where they were staying after what was called a mock ceremony at Gretna Green.

       

The young couple were quite unrepentant, and blamed Emily’s family for their opposition. There was a later marriage ceremony in London, at the end of June. After a time, Captain Darvall was accepted into the family, and was found to be a very desirable husband for the headstrong Emily.

       

Edward retired from the army in 1806.

       

He and his wife, Emily, resided at Nunnington Hall, Yorkshire, for many years and raised seven children, although three others died in infancy.

       

In 1839 the family decided to emigrate to the Colony of New South Wales, aboard the Alfred, where they purchased an estate at Ryde.

       

His wife, Emily, died in 1841 and he remarried Jane McCullough.

       

Edward Darvall died at Ryde in 1869.

       

His children by Emily Godschall Johnson were:

1

George Edward Darvall, born 1809,

2

John Bayley Darvall, born 1816,

3

Frederick Orme Darvall, born 1816,

4

Emily Darvall,

5

Eliza Darvall,

6

Rose Darvall,

7

Horace Darvall.

 

We shall return to the subsequent lives and careers of these offspring, but meanwhile, will dwell upon Edward Darvall’s sister, Cathrine.

 

CATHRINE DARVALL

       

Cathrine Darvall was the second child and only daughter of Roger Anthony Darvall and Orme Bigland.

       

Cathrine married the Reverend J. Suttle Wood of Wood Hall, Yorkshire.

       

Known children were:

 

1

James Wood,

2

George Wood,

3

Olivia Wood,

4

Charles Wood, et ors.

       

James Wood, like his father, entered the Church and became Vicar of the Xt. Church at Bath and Rural Dean.  

 

The Reverend James Wood married Sofia Hill.

 

George Wood became a Doctor and married H. Pinchency.

 

Olivia Wood married C. Waterfield.

 

THE CHILDREN OF EDWARD AND EMILY DARVALL (Neé  GODSCHALL JOHNSON)

 

GEORGE EDWARD DARVALL

       

George Edward Darvall was the first born son of Major Edward Darvall and his wife Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

He entered the Indian Service and became a Colonel in His Majesty's 107th Foot, then Lieutenant Colonel in the 57th Infantry and 3rd Bengal European Regiment, rising to the rank of General.

       

He earned two medals and a clasp for Indian services.

       

George Edward Darvall married Sofia Docker in 1841 in New South Wales.

       

Sofia was the daughter of the Reverend J. Docker (second cousin of Lord Ellenboro), and Rebecca Ives. The Reverend Docker's mother, Agnes Law, was the niece of Dr. E. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, first cousin of the first Lord Ellenboro, of Dr. Law (successively Bishop of Clonfust, Killala and Elphin), of Dr. E. H. Law (Bishop of Bath and wells), and of Ewan Law who married Henrietta, daughter of Dr. Markham, Archbishop of York.

       

Rebecca Ives was connected with the Irby family, Lord Bostons; George, third Lord Boston married Rachel Ives, daughter of W. Drake, of Amershand, and his brother Admiral the Honourable F. Irby married her sister Emily Ives Drake.

 

2. JOHN BAYLEY DARVALL

       

John Bayley Darvall was the second son and child of Major Edward Darvall and his wife Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

John Bayley Darvall was born in 1809.

       

He started off what could be described as the Sir John Bayley Darvall lineage.

       

John Bayley Darvall was several times Solicitor General and Attorney General of New South Wales, and a Member of the Executive Council.

       

He married Elizabeth Flora Shapland, daughter of Colonel John Shapland on 27 September 1837 at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

       

They had four sons and three daughters, which included:

 

1

John F. Darvall born 1843,

2

Edward E. Darvall, born 1844,

3

Francis R. F. Darvall, born 1845,

4

Edwin B. Darvall, born 1847,

5

a female child, born 1857.

       

John Bayley Darvall died in 1883 at London, England, having left the colony in 1865.

       

He is mentioned in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

       

“Darvall, Sir John Bayley (1809-1883), barrister and politician, was born on 19 November 1809 at Felixkirk, Yorkshire, England, the second son of Major Edward Darvall and his wife Emily Godschall Johnson, an heiress with whom he had eloped in 1805. John was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. in 1833, M.A. in 1837). On 15 June 1833 he was admitted to the Middle Temple. He became articled to his Uncle Sir John Bayley, and was later Marshall to Lord Bayley. In 1838 he was called to the Bar. On 27 September 1837 at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, he married Edith Flora Shapland, daughter of Colonel John Shapland. In August 1939 they arrived at Sydney in the Abberton. His parents, two brothers and three sisters arrived in the Alfred in January 1840, accompanied by friends with Indian connections. Darvall became ‘intimately connected with the monied and pastoral interests of the colony', and was appointed a director of the Sydney Banking Co. and the Australian Banking Co. He was also involved with other companies which collapsed in the slump of the early 1840s. In 1842 he joined an association formed to petition for permission to introduce Indian coolies in place of convict labour. On 16 September 1839 he was admitted to the colonial Bar and soon had a flourishing practice. In December 1846 his opposing counsel in a Supreme Court case was Richard Windeyer who charged him with unfair conduct and called him a liar. Darvall promptly struck his opponent and was committed to gaol for fourteen days for ‘contempt and outrage’, while Windeyer received twenty days.

 

In July 1844 Darvall was nominated to the Legislative Council, where he loyally supported the government until he resigned in 1848, unable to reconcile his conscience with nomineeism. Later that year he was returned for Bathurst by one vote; in 1850-56 he represented Cumberland. In public speeches he seemed indifferent to what others thought of his words and actions, and often appeared eager to provoke opposition; one speech led George Macleay to comment: “Is not Darvall an extraordinary fellow! perpetually out-Darvalling himself”.

 

In 1850 he had become a foundation fellow of the Senate of the University of Sydney, in 1851 declined a judgeship in Victoria, and in 1853 was appointed a Queen’s Counsel. He was also a founding director of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, a member of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, a trustee of the Sydney Club and served on many charitable and public committees.

 

With his aristocratic connections and intellectual pride Darvall was detached in colonial politics and never a strong party man. He aligned himself with Charles Cowper, J. D. Lang, and Henry Parkes, and the popular opposition to Wentworth’s Constitution Bill. In 1853 he attacked the proposal for a nominated upper house and ridiculed Wentworth's ‘Botany Bay aristocracy’ and the putting of legislative power ‘into the hands of people yet unborn, and of merit yet untried’.

 

He also wanted a redistribution of electorates and in 1854 moved resolutions in the Legislative Council condemning the Constitution and praying for the intervention of the Imperial Government, maintaining that the constituents wanted ‘a representative legislature and a just distribution of the elective franchise’; he also condemned the two-thirds majority clause required for constitutional amendments. The resolutions were rejected by 24 votes to 10 but later the hereditary clauses were withdrawn, the nominee appointments limited to five years and the two-thirds clause nullified by the Imperial Parliament.

 

In April 1856 Darvall was elected for the North Riding of Cumberland to the first Legislative Assembly and in June took office as Solicitor-General in the first Ministry under Stuart Donaldson. Condemned by the liberals for deserting their cause, Darvall claimed that an attack by the Empire `transgressed the limits of party warfare by misrepresenting my political opinions...I took office to assist in carrying out those ideas at the earliest convenient period'. This letter alarmed W. M. Manning who warned James Macarthur: `I am afraid that electioneering interests are leading both Donaldson and Darvall to break faith with me- and I think with you. We must be on our guard'. The ministry was reconciled but the Assembly proved obstructive; urged by Darvall, Donaldson resigned on 25 August. Darvall was Solicitor-General in H. W. Parker's ministry from October 1856 to May 1857, and then Attorney-General until September. Darvall resigned in November but was elected for Hawkesbury on 25 June 1859. Disturbed by the land question and the apparent results of manhood suffrage, he joined the conservative Constitutional Association. For opposition to free selection before survey he was received with hostility in the 1860 election and, taunted with inattention to `roads and bridges', retired from the contest in disgust.

