Ordinary Women ...

March is officially designated Women’s History Month, so to mark the occasion I thought I would post information about the lives of some of the women who came before me.  I’ve chosen to honour my four great-grandmothers, women from different backgrounds whose lives were typical of the times they lived in.  Although their lives were unremarkable in that context, they each faced challenging personal circumstances and lived through difficult times.  I am grateful for their lives, and for the strength and resilience passed down the generations. Here are their stories.

JANE POSTLETHWAITE 1868-1905

Jane was my maternal grandfather’s mother.  She was born at Queenstown (now St. Andrews) in Victoria, the sixth of eleven children of Abraham Postlethwaite and Ann Victoria nee Humphries.  As a child, her family moved to Tarrawarra near Healesville where her father had taken up a selection of land.  Abraham, a carpenter by trade, had emigrated from Cumberland, England as a young man.  Her mother Ann was born in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and came to Victoria as a baby with her parents in the earliest days of Melbourne’s settlement.  I’ve written about Ann’s mother in another post here: The Enterprize Voyage.

I don’t know a lot about Jane’s childhood.  She was part of a large extended family on her mother’s side.    At 23, Jane became a single mum to baby Elsie, born at home in Tarrawarra.  Three years later she married my great grandfather Charles Gardner, in Brighton where he had a blacksmith business.  On her marriage certificate she is described as a “domestic”, but I don’t know if this was paid employment or simply home duties.  

I’d love to be able to say the couple lived happily ever after, but sadly this was not the case.  Their first baby Clara was born the following year but died as an infant. The next child Charles died at age 5.  Then came my grandfather Will, followed by Vera, Emily and Arthur.  Next, another Charles who also died in infancy.  Another baby proved too much for her and Jane passed away eighteen months later, five days after giving birth to her ninth baby, a girl named Jane.  Cause of death was pneumonia and heart failure.  She was thirty-seven years old.

Jane was laid to rest in Brighton Cemetery, her grave unmarked until 100 years later, when my cousin Brendon arranged a plaque and we had a family gathering of Jane’s descendants to mark the occasion.

Left with a young family including newborn baby, widowed Charles found a young woman with a baby of her own to move in as nurse/housekeeper. The arrangement became permanent when Charles married Margaret Fielding four months later in January 1906.  Sadly, baby Jane followed her mother to the grave only four days after the marriage.  Charles and Margaret went on to have another six children together. So, with Jane’s daughter Elsie, Jane & Charles’ four children, Margaret’s daughter Olive, and Margaret & Charles’ six children, it’s clear that blended families are not a new phenomenon!

ELIZABETH DUFFY 1873-1940

Elizabeth was my maternal grandmother’s mother.  The daughter of an English mother and an Irish father, she was the only child of both parents’ second marriage.  Born in Brighton, Victoria in 1873, when her father William was 65 years old and her mother 41.  

William was a bootmaker by trade, but was also a lay preacher and Sunday School Superintendent on the Brighton Wesleyan Circuit.  He had emigrated to Port Phillip from Donegal, Ireland, in 1840 with his wife and young baby. Another son was born soon after they arrived.  Her mother, Elizabeth Jennings, was from Atherstone in Warwickshire, England.  She and her first husband left England two weeks after their marriage, arriving in Port Phillip as assisted immigrants in 1852.  Together they had a family of seven children, although the two eldest both died as infants. Her husband died suddenly in 1868, leaving her a widow with her youngest child still a baby.

William and Elizabeth (senior) married in 1871, and two years later young Elizabeth was born. By all accounts her father was well-respected in his community, but given the teachings and customs of the Wesleyan Church at the time, one could imagine she had a fairly strict upbringing.  Her father died when she was only seven years old, and her mother when she was fourteen, leaving her in the care of her older half-sister Emily.

At nineteen, Elizabeth met and married John Grant, grandson of Scottish immigrants.  His father and grandfather had well established businesses and property in Brighton.  John was a wood & coal merchant, and the couple lived in Brighton where they raised five daughters including my grandmother Amy. 

Elizabeth died in 1940 as a result of heart disease.  She was 66 years old, and pre-deceased her husband by 8 years.  They are buried together at Brighton Cemetery.

MARGARET HILL 1835-1899

Margaret is my mystery great-grandmother, about whom I know the least.  She was my paternal grandmother’s mother.  Margaret was born in London, England in 1835 – two years before civil registration began.  According to her Australian marriage and death certificates, her parents were John (or James) Hill and Mary (or Margaret) Chipping.  I’m inclined to go with John & Mary as listed on her marriage certificate because it was herself providing that information, rather than James & Margaret listed by her husband for her death certificate.  She also stated her father was a carpenter.

