Augustus Raymond (1821-1877)

Descendants of Augustus Raymond 1821-1877

Augustus Raymond, son of Mead Raymond (1785-1843) and Ann Chapman (1785-1830), was born 27 Sep 1821 1 at Camberwell, London, Surrey, England and christened 4 Jan 1822 1 at Christ Church, Southwark, London, England. He died 18 Jan 1877 6 Sydney, NSW, Australia and was buried Old Church of England section of Rookwood Cemetery (section E, row 10). There were issue from both his first and second marriages.

    He married (1) on 1 Feb 1849 10 in St. Giles Parish Church, Camberwell, Surrey, Sarah Terrey Sumerfield, christened 28 Jul 1824 1 Saint John the Baptist, Croydon, Surrey, England; died 25 May 1850 64 at Kensington, South Australia, aged 25 years, daughter of Thomas Benjamin Sumerfield and Sarah Terrey. Issue was one daughter who was concieved after their arrival in South Australia from London on 20 June 1849 and died there on 24 June 1850 at five weeks of age.
    He married  (2) on 2 Jun 1856 3 at Pola Creek, Macleay River, NSW, Australia, Catherine Dornan née Laverty, born 1821, Ballynahinch, Magheradrool Parish, County Down, Ireland 37 ; died 1 Apr 1866 Macleay River, NSW, Australia; buried Frederickton Cemetery, widow of Charles Dornan and daughter of Michael Laverty (ca. 1798-1877) and Ann Boyd (ca. 1792-1867). Four issue who all married and had children.
    He married (3) on 19 Dec 1867 4 at Pola Creek, Macleay River, Margaret Chambers, née Mackay, widow of James Chambers (ca. 1811-1864), born 1820 Aberdeen, Scotland, Chr. 1 Dec 1820 54 Aberdeen; died 8 Feb 1887 47 West Kempsey, Macleay River, NSW, Australia; buried West Kempsey Cemetery, second born daughter of Angus Mackay (1795-1894) and his first wife Jane Clark who married in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1815. No issue from this marriage.

  
Augustus (left) and Catherine (right) Raymond cemetery headstones 8

English Ancestry & Early History


       The history and genealogy in London of the family of Augustus Raymond (1821-1877) is detailed on the linked to web page. At the 1841 census of England Augustus was listed in his father's household at Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, situated on the south side of the river Thames about one and a half kilometres east of Tower Bridge, with his father Mead, his two sisters Elizabeth and Ann Dorothy (Mrs. John Gould), and two female domestic servants. 30. Immediate family members absent from the household were his older brother Mead Terrey (1817-1866), who had married in 1839 and at the 1841 census was living in Camberwell, and his mother Ann née Chapman who had died eleven years earlier in 1830 at age 44 31.
        The occupations of boatman and lighterman were different with that of a boatman being the transport of people and a lighterman of goods and ship's cargo. An Australian family legend was that when young Augustus had worked as a boatman on the River Thames. However based on the 1841 UK census and the apprenticeship binding records of the Honourable Company of Watermen and Lightermen his initial occupation in London was that of a lighterman. The 1841 census listed the occupation of his father Mead as lighterman and his as an apprentice lighterman. Lighterman apprenticeships usually began at fourteen years of age with an apprentice bound to a master for seven years and after two years in receipt of a provisional license and a full license and freedom from the master five years later. Both Augustus and his elder brother Mead Terry completed lightermen apprenticeships under their father Mead as master. Mead Terry was fourteen when he began his and Augustus fifteen. Thus Augustus had the benefit of one year more formal schooling than was usual. He was bound on 14 Oct 1836 at Camberwell and completed the apprenticeship on 9 March 1843 only a few months before his father's July that year death. Under his father's five page will dated 28 Feb. 1840 he came into full inheritance of his share of the estate on 27 September that year when he turned twenty-two being the day before the will was probated. Five weeks after receiving a full lighterman license he had an apprentice bound to him as master on 13 Apr 1843 at Rotherhithe where the Raymond & Son business was then located at ‘Raymond's Wharf’ 33.
        By completing lighterman apprenticeships and becoming ‘Tradesmen of the Thames’ Mead's two sons were following in his footsteps and in those of their Raymond grandfather John who had completed his lighterman apprenticeship in 1779, and in those of a great grandfather Joseph Mead who died in 1796 from whom came the Mead family given name who was also a River Thames licenced lighterman.
        Augustus' father Mead when giving evidence in a case tried at the Old Bailey in 1819, regarding an employee accused of stealing, said - quote "I am in partnership with John Raymond; we are lightermen and wharfingers" (i.e. the transporters of cargo to and from ships and wharf owners or operators). Apparent from London directory listings is that the partnership of Mead and his brother John was dissolved in the latter part of the 1830s with from then each brother operating their own business - John from the Clink Street wharf and warehouse premises that the partnership was operating from at the time of the 1819 court case, and Mead initially from Bargehouse Street and later from "Raymond's Wharf" situated further downstream at Rotherhithe adjoining the Thames Tunnel only a short walk from Paradise Street where the family were residing at 1841 census.
        The building of bridges and roads and the development of steam tugs and trains challenged the traditional role of lightermen who used barges and the tides to transport cargo to and from ships causing many to diversify to remain viable. The dissolution of the John & Mead partnership saw Mead branch out into the building and repairing of barges and boats and it would have been in that side of the business that Augustus acquired the carpentry and joinery skills he was later to employ in Australia. In so doing he was following the occupation of his Chapman grandfather William whose 1815 executed will gave his occupation as carpenter. A 1841 London directory listed Mead Sr. as a barge builder at No. 49 Rotherhithe Street and a lighterman at 1 Bargehouse Street. When Mead died in 1843 the business was listed in a directory for that year as - ‘RAYMOND, MEAD & SON, barge builders, wharfingers and lightermen, Rotherhithe Wharf, adjoining Thames Tunnel, Rotherhithe’ 30. As this directory would have been compiled in late 1842 before Augustus had completed his apprenticeship the singular "son" would have then been 25 year old Mead Terrey. By the time of the 1846 Post Office London Directory it was listed as - ‘RAYMOND, MEAD & CO., boat and barge builders, wharfingers and lightermen, Raymond's Wharf, 50 Rotherhithe Street, Rotherhithe’ 29.
        Under his father's will Augustus came into joint ownership with his brother Mead Terry of the lighterman and boat buiding business on 27 Sep 1843 when he turned 22 years of age. However an Old Bailey Central Criminal Court case record indicates between then and January 1844 he had sold his share in the business to his brother and by then had a cartage business. That case heard on 5 Feb 1844 was a criminal prosecution of two youths for having on the 13th of the previous month stolen 180 pounds of lead, said to have been a "pig" valued at £11 3 shillings, from a total of 700 to 800 pounds held in the Raymond Wharf wharehouse referred to as being at the Thames Tunnel Wharf. Augustus gave evidence that he then lived at Limetree Cottage at Rotherhithe and he had nothing to do with the owners of the lead for which his brother Mead Terry was answerable being the "proprietor" of the wharf (aka the wharfinger) who had contracted with the owners and, in respect of its cartage Mead Terry paid him a half-a-crown a ton, and that it was he and not Mead Terry who had employed the watchman and that he would have to pay his brother for any lead lost as he was responsible for it from the time the barge carrying it docked at the wharf. Thus by January 1844 Augustus had sold his half share in the business to his brother, most likely on a time payment basis, so upon Mead Terry's eleven years later bankruptcy any outstanding to Augustus part of the purchase price would have been lost.
         By the 1850s the firm of Mead Raymond & Co. was no longer listed in London directories indicating it had closed or sold outside the family and the name changed. Thus its continuation as a family owned business lasted for less than a decade after Mead Sr's death. Mead Terrey was last listed having had an apprentice bound to him as master on 13 Feb 1845 who completed the apprenticeship on 11 Mar 1852 33. However Mead must have been mostly out of the business by 1851 as that year's UK census taken on 30th March gave his occupation as ‘publisher and managing clerk’. By 1854 Mead Terrey was clearly in serious financial difficulties. Early in 1855 bankruptcy proceedings were instigated against him and his partner who were trading as W. Riddell & Co - merchants, commission agents, dealers and chapmen (a chapman was one whose business was to buy and sell goods or other things) resulting in later that year both being declared bankrupt. In that respect a point of interest is that in 1849 Mead Terry bestowed ‘Riddell’ as a second given name on a son born in June Quarter that year indicating his involvement with William Riddell had been well established before Augustus left England forever on 13 March 1849 and at least six years before the bankruptcy proceedings were instigated. When Mead Terry died in 1866 at 49 years of age his will probate gave his occupation as ‘accountant’ and his effects excluding any real estate were valued at less than £100. In early in 1853 it appears he was anxious to contact Augustus as an advertisment placed by him appeared in the Sydney newspaper the Empire on 18 April 1853 addressed to Mr Augustus Raymond advising that letters from his brother in England awaited him at both the Adelaide and Sydney post offices 65.
       When Augustus married for the first time in 1849 the registration record gave his late father's occupation as lighterman. When he married for second time in Australia in 1856 the record had it as a corn factor (i.e. a middleman in corn dealings). In respect of the Raymond brothers having also acted as corn factors a 1820 London directory listed the business as "J & M Raymond, cornfactors and lightermen, Clink Street, Southwark" and the 1815 will of Augustus' grandfather William Chapman had corn-lighterman as the occupation of both Mead Sr. and his older brother John indicating in its early years the John & Mead Raymond partnership had specialised in the transport of that commodity - with others such as coal-lightermen specialising in the transport of coal and some becoming coal-factors and members of the coal exchange. In regard to corn storage the partnership's warehouses and granaries at Clink Street were stated in a 1823 newspaper advertisement to have a capacity to quote ‘receive 2000 quarters of corn’ - i.e. to hold 16,000 bushels (being 406 metric tonnes) 68. After the 1850 death of Mead Sr's brother John his eldest son William carried on his father's business as a lighterman and granary keeper and two years before William's death the 1871 census had his occupation as ‘granary keeper’. From his marriage in 1849 until his death in 1891 the youngest of John's three sons Alfred Mead was a corn factor with offices in the city of London and membership of the Corn Exchange. However after the dissolution of the J & M Raymond partnership in the latter part of 1830s there is no evidence Augustus's father Mead acted as a corn factor or had an involvement in corn storage although in a limited way he may have continued to act as a factor using his brother's granary at Clink Street for storage of the grain. His 1840 will and the 1841 census gave Mead's occupation as "lighterman" indicating he regarded that as his main occupation being that for which he had served a seven year apprenticeship from 29 May 1800 to 16 Jul 1807 33.
       Indicative of the Raymond brothers standing in the river Thames cargo transport industry when it flourished is that both Augustus's uncle John and his eldest son William served terms as the Master (also known as the Ruler) of the Honourable Company of Waterman and Lightermen that administered the apprenticeship schemes, licensed both watermen and lightermen, and generally administered and regulated the industry of the transport of cargo and passengers upon the River Thames - John being the Master in 1840 and his son William in 1859.