 

Alarmed at the democratic pressure which led Governor Young to `swamp' the Legislative Council, Darvall was more than ever convinced that the Upper House should be elective. Pledged to its reform, he was nominated to the Council in June 1861. In the debate on the Legislative Council bill in December he created a sensation with his bitter remarks on rampant democracy which would `if unchecked, bring the fine colony to ruin', but he still demanded that the Council should be representative, refrain from amending money bills and yield to the Assembly in any clash of opinion. He also advocated G. K. Holden's plan to introduce the Hare system of proportional representation for the Council. Throughout 1862 Darvall sat on the select committee on the Legislative Council bill but did not attend any debates in the next session. In June 1863 he resigned to contest a by-election for East Maitland. Although he had opposed the separation of Moreton Bay and the restrictive anti-Chinese legislation which he considered `cruel, unkind and disgraceful', and had equivocated over the abolition of state aid to religion, he called himself a `liberal' and, supported by the Maitland Mercury, was returned in June. In August he became Attorney-General under Cowper. For this about-turn he was severely criticised and his ministerial re-election was fiercely contested by Parkes. Darvall maintained that `The Colony must have an Attorney-General, and the Government had chosen him'. He believed that `their policy was one which he could conscientiously uphold'. He wrote to Parkes: `before you lend yourself to the very unusual course of opposing a re-election on taking Office I beg you to consider that you are the last man from whom I could expect such exhibitions of ill-will'. When Darvall won the hard-fought contest by 59 votes Parkes declared that his opponent and friends had solicited votes `with the electoral roll in the right hand and the grog bottle in the left'.

 

Cowper's government fell in October. In November 1864 Darvall was returned for West Sydney and next February became Attorney-General under Cowper. In May he outlined proposed reforms in the administration of justice but in June 1865 he resigned. A week later the Sydney Morning Herald was regretting his departure for England. He was praised for his `inimitable charm' and `perfect control of temper', but William Walker commented that he was `too fond of ease and elegance, with his comfortable circumstances, to be a successful or persevering politician in a democratic country like this'. Yet to Governor Young he was `the most accomplished speaker in New South Wales'. Certainly he was a commanding figure in the courts and legislature.

 

In England, Darvall practised at the Bar and enjoyed `a little of that cultured ease that the colony failed to afford'. In 1866 he became a director of the Bank of Australasia and was appointed C.M.G. in 1869 and K.C.M.G. in 1877. Almost blind in his last years, he was visited by Parkes, who described him as always a `gallant-hearted man'. He died on 28 December 1883 at his home in London, survived by four sons and two of his three daughters. He left an estate of 60,000 pounds in England and 20000 pounds in New South Wales.

 

3. FREDERICK ORME DARVALL

       

Frederick Orme Darvall was the third child and son of Major Edward Darvall and his wife Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

Frederick Orme Darvall was born on 24 February 1816.

       

Frederick Orme Darvall held a Commission in His Majesty's 41st  regiment and went to India in 1831. He served there for 8 years.

       

It is believed that he met and married his wife Lucy Shapland there.

       

Lucy Shapland was born in 1822 near Calcutta.

       

Lucy Caroline Shapland was the fourth child and third daughter of Colonel Shapland C.B.

       

After eight years in the Indian Service, and with a new wife, Frederick Orme Darvall sold his Commission and emigrated with the rest of the family to New South Wales.

       

He subsequently held the post of Auditor-General for the new State of Queensland after separation from the State of New South Wales in 1859.

       

One of the stories that Frederick told concerned when he was a child of six at Brussels. He fell down the hotel stairs and was picked up by a gentleman who asked him questions and what was his name. The gentleman ended by saying that Frederick was to tell his father to write to him as soon as he, Frederick, was old enough, and he would give Frederick a commission in the Army. This gentleman was the Duke of Wellington. Major Edward Darvall did so write to the Duke of Wellington at the appropriate time, and the Duke kept his promise and arranged a Commission for Frederick.

       

Frederick Orme Darvall and his wife Lucy Shapland had four children:

 

1

Lucy Elizabeth Darvall, born 17 January 1843,

2

Edith Flora Darvall, born 1844 in NSW

3

Frederick Orme Francis Darvall, born 1844 at Penrith in NSW,

4

Ralph Shapland Darvall, born 1853 in NSW.

 

We shall return to these.

       

For a contemporary description of the Frederick Orme Darvall, we must turn to the iconic Queensland history, Reginald Spencer Browne A Journalists Memories (1927. Brisbane. Read Press):

       

“In the early eighties the Treasury offices occupied part of the site of the present Treasury buildings...of the Treasury staff (that I knew or remembered)...F. O. Darvall was a tall, florid, raw-boned Australian who was a good cricketer and a capital shot in the field with a special weakness for the rise of the snipe on the flats at Mayne in October or November. He left a considerable family of sons, one of whom, Major Darvall, of the Militia Artillery, married a Miss Morehead, but died young, as his father did. Another son was Colonel "Joe" Darvall; another is a lawyer at Boonah, and another served in the Big War and has a rattling good position with one of the great engineering firms of the United Kingdom. I saw him last in St. Paul's, London, in 1917, with Cassidy of Dalgety's, and they were having a little respite from the mud of Flanders and the attentions of the Hun...”

       

Frederick Orme Darvall died in England in 1886.

 

EMILY DARVALL

       

The fourth child and eldest daughter of Major Edward Darvall and his wife Emily Godschall Johnson, was Emily Darvall.

       

Emily kept a diary of her experiences aboard the Alfred in 1839 on the voyage out.

       

In 1840, shortly after her arrival in the Colony of New South Wales, Emily was snapped up by Robert Johnstone Barton, a grazier.

       

Robert Johnston Barton was born on 30 June 1809, the son of General Charles Barton and Susannah Johnstone.

       

Charles Barton was born in 1760 and was to die in 1819. Susannah Johnstone, his wife, was born in 1775 and was to die in 1847. They married in 1798 in London. General Barton rose through the ranks from Major then Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Life Guards; he had a brother Lt. Colonel H. W. Barton also of the 2nd Life Guards of Waterfoot, County Fermanagh. The Barton family were well connected, including to the Earl of Spencer.

       

They were also connected to the Dukes of Leinster and Devonshire, Earls of Meath of Dononghimore, Bessborough, Spenser, Mayo, Charleville, Carrick, Fitzwilliam, Lords Plunket, Annerley, Guillamore, Langford, Mt. Morris, Posonby, Erskine, Dunnolly, Duchess of St. Albans, Marchioness of Headford, Baroness Rayleigh, Sir. D. Barclay, Sir C. Fitzgerald, and Sir H. Johnson.

       

Robert Johnstone Barton had been a commander in the East India Service, captaining a warship which protected the merchant fleet of the East India Company from pirates in the Indian Ocean. He left that employment when the East India Service ceased to exist, having been taken over by the operations of the official East India Squadron of Her Majesty's Imperial Navy.

       

He had twenty thousand pounds retirement funds, with which he bought the landed property at Boree (Nyrang) in mid-western New South Wales, south-west of Molong, around about 1830. With the run came a number of sheep, cattle and horses, but, a few years after purchase, suffered a considerable loss when the value of livestock plummeted.

       

As a result of this drop in prices, sheep and cattle had to be boiled down for hides and tallow. Twice a year, tallow, hides and wool were transported by bullock-team to the wharves in Circular Quay, Sydney, returning to Boree with necessities for the run. Despite this, Emily was said to never have left the run for 20 years.  They had no neighbours, save Mr. Henry Kater, 25 miles away (near Cargo), and no doctor within 60 miles, and only assigned convict servants for company, yet Emily managed to educate, clothe and look after 9 children.

       

Robert Johnstone Barton and his wife Emily M Barton, neé Darvall had children:

 

Emily Susannah Barton, (born in 1841, and who married John Paterson in 1859),

Robert Darvall Barton, in 1843,

Mary J Barton, in 1844, and a

Rose I Barton, also in 1844, who must have died,

for in 1845 they christened another child Rose Isabella Barton, (who was later to marry Andrew Bogle Paterson, brother to John Paterson, and parents of Banjo Paterson),

Norah C. Barton in 1846,

Charles Hampden Barton in 1848,

Edward W Barton in 1850, and

Emily M Barton in 1852,

Henry Francis Barton in 1853 and

Arthur S. Barton in 1856.