Despite extensive searches, I have not been able to locate a baptism record for Margaret, and have not been able to locate the family on the 1841 or 1851 censuses.  There are one or two possibilities, including a baptism for a child named Margaret Hill in 1836 in the London Foundling Hospital, which needs further investigation. Nor have I been able to locate a marriage for her presumed parents.

Margaret came to Australia as an assisted immigrant in 1856, arriving in Port Phillip (Geelong) on the ship Arthur the Great.  She was aged 20, could read and write, and her occupation was housemaid.  I wonder what trepidation or excitement she must have felt about voyaging alone across the world to a new life in an unknown land.  On arrival, she was employed by a Mr. Anderson of Darneville for a period of three months at wages of 25 shillings.  I haven’t been able to find out if she extended her employment there, or moved on to another position.  

In 1859, Margaret married James Dewar in Geelong.  He was a Scotsman who was working as a quarryman.  The couple spent the next 11 years in the Geelong area where their first six children were born.  James then became involved in the lime-burning industry and they moved across to Rye on the other side of the bay where he was employed in the kilns.  My grandmother and her youngest brother were born there. 

By the mid-1870’s James and Margaret had moved again, this time to Waratah Bay to a new lime-burning venture where James was employed as manager.  This was an isolated location where contact in the early years of the settlement was only by sea.  It must have been quite a challenge for London-raised Margaret, coming from the comparative bustle of gold-rush era Melbourne and Geelong to adapt to this isolation, bringing up her children and educating them herself until a part-time school was established.  There is more about life at Waratah in the posts I wrote about James Dewar and Walkerville.

The only “memory” we have of Margaret comes from a grand-daughter, my father’s older 1st cousin, who wrote some memories of her childhood at Waratah in which she says her grandmother always wore a little lace cap.

Margaret passed away in 1898, after an illness of several days with bronchitis.  She was 63 years old. My great-uncle Fred wrote in his diary about hearing of the death of Mrs Dewar, and riding around the bay to pay his respects.  Margaret was buried in the little bush cemetery on the cliffs at Waratah, where her husband James joined her nine years later.

MARY HAUGHTON 1835-1884

Mary was my paternal grandfather’s mother.  She was born near Athy, county Kildare in Ireland, the second of six children born to Alfred Haughton and Henrietta nee Osburne.  The Haughton's were part of a large Quaker family, although it doesn’t appear that Alfred and Henrietta were practicing Quakers themselves.  Alfred owned the Ardreigh mill on the River Barrow just outside the market town of Athy, so Mary and her siblings were born into quite a privileged lifestyle.  

Her education would most likely have been at home, provided by a governess, although it is possible she may have attended a nearby Quaker school for some lessons.  Like most girls of her class, her education would have included art , music and embroidery.  A sketchbook belonging to Mary’s sister Sarah Anne is still in the family, and some of her sketches can be seen on this page.

At 23, Mary married Thomas Pilkington of Ennis in county Clare.  Earlier that year, her brother John had married Thomas’s sister Maria.  The Pilkington’s were minor Anglo-Irish gentry and Thomas acted as a land agent for the vast Connyngham estate.  He also served as Magistrate and JP on the local court circuit. 

After their marriage, Mary moved to her husband’s family home Waterpark, in Ennis.  The couple had nine children and unusually for the times, all survived childhood.  Mary’s life as the Lady of a small estate would have revolved around housekeeping, directing the servants, supporting her husband in entertaining, and a regular round of visiting local gentry. She would have also been involved in “good works” distributing charity to the poor.

This lifestyle came to an end for the family with the sudden death of Thomas in 1884, dying in his sleep from heart disease.  Eldest son Tom inherited his fathers estate as was normal for the times, however it transpired that Thomas had been living beyond his means for some time, and left a large debt with minimal assets.  Although the eldest two sons were already established with their own careers at this time, Mary still had three unmarried daughters aged 18 – 23, and four young sons between 7 – 17 years to bring up.  Thomas’s aunt Charlotte describes his passing in her journal, writing  “poor Mary and nine children, in an agony of grief”.
  
Following her husbands death and the change in her circumstances, Mary’s own health suffered.  She was 48 years old and only six months later, despite seeking treatment in Dublin, she died from an abscess in her kidney caused by a kidney stone.  According to the doctor on her death certificate, the duration of her illness was six months.  Mary was interred in a family grave at Mt Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.  Possibly due to the transport costs involved, she was not reunited with her husband in his resting place in Ennis.