First Marriage

         Six years after completing his lighterman apprenticeship Augustus married Sarah Terrey Sumerfield in London in February 1849. In respect of Sarah's second given name of Terrey, it being her mother's maiden surname, it seems possible she was a second cousin to Augustus - i.e. that perhaps Augustus' grandmother Ann Chapman (1748-1826), if her maiden surname was Terrey, and Sarah Terrey Sumerfield's grandfather were brother and sister resulting in Augustus and his wife having a common "Terrey" great grandfather. The bestowing by both Augustus' father Mead and his uncle John of "Terry" as a second given name on one of their children suggests the unknown maiden surname of Augustus' grandmother on his mother's Chapman side may have been Terry or Terrey. The second given name of Augustus' brother was recorded spelt as Terry when he was baptised but had changed to the variant of Terrey by the time he married in 1839 suggesting it was the usual spelling.
         At the time Augustus married Sarah Sumerfield she was residing in York Grove, which was the same street in Camberwell where his brother Mead was residing two years later at the time of the April 1851 census, and the locality where Augustus was born in Sept. 1821. The above linked to marriage record gave the occupation of Sarah's father Thomas Sumerfield as a ‘coal merchant’. A Sun Fire Office insurance policy on premises at Whites Row, Spitalfields dated in December of the year Sarah was born had as its joint holders coal dealers Thomas Benjamin Sumerfield and James Eversfield. No person of the Sumerfield surname was listed in the 1846 Post Office London Directory and, as the last four of Sarah's nine known siblings were baptised in Glamorgan in Wales, the last being in 1833, it is possible at the time of her 1849 London marriage to Augustus her parents were still based in Wales or elsewhere than in London.

Emigration

         When Augustus married for second time widow Catherine Dornan at Macleay River in New South Wales in 1856 his status was given as widower. Subsequently at his instigation a correction was made to the official marriage registration record to state that instead of seven children there were no living issue of his previous marriage. Until research by an Augustus descendant disclosed otherwise the family legend was that his first wife had died on the voyage to Australia 2. However such was not the case. Six weeks after they married in London Augustus and Sarah emigrated to South Australia departing London on 13 March 1849 on the Posthumous arriving at Port Adelaide in South Australia alive and well on 20 June 1849 after a voyage lasting just over three months 66. Sarah died eleven months later on 24 May 1850 at Kensington in Adelaide after 5 days earlier giving birth to a daughter Sarah Terrey who was born on 19 May 1850 at Kensington and died 5 weeks later on 24 June 1850 64.
        Augustus was not the only member of this Raymond family of Southwark to emigrate to Australia in the 18th century. Erskine Raymond (1870-1952), a grandson of Augustus' first cousin William Chapman Raymond (1814-1873), emigrated to New South Wales before 1900 where he enlisted in the NSW Citizens' Bushmen Regiment and fought in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa. At the legendary Siege of Elands River he took a bullet through the shoulder and was likely the first of the Australian soldiers to be wounded at that engagement. He subsequently moved to Western Australia where he was a wheat harvesting contractor, returned to England for a period, spent time in Thailand, and was in Malaya or Singapore in 1942 working for the War Department when Singapore fell to the Japanese and was interned for the duration of the war in the infamous Changi Gaol in Singapore. Erskine and one other named Grey, who served with the Imperial Light Horse and was an architect/engineer in Hong Kong, have the distinction of being the only known Boer War veterans to have survived Japanese internment in WW II 61.