       

Norah Barton married Thomas Lodge Murray Prior at Ryde in 1872. It was his second marriage. Thomas Lodge Murray Prior was of a family claiming royal lineage. He accompanied Ludwig Leichhardt to Queensland, was co-owner of Bromelton station in southern Queensland, later bought Hawkwood in the Burnett District, then after the second worst black massacre of whites on Hawkwood (of the Fraser family, women and children), sold out and purchased a banana plantation at Ormiston, southeast of Brisbane. In 1864 he purchased the property Maroon in the Boonah district. He served as Postmaster General of Queensland in a Palmer Government, and later went on to live at Montpelier at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.

       

Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior had numerous children:

by his first wife, Matilda Harpur whom he married in 1846 at Cecil Hills-

 

Thomas de Montmoressi Murray-Prior (1848),

William Augustus Murray-Prior (1849-50),

Rosa Caroline Murray-Prior (1851)(who married Campbell Praed and became a novelist),

Morres Murray-Prior (1853-1897),

Elizabeth Catherine Murray-Prior (1854), Hervey Morres Murray-Prior (1856-1887),

Redmond Murray-Prior (1858),

Westa Sophia Murray-Prior (1860-1860),

Hugh Murray-Prior (1861-1897),

Lodge Murray-Prior (1863, died young),

Matilda Murray Prior (1865-1865),

Egerton Murray-Prior (1866)...

 

by his second wife, Norah Clarina Barton, whom Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior married in 1872 after the death of his first wife in 1868:

 

Matilda Aimee Murray-Prior (1873),

Emmeline May Murray-Prior (1875-1876),

Dorothea Catherine Murray-Prior (1876),

Alienora May Murray-Prior (1878),

Frederic Maurice Murray-Prior (1880),

Robert Sterling Murray-Prior (1881),

Julius Orlebar Murray-Prior (1884), and

Ruth Angela Murray-Prior (1885)...

 

By women with whom he appears to have associated:

by Emma Gale- a daughter, Jane Anne Quinn (1848)...

by Annie Smith- a daughter Catherine Smith (1861)...

by Clara Van Zuethem- a son, Henry Thomas van Zuethem (1864)...

by Mary Ingoldsby- a daughter Annie Ingoldsby (1867).

       

Reginald Spencer-Browne said of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior:

       

“Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior was of the purest Merinos, and a handsome and cultured man, with a beautiful home at Maroon, out from Boonah. Murray-Prior on an occasion showed his resource by driving his own bullock team to Brisbane, and more than holding his own with a "bullocky" who derided his polite words of encouragement to Strawberry and Bluey and others at a nasty crossing on the way to Ipswich. He was the father of Mrs. Campbell Praed, the novelist, of Hervey Murray-Prior, a barrister, and of other good Queenslanders. When he came down to Parliament he always wore a frock coat, light trousers and a top hat...

 

The Murray Priors were a brainy family...all were of charming temperament, but the head of the house, I remember best- Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior-  and don't you forget it. It was he who, when driving his own bullock team into Ipswich, was coarsely chaffed by a "common bullocky" whom he fought, and really fair "go", and badly walloped him "for your obscenity, dam' you"....

       

Dick Barker, son of William Barker of the Logan, owned Eungella Station...my contemporaries of the Barker family in Brisbane were Harry and Fred...Harry Barker married one of the beautiful Macdonald sisters, the other becoming Mrs. Hervey Murray-Prior, and later Mrs. Charley Smythe.”

       

The Australian Dictionary of Biography dedicates a passage to Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior:

 

“Murray-Prior, Thomas Lodge (1819-1892), pastoralist and politician, was born on 13 November 1819 at Wells, Somerset, England, son of Thomas Murray-Prior, officers of Hussars at Waterloo, and his wife Elizabeth Catherine, neé Skynner. Educated at Brussels under Rev. William Drury and in England by private tutors, he served in H.M.S. Donegal in 1837-38, but resigned and on 24 May 1839 left for Sydney. While acquiring colonial experience at Dalwood near Maitland he met Ludwig Leichhardt, and in June 1843 travelled with him to Moreton Bay. From August 1844 to 1850 he held Bromelton in the Logan District in partnership with Hugh Henry Robertson Aikman. Bromelton was the first run taken up on the Logan River. John Campbell was the first settler on the Logan. His friend Walet Smith required a run and Campbell accompanied him to the Logan River in 1842. Walter Smith took up Bromelton, which, as his stock did not arrive as expected, he afterwards sold to Hugh Aikman. After marking trees upon this run, the party went up river and Campbell marked Tamrookum for himself. Campbell knew that the Mocatta party were out looking for runs in the area, so he hastened to Brisbane where Dr. S. Simpson, the Crown Lands Commissioner, granted the runs to Smith and Campbell, the first on the Logan River. George Mocatta ended up with Telemon, south of Tamrookum. In 1848 Bromelton was owned by Hugh Aikman and Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior. One source (Coote) says that Murray-Prior subsequently owned Rathdowney.

 

On 3 September 1846 at Cecil Hills near Liverpool he had married Matilda Harpur.

 

Murray-Prior sold Bromelton in September 1853 and in 1854 bought Hawkwood in the Burnett District. Hawkwood had been taken up in the late 1840s under a depasturing licence until transferred to John Walker in 1849 and later, in 1854, to H. A. Thomas, who sold it the same year to Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior.

 

Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior made a loss on it; he lost 8000 sheep from scab and in 1858, worried by the massacre of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank station, he sold out to Ramsay and Jopp. Later it was Ramsay and Hope who owned it. Ultimately Hawkwood came into the ownership of the de Burgh Persse family where it remained for 52 years.

 

Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior then took up a banana plantation at Ormiston near Cleveland.

 

In November 1864 he bought Maroon station in the Fassifern district where he settled. Maroon was originally called Melcombe and was originally occupied by John Rankin, son in law of John Cameron, first owner of Fassifern, and with Telemon, was acquired by Captain Robert Collins who transferred Maroon to his son, James Carden Collins. James Carden Collins sold it to Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior in 1864 and it remained in the Murray Prior family until 1914, when it was subdivided for closer settlement.

 

He failed to win election for East Moreton in 1860 and joined the public service as postal inspector in 1861 and as postmaster-general in 1862. When that office was transferred to the political arena he was nominated to the Legislative Council on 10 April 1866. He served as postmaster-general in the Herbert ministry from July to August 1866, under Mackenzie from August 1867 to November 1868, and Palmer from 1870 to 1874.

 

In 1863 Rachel Henning (see The Letters of Rachel Henning, D. Adams Ed. Sydney 1963), had written:

 

"I suppose it does not require any great talent to be Postmaster-General. I hope not, for such a goose I have seldom seen. He talked incessantly and all his conversation consisted of pointless stories of which he himself was the hero".

 

In November 1868 Murray-Prior's wife died and on 18 December 1872 in Sydney he married Nora Clarissa Barton, aunt of the poet A. B. Paterson. Murray-Prior died at Whytecliffe in the Nundah district on 31 December 1892, survived by seven of the eleven children of his first marriage, and by seven of the eight children of his second. His eldest daughter Rosa Caroline (1851-1935) married Arthur Campbell Mackworth Praed in 1872 and won literary fame.

 

Described as suave, courtly and cultured, Murray-Prior collected pictures, some of which are in the Brisbane Art gallery. He was noted for his strong  loyalty to the throne probably because of his claim to be descended from the Emperor Charlemagne and the Plantagent dynasty of English kings.

 

The other notable in the Murray-Prior family was Rosa Caroline Murray-Prior, known as Mrs. Praed. Of her, Spencer-Browne had quite a bit to say:

 

“I was in Brisbane when Mrs. Campbell Praed's book "Policy and Passion" came out, and wrote a review for the Observer. It was considered then rather a hot 'un...it was a fine work, and it had a local habitation, if not a name. Leichhardt's Land did not attempt to disguise the fact that it was Queensland, and the local colour was very strong, but not as strong as some of the yarn. Mrs. Campbell Praed was a daughter of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior of Maroon, between Boonah and Beaudesert, who was a member of a Palmer Government...as Postmaster-General. He was a very fine man of the good old "pure merino" type. Mrs. Praed, after her marriage, lived mostly in England, a charming woman with a beautiful mind. That was how a mutual friend described her. Another of her books was "Nadine", which was a very vivid thing with a lot of sex in it and which girls were not supposed to permit their dear mammas to read. Still another book was "Christina Chard"... Mrs Campbell Praed puts lots of Australian and Queensland colour into her work.”

