Gunning & District Historical Society

Francis Henry Alchin: Sawyer of Sydney by Garry Smith Sawyers working in a saw-pit The third of three Alchins who never made it to Gunning and District. Francis Henry Alchin (1830-1901) was born in Bromley-by-Bow, Middlesex, England the son of George Alchin (1806-1856) and Elizabeth Church (1807-1867). He was baptised on 20 June 1830 at Saint Dunstan’s Church, Stepney, London. Francis’s father was a sawyer; he appears on the 1841 England, Wales & Scotland Census as a thirty-five-year old, married to Elizabeth (Church) – they had four children, including eleven-year-old Francis. The family lived at Rope Walk Burchfields. Saint Dunstan’s Church, Stepney, London By the time he was twenty-one in 1851, Francis was living as a “lodger” in Robin Hood Lane, Poplar. His occupation was sawyer, like his father. Times were tough for sawyers leading into the late 1840's and early 1850's in England. Changing technologies were adversely affecting...

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 ...