Occupations in England

        Apart from in London having been a licenced lighterman employed in the family business, who would have acquired his carpentry and joiner skills in the boat and barge building side of that business, nothing specific is known of the occupations followed by Augustus during the six year period between the death of his father in July 1843 when he inherited a half-share of the boat and barge building and river Thames cargo transport business and his departure for Australia in March 1849. It is apparent at some time during those years he changed his occupation. His brother Mead Terry changed his from lighterman to accountant and a first cousin John Raymond, who had started out as an apprentice lighterman with Augustus' father Mead as his master changed his to study law at the Middle Temple and became a barrister, and of John's two brothers who both completed lighterman apprenticeships one after marrying become a corn factor and member of the Corn Exchange in the City of London.
        A 1914 published article on the family history and business activities at Bowraville of Augustus' second born son Samuel who died in 1942, that incorrectly had Augustus as having "Mead" as a second given name, mentioned his father had quote been -- "educated in the ministry (Church of England)" and had discontinued his studies after concluding he was not suited to that vocation. If taken as meaning it was being said he had attended a seminary it was likely not the case. It seems likely to have been an interpretation Samuel had put on what his father told him (or the article writer assuumed was implied from what Samuel said) re his father's school days. Augustus would have attended a Church run school at which along with a subjects such as English and Mathematics and the Classics it would be expected was the subject Bible Studies or Divinity and for a while when studying that subject at school he had considered the ministry as a possible vocation. After abandoning the religious studies (probably in fact when he left school) the article had him as emigrating to the colony of NSW when aged "twenty-two or three" when in fact he was twenty-seven when he left London and initially emigrated to South Australia not NSW. The article made no mention of the seven years in duration Thames River lighterman apprenticeship he began with his father at fifteen years of age and completed when almost twenty-two that would have precluded him from having lived away from home and from having attended a seminary. The records show a John Field Roberts was apprenticed to Augustus as his master in 1843 and the mentioned 1844 stealing of lead court case that he was out of the family cargo boat building and cargo transport business by January 1844.
        Also after becoming a master lighterman in 1843 and his father's same year death if before emigrating in 1849 he had studied for the ministry and then abandoned the studied such would contradict his Feb 1849 marriage registration record that gave his occupation as an "engineer" indicating by study and practical experience he had become sufficiently knowledgeable with the operation and maintenance of machinery and steam engines to give that as his occupation 10. Because of his lighterman tradesman qualification and, accordingly detailed knowledge of the regulations and conditions on the river Thames such as the seasonal force of the tide and depths at various places as they altered with the tide etc., it may be that he spent some time as an engineer on a steam tug or a passenger boat operating on the Thames. It was thought a possible explanation might be that Raymond, Mead & Co. acquired a steam tug on which he was the engineer. However a search of the records of steamboat ownership for 1846 to 1848 found no record of a registration or an ownership under his or his brother's name or under the names of Raymond, Mead & Co. or W. Riddell & Co so if such was the case he must have been employed by another entity 39. In any event, in addition to practical experience it is likely he attended evening lecture courses at the London Mechanics Insitute founded in 1823 with the aim of instructing its members "in the principles of the arts they practise and in the various branches of science and useful knowledge" that also had a members lending library and was then located in Chancery Lane in Holborn 75.

Occupations in Australia

Initially a Sawmill Manager

        Eight months after his marriage in London his change of occupation to "engineer" is confirmed by the published record of proceedings in a libel case heard from 8 to 11th October 1849 in the South Australian Supreme Court. As a witness for the plaintiff Augustus gave his occupation as "engineer" and stated that for the last four months (i.e. from June) he had been the manager of the Forest Iron and Steam Saw Works situated on section 1118 at Cox's Creek in the Adelaide Hills. As he only arrived in Adelaide from London on the 20th June it is implied he became the manager of the then still under construction sawmill immediately after his arrival suggesting he was engaged as the manager before leaving London. In evidence he described the sawmilling undertaking as comprising "about twenty buildings - workshops, dwelling houses for the men, &c". Indicative of the size of the operation, then by far the largest sawmill in the colony that installed the highest horsepower steam engine in the colony to power the circular and vertical saws, is that two months later he placed the below advertisement in the South Australian newspaper of 12 Dec 1849 seeking to employ 25 teams each of 8 bullocks for six months to cart sawn timber to Adelaide.



       However his employment as manager was not to last and indications are it had likely ceased before June 1850, the month his wife Sarah died followed by their infant daughter four weeks later, when the following month the apparently then non-operational sawmill and adjoining heavily timbered lands were put up for auction with thereafter the mill remaining idle or operating at a low output until the land and plant etc. were again auctioned on 22 Sept 1852 and after the auction leased by Adelaide timber merchant Thomas Haynes Viney (1811-1896). After re-commissioning by Viney in 1852 the sawmill continued operating until about 1860 when it is said the enterprise failed.
        On section 1118 in the Hundred of Onkaparinga where the sawmill once stood is situated the 1925 established 18-hole picturesque Stirling Golf Club that until renamed in 2013 was named Mount Lofty Golf Club. On the north-west part of section 1118 is situated the Woodhouse Activity Centre. At the link is a history of the sawmill, ascertained from newspapers, published histories, and biographies of its owner George Milner Stephen (1812-1894), a barrister-at-law and former Acting Governor of South Australia who later in life practised as a faith healer. Likewise to John Raymond, a first cousin of Augustus who in 1838 was admitted to the Middle Temple in London to study and practice law to become a barrister, G. M. Stephen was admitted four years later to membership of that same Inn of Court - a co-incidence that may explain how Augustus whilst still in his twenties and straight off the boat from England was able to secure seeminly by pre-engagement in London a position for which as always a Londoner he seemingly had no obvious qualification other than having gained a knowledge of machinery and steam engines sufficient to classify himself as an "engineer". Confirming he lacked the experience to manage such a large start-up sawmilling and timber supply business is that on the second occasion the opertation was offered for sale by auction on 22 Sep 1852 the sale advertisement stated that during a four month trial of its capabilities it had been managed - "by persons quite inexperienced in the management of such an establishment".

Capenter and Joiner

        The next mention noted of an occupation followed by Augustus was in Sydney in June 1851 when he gave evidence at a magisterial inquiry held to determine whether a Police Inspector should be dismissed for alleged drunkenness whilst on duty in Pitt-street on the night of the 24 May 1851 Queen's Birthday holiday. At the 3 June 1851 held inquiry Augustus gave his occupation as "cabinetmaker" and stated he had "been three months in Sydney" indicating an approximate February 1851 date of arrival there 67. No record has been noted of him on passenger lists of coasters arriving at Sydney from Adelaide or Melbourne. When he married for the second time at Macleay River in 1856 the registration record similarly had carpenter and joiner as his occupation. Twenty years later when living at Dale Street (today named Balfour Street) in Chippendale in Sydney he was listed in the 1876 Sydney Sands Directory as a carpenter and the next year his official death registration also had carpenter as his occupation.