       

Robert Johnstone Barton

 

Robert Johnstone Barton, died on 4 October 1863 in Sydney. He had struggled for thirty years to make his run Boree, a paying proposition, only to sell it for a loss, a price of only 15000 pounds, (having bought it originally for 20000 pounds), at the end of the 1850's, retiring with ill health to Sydney. Only a small portion of the property was retained from the sale, and a few head of cattle, which his son Robert Darvall Barton managed till his father's death shortly thereafter.

       

Emily, now a widow, continued to live on the Parramatta River at Gladesville.

       

Robert Darvall Barton married Fanny Blanche Smith at Bathurst in 1873 and they had children: John a' Beckett Darvall Barton in 1874, Roger Furnwall Darvall Barton in 1875, Claude N. H. Barton in 1877 (died young in 1882), Edward M. M. Barton in 1878 at Bathurst, and Emily Mary Barton in 1879 at Coonamble, Norah Margaret Darvall Barton in 1881 at Coonamble and Alan Sinclair Barton in 1886 at Coonamble. By 1902 he was running Burren and Esrom Stations near Narrabri.

       

Charles Hampden Barton married Annie Smith in 1877 and had children: Edith Marjorie Barton in 1881 at Bathurst, Ursula S Barton in 1882 (West Macquarie), and Robert C. B. Barton in 1884 (West Macquarie). He published a book Outlines of Australian Physiography in 1899.

       

Arthur S. Barton married Lucy J. Smith in 1884 at Dubbo.

       

Edward Barton married Mary Ann Phillips in 1875 at Mudgee and had children: Lillian Barton in 1876 at Mudgee, Edward H Barton in 1878 at Mudgee, Lillian Barton in 1880 at Mudgee and Mabel Aslen Barton in 1880 at Mudgee.

       

Henry Francis Barton is said by the Australian Dictionary of Biography to have married a Miss Macansh (see later herein for other references to the Macanashs), then a Miss Windeyer. The short note in the Australian Dictionary of Biography says that he was born in 1853 the son of Robert Johnstone Barton and died Sydney in 1902, educated at Sydney Grammar School, and Sydney University, studied for the Bar, Master in Equity 1884-1902, brother of Robert Darvall Barton.

       

Robert Darvall Barton wrote a book on his pioneer life called Reminiscences of a Pioneer, published in Sydney in 1917.

       

He too is mentioned in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

 

“Born Boree 1843 son of Robert Johnstone Barton, died Sydney 16 August 1924, married Miss Smith, Educated Kings School, Parramatta, jackerooed for J. P. Macansh, part-owner Nellgowrie near Coonamble 1871, bought Conimbia 1876 and numerous other stations later, brother of Henry Francis Barton and father of Alan Sinclair Darvall Barton.”

 

Alan Sinclair Darvall Barton is mentioned in the 1891-1939 later edition of the Australian Dictionary of Biography: (1886-1950), medical practitioner, was born on 12 March 1886 at Bathurst, New South Wales, son of Robert Darvall Barton, grazier and author of Reminiscences of an Australian Pioneer (Sydney 1917), and his wife Fanny Blanche, a daughter of John Smith, sheep breeder; he was first cousin of A. B. Paterson; educated at All Saints College, Bathurst, and the University of Sydney, he became resident medical officer and registrar at Sydney Hospital in 1910-11. Two years later he began private practice at Coonabarabran.

       

When World War I broke out, Dr. Alan Sinclair Darvall Barton enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and was commissioned Captain, Australian Medical Corps, in 1914; he was posted to the 2nd Australian General Hospital and sailed for Egypt. After serving with the 1st Australian Division at Mena Camp, he served with honour and distinction as a medivac officer and surgeon in the final Allied evacuation from Anzac Beach, Gallipoli, and in France at the Battle of Fromelles. After discharge he married Dorothy Ellena Duffy in 1919 in Sydney, settled in Singleton and built up an extensive private practice. He had a son and three daughters and died in 1950.”

 

In 1859, Emily Susannah Barton married a John Paterson at Molong.

       

In 1863, her sister, Rose Isabella Barton married Andrew Bogle Paterson at Molong.

       

Andrew Bogle Paterson is described, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, as a lowland Scot who had emigrated to New South Wales about 1850 taking up Buckinbah Station at Obley in the Orange district.

       

In fact, Andrew Bogle Paterson was the third of four children born to John Paterson and Ann Howison. John Paterson married Ann Howison on 17 February 1829 at Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, Scotland and bore- James Paterson, born 2 December 1829 at Edinburgh, and baptised 2 January 1830 at Lesmahagow,

John Paterson, baptised 2 January 1832 at Lesmahagow, (who later married Emily Susannah Barton in 1859 in New South Wales and died 1871),

Andrew Bogle Paterson born 1833 and

Jessie Howison Paterson, born 1834.

       

Andrew Bogle Paterson and Rose Isabella Paterson, nee` Barton, had seven children, the eldest, born on 17 February 1864 at Narrambla near Orange, being Andrew Barton Paterson.

 

Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson.

 

Young Barty, as he was known to his family and friends, enjoyed a bush boyhood. When he was seven, the family moved to Illalong in the Yass district. Here, near the main route between Sydney and Melbourne, the exciting traffic of bullock teams, Cobb & Co. coaches, drovers with their mobs of stock, and gold escorts became familiar sights. At picnic race meetings and polo matches, young Barty saw in action accomplished horsemen from the Murrumbidgee and Snowy Mountains country which generated his lifelong enthusiasm for horse and horsemanship and eventually the writing of his famous equestrian ballads.

       

After lessons in his early years from a governess, once Barty was able to ride a pony, he attended the bush school at Binalong. In 1874 he was sent to Sydney Grammar School where in 1875 he shared the junior Knox prize with (Sir) George Rich, and matriculated aged 16. After failing a University of Sydney scholarship examination, Andrew served the customary articles of clerkship with Hugh Salway and was admitted as a solicitor in August 1886. For ten years from about 1889, Andrew Paterson practised in partnership with John William Street.

       

As a young man Andrew joined enthusiastically in the Sydney social and sporting scene, and was much sought after for his companionship. Norman Lindsay in Bohemians of the Bulletin, (1965), remembered him as a "tall man with a finely built, muscular body, moving with the ease of perfectly co-ordinated reflexes. Black hair, dark eyes, a long finely articulated nose, an ironic mouth, a dark pigmentation of the skin. His eyes, as eyes must be, were his most distinctive feature, slightly hooded (with the Godschall Johnson legacy), with a glance that looked beyond one as he talked.

       

Andrew was a keen tennis player and an accomplished oarsman, but his chief delight was horsemanship. He rode with the hounds of the Sydney Hunt Club, and became one of the Colony's best polo players. As an amateur rider he competed at Randwick and Rosehill.

       

During his schooldays in Sydney, Andrew lived at Gladesville with his widowed grandmother Emily May Barton, neé Darvall, sister of Sir John Darvall, and daughter of Edward Darvall and Emily Godschall Johnson. Emily had been widowed about 1861, when her husband Robert Johnstone Barton had sold Boree station off for less that what he had paid for it, left the dispersal of stock to his son Robert Darvall Barton, and returned to Sydney, dying not long after.

       

Emily resided then at Gladesville till her ultimate death. Andrew stayed with her during his schooldays in Sydney, and Emily, a well read woman, had a substantial impact on developing Andrew's literary tastes and in particular fostered his love of poetry.

       

Andrew's father, Andrew Doyle Paterson, had had verses published in the Bulletin soon after its foundation in 1880. Andrew (Junior) followed suit. He began writing verses as a law student. His first poem El Mahdi to the Australian Troops, was published in the Bulletin in February 1885. Adopting the pen name "The Banjo", which was taken from the name of a station racehorse owned by his family, he became one of the sodality of Bulletin writers and artists for which the 1890's were remarkable in Australian literature. He formed friendships with E.J. Brady, Victor Daley, Frank Mahony, Harry "The Breaker" Morant, and others. He helped Henry Lawson to draw up contracts with publishers and indulged in a friendly rhyming battle with him in the Bulletin over the attractions or otherwise of bush life.

