Lees Family Origins: Links to Gunning

Waratah (now Warrataw) Street, Gunning, circa 1905.

Article by Kim Lees

The Lees family emigrated from Germany in the 1850’s as Bounty Immigrants under a scheme to bring citizens from various countries to Australia to assist in establishing farming and other industries. They came from the wine growing area of Grossbottwar, some 26 kms north of Stuttgart. It has been possible, through a German Ancestry organisation ‘Beyond History’, to trace the Lees family in Grossbottwar as far back as the late 1500s, some 6 generations before the family emigrated from Germany to Australia. In 2013 I visited Grossbottwar where I met with a cousin and his family who still live there. 

The Lees family (parents Johannes (48) & Louisa (44) and children Conrad (20), Adam (16), Jacob (14), Fredricka (9), and David (6)) travelled to Australia on the Dutch Barque ‘Helene’ with 215 other German Immigrants. The youngest child, a daughter Christiana (aged 5 months) died on the voyage to Australia and another daughter Louisa (18) joined them a year later arriving with other German immigrants from the same area. Johannes and his family were sponsored by a George Townsend of Paterson in the Hunter Valley to assist in establishing the wine industry in that area although there is no evidence to indicate that they went to the Hunter (a change in plan like this was not uncommon at that time). The three older boys in the family (Conrad, Adam & Jacob), travelled on the same ship separately sponsored as shepherds, probably to fund their journey, and could well have been sent to a different area(s) to the parents and other children. The family had applied to stay together on arrival in Australia which appears to have been accepted and may possibly be the motivation for their settlement at Gundaroo.

Jacob married Rosannah Jobbins; David married Alice Croker & Louisa married George Lanham and all stayed in the Gundaroo area. Descendants of these families still live in that area. Fredericka drowned when she was 20. Conrad married Sarah Lanham (sister of George Lanham, Louisa’s husband) and Adam married Margaret Reid. Both Conrad and Adam took up land grants at Mt Dixon near Gunning in the 1860’s. George & Sarah Lanham were the children of William Lanham and Anne Case who emigrated from Wiltshire in England and originally settled in the Monaro region before moving to Gundaroo. George was born in Wiltshire, England and Sarah in Australia. As far as can be ascertained, Margaret Reid was born in Breadalbane, NSW. Descendants of both these Lanham and Lees families moved to the Harden/Murrumburrah area also resulting in strong family connections to that area.

Adam Lees and Margaret Reid married in 1864 and had 4 children. John Adam (married Mary Jane Evans and lived in the Murrumburrah, Temora and West Wyalong areas); Emma Jane (married William Fisher from a pioneer Gunning family and remained in Gunning); Alexander (married Elizabeth Reid and moved to the Tumbarumba area) and I have no further information on their youngest child Oliver.

After Adam’s death in 1871 Margaret married Benjamin Hilder (who lived in the same area near Mt Dixon). They had 7 children including Jessie who married Harry Fisher, yet another connection to that pioneer family; Margaret who married Peter Baines and Ernest who married Mary Lanham, all well-known Gunning families. Benjamin died in 1886 after which Margaret married John Carnell. She passed away in Murrumburrah at the age of 98 in 1934.

Conrad Lees and Sarah Lanham, my great grandparents were married in 1867, had a family of 13 children, including John who was Sarah’s child prior to their marriage. The other children in the family were Frederica (Ricka), married Earnest Lyneham; William, married Martha Lanham; John Conrad, married Joecie Kraus; Sarah Ann, married John Lawton; Jacob Thomas, married Pearl Howell; Henry James (Harry) married Isabella Howell; Margaret, died as an infant; Frank Edward married Christina Lawton; George Albert married Amelia Bateup; Walter David married Margaret Brewer; Joseph Earnest married Evangaline Lawton and Emma Louise, married Herbert Medway. With the exception of John, Frederica and John Conrad all the other children married into local families (Lanham, Lawton, Howell, Bateup, Brewer, Medway) and stayed in the Gunning area.

The list of family names above provides a good indication of the extent and influence of the Lees family in the Gunning area. This list has been extended over the years through marriages of later generations.  The influence in other geographical areas of NSW can also be seen.

The original land grant to Conrad, plus property acquired over the years has become “Leeville” and has passed from Conrad to his son Tom, to Tom’s son Cyril and to Cyril’s son Greg, the current owner, great grandson of Conrad and the fourth generation to farm the land.