Farmer

        The earliest mentions noted of Augustus farming in NSW are in the 1914 published article on his son Samuel linked to in the 'Occupations in England' section above. The article recounted that before he arrived at Macleay River, where it is stated he grew high yield crops of maize in the vicinity of Frederickton and Pola Creek, he had "put his hand to the plough elsewhere". There is no knowledge of where the "elsewhere" was and no record of him owning land at or near Frederickton although he could have leased land in that area. From the time of his 1856 marriage at Pola Creek to widow Catherine Dornan née Laverty until 1869 when he moved to Bowraville all records sighted have his address as Pola Creek where her Sept. 1854 purchased farm was located on the opposite side of the river to Frederickton. Following Catherine's 1866 death Pola Creek was given as his address in notifications in newspapers and in the NSW Government Gazette in 1867 and 1868 in connection with the administration of her estate and in 1869 re the registration of his horse brand. When he married in 1867 for the third time the record had his ocupation as farmer.
        A twenty-nine acre Macleay River farm he purchased at a Crown Lands auction in March 1859 was located at Summer Island in Cooroobongatti parish on the northern side of the river almost opposite Kinchela and about 11 kl down river from Frederickton 69. The catalyst for the purchase may have been the circumstance that his eldest stepson Alexander Dornan would have been about nineteen and capable of himself cropping the by then increased to 93 acres Pola Creek farm assisted by his siblings or it may have been purchased as an investment with a future intent to let it on a clearing lease. From the obituary of his eldest son Augustus Mead it is known during the great flood of 1864, the highest in the history of the Macleay River when it was reported the majority of the houses on both banks from Frederickton to the heads were swept away and in the Kinchela area upwards of sixty took refuge on a coasting vessel lying in Kinchela Creek, that the family spent the night above the flood waters in the loft of their house but whether it was at Pola Creek or near Kinchela was not stated.
        After his late 1867 third marriage to widow Margaret Chambers when land west of Bowraville first became available for selection Augustus selected portion 5 of 100 acres in the parish of Buckra Bendinni on 6 May 1869 where he resided until he moved to Sydney in 1872. The name of son Samuel John appeared on this portion on a 1901 dated Buckra Bendinni parish map. In reference to the occupation of his father during the three years from 1869 to 1872 he spent at Bowraville the article on Samuel stated when at Macleay River he had grown high yield crops of maize in the Frederickton/Pola Creek area and, at Bowra he had pursued "an even tenor" or in other words had sung with the same voice as at Macleay River. Clearly by "even tenor" the author intended to convey that at Bowraville he had likewise been a farmer growing crops of maize etc. as when at Macleay River. He was listed at Bowra in the 1872 Grenville Post Office Directory as a "farmer" and gave the same as his occupation when giving evidence at a Coroner's Inquest into the accidental death of his seven-year old stepson William Chambers held in his house on the farm in early September 1871, and it was the occupation given in his 1877 NSW Supreme Court will probate petition 40.

Cab Proprietor and Grocer

        After moving to Sydney in late 1872 or early 1873 the first record of his occupation is found in the Sands Directory for 1875 compiled in the latter part of 1874. In the Trades Section Augustus was listed as a Cab Proprietor at 5 Ultimo Street in Ultimo. From the 1847 introduction of the "Hackney Carriages Sydney Act", as is the case today for a motorised taxi, licences were required for both the proprietor and the driver of a hackney cab. In respect of the licence holder records it is understood in 2013 the last year for which they were indexed to was 1871 which is too early for the licence or licences held by Augustus. Later unindexed records may be held by the City of Sydney Archives. Suggestive he may not have personally driven the cab for which he was the proprietor and, would have still owned when he died in 1877, is that in the Sands Directory for the following 1876 year he was listed in the alphabetical section as a carpenter at Dale Street. A document in his probate file has the occupation of "cab proprietor" crossed out and "farmer" written in but such likely was altered at a later time by someone viewing the probate file at the State Archives who was unaware of the cab ownership so considered it an error in need of correction 62.
        When he died in 1877 his wife wife Margaret inherited a life interest in the whole of his estate thus became the proprietor of the hackney cab. She was listed as a cab owner in the trades section of the Sydney Sands Directory for 1880 and also as a grocer at 25, 27 Athlone Place in Ultimo and in the alphabetical section of the directory at 25, 27/29 & 38 Athlone Place. Athlone Place no longer exists. The street joined George Street (Broadway) on the Pyrmont/Darling Harbour side and was resumed by the Sydney City Council in 1906 when some 400 dwellings and a maze of tiny lanes in the area were resumed and all the houses were removed. Pre-resumption archival photographs of premises in the street may be held by the Sydney City Archives in 15 City Council “Condemnations and Demolitions” books for the period 1900-1928.
       The above linked to 1914 published article on son Samuel John (1861-1942) stated his father had a grocery business in Sydney, in which Samuel worked after from a very young age spending three years as an apprentice butcher, that after his father's death he continued to run until about 1882 when he moved to Bowraville to join his older brother Augustus Mead in business there. The first mention in the Sydney Sands Directory of Augustus as a grocer was in the directory for 1877 the year he died. He was listed in the trades section as a grocer at 20 Bank Street and in the alphabetical section as residing at Bank Street. Then correctly spelt Banks this street running from Abercrombie to Regent Street was at time of compilation in 2007 named Meagher Street with #20 situated on its northern side at the intersection with Balfour Steet. The next surviving directory for 1879 listed his widow Margaret as a grocer at 29, 31 Athlone Place in Ultimo and also as residing there indicating after his death the household and grocery business relocated from 20 Bank St. to Ultimo.
        In the 1960s the compiler, whose line is from eldest son Augustus Mead (1857-1942), was told unlike his three sons who each built up considerable retail and farming and grazing interests during their lifetimes Augustus had no great aptitude for business. He was told his grandfather, the eldest son of Augustus, had taken barrels of pickled pork down to the wharfs to sell as his father was not personally disposed to spruiking same. As it was usual for the farmers in the Bowraville area to raise pigs as well as grow maize as a cash crop the pork may well have been consigned from farmers in the Bowraville area who become well known to the family during the years Augustus had farmed there.

