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 ...

  Benjamin Pollard  –  Father of 26 By M.D. Friend Catherine Creek - Jerrawa  When Benjamin Pollard died in 1915 at ‘Sunrise View’ near Dalton, New South Wales, he had recorded a remarkable statistic; fathering 26 children. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact only one of the 26 children died in infancy; even with a serious diphtheria outbreak in the area which claimed many young victims in the early 1860’s. Pollard bounty immigrant shipping slip The family first settled at ‘The Oakes’ near Camden before relocating to Jerrawa by bullock waggon in the search for land of their own. Father William and son Benjamin had both purchased land at Jerrawa by 1856. While living here it is alleged (in the obituary of Williams daughter Ellen Pollard nee Ginn) that father William was held up by bushrangers when traveling to Yass to pay for his Jerrawa land purchase. The story goes that the bushrangers “demanded money, only to receive a ‘not negot...

Tom Alchin: Jerrawa Farmer, Gundaroo Miner by Garry Norman Smith Thomas (Tom) Alchin (1853-1925) Thomas Alchin was born at Jerrawa, on 15 April 1853, the son of William James Alchin and Maria Bayley. Thomas, aka Tom, was baptised on 21 June 1853 at the Methodist Church, Jerrawa by the Reverend Benjamin Hurst of the Goulburn Circuit. At the age of 26 years Tom married 20-year-old Jane Robinson at Gunning in 1879. Jane Robinson, born at Gunning in 1858, was the daughter of John and Sarah Robinson (nee Niblett). Tom lived in Jerrawa and was a farmer like his father and uncles until 1894 when he moved his family to Gundaroo to the south of Gunning. Map showing Jerrawa, Gunning & Gundaroo Tom and Jane’s children at the time of the move to Gundaroo were Annie (1880-1996), Matilda Maria (1882-1962), Thomas (1884-1967), Sarah Jane (1886-1951), Amy Edith (1888-1970), James (Jim) Harold (1890-1963) and Sydney Herbert (1893-1982). Jane gave birth to two more chil...

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 marr...

Memorial plaques for the Browns and the Wilsons, Dalton Methodist Church The year 1861 proved to be a sorrowful one for many of the residents of Wesley Vale and the Jerrawa Creek area. Along with scarletina (scarlet fever), the rapid spread of diphtheria among the children of the district took a heavy toll on families. Among the local families to suffer the loss of children were Thomas and Sarah Brown of Wesley Vale. Fatally affected also were the children of John and Elizabeth Wilson at Jerrawa Creek. The Dalton Methodist Church has two significant memorial plaques, the one mentioning the Brown family and the other tells the story of the Wilsons. Both families lost children to the diphtheria outbreak in the district- all in the year 1861. John and Elizabeth Wilson Tom Brown, so well-known for his varied and vigorous evangelism from the time he arrived in Wesley Vale in 1847, and his wife Sarah, lost three children in 1861. David aged 14 years, Mary aged 9 and Ebe...

Garry Smith at the Irish Famine Memorial at Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (Photo by Malia Smith - provided) By Garry Smith: The 18th Annual Commemoration of The Great Irish Famine was held on Sunday 27 August 2017 at the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney. Beginning in 1845 and lasting for six years, the potato famine killed over a million men, women and children in Ireland and caused another million to flee the country. During the early 1830s, approximately 3000 women accepted the British government’s offer of an assisted passage to Australia. Many of these women were educated, articulate and keen to escape the stultifying effects of their family and demonstrate their enterprise. By contrast, the young orphan girls from the workhouses across Ireland during the potato famine were very young, very poor and refugees of a calamitous famine that ravaged Ireland. In the Ennis, County Clare workhouse, built in the period 1839-41, there was an overwhelming crush of famine victims wanting ...

Hannah Luxon: Colonial Servant by Garry Norman Smith Hannah Barnes was born in Northumberland, England in 1830, the daughter of William and Margaret Barnes. She was baptised at Earsdon, Northumberland on 16 April 1831. Hannah Barnes married William Luxon (1819-1884) in 1850. The England census of 1851 records that Hannah and William and their 10-month-old son, Edward, were living at North Shields, Northumberland. William was a joiner and cabinet maker. On 29 January 1853, the Luxon family arrived in the colony of New South Wales aboard the Tamar . The voyage had taken 100 days without any stopovers. The Luxor Family listed on the 'Tamar', 1853 Hannah and William were to have at least six children, including Edward. Not long after their arrival, Hannah and William left Sydney for the Yass district. Five of their children were born in the colony and their births were registered at Yass. In 1855 the Luxons were among the subscribers to the...