       

By 1895, such ballads as Clancy of the Overflow, The Geebung Polo Club, The Man from Ironbark, How the Favourite Beat Us, and Saltbush Bill, were so popular with readers that Angus & Robertson published the collection, The Man From Snowy River, and Other Verses, in October 1895.

       

The title-poem had swept the colonies when it was first published in April 1890. The book had a remarkable reception; the first edition sold out in the week of publication and 7000 copies in a few months. Its particular achievement was to established the bushman in the national consciousness as a romantic and archetypal figure. The book was as much praised in England as in Australia. The Times compared Andrew with Rudyard Kipling who himself wrote to congratulate the publishers. Andrew's identity as "The Banjo" was at last revealed, and he became a national celebrity overnight.

       

While on holiday in Queensland late in 1895, Andrew stayed with friends at Dagworth station, near Winton. Here he wrote Waltzing Matilda, which was to become Australia's best known folk song.

       

In the next few years, Andrew travelled extensively through the Northern Territory and other areas, writing of his experiences in prose and verse for the Sydney Mail, the Pastoralists' Review, the Australian Town and Country Journal, and the Lone Hand, as well as the Bulletin.

       

In 1895, he collaborated with Ernest Truman in the production of an operatic farce, Club Life, and in 1897, was an editor of the Antipodean, a literary magazine.

       

Andrew's most important journalistic opportunity came with the outbreak of the South African War, when he was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age as their war correspondent. Andrew sailed for South Africa in October 1899. He was attached to General French's column. For nine months he was in the thick of the fighting, and his graphic accounts of the key campaigns included the surrender of Bloemfontein (he was the first correspondent to ride into that town), the capture of Pretoria, and the relief of Kimberley. The quality of Andrew's reporting attracted the notice of the English press and he was appointed as a correspondent also for the international news agency, Reuters, an honour which he especially cherished in his later years. Andrew wrote twelve ballads from his war experiences, the best known of which are Johnny Boer, and With French to Kimberley.

       

Andrew returned to Australia in September 1900, and sailed for China in July 1901 as a roving correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald. There he met G.E. ("Chinese") Morrison whose exploits he had always admired. His accounts of this meeting have been said to be among some of Andrew's best prose work.

       

Andrew went on to England where he met again his old friend of the Bulletin days, the cartoonist Phil May. Andrew also spent some time in England as the guest of Rudyard Kipling at his Sussex home.

       

Andrew returned to Sydney in 1902, and published another collection Rio Grande's Last Race, and other verses.

       

In November 1902, Andrew decided to abandon his legal practice.

       

In 1903, Andrew was appointed editor of the Sydney Evening News.

       

On 8 April 1903, Andrew married in the lovely old church of St. Stephens Presbyterian, at Tenterfield in northern New South Wales, Alice Emily Walker, who was the daughter of W.H. Walker, the owner of Tenterfield station, after which the lovely country town was named. Her father had donated the land for the Church and Manse originally in 1884.

       

Andrew and Alice settled at Woolahra in Sydney where a daughter Grace Paterson was born in 1904, and a son Hugh Paterson, was born in 1906.

       

In 1908, Andrew resigned as editor of the Evening News.

He had enjoyed his newspaper activities and had produced an edition of folk ballads Old Bush Songs, published in 1905, which he had researched for some years. He had also written a novel An Outback Marriage, which was published in 1906, but which had first appeared as a serial in the Melbourne Leader in 1900. But the call of the country could not be resisted, and he took over a property of 40,000 acres, Coodra Vale, near wee Jasper, where he wrote an unpublished treatise on racehorses and racing. The pastoral venture was not a financial success, and Andrew briefly tried wheat farming near Grenfell.

       

When World War I began, Andrew immediately sailed for England, hoping unsuccessfully to cover the fighting in Flanders as a war correspondent. He drove an ambulance attached to the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Mimereux, France, before returning to Australia early in 1915. As honorary vet, with a certificate of competency, he made three voyages with horses to Africa, China and Egypt, and on 18 October 1915, Andrew was commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial Force.

 

Almost immediately, Andrew was promoted to the rank of Captain. He served in the Middle East. He was wounded in April 1916, but rejoined his unit in July. Andrew was said to be ideally suited to his duties, and was promoted to the rank of Major. He commanded the Australian Remount Squadron from October until he returned to Australia in mid-1919.

       

Angus & Robertson had published in 1917 a further collection of his poems, Saltbush Bill, J.P., and other verses, and a prose selection, Three Elephant Power, and other stories, heavily edited by A.W. Jose, to whom Robertson confided: "It is amazing that a prince of raconteurs like Banjo should be such a messer with the pen".

       

After the War, Andrew resumed journalism. He contributed to the Sydney Mail and Smith's Weekly, and in 1921, he became editor of a racing journal, the Sydney Sportsman, an appointment which, with his love of horses, he found highly congenial.

       

In 1923 most of his poems were assembled in Collected Verse, which has now been reprinted many times over.

       

Andrew retired from active journalism in 1930 to devote his leisure to creative writing. He was by now a celebrated and respected citizen of Sydney, most often seen at the Australian Club where he had long been a member, and where his portrait hung for decades.

       

In ensuing years, Andrew became a successful broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (the ABC), on his travels and experiences.

       

Andrew also wrote his whimsical book of children's poems

The Animals Noah Forgot in 1933.

       

In 1934, in Happy Dispatches, Andrew described his meetings with the famous, including Sir Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, G.E. Morrison, Lady Dudley, and British Army leaders.

       

Andrew published another novel The Shearer's Colt in 1936, and in 1939 he wrote reminiscences for the Sydney Morning Herald

       

In 1939, he was appointed a Commander of the British Empire (C.B.E.).

       

Andrew died on 5 February 1941 after a short illness and was cremated with Presbyterian forms. His wife Alice, and children, Grace and Hugh, survived him.

       

The following testimonial is from Clement Semmler, author of The Banjo of the Bush (1966), and The World of Banjo Paterson, in 1967:-

       

“By the verdict of the Australian people, and his own conduct and precept, Andrew was in every sense, a great Australian. Ballader-writer, horseman, bushman, overlander, squatter- he helped to make the Australian legend. Yet, in his lifetime, he was a living part of that legend in that, with the rare touch of the genuine folk-poet, and in words that seemed as natural as breathing, he made a balladry of the scattered lives of back-country Australians and immortalised them. He left a legacy for future generations in his objective, if sometimes sardonic, appreciation of the outback; that great hinterland, stretching from the Queensland border through the western plains of New South Wales to the Snowy Mountains-so vast a country that the lonely rider was seen as "a speck upon a waste of plain".

       

This was Andrew's land of contrasts: "the plains are all awave with grass, the skies are deepest blue", but also the "fiery dust-storm drifting and the mocking mirage shifting", "waving grass and forest trees on sunlit plains as wide as seas", but the "drought fiend" too, and the cattle left lying "with the crows to watch them dying".     

       

Although coming from a family of pioneer landholders, who by their industry had achieved some substance, Andrew wrote for all who were battling in the face of flood, drought and disaster. Andrew saw life through the eyes of old Kiley who had to watch the country he had pioneered turned over to the mortgagees, of Saltbush Bill fighting a well-paid overseer for grass for his starving sheep, of Clancy of the Overflow riding contentedly through the smiling western plains:

While the sttock are slowly stringing,

Clancy ridess behind them singing,

For the drovver's life has pleasures

that the townsfolk never know.

       

In such lines as these Andrew lifted the settled gloom from the literature of the bush.

       

On the night of Andrew's death, Vance Palmer broadcasted a tribute:

       

“He laid hold both of our affections and imaginations; he made himself a vital part of the country we all know and love, and it would not only have been a poorer country but one far less united in bonds of intimate feeling, if he had never lived and written.”

