William Joseph and Mary Jane Laurence
and family
Kiama to Narrandera
After they were married in West Melbourne in 1884, William Joseph and Mary Jane Laurence travelled north to Kiama in New South Wales with their first daughter, Florence May being born en route in Queanbeyan. The couple settled in the village of Bombo, which is a few kilometres out of Kiama. Bombo was then the centre of a basalt-quarrying industry. The basalt was transported to the Kiama Harbour and then shipped to Sydney for that city’s expanding tram and rail networks. During their time in Kiama, the couple had five more children: Mary Jane in 1886, Emily in 1888 (the same year that Mary Jane’s younger sister Alice Kersley died in an accident in St Arnaud), Alice Maud in 1889, Catherine in 1891 and William in 1893.
William and Mary Jane and family in Kiama
around 1891. The girls are, from left to right, Florence May, Mary Jane, Emily
(seated on the ground) and Alice Maud.
But William Joseph soon became disillusioned with his lot at Kiama and yearned for a new start. He and a friend became convinced that they could make their fortune farming. The local newspaper had advertised blocks of land with ‘good prospects’ in the Riverina district north of Narrandera. The blocks were said to have been partially cleared and each contained a house and a dam. The two men decided this was too good an opportunity to miss and that they should buy adjoining blocks in order to increase their chances of success. These could be paid for by selling their houses in Bombo and most of their possessions. Both women were reluctant to leave their friends and the security of coastal life for the uncertainties of the bush. But the men prevailed and, after selling up, William and Mary Jane and their five children aged from one to ten years began a three hundred mile journey into the unknown. The families travelled overland by horse and cart. According to Winnie’s memoirs, in addition to their personal belongings and supplies for the journey, they each took a tent, a camp oven and a water container which was hung from the back of the wagons. At first an adventure, the journey soon became tiring and tiresome:
Some of the roads were not much better than
bush tracks, and the trees that looked so good at the beginning soon became
monotonous, the mothers and children would get out and walk for miles to
stretch their legs and spell the horses. They saw a few black fellow’s
camps, kangaroos and rabbits and once there was this terrible creature, sitting
on top of a post with its tail almost touching the ground. William said it was
a goanna and told the children they might often see one at their new place
(they hoped not).
After a three week trek, the families finally arrived at their destination. Needless to say the reality was far removed from the newspaper description that had lured William and his friend. The blocks were extremely isolated and covered in thick bush. The houses were nothing like those they had lived in in Kiama. They were makeshift huts, made of stripped saplings held together with mud and wire, with shingle roofs, earth floors, and roughly constructed stone fireplaces and chimneys. The dams were very small and only half full (of muddy water) although each house had an adjoining tank which collected rainwater from the roof. Jim’s wife, Nell, claimed that the huts ‘looked as though they had been abandoned by blacks’ and refused to stay (the family left for Sydney the following day). Knowing William would not be so easily deterred, Mary Jane declared the place could be made more liveable if they could find some hessian, wallpaper and whitewash to line the inside walls. These, together with two milking cows and some hens, were duly purchased from Narrandera and adjoining farms and the family settled in to their new life.
Settling in
William and Mary Jane’s bush block was in South Yalgolgrin, in the northern reaches of Barellan station and near where the township of Barellan is today (Barellan was originally called Barralong which means ‘meeting of waters’ or a ‘collection of water’). William and Mary Jane were part of a ‘third wave’ of selectors who took advantage of changing land laws - designed to break the power of the squatters and develop a kind of yeomanry within rural NSW - to move into the Riverina and make their living on the land. The first wave had come in the 1870s well before the railway line to Narrandera had been opened and within living memory of Robert Cotterall (alias Blue Cap), Dick the Devil, John Williams and the other bush rangers who had terrorised the region only a decade before.
These early settlers could only purchase small and unviable plots of land. Many were supported by, or were in the employ of, the squatters who used them to protect their own holdings of land (by, for example, acquiring blocks which guaranteed access to existing roads or river or creek frontages). There were a number of genuine settlers who sought to make a living from the land, including (in the area where William and Mary Jane were to settle): John, James and Christopher Foy, and the Comyn, Stivens and Ridout families.[1] Like the squatters, these first settlers had not only to clear their land but also deal with wild cattle and horses, rabbit plagues and droughts. These took their toll and forced many to walk off their properties. The second wave of settlers, mainly from Victoria, were able to purchase much larger areas of land although they, too, were affected by rabbit plagues, droughts and a generally hostile environment. Those who left and had not been bought out by their neighbours were gradually replaced by those, like William and Mary Jane, who came into the area in the 1890s.
As Gow and Gow’s Early Days in the Barellan District described, while it had been partly improved by earlier inhabitants and owners of Barellan station, the country remained ‘wild and untamed from a small settler’s point of view and they had much to do in the way of fencing, making dams, ringing, clearing, etc’. There was no township close to where they were - the nearest township was Narrandera some fifty kilometres to the south - no schools, no churches, no stores and very few dwellings. At the time of William and Mary Jane’s arrival, there were less than 20 school-age children in the district overall, insufficient to warrant the despatch of a trained school teacher to the area.[2] As a result, the older children received little formal education beyond the rudimentary reading and other skills their mother was able to give them.
