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| All Saints Church, Staplehurst, Kent.Photo by Julian P Guffogg [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Wikimedia. |
By Garry Norman Smith
All Saints Church, Staplehurst was mainly built in the 12th and 13th centuries, although the south door dates to 1050. It was in this church on 7 July 1832 that Ann Alchin was baptised. Her parents, Ambrose and Ann Alchin took their family to the colony of New South Wales a little more than six years later in 1838.
After time spent in Sydney and the Camden district,
Ann’s family settled in the County of King, where her father Ambrose took up
land at Oolong Creek. Once a part of the district, twenty-three-year-old Ann
Alchin married twenty-two-year-old Thomas Bayley, farmer, on 1 August 1855. They
had at least ten children between 1855 and 1875.
Thomas Bayley (1833-1885) was born at Kangaroo Point
(Bellerive) in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1833, the son of Robert Bayley
(1801-1864) and Mary Hogan (1796-1862). Both Robert Bayley and Mary Hogan have
backgrounds that demand a detailed examination at another time. Suffice it to
say, Robert was a transported convict and Mary was the daughter of a female
convict and the captain of the convict ship.
The Bayley children were born at Chain of Ponds,
Jerrawa Creek. It is interesting to note what was happening near the Jerrawa
Creek at the time each child was born. TROVE provides some answers.
John Bayley (1854-1922) was the first-born at a time
when land sales near the Jerrawa Creek were proceeding apace. The Goulburn Herald and County of Argyle
Advertiser (18/11/1854) reported
that John Knight purchased 34 acres 2 roods at Jerrawa Creek for £1 per acre. The 35 sales of country lots were
described in the press according to the closest creek or river.
Robert Bayley (1857-1933) shared the local history
with the murder at Jerrawa Creek of John Davis, an elderly veterinary surgeon,
by an equally elderly Samuel Murdieman, alias Old Sam and Sam the Soldier, who
worked on the Davis Farm. Several newspapers as far afield as Sydney, Maitland
and Bathurst carried the story of the inquest, the trial and sentencing of
Murdieman. In 1858 The Sydney Morning
Herald (25/3/1858) reported on the court case and sentencing.
Lucy Ann Bayley (1858-1917), the first female child, came
into the world in the year that her grandmother, Ann Alchin (1799-1858) died at
Oolong Creek. The foundation stone of the Wesleyan Chapel at Wesley Vale,
Jerrawa Creek was laid. The Sydney newspaper, Empire (16/2/1858) reported that “At an early hour on the morning
of that day [last Tuesday], gigs, phaetons, equestrians and pedestrians, might
have been seen in large numbers wending their way to the beautiful district
known as Wesley Vale, …”
Sarah Bayley (1862-1886) entered a local world that
was described by Golden Age
(7/8/1862) as “… a cesspool of drunkenness, theft, adultery, and almost every
other abomination, whose noxious exhalations would have corrupted any locality
less fortified by such impregnable bulwarks [of moral excellence]”. This
Queanbeyan-based newspaper was the first in that town in 1860. On a brighter
note, 1862 saw the site for the township of Dalton fixed but also the robbery of
goods from a dray for which “… John and James Bush were each sentenced to three
years’ hard labour on the roads … “. (Empire,
25/11/1862).
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| Rachel Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) (1871-1932) (Image Courtesy of Kerrie Beers) |
Thomas Ambrose Bayley (1864-1891) was born into a
bushranger “epidemic” in the district. The
Sydney Morning Herald (12/8/1864) reported that “Mrs. Best’s station, at
Jerrawa, near Gunning, was stuck-up by three armed men in disguise, they took
about £30
worth of property. Weather, very fine.” In the previous year bushrangers
“bailed up” the inhabitants of “the new township of Jerrawa”. John Wheatley,
storekeeper and postmaster, was one of the victims (Queanbeyan Age and General Advertiser, 19/11/1863). In 1865, Ben
Hall and his gang were active in the district surrounding Gunning (The Sydney Morning Herald, 10/3/1865).
Maria Elizabeth Bayley (1866-1942) was born in a
“golden age”. The Sydney Morning Herald (23
August 1866) reported “At a place called Homewood [the estate of Mrs John Best],
on Jerrawa Creek, near Dalton, two men have prospected lately, with some
success.” The district also saw religious services at the “English church” and
Wesleyan chapel for the “Day of Humiliation” (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 17/1/1866).
George Bayley (1869-1878) died young and was born in
the year when a house fire destroyed the house of J.C. Plumb; Mrs Plumb and her
new-born were rescued just before the roof collapsed (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 9/1/1869). The distance between
Goulburn and Jerrawa Creek, Chain of Ponds was officially declared to be 38½
miles (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 6/2/1869). Robert Bayley Senior
selected 80 acres on Jerrawa Creek (Goulburn
Herald and Chronicle, 12 June 1869).
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| Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) (1832-1914) with daughter Emily c1877 (from collection of Garry Smith) |
Rachel Eliza Bayley (1871-1932) was born in the year that The
Department of Public Works announced the extension of the Southern and Western
Railways; from Gunning the extension crossed several creeks, including Jerrawa
Creek (Australian Town and Country,
8/7/1871).
Emily Bayley (1873-1957) was born at Jerrawa Creek. In the Supreme
Court of New South Wales, the will of Thomas [Old Tom] Brown, farmer at Dalton
was finally gazetted for probate (New
South Wales Government Gazette, No.160, 24 June 1873). Jeremiah Bush and
Arthur Poole advertised that no trespassing or shooting would be allowed in
“cultivation paddocks on Bush Farm or Poole’s Vale, Jerrawa Creek” (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 26/2/1873).
Lillian Mary Bayley
(1875-1898), the last child of Thomas Bayley and Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) was
born at Jerrawa Creek in 1875. In this year, 8 gold mining leases had been
taken out and 15 stampers installed to crush the ore at Jerrawa Creek (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle,
13/11/1875). The Reverend Penman gave two sermons for the Primitive Methodist
Church at Jerrawa (Goulburn Herald and
Chronicle, 30/10/1875).
Ann Bayley (nee
Alchin), daughter of Ambrose and Ann Alchin and wife of Thomas Bayley died at
Leichhardt, Sydney. Her funeral was held on Monday 6 July 1914, travelling by
train to the Necropolis station where she was interred at the Methodist Section
of the Rookwood Necropolis. There is no coping or headstone; her daughter Rachel
Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) (1871-1932) is buried beside her.
Thomas Bayley
predeceased his wife; he died, intestate, in 1885.
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| The Unmarked Graves (foreground) of Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) and Rachel Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) Methodist Section, Rookwood Necropolis (Image by Garry Smith). |
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