Topic: “This Ancestor Stayed Home”.

Coming from eight separate lines of emigrants who arrived in Australia between 1806 and 1879 from Ireland, Scotland and England (plus one mysterious ancestor with possible Prussian/French blood) I cannot think of an example who “stayed at home”. All the women seemed to have been adventurers to a greater or lesser degree.

However there was one Great Uncle who might qualify, in a way. He certainly WANTED to stay at home. Herbert William Hunt 1913-1937 was the seventh of eight children born to NSW country Bank manager Edwin Herbert Hunt and his wife Lillian Josephine Harrison. All his brothers were early businessmen. But Herbert, always known as “Wibb”, was a gifted musician.

He was only 24 when he died, some said of a broken heart because his father ordered him to work in the Bank while he only wanted to play the piano. (Actually he may have died of septicaemia following a throat infection.) His obituary says it all:

BRILLIANT YOUNG PIANIST PASSES – The Late Herbert Hunt
The musical fraternity and the district generally suffered a sad loss by the untimely death last
Sunday of Mr. Herbert William Hunt, aged 24 years, of Norfolk Road, Epping.
Although comparatively young in years, the late Herbert Hunt was definitely a figure in the
local musical world, and apart from being a keen and enthusiastic student of music, he was a
pianist of outstanding brilliance. When he appeared on all too few occasions at local musical
functions and recitals, his interpretations, particularly of Bach, his favorite composer, were such
as to stamp him as an artist of exceptional ability.

Topic: ‘This ancestor went to market…”

Henry Prendergast was my Great Great Grandfather. Born in Tuam, Galway in 1813, he emigrated to Adelaide, Australia with his wife and nine children in 1854. It is not known what he did in Tuam before emigrating but once in Australia he soon became the first shopkeeper in the little inland village of Maude on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in the sparsely settled ‘outback’ of NSW. His would have been the only store for many, many miles around. Occasionally either he or his eldest son would have had to travel to the nearest large town to stock up on supplies, most likely by riverboat or horse dray.

The town history shows it was established in approximately 1861 on a reserve made up of portions of land from two extensive sheep and cattle properties, one of which was originally established by one Thomas Darchy. Some doubts were expressed about the viability of a township so close to the river, but it went ahead. A store was erected and the following year a post office which Henry Prendergast operated. A hotel followed and a monthly Court of Petty Sessions was introduced a few years later. The licence for the hotel was transferred to another of Henry’s sons Patrick in 1864, and by 1865 John was the postmaster. Henry died in 1867. Many of his descendants still live in the district.

The store is still there today and is still the only little shop in the town.

Not-so-incidentally to this story one of Henry’s daughters, Margaret married John Stoddart in Melbourne in 1866 and bore him two children, but John died in 1875 and four years later Margaret married Frank Darchy, son of local magistrate and wealthy land owner Thomas Darchy. The marriage was frowned up on by the Darchys – Margaret was not only ten years older than her new husband, but she was a widow with two children, and worse still was of the wrong religion (!). But the marriage endured, four children were produced and I am one of the descendants. The photo below shows Margaret with her eldest son Frank Downs Darchy, his wife Lydia and various female relatives.

(Unfortunately I was unable to complete Week 44 -Topic: Spirits).

My Great Great Uncle John Lyle 1789 – 1822 was born in Paisley, Scotland and died of yellow fever in Jamaica. At that time he was Colour Sergeant in the 91st Regiment of Foot.

The son of a weaver and farmer, he was initially a weaver but enlisted at Paisley on 24 August 1805 when he was 18. Scottish military records are very detailed – he was 5 feet 3 inches in height, which increased to 5 feet 7 inches in the next 6 years.; brown complexion, gray eyes, brown hair and a round face.

We do not know what caused him to enlist – perhaps he was bored, perhaps attracted by the enlistment bounty ….. He rose in the ranks quickly, becoming corporal a year after enlistment and Sergeant seven years later.

John fought at Waterloo – and survived.

He married soon after enlistment but his first child a son was not born until 1810 after the Regiment returned home on leave (?) after serving in the Peninsular wars against Napoleon for several years.
Did his wife followed the Regiment? Conditions would have been difficult even though as the wiie of a Sergeant she would have had some standing among the women. After Waterloo they remained in France for some years and in 1818 their third child was born in Valenciennes.

It is not known if John’s wife accompanied him when the regiment was posted to Jamaica in 1822, but John died there only 3 months later. The Regimental Returns for June-July 1822 show that following John’s death, a quite reasonable sum for those days was retained “. .. for the benefit of his three orphan children left with the regiment.” Despite searching for years I have been unable to determine the fate of the children.

A much fuller story is at https://nancyvada.me/john-lyle-of-the-91st-foot/