Mary Sophia Mitchell (1867-1925) Born in Clunes in 1867, Mary married Thomas Jenkyn (1857-1936) from Cornwall in Clunes in 1896 (thomas is pictured on the right). She died in Charlton East in Victoria in 1925. Children: Thomas Lindsay Jenkyn, Richard Campbell Jenkyn, Bertram Russell Jenkyn, Harry Mitchell Jenkyn and Marion Mavis Jenkyn. According to Grace Cadzow's book Charlton in the Vale of the Avoca, 'typical of the new farmers [in the area] was James Jenkyn senior who, with his sons James and Thomas selected land at Buckrabanyule in April 1874. Since his arrival in Australia...James Jenkyn had been a miner at Creswick and Ballarat'.Emma Mitchell (1870-1940) Born in Clunes, married John Edwards in 1894, died in Canterbury, Melbourne. Children: Linda Marion Edwards, Ralph Edwards, Flora Ester Edwards.
Richard Mitchell (1872-1958) Born in Clunes, married Charlotte Olive Rowe (1884-1969) in Ballarat East in 1909, died in Charlton, Victoria.
John Henry Mitchell (1874-1942) Born in Clunes, died in Charlton, Victoria.
Alice Elizabeth Mitchell (1880-1953) Born in Clunes, married Harry Williams in 1910, died in South Melbourne. Children: Ivor Mitchell Williams, William Edwin Lloyd Williams, Emma Bronwyn Myfany Williams, Harry Meredith Williams.
Florence Louisa Mitchell (1883-1970) Born Charlton, married Ernest Holland. Children: Bertram Mitchell Holland, Grace Mitchell Holland, Mary Holland, Ester Mary Holland, Robert Ernest Holland, Richard John Holland.
Eliza Ruby Mitchell (1886-1973) Born in Charlton.
William James Mitchell (1889-1955) Born and died in Charlton.
2. Eliza Hickmott (1849-1912)
Born in England in around 1848, Eliza was an infant when she and per parents and older sister, Emma, sailed from London to South Australia on the sailing ship EMILY in 1849. She lived initially at Mount Barker in South Australia before moving with her father and step-mother to Clunes in Victoria in around 1854. She was only fifteen years and five months old when she married Robert Osborne at Coghill's Creek in Victoria in 1863. Robert seems to have been a saw miller and so the couple moved about the country a bit, having in the process, twelve children between 1865 and 1890.
Eliza died from the effects of influenza and bronchitis at the Telegraph Sawmill near Eganstown on 5 September 1912. She was then 64 years old. Her death certificate, which was informed by her youngest son Charles Stanley Osborne, states that she was buried at the Burwood cemetery in Melbourne on 7 September 1912. She was said to have been born in London and had been 63 years in Australia, 56 of these in Victoria and seven in South Australia. Eliza's issue at the time of her death were: William (46), James Robert (44), Louisa Sophia (deceased), Emily (deceased), Rebecca (39), Emma Jane (36), John (34), Edith Rose (32), Alice Mary (29), George Alfred (27), Olive Eva Violet (24) and Charles Stanley (22).
What of their children and garndchildren?
Eliza and Robert had two children at Clunes: William Henry (1865-) and James Robert (1867-1941) before moving to Amherst where their next six children were born: Louisa Sophia (1870-), Emily (1871-1874), Rebecca (1873-), Emma Jane (1875-1954), John (1878-) and Edith Rose (1880-1969). The family moved to Eganstown in the early 1880s where Emma and Robert's last four children were born: Alice Mary (1883-), George Alfred (1885-), Olive Eva Violet (1888-1978) and Charles Stanley (1890-1941).
As noted Emily Osborne died young, at Amherst aged three years. We know nothing of John, Alice Mary, George Alfred and Charles Stanley Osborne beyond their dates and places of birth (and death in the case of Charles). We believe that William Henry Osborne married Elizabeth Izard Hughes, and Rebecca Osborne married a John Shields in 1899, but have no details of their families. Edith Rose Osborne married Mathew Kerr and had five children: Olive Edith, Seddon Morrison, John Robert, Muriel Louise and Mathew Alan Kerr all of whom were born in Melbourne in the early 1900s. Olive Eva Violet Osborne married William Harold Clark in 1915 and had two children: Floris Irene and Gweneth Olive Clark, born at Creswick in Victoria in 1917 and 1920 respectively. Olive died in Ballarat in 1978 aged 90 years.