Errors noted in sundry publications

       Incorrect was a claim noted in an 1988 published Mackay family history, that cited the source as an unpublished article by Alex Gaddes (1921-1997) titled ‘The family of William and Jane Gaddes’, that Augustus was an itinerant tutor who "built" a boarding school at Bowra River on the land he selected there. The first school at Bowra was named Capeharrow Hill and for the first few months from its commencement in July 1872 it was situated on the 100 acre selection Augustus took up in May 1869. However it was not a boarding school and was not conducted in a school-house that Augustus "built" but in a room he "lent" for that purpose. In a book published two years later Alex Gaddes did not repeat his obviously incorrect boarding school claim but made even more extravagant and equally incorrect claims re the identity of the first "teacher" at Bowra and the occupation of Augustus. He claimed the first teacher at Bowra was a Mr. Cluff who had taken over the duties of imparting some education to local children from Augustus who he claimed was an itinerant tutor from Macleay River who divided his time as a teacher between Bowra, Pola Creek, and the Wilson River near Port Macquarie spending three months at each place, adding that he knew it because Augustus had taught the elder children of his grandparents William and Jane Gaddes 9, 44.
          It is apparent to this compiler that Alex Gaddes, who was not an Augustus Raymond descendant, simply combined a knowledge passed down to him from his parents that Augustus had imparted some knowledge of the three R's (reading, writing and arithmetic) to the elder Gaddes children with a knowledge that after marrying at Dungog in 1856 his grandfather William Gaddes (ca. 1830-1902) was from about 1857 a farmer at Rollands Plains at Wilson River in the Port Macquarie district until about 1870 from where he moved north to the Bowra area with the knowledge that Augustus was at Pola Creek on the Macleay River before moving to Bowra, and simply came up with the way-out assumption he presented as being a fact that Augustus would have been as an itinerant tutor who spent three months at each of the three places - Bowraville, Macleay River, and Wilson River teaching children. Presumably after spending the claimed three months at each of the three places he then spent the next three months at Bowra resting from the nine months of teaching and travelling around on horse back! Never mind that such was contrary to common sense and to every record of the occupations followed by Augustus and the early correspondence of officers of the Department of Education that had prior to 1872 there was no teacher or school at Bowra.
          It was very obviously a concocted claim. The only aspect of any of the Alex Gaddes claims (and there are others) that the compiler accepts as valid is that Augustus in addition to likely teaching his own and the Dornan step-children some basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic when he lived at Pola Creek is that would have subsequently also done so at Bowra in respect of his and children of relatives such as the elder Gaddes children before the first school was established there in July 1872 initially on his selection and conducted by an employed school teacher George Robinson for few months before being relocated closer to Bowraville, and that Augustus must have included in such sessions some of his older Gaddes step-nieces and nephews after the Gaddes family moved there from the Wilson River to reside for several years very near the Augustus selection. In that regard the Joseph Conen sketch map of 1875 has the Gaddes family as still residing very close by. That Augustus would have imparted the basics to his own children and to those of relatives should hardly be surprising as in the absence of a formal school with an employed teacher it was usual for parents with enough ability and inclination, but unable or unwilling to employ a governess, to teach their own children at an elementary level and sometimes include the children of relatives and neighbours. In the late 1860's an example of such was in the adjoining Bellinger River district before the establishment there in 1871 of that district's first school at the then main settlement of Fernmount. That district's first blacksmith New York born John Thomas Williams, the second husband of one of the compiler's great-great grandmothers who moved there from Manning River in 1867, taught in his smithy at Fernmount some basics to his own and other local children. That did not make him a teacher itinerant or otherwise! At Manning River he was a blacksmith and at Bellinger River became the first blacksmith and a sugar cane grower and miller before moving the family circa 1882 to Sydney where he was a hotel licensee. Another Alex Gaddes claim that a Mr. Cluff was the first teacher at Bowraville was also incorrect and contradicted by early Department of Education officer's reports and the published accounts of the history of education in the area that all state the first teacher at Bowra was George Robinson 60.
         Capeharrow school began as a private school on 15 July 1872 situated on portion 5 in the parish of Buckra Bendinni that Augustus selected on 6 May 1869. It was located west of Bowraville on the north side of the main North Arm road going up Capeharrow Hill not far past its' junction with the lower road to Buccrabendinni. Presumably the room he "lent" for the purpose was in his homestead. It is known from evidence given at a Sept 1871 coroner's inquest that the main house was located about 50 yards from North Creek - presumably close to the road about 1½ miles west from where the creek joins the main river. As stated George Robinson was the first teacher at Bowra not a Mr. Cluff as claimed by Alex Gaddes. He was also an executor of Augustus' July 1872 made will. After Geo. Robinson's appointment Augustus and his 28 year-old stepson James Chambers Jnr. (another Augustus will executor) were members of a local committee of selectors who unsuccessfully sought public school status for the school. Instead of it being granted the status sought it was on 1 Sep 1872 granted provisional school status which meant that from then the government took over from the parents the payment of George Robinson's salary and supplied the school text books but unlike a full public school the parents still had to provide the building and furniture - the latter being described in a record as being ‘furniture of the roughest material’. So in that regard then 51 year-old Augustus perhaps also made a contribution to its establishment by employing the carpentry and joinery skills he would have acquired in the boat building and repairing side of the family business in London to make the rough furniture. About the time provisional school status was granted the school had ben relocated from the room lent by Augustus to a self-contained cottage on Daniel Brouggy's selection about a half-mile closer to the township of Bowra (today Bowraville) 50. The public school classification sought by the committee of local selectors after George Robinson was appointed was not obtained until April 1875 at which time the school was relocated from the Brouggy selection into the village of Bowraville.
         A claim noted in the above mentioned Mackay family history publication, that prior to his 1856 marriage to Catherine Dornan at Macleay River Augustus owned land at Bellinger River, was not correct 9. Also incorrect is a claim noted in another book on the early history of the Bowraville district and, the families who selected there, that at the time of his marriage to Catherine Dornan at Pola Creek he was a farmer and grazier from the Bellinger River 47.
         It is hard to understand how these claims could have arisen other than the authors confused Augustus with his 1857 born son Augustus Mead who from 1898 acquired butcheries, several dairy farms, and other real estate at the Bellinger River and grazing properties on the Lower Macleay. No Raymond owned land or had a pastoral lease or licence at Bellinger River before 1889 when Augustus's youngest son Edward moved there from Bowraville. After 1836 only pastoral leases could be held beyond the limits of location. The Bellinger had no open grasslands so was not suited to the establishment of a squatting station on a lease. It was heavily forested with dense brush on both sides enclosing the river. After the discovery of the cedar resource at the river in 1842, when John Verge owner of "Austral Eden" below Kempsey sent a flock of sheep from the Macleay River to the Bellinger, presumably to provide mutton as a diet varient for sawyers sent to harvest the cedar, it was reported in the press that Verge was - "the first person who has yet squatted thereon". On 20 April 1853 the crown offered at auction a 5120 acre (8 square miles) lease there at an upset price of ten shillings which if purchased by anyone was certainly not by Augustus. In the immediate years prior to the passage of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861, that enabled selection beyond the limits of location, and the arrival there of the first land purchasers in 1863 the Bellinger River had been little more than a temporary abode for cedar cutters who came and went and by 1863 of a ship builder and cedar getter named George Tucker who with a partner had established himself building vessels on the river's lower reach. After lands were surveyed into farm size portions The Sydney Morning Herald on 20 June 1863 reported - "the country around the Bellinger River is attracting the attention of free selectors". The first purchase of crown land there was a conditional purchase by Francis Scott dated 4 June 1863.
          A family legend was that Augustus named his Capeharrow Hill farm ‘Hampton Court’ after the Royal Palace of that name situated beside the river Thames that he had admired when a boatman on that river. A 1914 article on the history of his son Samuel merely stated it was christened that in "kindly remembrance of the locality of his birthplace" which was not strictly correct as the palace is about 40 kilometres up-river from where he was born at Camberwell south of Southwark. It has been suggested it may not be too fanciful to suppose the beautiful winding three-quarter mile section of North Creek that formed the northern boundary to his property reminded him of the winding of the River Thames familiar to him from his youth in London when he plied the river apprenticed to his lighterman father Mead and would have taken him up river as far as the palace. A claim in the cited Mackay family history it was so named after the Raymond Estate in England is not correct as research has shown that no such "estate" existed 9. A 1993 published history of the Nambucca River, citing as the source a transcript of a 1870 birth registration for a William and Jane Gaddes child born on the Capeharrow Hill farm with Augustus' wife Margaret acting as the midwife, gave the spelling slightly incorrectly as ‘Hampden Court’ 53. In two cases descendants of Augustus named their own properties "Hampton Court" - one at Thora on the Bellinger River at the foot of the Dorrigo Mountain and the other in the Casino district.
          The afore mentioned Mackay family history stated the Bowraville selection was known to the aboriginals by the word caparra said to mean a corroboree or sacred ground. The word did not mean corroboree ground but at least it explains how the first school at Bowra derived its name of Capeharrow Hill - capeharrow being the phonetic equivalent of caparra. The word is more usually spelt keeparra and means the process or ceremony for the initiation of young men into manhood. Hence the Augustus selection was the place where initiation ceremonies were performed and as such was correctly categorised an aboriginal sacred place. However it is just possible the school was named Capeharrow Hill by its' first teacher George Robinson for a different reason. Immediately prior to taking up the appointment he taught at a school at Dingo Creek north-west of Wingham where a near locality is named Caparra with a creek of same name 51. A 1870s anecdote in autobiographical notes written by John "Jack" Bradley, a brother of James Bradley and William Charles Bradley who respectively married Augustus' step-daughters Mary Lavender Dornan and Catherine Dornan in 1866 and 1873, mentioned Augustus and his Capeharrow Hill property as follows:- "I was fishing at Buccrabendinni one day, when a snake bit me. My brothers Will and Jim were taking me to Wirrimbi and on the way we called at the Raymond homestead (Caparra Hill). Grandfather Raymond always had a decent brew in the cupboard and when he learned that I'd been bitten by a reptile, he produced the grog and made a mixture with the ashes and the grog and rubbed this into the punctures." 56.