       

In 1983, his granddaughters, R. Campbell and P. Harvie published a two volume complete edition of Andrew's works, including hitherto unpublished material: R. Campbell and P. Harvie (comp and introd): A. B. (Banjo) Paterson: complete works 1885-1941, (Sydney 1983).

       

Andrew's portrait by John Longstaff won the 1935 Archibald prize, and is in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

 

5. ELIZA DARVALL:

       

Eliza Charlotte Darvall was the fifth child, and second daughter, of Edward Darvall and Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

Like her sister Emily, she too was snapped up quickly by an eligible bachelor not long after her arrival in the Colony of New South Wales in 1839.

       

Henry Herman Kater, son of Henry and Mary F. Kater, married Eliza in 1840, the same year that Robert Johnstone Barton married Emily Darvall.

       

Henry Herman Kater was said to have had considerably more capital invested than Robert Johnstone Barton. When he came out, he was said to have brought about thirty thousand pounds worth of horses, cattle and sheep. He was said to have brought out, at the time, some of the best blood horses that had ever come to Australia, at the time, including a purebred stallion named Cap-a-pie. He also brought out machinery for a wool factory for making cloth, but he found that it was a dead loss and brought him nearly insolvent. He had to sell all his horse stock, and put steam machinery for grinding wheat into his factory, operating the mill at Caloola.  By many years of hard graft and economy, he succeeded in making good provision for his old age.

       

Of the later Kater descendants, one of the eminent was Henry Edward Kater (born 1841), eldest son of Henry Herman Kater and his wife Eliza Charlotte Darvall, who became a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

       

Another son was Edward Harvey Kater, born 1846, who married Fannie M Matthews in 1877 at Wellington, and had six children:

 

1

Mary Eliza Kater (1877),

2

Mary Agnes L. Kater (1879),

3

Edward Darvall Kater (1880)(who married Vera A. Mack in 1907 at Narrowmine

4

Mary C. Kater (1882),

5

Frederick C. Kater (1884) (who married Mary Harrigan in 1908 and Blanche Abbott in 1912), and

6

Eric S. Kater (1890), who married Evelyn Macdonald in Sydney in 1923.

         

       

Henry Herman Kater and his wife Eliza Charlotte Darvall also had two daughters, Emily M Kater in 1855, and another daughter (unnamed in the registers) at Orange in 1856.

       

An Alice Eliza Kater married a Herbert Salwey at Canterbury in 1882, and a Mary F. Kater married a Henry Salwey at Burwood in 1889. These are either daughters of the above named, or are otherwise related.

       

Edward Darvall Kater and his wife Vera M. Mack, who he married in 1907 at Narrowmine, had children

 

1

Katherine D. Kater born at Warren in 1908,

2

Darvall Edward Kater born at Dubbo in 1910 (who married Patricia Ann Russell Glasson at Woolahra in 1942) and

3

Vera P. Kater, born at Warren in 1912

 

       

In the year 1901, Kater Bros ran Mumblebone Station, and Egelabra Station, at Warren in western New South Wales.

       

The eldest of the sons of Henry Herman Kater, Henry Edward Kater, as abovementioned, married Mary Eliza Forster, daughter of William Forster, at Ryde in 1870.

       

Henry Edward Kater became a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

       

He and his wife had a son Norman William Kater, born in 1874 at Ryde. They had another son Henry Harvey Kater who died in 1902 at Moss Vale.

       

Henry Edward Kater died in 1924 at Woollahra.

       

Norman William Kater married Jean G. M. McKenzie at Sydney in 1901 and had children:

 

1

1902 Henry E. F. Kater at Sydney, who in 1926 married Christina A. Atkinson,

2

1904 Norman H, M. Kater at Moss Vale,

3

1907 John B. D. Kater, at Cargo,

4

1907 Mary F. Kater at Cargo, who married Douglas Tooth in 1929,

5

1909 Jean G. Kater at Cargo, who married William R. Munro at Moss Vale in 1929,

6

1912 Gregory B. Kater at Cargo.

 

Henry Edward Kater is mentioned in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

 

“Kater, Henry Edward (1841-1924), pastoralist and businessman, was born on 20 September 1841 at Bungarribee, near Penrith, eldest son of Henry Herman Kater (1813-1881) and his wife Eliza Charlotte Darvall (died 1909), sister of John Bayley Darvall.

 

His father had arrived in Sydney on 23 December 1839 in the Euphrates with Durham cattle and six thoroughbred horses; he bought Bungarribee but after eighteen months faced bankruptcy and had to sell his stock. He moved to Caloola, started a cloth factory and later made enough to retire to Sydney where he died in 1881.

 

Henry Edward Kater was educated by his mother and for a year at Clader House, Redfern. He became a junior clerk in the Australian Joint Stock Bank at Mudgee. In 1861 he was held up by bushrangers while carrying bank notes to Bathurst. In 1863 he acquired Gungalman, a cattle station on the Castlereagh. He established good relations with the Aboriginals and learnt bushcraft from them; he often used the local rainmaker. He sold Gungalman and set up as a flour-miller at Wellington.

 

On 8 February 1870 at St. Anne's Church of England, Ryde, he married Mary Eliza Forster (died 1935), daughter of William Forster. She had read the Origin of the Species at 16 and studied Greek as a pastime at Wellington. In 1875 they visited Europe and Britain, where they earnestly looked at churches, art galleries and opera, and while visiting relations Henry saw and played his first lawn tennis.

 

 

In the 1870 Henry Edward Kater took up land in the Wellington district. With his brother Edward Harvey Kater (died 1903) he acquired Mumblebone on the Macquarie River near Warren. From John Smith, in 1879 they bought merinos directly descended from the Reverend Samuel Marsden’s flock. In 1881, the brothers formed a partnership as Kater Bros; Henry had a third interest and attended to the city end of the business. Under Edward, Mumblebone became one of the foremost studs in New South Wales; he developed strong-woolled, large-framed and plain-bodied sheep.

 

In 1879 Henry Edward Kater had bought Mount Broughton near Moss Vale. He was a founder and president of the Bong Bong Picnic Race club and sometime president of the Berrima District Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society. In 1889 he was appointed to the Legislative Council upon the recommendation of G. R. Dibbs. On 9 January 1908 the Bulletin complained that “19 years' research hasn't explained why (Dibbs) did it”. Despite such comments, Henry Edward Kater proved a useful councillor, active on committees and interested in rural matters. In 1911 his opposition forced the Government to modify the Shires Bill. Edward Kavanagh, a Labour member, maintained that 'if one could satisfy Mr. Kater that a thing was in the interests of the State, then, irrespective of political party, one could rest assured of his support'.

 

In 1892-1924 Henry Edward Kater was a director of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. and Chairman in 1901-2. He was also vice-chairman of the Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney and local director of the Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Co.

 

He represented Moss Vale in Anglican Synods from the 1880s and his most charitable work was in connection with the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. A director from 1892, honorary treasurer in 1901-16, and chairman in 1920-24, he gave the hospital its first X-ray machine and 1000 pounds to endow the H. E. Kater ward.

 

In 1896 he had bought Egelabra near Warren, and in 1906 when the partnership with Edward was dissolved his share was half the Mumblebone stud and Yanganbil. About 1910 he took into partnership his son Norman who added Eenaweena. The three properties included 72,000 acres and, under the expert classer E. H. Wass, H. E. Kater & Son formed the well-known Egelabra stun. The Mumblebone stud continued to develop under H. E. Kater's descendants.

 

Henry Edward Kater died on 23 September1924 at his home, Headingley, Woollahra, and was buried in the Anglican section of the Sutton Forest cemetery. He was survived by his wife and his younger son (Sir) Norman Kater. Able in business and a shrewd judge of men, Kater left an estate sworn for probate at over 190,000 pounds.”

 

His son, Norman William Kater, later knighted to Sir William, is also mentioned in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

 

“Kater, Sir Norman William (1874-1965), medical practitioner, grazier and politician, was born on 18 November 1874 at Brush Farm, Ryde, New South Wales, second son of native born parents Henry Edward Kater and his wife Mary Eliza, daughter of William Forster. He was educated at All Saints College, Bathurst, in 1886-88 and Sydney Grammar School in 1889-91, where he excelled at rifle-shooting.

