Gunning & District Historical Society

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 12 th and 13 th 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 ...

Hazel Doris Alchin with nephew Garry Norman Smith By Garry Norman Smith Hazel Doris Alchin is arguably the oldest living direct descendant of Ambrose Alchin (1800-1877) and Ann Alchin (nee Waters) (1799-1858). This image is of a woman who recently turned 95 years old. Hazel is from two long lines of pioneer families: the Thompsons of West Pennant Hills and the Alchins of Oolong Creek and Gunning. Roy Irwin Alchin (1922) and Doris Irene Thompson (1919) While Hazel’s father, Roy Irwin Alchin (1897-1976) was born at Gunning, she has never actually visited the town.  (l-r) Daphne, Doris, Hazel, Roy, Joyce & Ellen Alchin c1938 Charles Alchin and Mary Alchin (nee Stear) Roy married Doris Irene Thompson (1902-1990) in 1922 at Dural, New South Wales; Hazel was born that same year at Dural. Hazel and her four sisters lived their early lives in The Hills District. Her grandparents, Edward Alchin (1863-1941) and Elizabeth Ann Alchin (nee Bailey) (1872-1964), ...

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 Aust...

Gunning Courthouse 8th September 1885. Photo NSW State Archives via Flickr . The Gunning & District Historical Society (GDHS) is a small group of volunteers, covering a large area, including Dalton. We have members in Breadalbane who may be able to assist. The other local societies are in Goulburn (which also has a Family History Research Centre ) and Crookwell . Taralga 's society has an extensive family database. The Yass & District Historical Society and well-staffed archive, open one day a week. Check the websites for contact details. GDHS has members with extensive local knowledge (and others who like a challenge). To get a feel for the village, you could book a tour of the village, the general cemetery, the Pye Cottage Museum.  Members have escorted researchers to local churches and cemeteries, including outside Gunning.  Give us plenty of notice as we have occasional bus tour bookings and a program of meetings/events.  Contact us via email gun...

Graves of Robert Bayley and Lucy Jane Bayley, Dalton Methodist Cemetery (Photo by Garry Smith) Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) died at Leichhardt, Sydney on 4 July 1914. She was born in Staplehurst, Kent and baptised on 7 July 1832. She came to the colony of New South Wales with her family of Bounty Immigrants in 1838 aboard the Palmyra. The Sun (Sydney), Sunday 5 July 1914, p. 4. Ambrose and Ann Alchin brought their family to the Gunning District in the late 1840s. They settled at Jerrawa. In 1855 at the age of 23 years Ann Alchin married Thomas Bayley at Gunning. Their son, Robert Bayley, was born in 1857; he married Lucy Jane Waters at Gunning in 1883. Window dedicated to Robert and Lucy Bayley The Uniting Church in Gunning features a window dedicated to Robert and Lucy Bayley. Their graves in the Methodist Section of the Dalton Cemetery are part of a cluster of graves of the Bayley and Waters families. The headstones and general grave presentations are within a ...

THE CIVIL SERVICE BOARD, appointed under the " Civil Service Act, 1884," hereby declare the following to be the "CIVIL SERVICE LIST" for the year 1885, containing the names of all the Officers of each Division and Class, and of all other persons employed in the Civil Service of New South Wales, prepared under the 16th section of the said Act. Dated at Sydney, this 31st day of March, 1885. The NSW Government Gazette (1832-2001) has been digitised and is available online on Trove .  The Civil Service List 1885  includes nearly 12000 names of Government employees in three divisions - General, Professional and Educational. This could be a valuable source of information for anyone researching family history in the late 19th century. The list has a 65 page index of all names.