Second Marriage

         The second wife of Augustus, Catherine Dornan née Laverty, arrived from Ireland with her first husband Charles Dornan and infant son Alexander in Sydney in New South Wales on 28 August 1841 as bounty immigrants on the Percy that departed Greenock on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland on 21 May 1841. Their immigration arrival records gave the age of Charles as 22, Catherine as 20, and Alexander as 11 months, religion as protestant, and birth place as Ballanahinch (sic), County Down, Ireland, a town correctly spelt Ballynahinch located in Magheradrool Parish in County Down about 15 miles south of Belfast with a population in 1841 when they left of 941. The names of Charles' parents were given as Alexander Dornan and Anne and Catherine's as Michael Laverty and Anne and, the occupation of Charles as farm servant and that of Catherine as house servant, and it was stated Charles could both read and write and Catherine could neither 37.
         Sometime between their arrival in Sydney in 1841 and 1 December 1842 when their first Australain child Ann was born they settled at Macleay River on the mid-north coast of NSW where Catherine was to live out her life. After arrival at the river Charles Dornan likely worked as a farm labourer for John Verge on his lower Macleay 2560 acre (1035 hectatre) Austral Eden grant where the family was recorded as residing in Sept. 1849 and again in July 1852 by when Charles may have held a farm clearing lease on the property. Following the 1851 gold discoveries in NSW and Victoria, when many from all walks of life left their employment to seek their fortune on the goldfields, he went prospecting and on 12 Dec 1852 died in Victoria from an unknown cause three days after his last born child Charles Jr. was born. It seems unlikely by 1852 with six young children and one on the way he would have left to join the southern gold rushes unless there was in place a secure leasehold tenure of land, such as say a three-year farm clearing lease on "Austral Eden", upon which Catherine and the children could sustain themselves during his intended absense.
         Destined in future years to become the nucleus of one of the most prosperous dairy farms at Macleay River the first Dornan owned land holding there was at Pola Creek. It was purchased by Catherine almost two years after the death of Charles for £102/8/- at an auction of crown lands held on 25 Sep 1854 at the Port Macquarie Crown Lands Office. Of 36 acres (14.5 hectares) in area and, designated portion 11 and bearing Catherine's name as the original grantee on the parish map, it was situated in the then unnamed Parish of Kempsey in the County of Macquarie fronting the creek at its entrance to the Macleay River 70. As the portion was the first land to go under the hammer that day Catherine was the first purchaser of a small farm at Pola Creek. Prior to then no small farms had been sold by the crown on the southern side of the Macleay River. Today the portion is located 4¼ kilometers down the river from the Kempsey traffic bridge and 1½ kilometres up river from where the 2013 commissioned 3.2 kilometer in length Pacific Highway Kempsey by-pass bridge crosses the Macleay River just north of the small town of Frederickton.
         By purchasing the 36 acres at the auction Catherine not only became the first purchaser from the crown of a small farm on the south side (East Kempsey side) of the Macleay River but also the first woman to purchase a small farm (then termed a country lot) from the crown anywhere at the river and the fourth of a small farm sold by the crown after it first began to sell small farms at Macleay River in 1850. The only small farm purchasers at Macleay River preceeding her were William Smith after whom the main street of Kempsey was named, and John Verge in 1850, and W. H. Kemp in 1852 of portions ranging in size from 109 acres to 266 acres in the parish of Yarravel on the north side of the river. At the time of her purchase a government town had not yet been proclaimed at Macleay River and no town lots had been sold there by the crown. Assuming Ann Chapman's pre-emptive purchase of 1320 acres, adjoining her husband's 170 acre 1857 private township subdivision he named Frederickton, was not made until near the expiry of the 14-year lease, and unless one or more women (unlikely) had purchased a lot in the Enock Rudder private township subdivision that became East Kempsey after the first lots in it were offered for sale in 1836, then Catherine's 1854 Pola Creek purchase would have made her the first woman to purchase either crown land or land previously alienated from the crown anywhere at Macleay River.
         The record of the June 1856 second marriage of Augustus to Catherine Dornan states it took place at her Pola Creek (then aka Poley or Poly) farm and was performed by Edward Holland the minister of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church at Port Macquarie. The witnesses were William Sanders and Mary Ann Sanders née Skivings who after marrying at Exeter in England in 1848 arrived in Victoria in 1849. From about 1864 to his 1910 death he farmed at Kinchella 76.