 

He studied medicine at Sydney University, and was resident medical officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1894. He then studied at Dublin and London. Returning to Sydney he set up practice at College Street. He married Jean Gaerloch Mackenzie on 25 February 1901 at St. James' Church. After the death of his elder brother in 1902 he reluctantly abandoned his practice and bought Nyrang near Molong. He was a member of the Boree Shire Council in 1906-11.

 

When his father and uncle divided the Mumblebone stud in 1906 he joined his father in H. E. Kater & Son and supervised the Egelabra merino stud, near Warren. By 1911, he had virtually exterminated rabbits there and at Nyrang.

 

He served in France in the First World War. After the war Kater returned to pastoral pursuits. He sold Nyrang in 1920 and bought a house in Sydney; in 1924 he inherited Mount Broughton near Moss Vale.

 

A member of the central council of the Progressive Party, Kater was nominated to the Legislative Council in 1923.

 

He died on 18 August 1965, survived by four sons and two daughters of his first marriage.”

       

6. ROSE DARVALL

       

Rose Darvall was the third and youngest daughter of Edward Darvall and his wife, Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

Rosamund Mary Darvall married Arthur J Templer (although his name sometimes appears as John A. Templer) in 1844. They appeared to have had a son, John A. Templer born in 1844 who died in 1847, and a daughter Florence L. Templer in 1854. Arthur Templer may have died for there is a marriage entry for a Rosanna Mary Templer in 1868 at Orange to a James A. H. Poulton.

 

On Arthur Templer appears this story from his nephew Robert Darvall Barton:

 

“I should like to relate a story in which Arthur Templer did a feat in taking two bushrangers, but I shall have to lead up to it by informing you that at that time there were no banks in the country, and people owning stations a long way out had to take up their money to pay their labour and expenses in cash. The very fact of this was one reason why bush ranging was a profitable employment. After the banks got out and cheques were used, we were too poor to be worth robbing. Mr. Templer at that time owned Nanama Station, close to what is now the town of Wellington, and in taking a trip up from Sydney he had a large parcel of money wrapped in a water-proof cover, which he strapped on to his carpet-bag. He got safely to within about ten miles beyond Bathurst from Sydney; the coach was slowly dragging up a steep hill when two men, carrying flint-lock guns, stepped into the road and bailed them up. The coach stopped, of course; but Mr. Templer was on the box-seat; one man stood a short distance from the coach covering it with his gun; the other one put his gun down and started to search the passengers for any money they might have about them; and, as there was always a danger of being robbed in those days, you had to secrete your cash in your clothes where you considered it least likely to be found. Of course, the robbers were up to this trick, and each passenger had to undress, or nearly so. While the bushranger was examining the passengers on the coach, Mr. Templer sat on the box-seat, and when his turn came, the man came round and said: "Now you get off and let me have a look at you." Mr. Templer was a fine athlete, of splendid physique, and, on the impulse of the moment, he jumped off the box-seat on to the robber, and caught him by the shoulders, and kept the robber's back to the man with the gun, at the same time calling out to the other passengers to come to his assistance; but their trousers not being quite on, impeded their progress, and the bushranger with the gun, seeing that he would have to do something, attempted to fire, but, fortunately- it was a wet morning- missed fire. He then threw the gun down and made off. Mr. Templer then threw the other man on his back, called out to the other passengers to secure him, and followed the man who ran away, whom he succeeded in catching and dragging back to the coach. They secured both men with straps and ropes, and amused themselves by kicking them into the first police station, which was at that time near Guyong. The thanks that Mr. Templer got for this action was a paragraph in the Sydney Gazette..."

 

7. HORACE DARVALL:

 

Horace Darvall was the youngest child of Edward Darvall and Emily Godschall Johnson.

Nothing further is known of him.

 

                                                        ****

 

Emily Godschall Darvall, nee` Godschall Johnson, died in 1840 a year after her arrival in the Colony.

 

Her husband, Edward Darvall remarried.

 

His second wife was Jane McCullough.

 

The Registers show this marriage as occurring in 1852.

 

Jane was the daughter of William McCullough.

 

In 1844 Edward Darvall and Jane McCullough had a son, Anthony W. Darvall.

 

Edward Darvall died in 1869 at Ryde.

Jane died in 1899 at Ryde.

 

Anthony W. Darvall appears to have married a Kate, and had sons Anthony W. Darvall and Beresford Darvall, and possibly daughters Mabel J Darvall and Kate W. Darvall.

 

Anthony W. Darvall Snr., died in 1910 at Ryde. Beresford Darvall died in 1911 at Ryde.

       

Anthony W. Darvall, jnr., married Hardie I. Holmes in 1912 in Sydney, and had offspring:

 

1

1914 Hardie Darvall   

(Kogarah)

2

1916 Kathleen M Darvall

(Rockdale)

3

1917 Anthony W. Darvall

(Rockdale).

                            

                    

                                                        ****

 

FREDERICK ORME DARVALL

       

Frederick Orme Darvall was the third son of Captain Edward Darvall and Emily Godschall Johnson.

       

He married Lucy Shapland, fourth child and third daughter of Colonel Shapland, who was born near Calcutta.

       

They had children:

 

1

Lucy Elizabeth Darvall, born 17 January 1843,

2

Edith Flora Darvall, born 1844

3

Frederick Orme Francis Darvall, born 1846 near Penrith

4

Ralph Shapland Darvall.

 

Both Edith Flora Darvall and Ralph Shapland Darvall did not marry.

       

Frederick Orme Francis Darvall married Deborah North and had 11 children.

       

Lucy Elizabeth Darvall married George Orme Weston Wood, nephew of Lord Hatherley, in 1860, and had a son Waveney Weston Wood.

       

George Orme Weston Wood died, and Lucy Elizabeth Wood, nee` Darvall, remarried.

       

Her second husband was George Cresswell Crump of Chorlton Hall, County of Cheshire.

       

She had no further children.

 

Her son by her first marriage, Waveney Weston Wood, married B. Deakin and had a daughter Helen.

 

FREDERICK ORME FRANCIS DARVALL:

       

Frederick Orme Francis Darvall was born in 1846 at Penrith, the eldest son of Frederick Orme Darvall and his wife Lucy Shapland.

       

In 1870 he married Deborah North, daughter of Lieutenant J. North at "Fernie Lawn" near Ipswich. Fernie Lawn was the nearest station to Ipswich on the Brisbane River and it was occupied shortly after the embargo on settlement within fifty miles of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was lifted in 1842. Fernie Lawn was purchased by the North family from the Uhr brothers early in 1843. Before the sale one of the Uhr brothers had been killed by Aboriginals while working sheep in a yard near the site of the present Lake Manchester, where he was buried. Wivenhoe was the adjoining station higher up the Brisbane River, owned by the surviving Uhr brother and J. S. Ferriter, a retired Royal Navy man, who also owned an interest in Barambah station in the Burnett district. Wivenhoe station was situated about a mile from the old Wivenhoe Inn, a well known stopping place, on the road to the Upper Brisbane, Dawson and Burnett districts. Wivenhoe was also bought by the North family in 1849, and another property called Northbrook on the east side of the River was also secured. Joseph North lived firstly at Fernie Lawn, but afterwards at Wivenhoe. Apart from daughter Deborah who married Frederick Orme Francis Darvall, another daughter married Frank Villeneuve Nicholson, who afterwards purchased Humberstone, part of Durundur near what is now Kilcoy, and changed its name to Villeneuve. The name survives to this day.

 

Deborah North was born on 31 August 1848.

 

They had 11 children:

 

1

Edward Orme Darvall, born 1872 in Brisbane,

2

Frederick Joseph Dundas Darvall, born 1873 in Brisbane,

3

Edward Horace Darvall, born 1874, died 1875.

4

Edith Lucy Darvall, his twin, born 1874, died 27 November 1875.

5

Guy Francis Darvall, born 1875, who later married Nell Asmus,

6

Cecile Deborah Darvall, born 1878 (Molly),

7

Cholmondeley Burnett Darvall, born 1880,

8

Marion Dundas Darvall, born 1882,

9

Winifred Darvall, born 1882, died 1883,

10

Roy Darvall, born 1884,

11

Frederick Lucy Darvall, born 1886, died 1981.