Life was both isolated and very hard. As Winnie described, water for washing had to be carried up from the dam, cleared with alum, and then heated in kerosene tins that were hung over an open fire. The stove in the house didn’t work properly so Mary Jane had to use the little camp oven they had brought with them from Kiama to bake bread and cook most of their meals. Alice and her sisters were responsible for looking after the cows and other animals. This involved the cows being herded through the bush in search of grassed areas or the girls climbing the small kurrajong trees and picking the newly grown leaves for the cows to eat. On these excursions ‘they met plenty of lizards, a few goannas, plenty of rabbits and occasionally a snake, and soon became real bush girls’. Because there was little to be earned from the property, William was forced to seek work as a labourer and road contractor which meant that Mary Jane and the children were often on their own. Confronted with the reality of his choice and craving good company, William would also head into Narrandera where he would spend much of the family’s hard earned money on drink.
At the end of their first year in the district, the family was invited to the Ridout’s farm to celebrate Christmas. As described earlier, the Ridouts had settled in the district in the 1870s and, by 1895, were well established. As Winnie described, the visit was particularly exciting for Mary Jane and the children who, unlike William, very rarely travelled far beyond their property. On the day of the visit the girls:
were up very early bathed, dressed with their
white starched pinnies over their dresses and all in the wagonette bound for
Mrs Ridout’s house. It was a long journey and at last the house was in
sight. The girls gasped in amazement, fruit trees covered with fruit on each
side of the drive and grape vines all over the porch at the back door. Mr and
Mrs Ridout met them at the gate, the Ridout family were much older than them.
Inside they had never seen such a long table, filled with such beautiful
things. After dinner the older Ridout children played games with them and
showed them their pets, they had a Christmas they would never forget.
Florence May and Mary Jane Laurence
Gillenbah
The electoral rolls showed that William and his family remained at North Barellan until 1909 when they moved onto another farm (called ‘Glenidol’) at Gillenbah on the southern outskirts of Narrandera. The 1915 electoral roll records William, Mary Jane, Catherine and Alice living at Gillenbah even though Alice had married in 1910 and had gone to Beaufort in Victoria. Indeed at that stage all the older children had left. Florence May had married Arthur Beecher in 1905 and was living with him on his family’s farm outside Narrandera. Her sisters Mary Jane and Bridget Ellen were also married and living in Sydney and Albury respectively, Emily was living in Narrandera and William Jnr was at BareIlan. After Florence died suddenly in 1915, Catherine was sent to stay with Arthur’s family at Rosedell where she helped with the cooking and other domestic duties.
The Laurence’s Gillenbah homestead in 1915 showing (from left to right) Alex, William Joseph, Tommy (on the bike), Mary Jane, Bill and Lucy (the two children on the steps are probably those of their eldest daughter Florence May.
During their time at Gillenbah, the younger members of the family
went to school in Narrandera. They also kept in contact with, and were clearly
very close to, their cousins especially those from the Burns family. Roy Burns
(pictured below) wrote to his ‘dear old Kit’ throughout the First
World War. In one card, posted from Egypt on 2 March 1915, he apologised for
not having had his photo taken and added that it was now unlikely that he would
get a chance to do so. This was because he was about to go into action at
Gallipoli. He could not tell her this of course because such information would
have been censored. So he approached the topic obliquely saying simply that
‘the papers will have told you all about us before this reaches
you’. The following year he wrote, from ‘the trenches in Flanders’,
that they had just fired their first shot in France although, perhaps to quell
any concerns Kit may have had for his and his brother John’s safety, he
added that ‘where we are is extremely quiet and you would not know a war
was on only for the artillery which is going day and night’. In a letter
from Mena Camp in Egypt, dated 26 March 1915, Roy’s brother John told Kit
how he had visited the pyramids and ruined temples around Cairo. He added that
while there are some very bad places here, ‘anything you read in the
papers about the Australian troops are simply bosh and you don’t want to
take any notice of anything you might hear. There is a Captain Bean in the 5th
Batt that wrote home to the papers and gave us a fearful name. They are giving
him a devil of a time now’. John, who was more outgoing than his brother,
ended his letter with ‘best love to all and everybody’ and ‘a
lot of fat kisses from Egypt, not Egyptian ones though’.