James Robert Osborne married Eleanor Warland (1869-1949) at Clunes in 1894 and had at least one child, Frank Robert Warland Osborne, born at Rochester in 1896. They lived for a time at Milne Bay in New Guinea before returning to Australia. Frank died at Ballarat in 1941. His wife Eleanor (or 'Nellie') died at Surrey Hills in Melbourne in 1949. Their son Frank attended Wesley College in Melbourne where he passed junior public and junior commercial and was a member of the college's football team. He then seems to have lived with his parents at Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea where he worked as a plantation overseer. Frank enlisted in the First AIF on 13 September 1915. He sailed for Europe from Sydney on the HMAT BOONAH on 22 January 1916 as part of the 13th Reinforcements for the 2nd Light Horse Regiment of the 1st Light Horse Brigade. He was then aged 20, was single, and gave as his NOK his father, James Robert Osborne, of Milne Bay via Samarai in Papua. According to the Australian War Memorial's Roll of Honour, Frank served as a gunner in the 11th Brigade Australian Field Artillery. He died on 6 June 1917 of wounds received at the battle of Messines. He is buried at the Westhof Farm Cemetery at Neuve-Eglise in Belgium. At the time of his death, his parents were living at Tunstall in Victoria.
Louisa Sophia Osborne married Charles William Bassett in 1893 and had at least one son before her death in 1912, Robert Joseph Bassett who was born at Malvern in Melbourne in 1894. The Australian War Memorial records show that 16728 Sapper Robert Joseph Bassett died on 26 September 1917 from wounds received at Polygon Wood near Paschendaele in Belgium. He is buried at the 112 Hooge Crater Cemetery at Zillebeke in Belgium. Robert attended the Hyde St State School at Footscray. At the time of his enlistment on 2 October 1916, he was working as a clerk, was married and was living with his wife Christine Mary Bassett (nee Henderson) at 6 Webber St in Seddon in Melbourne in Victoria. Robert embarked from Port Melbourne on 23 December 1916 on the RMS ORONTES as part of the 7th General Reinforcements. He served as a sapper in the 4th Div Signal Company Australian Engineers. His widow, Christine Bassett of 753 Flemington Road North Melbourne, informed the authorities that two cousins of Robert's, Leonard Balzary and Frank Osborne, also died on active service.
Emma Jane Osborne married Edwin Albert Balzary in the Bible Christian Church at Sailor's Creek Falls in Victoria on 2 October 1895. Emma was then living at Eganstown and was 20 years old. Edwin, described as a 'civil servant', was 31 (the family think he was more likely 34 or 35) and lived at 'Rosebank' on Evandale Road in Malvern. The wedding was witnessed by Emma's brother, William Henry Osborne, and James Nicholas. The couple lived in Melbourne after their marriage and had five sons: Leonard Albert, Clifford Vincent, Raymond Robert Cecil, Edwin George and William Osborne Balzary, all of whom were born and lived at Malvern. They also had an adopted daughter, Molly.
The Australian War Memorial records show that Emma and Edwin's two eldest sons served in the First AIF. 2344 Pte Leonard Albert Balzary enlisted on 5 July 1915. He was then aged 18 and was living with his parents at 5 Evandale Road in Malvern where he had attended State School No 2586 on Tooronga Road. He had previously served four years in the senior cadets and six months with the citizen forces. He embarked from Port Melbourne on 29 September 1915 on the HMAT RMS OSTERLEY as part of the fifth reinforcements for the 23rd Battalion of the 6th Infantry Brigade. His father informed the authorities that he 'served in Egypt and afterwards in France with B Coy 23 Battalion as a stretcher bearer'. He was killed in action on Westhoek Ridge near Ypes in Belgium on 21 September 1917 and his name is included on the Menin Gate memorial.
Clifford Vincent Balzary enlisted in the First AIF on 13 March 1917 and embarked from Melbourne on the HMAT A32 THEMISTOCLES on 4 August 1917 as part of the 14th Reinforcements. He was then 18 years old and was living with his parents at 5 Evandale Road in Malvern in Victoria. He served in the 5th Division Signal Company and returned to Australia on 22 July 1919. We don't know if he married but do know that he died in Sandringham in Melbourne in 1964.
Beth Chamberlain and her cousin Jean Nixon have researched and written about Edwin ('Ted') Balzary's parents and their family. Ted's mother, pictured on the left, was an Irish woman, Honoria Bentley or Bartley, who came to Australia in 1849 as part of the Female Orphan Immigration Scheme. Jean tells us that the scheme was designed in part to 'redress the balance of the sexes [in the new colony] which stood at two males to one female in the cities and eight males to one female in the areas "beyond the established boundaries"'. It was also hoped that the influx of young and pious working women would help meet the then high demand for domestic servants in the colony as well as provide a civilising influence within its outer reaches. Between 1848 and 1850, more than 4,000 girls from Irish foundling hospitals and Irish and English workhouses were brought to Australia under the scheme.