The Children & Catherine's Death

         Catherine and Charles Dornan had seven children born between 1840 and 1852 who all married. Their detailed history and descendants are given on a linked web page titled Descendants of Charles Dornan where significant errors in past publications re their history are also corrected.
        From Catherine's marriage to Augustus there were four children who also all married. In all she had seventy-one known grandchildren of whom only two were born before she died. As she was a pioneer Macleay River settler, when she died on Easter Sunday 1 April 1866 aged only 45 years leaving eleven children the then only Kempsey newspaper The Macleay Herald would have reported on her passing. However whilst it began publication two years before her death no issue earlier than 1878 is known to have survived. At Taree over one hundred kilometres to the south the then weekly published The Manning River News of 7 Apr 1866, pleading a lack of room as the reason it had been obliged that week to condense the report of its Kempsey correspondent, carried only the briefest mention of her passing as follows - ‘‘I must mention that Mrs Raymond died suddenly a few days since, probably from heart disease. She was apparently quite well a few minutes before’’.
         Catherine is buried in Frederickton Cemetery with the imposing headstone pictured at the top of this article. Beside her are buried her first Australian first born child Ann Ball who departed in 1921 and a grand-daughter Fleada Bradley who burned to death in her pyjamas in 1897 at twelve years of age 55.

Third Marriage


Margaret Raymond formerly Chambers seated with
L to R sisters Jane Gaddes and Elizabeth Bradley 38

        Catherine's death on Easter Sunday 1866 left Augustus to care for their four young children aged from two to eight years. The following year on 19 Decemeber he married at Pola Creek 47 year old widow Margaret Chambers née Mackay who was born in Aberdeen in Scotland in 1820 and arrived in Australia in Feb. 1839 with her parents and six siblings on the James Moran 54. The marriage registration record had her usual place of residence as Murrumburrah located about 50 kilometers south east of Young. She was the third child of Angus Mackay who in all had sixteen children from his two marriages. When Angus died at Bowraville in 1894 leaving 276 living descendants it was said he was only four months shy of his hundredth birthday. At his request his coffin was made by Augustus' youngest son Edward who had moved from Bowraville to Bellingen some four to five years earlier 46. As several records dated between between Catherine's 1866 death and the 1869 move by Augustus to his Bowraville selection have his address as Pola Creek it appears after the marriage to Margaret he did not relocate to the Summer Island farm but remained at Pola Creek. In 1867 when the Government Gazette carried a notification of the registration of his horse brand (a sideways R with an inverted A on top) it gave his address as Pola Creek. There were no issue from the marriage.
          Margaret Chambers firstly married James Chambers in 1841 at Paterson near Dungog in NSW. He was then a member of the NSW military mounted police. He was born in 1811 at Macclesfield in Cheshire, England and arrived in Sydney in Nov. 1832 on the Parmelia as a private with the 4th Regiment of Foot. In Nov. 1834 he was seconded firstly to the military Foot Police and then in Sep. 1835 to the military Mounted Police in which he served as a trooper in the Hunter District at Dungog & Muswellbrook, Wagga Wagga, and Temora. He was discharged from the mounted police in Nov 1849 and re-joined the British army in the 11th Regiment from which he was discharged in Sept. 1850. Two months prior to his formal discharge date he was appointed in the civilian police as the Chief Constable at Wagga Wagga and served as such until he resigned in Sep. 1851 to join the gold rushes that followed the discovery in April that year by Hargraves at the Ophir north-west of Bathurst of the first payable gold found in Australia. From Sep. 1851 to about 1862 he was a prospector and miner in NSW and Victoria and in 1863 was recorded as a storekeeper at Wombat near Young where he died in 1864. It is presumed the store was located at the Wombat gold diggings.
          Of absolutely no validity are claims made in Chambers family papers lodged in the Mitchell Library in Sydney by a grandaughter that her grandfather James Chambers was an army Captain etc. during the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie in fact left Australia in Dec 1821 when James was aged ten and and eleven years before he even arrived in the colony as an army private - a rank he never exceeded. Similarly incorrect is a claim in the same papers he was the discoverer of gold at Chambers Creek near Hill End in NSW that it was claimed was named after him in the early 1870's when a major gold rush developed there and a short-lived village named Chambers sprang-up located north of Bathurst and 11 kilometres south of Hill End. Unsighted Chambers family photos and documents deposited in 1953 in the Mitchell Library in Sydney by a James and Margaret granddaughter Ida Ringland are understood to be the source of the above fanciful claims that he was an army captain etc. etc. In fact when he joined the British army in England in 1831 his occupation was labourer 9.
         It has been written James and Margaret had twelve children of whom one was named Euphonia 49. However a 1991 book published by the Mackay Family Association titled The Mackay-McKay Family History, of approx. 600 pages with over 500 photographs, listed only eleven correctly omitting Euphonia who was in fact the daughter of another James Chambers. The James Chambers line has not been exhaustively researched by the compiler. A Chambers family history and genealogy is given at the linked web page. A more detailed genealogy with photos can be found in the above referred to 1991 McKay family publication and, to a lesser extent in a 1988 Nancy Mackay Edge authored and published book titled Our Highland Heritage (Angus McKay of Sutherland) that was published to coincide with a Mackay/McKay family reunion held at Bowraville over the weekend of 1st and 2nd Oct 1988 to mark the sesquicentennial of the Oct. 1838 departure of the Mackay family from Scotland for Australia on the James Moran where they arrived in Feb. 1839. That reunion was attended by an estimated 2500 descendants from the USA, Scotland, Europe, New Zealand, New Guinea, Asia and every State of Australia. In recognition of the event and, the family's role in the pioneering days of the district, Nambucca Shire Council named the park near the Bellingen Road approach to Bowraville "Mackay Park" and a plaque set upon a boulder was unveiled. In early Oct. 1991 about 400 attended the launch there of the 600 page book of which two copies are held by the Bowraville Folk Museum.

Augustus & Margaret Deaths

          Augustus died at age 55 from complications arising from injury. His death registration gave the cause as an injury to the spine, paralysis, and bronchitis. Prior to his death he spent 20 days in hospital at the Sydney Infirmary in Macquarie Street. There was a Coroner's Order stating the date of death was also that when last seen by a medical attendant. There was no subsequent inquest 45.
         It has been said after leaving Bowraville in 1872 that in Sydney he drove a hackney cab and had an accident from which he never fully regained his health 52. If he ever personally drove the hackney cab of which he was proprietor it seems to this compiler he may have had an accident as early as 1874 resulting in a degree of physical incapacity, so could have ceased personally driving it, and the occupation of carpenter given in the 1876 Sydney Sands Directory may have been a reversion in essentially name only to the occupation given at the time he married Catherine Dornan in 1856. A listing in the trades section of the Sands Directory for 1877 as a grocer at 20 Bank Street in Pyrmont suggests by 1876 his primary occupation had become grocer. His newspaper funeral notice also gave his residence as 20 Bank Street, Pyrmont. The July 1877 probate file is available at NSW State Records but has not been personally sighted by the compiler so it is not known if there are any details given of real estate holdings at the time of death. On the parish maps the name of son Samuel appeared later on the portion near Bowraville named "Hampton Court" that Augustus selected in 1869 indicating he still owned the farm when he died 45.
          His third wife Margaret outlived Augustus by ten years. She likely sold the hackney cab and sold or closed down the Athlone Place grocery business in 1881 as she was not listed in the Sydney Sands for 1882 which was the approximate year the 1914 published article on stepson Samuel Raymond said he moved to Bowraville after ceasing to run his late father's grocery business in Sydney. No grocers were listed in the Sydney Sands at Athlone Place in Ultimo in 1883. A January 1882 letter written from Sydney, when Margaret's brother Robert Mackay was visiting and his first wife was a patient in the Sydney Infirmary, gave Margaret's address as O'Dorny (sic) House, Mount Vernon St., Forest Lodge. The Sands for 1883 listed Margaret at Mount Vernon St. in Glebe. She was last listed in the Sands residing anywhere in Sydney in Sands directory for 1884 when the Mount Vernon St. in Glebe house name was listed as "O'Dorney house". As Margaret died in Kempsey in Feb. 1887 aged 66 years she likely left Sydney to reside with son James about 1884 48. Below is a photograph of the Forrest Lodge/Glebe house named "O'Dorney House" with Margaret standing outside the front fence.