       

Queensland Death records show a Dundas Darvall died on 15 September 1887, whose parents were Frederick Orme Francis Darvall and Deborah Elizabeth.

       

Also recorded is the death of Joseph North on 2 January 1881, parentage William North and Sarah Marsh.

       

Spencer Browne in A Journalist's Memories has a brief reference to Frederick Darvall:

       

“The chief Inspector of Distilleries was Fred Darvall, F. O. Darvall jun., a very well known Brisbane man, and one of a very well-known Australian family.”

 

Deborah Eliza Darvall, neé  North, died on 31 August 1903. The Death Entry records her parents as Joseph North and Robert (sic) Dundas. The name Dundas, was used in naming her second child Frederick Joseph Dundas Darvall, and her eighth child Marion Dundas Darvall. It was also used in naming Beth Dundas Darvall born 12 October 1902 to Frederick Joseph Dundas Darvall and his wife, Ethel Maude Cooper.

       

Edward Orme Darvall (shown in records as Edwin), married Annabella Campbell Ranken Morehead, and they had children:

 

1

Jocelyn Orme Morehead Darvall, born 25 May 1901,

2

Deborah Ranken Orme Darvall, born 22 January 1903,

3

Boyd Frederick Orme Darvall, born 23 March 1903.

 

 

Annabella Campbell Ranken Darvall, neé Morehead, died on 23 October 1919. Her parents were recorded as Boyd Dunlop Morehead and Annabella Campbell Ranken.

       

So how did the Darvalls become involved with the Morehead family. Therein lies an interesting story. Lieutenant Joseph North and his wife Robert(a) Dundas, of Fernie Lawn had daughters. Deborah North married Frederick Orme Francis Darvall in 1870. Another daughter married Frank Villeneuve Nicholson. Another daughter, Sarah Elizabeth North married, in 1879, Alexander Charles Grant. Now Alexander Charles Grant is a bit of a legend in Queensland grazier circles. And from there came the involvement with Boyd Dunlop Morehead.

       

The story of Alexander Charles Grant is as follows:

 

Alexander Charles Grant was born in 1843 at Inverness, Scotland, the son of Peter Grant, sugar merchant of Demerara, West Indies, and his wife Jessie McDonald, daughter of John McDonald of Ness Castle, Inverness.

       

He had an elder brother, John Macdonald Grant, christened in 1841 to Peter Grant and Jessie Falconer Macdonald, at Inverness, and, from the IGI, younger siblings, John Grant, christened in 1862 to Peter Grant and Jessie Macdonald at Kilmonivaig, Inverness, and Jane Isabella Grant, christened in 1865 at Kilmonivaig, Inverness to Peter Grant and Jessie Macdonald. A Peter George Grant died in 1924 in Queensland with given parentage Peter Grant and Jessie Falconer Macdonald. This would be one, at least, of the brothers who helped establish Dartmoor station.

       

Alexander Charles Grant was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Halle, Germany, and Montgrennan House, near Irvine, Scotland.

       

Early in 1861 he arrived in Queensland to work for his uncle, Chesborough Claudius Macdonald on Cadarga station in the Burnett district.

       

He worked first as an unpaid jackaroo, then as superintendent of the store and cattle. Later he drove 20000 sheep north to Macdonald's Logan Downs, near Clermont.

       

In 1868, Alexander Grant and his brothers bought Dartmoor, inland from Mackay.

       

However, they sold out in 1870 when the country proved unsuitable for sheep.

       

Alexander Grant then established Wrotham Park on the Mitchell River in North Queensland in 1874. He sold meat to Normanby and Palmer goldfields, but failed to find a partner for a wholesale meat concern. This failure and severe malaria led him to sell his share of Wrotham Park in 1878.

       

While seeking health in travel overseas. he wrote a fictionalised account of his experiences, published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1879-80, and reprinted as Bush Life in Queensland or John West's Colonial Experiences (Edinburgh, 1881).

       

Returning to Queensland in 1879, he married Sarah Elizabeth North at Ipswich on 28 November 1879. Sarah Elizabeth North was a sister of Deborah North, both daughters of Lieut J. North. Deborah North married in 1870 Frederick Orme Darvall.

       

He then joined the mercantile and pastoral firm, B. D. Morehead & Co. His practical background soon made him indispensable and he was rapidly promoted to manager of the stock and station business and to a junior partnership. Through the senior partners, Morehead and William Forrest, he made valuable political and financial contacts. In great demand as an assessor in hearings before the Land Boards under the Crown Lands Act of 1884, he travelled widely throughout Queensland, seeking lower valuations for pastoralists.

       

Although the firm was old and respected, it was badly shaken by the Queensland National Bank crash which brought not only deflated land values and bankruptcies, but also a whiff of scandal since Morehead had been a director of the Bank.

       

In the resultant reshuffle, Grant emerged as managing director of the new company, Morehead's Ltd., with a 30% shareholding.

       

Morehead & Co. had sponsored the Queensland Meat Export and Agency Co. Ltd. which allowed Queensland to enter the frozen meat trade.

       

From the 1880's Grant campaigned for local sale of wool rather than sending the clip to Sydney or London. In spite of opposition, the Brisbane wool sales were successfully established in 1898.

       

A captain in the Queensland Scottish Volunteers until 1890, Grant was also a trustee of the Brisbane Public Library in 1896, a member of the Johnsonian Club, and vice-president of the Queensland Stock Breeders and Graziers' Association in 1898.

       

In the drought of 1900-01, he lost heavily. Convinced that the best days of pastoralism were over, fearful of radical political trends and concerned about his children’s' prospects, he decided to seek refuge in the United States of America. Selling up all his Queensland interests in 1902, he took his wife, three sons and eight daughters to California. He died in Los Angeles in January 1930.

       

Alexander Charles Grant, in the flyleaf, dedicated his book John West's Colonial Experiences, to his mother, who, at an advanced age, made the journey across the seas to Australia. Jessie Macdonald died in Queensland on 7 December 1905 (daughter of John Macdonald and Mary Campbell).

       

The name Chesborough, as featured in that other great pioneer, Chesborough Claudius Macdonald, of Cadarga station, was used in the 1899 birth of James Chesborough Grant to Thomas William Grant and Norah O'Grady. Thomas William Grant was born in 1871 to James Grant and Catherine Quinland. They are probably relations.

 

Archibald Meston was writing of Paddington Cemetery in Brisbane in 1908 when he penned this piece:

 

In one grave, which ought to have received a little more attention, are Louisa Tully and her month old child Blanche. She was the first wife of the late William Alcock Tully, ex-Surveyor General, and eldest daughter of the late Simeon Lord, of Eskdale station and son of Simeon Lord, one of Sydney’s best known men seventy years ago. He was generally known as “Merchant Lord.” The Eskdale Lords once lived in Tasmania, where they had a station called Bona Vista, near Avoca. Fred Lord, of Brisbane, some years M.L.A. for Stanley, was born at Bona Vista, on November 8, 1841. The station was once stuck up by two notorious bushrangers named Dalton and Kelly. While they were inside the house, Constable Buckmaster came onto the verandah. They fired through a glass door and shot him dead, one ball striking him in the forehead. Nobody else was hurt. Lord’s daughter, Louisa, was then a child. She was born there in the year 1837, and died in Brisbane on February 20, 1866, aged 29. Her only sister married a Lieutenant Airey, who came to Sydney and Brisbane as a Lieutenant of Marines, in the Challenger with the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1868 and 1869. He became in after years, the late Lieutenant Colonel Airey, of Sydney.

 

One of the Challenger’s men died in Brisbane and is buried at Paddington. His name was Percival Perkins Baskerville, Commander in the Royal Navy. He died on March 1, 1869, aged 21.

 

One of Louisa Tully’s brothers, Robert Lord, was once member for Gympie. His widow is the present wife of Sir Horace Tozer, Queensland’s Agent General. Louisa Tully left two sons, one of whom is in ‘Frisco, and the other in Sydney. Tully’s second wife was a Miss Darvall, sister of Anthony Darvall, for many years manager of the A.J.S. Bank in Ipswich, and a candidate at the first federal elections.”

 

 

         

 

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