Honoria, who was sixteen years of age at the time, came on the orphan ship the PEMBERTON which sailed from Plymouth in England on 29 January 1849 and docked at Port Phillip on 14 May. She was received into a government-sponsored immigration depot on 26 May and left Melbourne for Portland some three weeks later. There she met and married Albert Vincett Balzary at the local church of St Stephen on 14 February 1853. Albert (pictured on the right) was born in Hungary and is thought to have sailed from Bombay to Australia on the RUNNYMEDE, arriving at Portland on 3 June 1852 (Jean notes that a number of subsequent certificates state that Honoria and Albert were actually married in Bombay but believes that was not so).
Jean continues that Honoria and Albert 'had three children born before 1858 - Lylle, Emily Louisa and Eleanor Albertha, but apparently not one of the three was registered'. Their next two children, Arthur Vincent and Edwin Albert Balzary, were born at Pleasant Creek (now Stawell) and Lamplough in 1858 and 1860 respectively. Lylle died young and may be buried at Dunolly in Victoria. Emily married John Walker Wills at Goldsborough in 1884 and had two children: Albert John Nelson Wills and Henrietta Leonora Maria Stoward Mills. Eleanor married John Edgar Peck at Goldsborough in 1882. They lived at Bealiba and had five children: Edwin, Arthur, Oliver, Walter and Cyril ('Jack') Peck. Arthur Vincent Balzary married Annie Margaret Smith (Beth's grandparents) at Fitzroy in Melbourne in 1895. They had seven children: Mildred, Una, Aubrey, Verna, Arthur, Norma and Dulcie Balzary.
Albert Balzary died at Dunolly on 3 July 1865 and was buried there the following day. He was said to be 51 years old. His wife Honoria (who was also known as Henrietta) re-married in 1875, to William Lovett, who came from Middlesex in England, at Dunolly in Victoria. At the time she was a storekeeper in the nearby town of Goldsborough. They had no children. Honoria Lovett nee Balzary nee Bentley died at her son Edwin's home at Evandale Road in Malvern on 29 November 1902. She was buried at the Melbourne cemetery on 3 December 1902.
3. Rebecca Hickmott (1851-1914)
Rebecca Hickmott was born in the Adelaide Hills (probably near Meadows) in April 1851. When she was around three years old, the family sailed from Adelaide to Melbourne and then moved to Clunes in central Victoria where she grew up.
She married a Cornishman Joseph Colmer Smith (pictured below) at the home of her brother-in-law, Richard Mitchell, in Clunes on 25 August 1869. Their wedding certificate shows that Rebecca was a 20 year-old spinster and Joseph a 33 year-old bachelor storekeeper from Waubra (then known as 'The Springs'). They were married by the Wesleyan Minister, John Newton, and the ceremony was witnessed by Rebecca's father, Henry Hickmott, and Richard Mitchell.
According to one of Rebecca and Joseph's descendants, Lynton Smith from Swan Hill, and the "Rowett files" contained on K.a.T.s. Cottage web site, Joseph was the second son of Thomas Colmer and Jane Smith (nee Rowett) from St Austell in Cornwall. In 1849 Thomas and Jane and their five children emigrated to Australia on the GENERAL PALMER. The family disembarked at Adelaide and spent three years at Burra in South Australia where Thomas and Jane had a further son, James Rowett, who was born at Burra in 1850 (James married Elizabeth Cook in 1874 in Ballarat and died at Learmonth in Victoria in 1885). In around 1852 the family moved to Waubra in Victoria where Thomas senior was a shopkeeper (Waubra is located some 20km from Clunes). Thomas died and was buried at 'The Springs' on 7 October 1874. His wife Jane died at Ballarat in 1890 and is buried at Coghill's Creek.