‘We
girls’: Bridget, Lucy and Catherine Laurence
While the land at Gillenbah was better than that at Barellan, the family continued to struggle to make a living. Mary Jane, who was by this stage worn out, was keen to leave Narrandera and the harsh realities of outback farming. This desire was enhanced by a visit to Sydney in 1915 following the birth there of her eldest daughter Mary Jane Stirrat’s second child Florence. The two months or so in Sydney was probably the elder Mary Jane’s first real holiday and would have reminded her of her early days at Kiama. The trip away enabled her to get about and have time to herself. She loved the harbour and wrote numerous letters about her time to her daughter Kit in particular. In one of these she declared she was ‘greatly in love with this place and would love to leave out there and try our luck down this way’. In another she reported that
I am enjoying myself alright but not able to see much as nobody is able to go out with me. I was out to a bazaar at Miss Walker’s on Saturday and seen the lady herself. The bazaar was nice but her place and gardens were just lovely. I enjoyed myself well then we was pulled home in a little boat across the bay. I have had a few boat trips back and to Sydney and was out to Manly beach but the sea was a bit rough and made me sick but it was a lovely place. Nell [Mary Jane’s younger sister] is going to take me out to Coogee one day this week to see a girl I used to know in St Arnaud. We are going to drive so that will be nice. I can see the place. I like being down here and wish we were living somewhere about here instead of that hole of a place Narrandera.[3]
William Joseph and Mary Jane Laurence and
their youngest son Robert Thomas (‘Tommy’) at Gillenbah
The thrill of visiting and tripping increased when she was joined by her beloved youngest son, Tommy, who had sailed there from Melbourne with his Aunt Lucy. But while she loved Sydney and the freedom it gave her, she missed home and seeing her other children. A lifetime of hard work, and enforced frugality and sacrifice probably also made her feel guilty about being away. Thus towards the end of her stay she confided to Kit that she now wanted to come home where she could be useful. ‘I expect the busy time is near at hand now and I hope we will have a good crop this year and how about Dad’s peas, I expect they are all going to waste for the want of someone to pick them’. In another letter to William Joseph (whom she addressed as ‘Dear Husband’) she concluded that ‘by the tone of this letter you might think that I am in a hurry home but I am not, only I don’t want to stay away when I might be wanted at home as I would like to make what we could in the harvest time for we will want it later on’.[4]
Not long after sending this letter, she received news that her daughter Lucy was ill in hospital and rushed home. Back in Narrandera she found ‘plenty to do but no pay attached to it’ and continued, as she had always done, to help others in need, visit her daughters and their families and mend her sons’ clothes. Mary Jane Laurence did not get a chance to visit Sydney again, She died in Narrandera on 20 January 1919. The obituary in the Narrandera Argus recorded:
Deep regret was felt locally on Wednesday morning when it became known that Mrs Mary Jane Laurence, wife of Mr William J. Laurence of “Glenidol”, Narrandera, had passed away at the hospital early that morning. Mrs Laurence, whose age was 57 years, was a resident of the district for many years and was well known and highly respected. The funeral, which was a lengthy one, left Mrs Longford’s residence yesterday. The Rev Father Hartigan officiated at the graveside. The deceased leaves a widower and a family of sons and daughters to mourn their loss.
More poignantly, and perhaps tellingly, the words on her grave – which was paid for by the family - said simply: ‘In Loving Memory. Mary Jane Laurence. Died Jan 22nd 1919. A faithful wife and loving mother’.
After Mary Jane’s death, William Joseph seemed, from his letters, to suffer constantly from minor ailments and bouts of ill-health. He seemed also to move around the district. In 1924 he was living in Albury near his daughter Bridget Ellen Williams. From here he wrote to his son Tommy complaining that it had been over three months since he had heard from him and that he had ‘not been to a sports meeting or show since I was at Berrigan last September’. He was occasionally visited by Alex and only rarely, apparently, by Nell [Bridget Ellen] even though she was close at hand. Writing to Kit, in July 1925, William reported that he ‘cannot say how Nell is getting along as I have not seen her only once since you were here and then she came down to the place where I have a room to see if Mrs Davis would go up and do some washing for her. I was sitting at the window writing to Alice when she passed’.[5]
According to Lucy’s youngest son, Royce Pearson, William also lived at Narrandera with Lucy and her family for a short while. At this stage he was incapable of looking after himself, and a danger to the lives of Lucy’s small children (by, for example, dragging the coals out of the open fire and onto the floor). He spent his last years in Sydney with his
Mary Jane Laurence’s grave in
Narrandera.
eldest daughter Mary Jane King and her new husband Sydney – of whom he didn’t approve – and family. He died there on 15 June 1929 and was buried two days later at Narrandera next to his wife Mary Jane. William’s obituary notice in the Narrandera Times, 18 June 1929, read:
An old identity of the Narrandera district
in the person of Mr William Joseph Lawrence [sic] died in Sydney on Saturday
last. Mr Lawrence was at one time a farmer at Gillenbah and a road contractor,
and was well known and highly respected throughout the district. He was 84
years of age. He is survived by a grown up family, his wife having died at Narrandera
some years ago. The remains were brought to Narrandera yesterday afternoon. The
funeral moved from the residence of his daughter Mrs E. Pearson. Messrs Watkins
Bros had charge of the funeral arrangements.
William Joseph Laurence at Woy Woy not long before he died in 1929. With him are his daughters Mary Jane and Lucy.
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