Land Grant Conrad Lees

My grandparents Henry James (Harry) Lees and Isabella Christina Howell were married in 1913, 3 years after Harry’s brother Tom married Isabella’s sister Pearl. Isabella and Pearl Howell were the daughters of Charles Howell and Sarah Fisher (see below for more information in relation to Sarah and the Fisher family). Charles was the descendant of Richard Howell and Elizabeth Hurst. Richard was the son of Richard Howell and Ann Higinbotham (Amos).  Both of these individuals were transported to Australia as convicts. Prior to her conviction Ann had been married to Robert Amos.  Her transportation record indicates that when transported she was accompanied by 5 children.  The lives of Richard and Anne is a story of its own.

The Lees and Howell families lived only a short distance apart in the Mt Dixon area and the nearby Stoney Hole Creek. Closer examination of the land grants shows quite a large community living around that area.

Harry & Isabella lived in a small house in Saxby Lane West which runs between Nelanglo & Bond Streets (behind the Shire Depot). There is still a residence on this site. My grandfather was a rural worker as well as working for the Shire Council for many years. In his later years he also assisted my father in his butcher shop. I did not know my grandparents as my grandmother died when I was 2 months old and my grandfather when I was 4 years. Harry and Sarah had 6 children; Clement, Albert (my father), Wilfred, Colin and Coral (twins) and Keith. Clem married Ada Hadlow from Bungendore (her sister Elsie married Leslie Lees; son of Tom Lees & Pearl Howell) and moved to Queanbeyan where he owned a Butcher Shop;, Coral married Tom Apps and lived in Goulburn and Keith married Gwen Chudleigh and lived at Wollongong. Wilfred and Colin both lived in Gunning marrying Mildred Smith and Florence Sheldrick respectively. Albert married Rita Allen Hickinbotham in Sydney in August 1943 returning to Gunning after WWII. Rita was a descendant of a free settler George Hickinbotham from England and an Irish orphan Mary Power who came to Australia when she was 16 with her older sister Bridget.  Rita grew up in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Albert & Rita had 4 children, Wayne who died at birth;  Jennifer who married John Roberts and lived in Goulburn then Batemans Bay; Kim (me) who moved to Canberra and married Leonie Parker and then Alison Steele (nee Telfer) and Christine who married Hubert Jansens and lived in Goulburn, Port Macquarie and Cairns.

One of the major family links of the Lees family to other families in the Gunning area is to the Fisher family (pioneers of the district).  

Land Grant William Fisher

William Fisher and his wife Sarah Drake were both convicts transported to Australia for their crimes.  William arrived in Oct 1824 and worked for the Hume family, particularly Francis Rawdon Hume, on their estates at Appin, NSW. Sarah Drake arrived in March 1832 and it appears she also worked for the Hume family. William was granted permission to marry Sarah in November 1832. He was granted a conditional pardon in May 1840 requiring him to work for the Hume family and remain in that immediate area. He received his ticket of leave in September 1842. The first record of them in Gunning was the baptism of their youngest child, Martha, in 1847. It appears they moved to Gunning when the Hume family moved their farming operations to the land grants they received in the Yass/Gunning area from the late 1830’s. In 1865 William received a land grant of 40 acres where he settled, extended his land holdings and stayed for the remainder of his life.  Sarah died in 1869 and in 1872 William married Elizabeth Bulley, a widow from Dalton, another old name from the district.

Harry & Isabella Lees on their wedding day 1913

William and Sarah had 6 children and it was their eldest son William and their third born Robert who created the links to the Lees family. William Fisher married Emma Jane Lees, daughter of Adam & Margaret Lees. Robert Fisher married Mary Paterson (a suggested link to the Banjo Paterson family but not actually proven). Robert & Mary’s daughter Sarah Fisher married Charles Howell and their daughter Isabella Howell married Harry Lees to become my grandparents. This makes William Fisher and Sarah Drake my 3 times great grandparents.

Albert and Rita Lees, October 1970

The Gunning Cemetery is the resting place of my parents (Albert & Rita Lees); my grandparents Harry & Isabella Lees) and my great grandparents (Conrad & Sarah Lees), as well as many other relatives from the Lees and other families mentioned above.  Conrad and Sarah’s graves, whilst documented on their death certificates, are unmarked.

L to R: Albert Lees (with Jennifer Lees) & Rita Lees (with Kim Lees).
Photo taken at my baptism at St Edmunds Anglican Church, Gunning, July 1948.

Despite the magnitude of the Lees family and the numerous links to other families in Gunning and the local district, particularly in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the Lees name has become almost lost to the Gunning area.