After their marriage Joseph and Rebecca lived initially at Waubra before moving, in the late 1870s to Bungeeluke North and then Lalbert in the northern Wimmera district. Derived from an aboriginal name for the creeper that grew on the mallee trees in the area, Lalbert was probably named by Major Mitchell during his trek through the area in 1836. The first white people to move into the area were the Ham brothers who took out a pastoral lease for land there in 1846. The 1865 Land Act opened up the district to settlers who were able to take out leases for 320-acre holdings and pay these off at low rates (provided they lived on and gradually improved the land). Jan Power's book, Lalbert Reflections, says that Joseph and Rebecca Smith were among the first four families to settle in the area, the others being the Ingrams, Meehans and the Tampions. As such they played an important role in the early development of the local community. According to one source, Joseph initially sold chaff to travellers and others in the district. Another (one of the couple's granddaughters, a Florence Groat from Nyah) remembered that:
Rebecca acted as a mid-wife, delivering several babies in the Lalbert district [and] also helped neighbouring women in cases of illness or other emergencies. She also started Picnic and Sports days held on Boxing day at Lalbert Lake to enable people to get together. Horse racing was held on Joseph's property. Joseph took his wagon to Wycheproof to pick up supplies of food, etc. Possibly he brought back loading for other people as well.
The materials carted by Joseph (pictured on the right) were not restricted to chaff and supplies. The 12 October 1887 edition of the East Charlton Tribune reported that a 'Mr Joseph Smith of L'Albert has left at our office a sample of the Lake Kunat Kunat salt. The salt which is easily gathered, is apparently of excellent quality, and can be sold at much cheaper rates than the imported article...Mr Hickmott of this town will receive regular supplies of the Kunat Kunat salt from Mr Smith, and will always keep a good stock on hand'.
Rebecca Smith nee Hickmott died at the home of her daughter Selina Gamble (nee Smith) at 9 Walker Street in Northcote in Melbourne on 13 March 1914. Her death certificate, which was informed by her son-in-law John Charles Gamble, states that she was aged 63 years old and died of pneumonia after nine weeks of illness. Although her normal address at the time was Green Hills in central Victoria, Rebecca was buried at the Burwood cemetery on 14 March 1914. Joseph Colmer Smith died at his home at 16 Weerona Road in Murrumbeena in Melbourne on 6 July 1926. He was then 94 years old and died of senile decay and heart failure. He was buried at the Burwood Cemetery two days later. His death certificate records that he had been in Victoria for 81 years and at Waubra for 35 of these. All of his children but one, Stanley Claude Smith, were still alive.
What of their children and grandchildren?
Joseph and Rebecca had no less than fourteen children between 1870 and 1894. Five were born at Waubra: Emma Jane Smith (1870-1933), Selina Sophia Smith (1871-1932), Thomas Henry Smith (1873-1950), Joseph Robert Smith (1874-1963), William James Smith (1876-1973), and John Albert Smith (1788-1944). They had a further eight children in Bungeeluke and Lalbert: Richard Colmer Smith (1881-1976), Charles Christopher Smith (1883-1954), Ernest Arthur Smith (1884-), George Edward Rowett Smith (1887-), Eliza Myrtle Aurora Smith (1889-1921), Percy Herbert Smith (1890-1961), Stanley Claude Smith (1892-1919) and Mary Lilian Isobel Smith (1894-1979) who is pictured on the left with her mother.
Only one of Joseph and Rebecca's children did not marry: Stanley Claude Smith who was born at Bungeeluke North in 1892 and died, aged 26 years, at Murrumbeena in Melbourne in 1919. According to Lynton Smith Emma Jane Smith married Alexander Davidson at Waubra in 1889 and had seven children: Rebecca Myrtle Coral, Arthur, Rhoda, Gordon, Vera, Isla and Keith Smith. He adds that Emma Jane Davidson later married a William Richards, her daughter Rebecca Davidson married George Allen in Lalbert in around 1910, and her son Arthur married in Australia but went to live in England.
Selina Sophia Smith married John Charles Gamble in Ballarat East in 1896 and had at least two children Isla and Keith Gamble. As indicated above at the time of Rebecca's death in 1914, Selina and her family were living at Northcote in Melbourne. Thomas Henry Smith married first Tryphena Kate Dickens (1881-1911) and second Elsie McKinnon. He had one son with Tryphena - Herbert Thomas Smith who died in Lalbert as an infant - and three with Elsie: Walter Joseph Smith who married Nancy Leslie in Robinvale in around 1946, Malcolm James Smith who married Beverley Ratten, and Dorothy Emily Smith who married Kevin James Haw. Thomas Henry Smith died in Robinvale in Victoria in 1950.
Joseph Robert Smith married Susan Margaret Dickens at Waubra in 1905 and died at Bentleigh in Melbourne in 1953. William James Smith worked as a butcher at Lalbert in the early 1920s when he sold the business to a Stuart Bailey. Joseph married Alice mabel Nimmo and had two children: William Herbert and Florence Mabel Smith. He died in Swan Hill in 1933.
