Graham’s Page
Some notes on the histories of the families that produced my grandparents
We have several sources of good information, particularly on the Wiese/Watson side, and to a lesser extent on the Hinge side. We also know something of the history on the McLachlan side, but unfortunately not as much as we should. I clearly remember my grandmother sitting with Karin and me in her home back in the early 1980s, telling us stories about her parents and grandparents, but I didn’t write anything down and it’s all gone.
Wiese family
I don’t intend to reproduce family history manuscripts here, but one document that gives a good account of the emigration of Friedrich and Johanne Wiese and four of their children from Osterwieck is available here. One of their sons was Gottfried Friedrich Heinrich Wiese, my great-grandfather. It goes through to their settlement in the Tatiara district, on farming land between today’s towns of Bordertown and Mundulla.
This is a partial draft version of a book written by Annette Carter, named ‘Cosy Heart’ and self-published on Blurb. This draft is almost identical to the final text, but the illustrations are absent, and I have omitted all the content that covers the descendants of August Gottfried Friedrich Wiese who moved to WA. I have an extract from the book (pdf) that includes the illustrations here (23Mb).
The next source we have is a book called ‘From Sea Coast to Gum Trees’, the history of the Edward Farrow family, published in 1993. Edward and Emily Farrow emigrated from Sussex in 1839, arriving at Adelaide in March 1840. Their daughter Amy Farrow married Robert Adamson, whose parents came from Yorkshire, and their only child Emma Amy Adamson married Gottfried. She is therefore my great-grandmother. So this book takes up the Gottfried Wiese story just where ‘Cosy Heart’ drops it and heads off to WA, and it has the family story right up to the late 1980s. It’s a mine of information, but I don’t have it in electronic form apart from these scanned pages from the Amy chapter (14Mb). I have included all Gottfried’s children, as there are interesting photos and stories on many of the pages that tell us about life around Mundulla and other places. They also tell me why my father always seemed to have a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins to visit.
Gottfried and Emma’s son Robert Wiese was my grandfather.
Clayton Farm Heritage Museum, Bordertown
Watson family
Robert Wiese married Gertrude Frances Watson, the daughter of James Howell Watson and Catherine Frances Basham. The Watson family history is well documented in the book ‘Soldiers Farmers and Others: Watson Family History’ written by Terry Watson. That’s here in ebook format: epub which is the Apple iBooks format and fairly generic, or mobi which works on Kindle (at least on the app, I haven’t got a reader). Download the one that suits you and open it on your desired app.
In summary, James Howell Watson’s father was Henry Jonas Watson, born in India and married to Mary Harris from Glamorgan. Henry’s father was Lt Henry Jonas Watson, who was stationed on Réunion Island during the Napoleonic wars between France and Britain (Réunion is French, but was occupied by the British between 1810 and 1814). In 1813 Lt Henry Jonas married Mary Anne Joseph de Guigné Labérangerie, a 15 year old with some very interesting, mainly French, ancestors. The book has a chapter on the Réunion story, but you need to look at our family tree linked on this site to see a good diagram. There are documents attached to the tree with some good stories too, for example see Joseph de Guigné Labérangerie, who may have been a bit of a pirate, or Françoise Châtelain de Cressy (known as one of the ‘Grand-méres des Réunionnais’).
The father of Lt Henry Jonas Watson was Lt Col Jonas Watson, who was killed in an ambush by Irish rebels at Three Rock Mountain, Co Wexford in 1798 (Battle of Three Rocks). He married Harriet Colclough, and it is her ancestry that you can trace back to King Edward III and others. Terry Watson has also written a book ‘Just a Small Drop’ covering this, but I have only a hard copy.
The Basham family also has an interesting history in Australia, although as far as I am aware nobody has written a book. Catherine Watson’s father was Charles Abraham Basham, born in 1826 in Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land). His father was William Basham, born in London in 1800 and the son of Zenophon Hearn Basham, a convict who was transported to NSW on the ‘General Hewett’, arriving in 1814. Zenophon was sent to Van Diemen’s Land soon after that. He was originally sentenced to 14 years transportation in 1811 for forgery, but he escaped from the prison hulks in Portsmouth on 31 Oct 1811. He was subsequently arrested and charged with being at large before the expiration of his term, for which he was sentenced to death, commuted to transportation. Charles Abraham Basham’s mother was Louisa (or Eliza) Tibbs, also born in London and the daughter of John Tibbs. Tibbs was also a convict, transported to NSW on the ‘Alexander’ in 1806. He took up land in Van Diemen’s Land after receiving his certificate of freedom in 1813. Charles Basham left the Launceston area for Adelaide in the early days of the SA colony, and eventually farmed land near Middleton, between Goolwa and Victor Harbour.
Hinge family
John and Mary Hinge came originally from Somerset, then moved to South Wales for John to work in the coal mines. Unfortunately I didn’t know this when I lived in Bristol, as I am sure I could have tracked down some information about them. I guess my mother (Betty Hinge) didn’t know either, as she never mentioned it when she was with me there in 1974 and 1975.
Four of their nine children were born in Wales and accompanied them when they sailed for Port Adelaide, arriving in 1858. Afterwards they came to Robe by sea, then went on to the Tatiara in bullock wagons, eventually settling in Mundulla. Their second child was Albert; he married Mary Jane Broome, and their first surviving child was James, my grandfather. Albert, Mary and their other children lived in various parts of WA, while James lived in Bordertown. I don’t know the story behind this.
A booklet on the Hinge family history was produced for a family reunion in 1982 held at Mundulla. It is little more than a record of descendants, but I have scanned several pages of interest.
Adelaide Street: S T Gill
McLachlan family
James Hinge married Nellie Olivia Gamblin McLachlan. Her father Archibald McLachlan came to South Australia as a teenager with his parents in 1883, when they emigrated from Scotland. His father, also Archibald, was born in Lochgilphead, Argyll, and his mother Jane Eglinton was born in Bothwell near Glasgow. Passenger lists available in the SA State Library show that their ship ‘Aldergrove’ left Plymouth on August 17 1883 and arrived in SA on October 31. Archibald senior is listed as ‘ordinary labourer’ although other records (e.g. his wife’s obituary published in The Advertiser) say he was a shipbuilder. Archibald junior is listed as a farm labourer.
Olive (as she was known) was born in Terowie in the mid-north of SA, where her father Archibald worked in the railways (I think – he was certainly the stationmaster at Bute later in his life). Some details of the family are available in this document. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father remarried, but I don’t think that was a happy event for her as there seemed to be some tension in the air when the later McLachlans were mentioned, while she always spoke very tenderly of her mother.
On her mother’s side, her grandmother Mary Ann Gamlen was born in North Adelaide after her parents emigrated from Lincolnshire. I presume the Gamlen surname is the origin of her third name of Gamblin, but I don’t know when the spelling was adjusted. As far as I remember, she always spelled it that way. Mary Ann’s mother Charlotte Bidwell was born in Norfolk, while her father Eli Gamlen was born in Somerset. Both died in SA.
Mary Ann Gamlen’s husband Alfred Brown was born in Lincolnshire, as were his parents. They emigrated to SA in 1855 on the ship ‘Punjab’ from Southampton.