John Alchin Junior: Jerrawa to Illabo

John Alchin Junior: Jerrawa to Illabo 

Article by Garry Smith

The Reverend Benjamin Hurst who baptised John Alchin into the Methodist Church in 1853

John Alchin Junior (1853-1916) was born at Jerrawa near Dalton on 15 October 1853. He was baptised by Methodist Minister Benjamin Hurst of the Goulburn District on 30 October 1853. John Alchin was the first-born child of John and Martha (nee Johnson) Alchin. John’s parents lived their married lives in the Dalton area. John Senior was a farmer, recorded on the electoral rolls for Yass Plains and Yass at Oolong Creek, Jerrawa and Dalton from 1859 until his death at Dalton in 1901.

John Alchin Junior did not receive a formal education. He grew up in the Dalton area and became a labourer. On 7 February 1876, at the age of twenty-three years, John married Sarah Ann Atkins at Dalton. Sarah Ann Atkins was the daughter of John and Emma (nee Plumb) Atkins and was born at Moreton Bay on 18 August 1855. Emma Plum Atkins married Ambrose Alchin, grandfather of John Alchin Junior, in 1859, thus making Sarah’s mother his step-grandmother.

John Junior had his first brush with the law in 1880 when, as a member of uninvited group at a wedding at George Bush’s house, was fined for “tin-kettling”* and engaging, with David Bush, in “riotous behaviour”. John Junior was sentenced to Goulburn Gaol for failure to pay the fine of £5 and 5/10 costs. (“Gunning”, Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, Saturday 6 November 1880, 5)

*Tin-kettling is when the peace and privacy of a wedding night is rudely interrupted by a group of noisy hooligans outside banging kerosene tins, pots and pans; hurling rocks onto the roof and generally ruining the mood. The solution on the part of the wedding group often meant handing out money or liquor. (https://picsandstuff.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/tin-kettling-a-dangerous-wedding-tradition/)

 

State Archives and Records NSW, Gaol Description and Entrance, Goulburn Gaol 1880

John Alchin [via Ancestry.com]

John and Sarah had at least four children: David (1877-1954), Alexander John (1878-1966), Donald James (1880-1954) and Ernest Benjamin (1883-1884). Sarah Ann Alchin died in 1883 due to complications of the birth of her last child, Ernest Benjamin.

Goulburn Evening Penny Post, Saturday 21 April 1883, 6 [via TROVE]

Following the death of his wife in 1883, John Junior was faced with having to care for his infant child, Ernest Benjamin. Due to a summons from Thomas Southwell, John Junior went to court for neglecting his son. The court found for John Junior but the child died – of natural causes – early in 1884. The jury at the coroner’s inquest found that John Alchin Junior “… had not done his duty in properly looking after it [the child]”. (“Inquest”, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, Saturday 19 January 1884, 4)

John Junior was also faced with the need to marry again. He married Mary Collins in 1888; she was born in 1857. In the year of the marriage, a warrant was issued by the Cootamundra Bench for the arrest of John Alchin Junior, charged with unlawfully deserting his wife, Mary Alchin, at Cungegong – later named Frampton – near Cootamundra. The warrant was subsequently cancelled; perhaps John Junior had simply left home to find employment. At this time John Junior was listed among the voters at Littledale in the Cootamundra Electorate. He was a leaseholder but soon moved on to Bethungra Park and Illabo, between Cootamundra and Junee.

 

Map of the Bethungra District, showing Bethungra & Illabo [Bonzle Maps]

Unfortunately, John Junior came up before the magistrate of the Junee Bench in 1894 “… for slaughtering for sale one steer in a place not licenced …”. (State Archives and Records NSW, Police Gazette, 18 April 1894, 139) He spent forty-eight hours in the police lockup because he did not pay the £10 fine and costs. John Alchin Junior laboured at Illabo for many years. He performed many jobs, including, in 1897, road works between Illabo and Eurongilly and between Cootamundra and Junee.                                                            

Cootamundra Herald, Wednesday 18 August 1897, 4

[via TROVE]

The township of Illabo became the home of John Alchin Junior and his family until his death in Cootamundra Hospital on 6 November 1916; he was sixty-four years old and, according to the Young Witness (Friday 10 November 1916, 2) he died of “senile decay”. He was buried at the local cemetery in the Church of England section.

Mary Alchin, John Junior’s second wife, remarried in 1920; the marriage caused a sensation in the local press (Queanbeyan Age, Wyalong Advocate and Mining, Agricultural and Pastoral Gazette, Cootamundra Herald, The Gundagai Times and Tumut, Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser and Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate). Mary Alchin – “… relict of the late John Alchin” – married Alexander Brown of Illabo at the Manse, Junee; their combined age of 129 years certainly caused some interest.

Mary Jane Brown (formerly Alchin) died in the Junee Hospital on 29 June 1931 aged seventy-six years; she had been in hospital for two months. The death was reported in the Cootamundra Herald and the Wagga Wagga Express.

Death Notice for John Alchin (1916) & Mary Jane Brown (1931)

Young Witness (10 November 1916); Wagga Wagga Express (4 July 1931) [both via TROVE]