John Albert Smith (known to everyone as 'Al' and pictured on the left with his wife) was born at Waubra in 1878 and travelled the same year with his parents to Bungeluke North near Lalbert. Al attended the Lalbert state school after it opened in 1893 with his siblings and cousins from the Hickmott family. He married Eliza Grace ('Gracie') Brooks at Waubra in 1910, at about the same time as he took up a block of land at Wornack near Ouyen in the northern Mallee district.
In 1912 Al and Gracie were joined by Al's cousin and good friend William Henry Hickmott and his wife Frances and their two small daughters Grace and Gladys. William had earlier helped Al clear his block of much of the Mallee scrub then covering it. He and Frances lived with Al and Gracie while waiting to be granted their own allotment of land north of Ouyen.
As the photo above shows, Al and Gracie had six children: Howard Lionel (1911-1981), Maurice Clement (1912-1992), Lloyd Albert (1913-1989), Auriel Leonora Grace (1915-), Sheila Merlyn (1917-) and Loris Mary Smith (1921-).
Lynton Smith tells us that Howard Smith married Clare Wilson and did not appear to have any children. Maurice Clement Smith married Olive Annie Cox (1916-1992) at Ouyen in Victoria in around 1935 and had three children; Maurice John, Margaret Dawn and Marilyn Fay Smith. Lloyd Albert Smith married Jean Mitchell and had three children: Lesley, Garnet and Ann. Auriel Leonora Grace Smith married William Ronald Perris (1910-1972) and had four children: Barbara, Alison, Rodney and Julie. Sheila Merlyn Smith (Lisa Sukra's grandmother) married Raymond Edward O'Connor and had two children: Terrance and Jennifer. And Loris Mary Smith (Lynton's mother) married John Ryan Smith and had three children: Daryl, Lynton and Gregory. John Albert ('Al') Smith died at Footscray in Melbourne in 1944. His wife Gracie died thirty-three years later, aged 88 years.
Richard Colmer Smith married Hilda Alice Fidge and had seven children: Douglas, Doris, Gladys, Alan, Heather, Shirley and Maureen Smith. Richard died at Box Hill in Melbourne in 1976. Charles Christopher Smith married Charlotte Christina Margaret Goodwin in 1912 and had five children: Charles Albert, Mabel Rebecca, William George, Stanley Clyde and Roy Percival Smith. Charles died in Footscray in 1954. According to Sands and McDougall's Directory, Ernest Arthur Smith was a storekeeper at Lalbert in 1909. Lynton Smith tells us he married Rose Harrison and had a daughter Elvie Miriam Smith. All three are deceased.George Edward Rowett Smith married Mary Brodie (1893-1973) and had six children: Betty, Mary, George, Donald, Patricia and Noel Smith. Eliza Mrytle Auriel Pearl Smith married Auguste Grenville Gerecke (1884-1945) and had three children: Auriel Edith, Albert Edgar and Stanley Gerecke. Mary Lilian Isobel Smith married James William Dowling in 1919 and had two children: Rowett Stanley and James Douglas Dowling. Mary died at Croydon in Melbourne in 1979.
Joseph and Rebecca's second youngest son, Percy Herbert Smith, worked on his father's farm at Lalbert before marrying Mary Dorothy Scanlon there in the early 1900s. Percy and Mary had three children - James, John (or 'Jack' as he was known) and Maureen - and ran a farm, which is still owned by the family, at Springfield near Romsey in central Victoria. Percy died at Box Hill in Melbourne in 1961.
The photo on the left was sent to me by one of Percy and Mary's descendants Melissa Smith. It is of her grandfather (Jack Smith), father, uncle, brother and new nephew and, as Melissa notes, demonstrates that 'the Smith family name still goes on'.
Last updated: 20 July 2009
| Hickmott family Rootsweb site | Henry Edward Hickmott |
Image sources:
'Thomas Jenkyn', from pamphlet on Charlton's Pioneers, courtesy of Grace Cadzow.
Honorah Balzary (nee Bentley) and Albert Vincent Balzary, courtesy of Beth Chamberlain.
'Rebecca Smith (nee Hickmott) at Green Hills, Bolinda 12 February 1913', courtesy of James Margetts.
'Joseph Colmer Smith', 'Rebecca with youngest daughter Lilian', 'John Albert and Eliza Grace Smith' and 'Al and Gracie Smith and family', courtesy of Lisa Sukra.
'Four generations of Smiths', courtesy of Melissa Smith.