Margaret outside her Mount Vernon Street
house - photo held Bowraville Museum 38

          At least two of Margaret's children pre-deceased her - sons Angus and William within two years of the 1869 move from Kempsey to Bowraville and perhaps one or two of the daughters. When she died in West Kempsey in Feb. 1887 the cause was given as heart disease and she was buried in the West Kempsey Cemetery. The published headstone transcriptions for it and the other Kempsey district cemeteries do not identify a surviving headstone. The informant for her death registration was 1844 born eldest son James Jnr. For the licensing year 1885-86 James was the publican of the Bowra Hotel in Bowraville and was likely the James Chambers who for one or more years between 1887 and 1889 was the publican of the East Kempsey Hotel and a Kempsey butcher in early 1890 when he was declared bankrupt. His youngest daughter Ida (the Mitchell Library Chambers family papers depositor) was born at West Kempsey the same year Margaret died 9. This suggests Margaret was either living with son James in Kempsey or visiting him when she died.
          In his will, made at Bowra on 29 July 1872 and probated on 3 July 1877, Augustus bequeathed Margaret a life interest in his estate and provided after her death it was to be equally divided between his SIX children 62. A family mystery likely never to be solved unless someone researching their family history on the net takes an interest in the identity of Raymond surname witnesses found listed on an official marriage record and makes contact, or one day a searchable index of the witnesses to marriages is created, is the identity of the two named Margaret and Hellen described in the will as "my children". In their case the stand out difference from the other four children is the absence of one or more additional given names. No birth, marriage, or death for either is recorded in the NSW BDM Indexes under the Raymond surname and, Augustus's official death registration for which his eldest son was the informant, named only his and Catherine's four children as his surviving issue. It is thus assumed Margaret and Hellen must have been children for whom Augustus had been made their ward who retained their unknown original family name. In isolated communities such as Bowra circumstances such as the accidental death or disappearance of parents etc. and the absence of any available relative led to children being made wards of a respectable local and thereafter raised by him and in all respects treated as his own except for their birth surname. It is also possible the two were not sisters so had different surnames. They may have been children of parents who died, or of a mother who died and an absent father or of one unable to care for them 63.

Descendants

Children of Augustus Raymond and Catherine Dornan née Laverty were:
1.    i.    Augustus Mead Raymond
2.   ii.    Sarah Fidelia Raymond
3.   iii.   Samuel John Raymond
4.   iv.   Edward James Robert Walter Raymond
1.   Augustus Mead Raymond, born Feb. 1857 12 at Pola Creek, Macleay River, NSW, Australia; d. 7 Mar 1942, Bellingen, NSW. He married 22 Apr 1896 5 at Bowraville, NSW, Margaret Ann Grace, b. 12 Jan 1870 at Kallateenee, Macleay River; d. 23 Jan 1954 Bellingen, daughter of Walter Grace (ca. 1840-1898) and Catherine Simon (1847-1933). A. M. & M. A. Raymond newspaper obituaries.

     
Augustus Mead & Margaret Ann


Children Sitting L to R: Lilian, Gladys, Catherine
Rear Walter, Front Harry - circa 1917
Children of Augustus Mead Raymond and Margaret Ann Grace were:
    5.   i.    Gladys Augusta Raymond
    6.  ii.    Augustus Walter Charles Raymond
    7.  iii.   Catherine Jane Raymond
    8.  iv.   Lilian Raymond
    9.  v.    Harry Mead Raymond
2.    Sarah Fidelia Raymond b. 19 Jul 1858 11, 13  reg. Macleay River, NSW, Australia; d. 10 Jan 1936 14 reg. Bowraville, NSW, buried Bowraville cemetery. She married in 1886 15 reg. Bowraville, Robert Mackay b. ca. Mar. 1842, Dungog, NSW ; d. 15 Aug 1925 16 reg. Bowraville, son of Angus "Waterloo" Mackay and his second wife Christina.
   Her given names of Sarah Fidelia suggest she was named after her father's first wife Sarah Sumerfield with Fidelia (the Latin word for faithful) to indicate she was so named in her memory. Her husband Robert Mackay was a widower who previously had married in 1870 at Bowraville, Mary Jane Grace, a daughter of James Banister Grace (1812-1913) and Ann "Mary Ann" Alexander (ca. 1822-1906) who was born in Wiltshire in England in 1851 and died in child birth in Kempsey in 1882.


Robert & Sarah Fidelia Mackay  58


Homestead at Missabotti  58


Bowraville cemetery 8
Children of Sarah Fidelia Raymond and Robert Mackay were:
    10.   i.    Irene Robina Mackay
    11.   ii.   Elva Augusta Mackay
    12.   iii.  Robert Raymond Mackay

3.   Samuel John Raymond, b. 22 Sep 1861 11, 17 reg. Macleay River; d. 25 Nov 1942, buried Bowraville Cemetery. He married 1893   reg. Macksville, NSW, Australia, Mary Ann Alexandria Mackay, b. 1874 27 reg. Macleay River; d. 10 Sep 1960, daughter of Robert Mackay (1842-1925) and Mary Jane Grace (1851-1882).
      Samuel's history was extensively detailed in an article by itinerant journalist (and serial cheque bouncer) Edwin Howell published in The Raleigh Sun newspaper in 1914 and repeated in an abbreviated form in his 1942 obituary. By virtue of his marriage to Samuel's sister Sarah Fidelia, Samuel's father-in-law Robert Mackay was also his brother-in-law and, as his father Augustus married Robert Mackay's half-sister Margaret Chambers née Mackay, Robert Mackay was also his step-uncle. Adding to Samuel's family inter-relationships was that his elder brother Augustus Mead married Margaret Ann Grace who was a niece of Samuel's mother-in-law Mary Jane Grace !

Bowraville cemetery headstone & Mary Ann Alexandria.

Children of Samuel John Raymond and Mary Ann Alexandria Mackay were:
    13.   i.    Augustus Wallace Raymond
    14.  ii.    Robert Rex Bruce Raymond
    15.  iii.   Samuel Douglas Raymond
    16.  iv.   Eric Harold Hilton Raymond
    17. 
v.    Edward Dudley Speery Raymond
    18. 
vi.   Angus Colin Raymond
4.   Edward James Robert Walter Raymond, born 1863 18; d. 16 Jun 1932; m. 15 Jan 1890 Helen Maria Caroline "Carrie" Hilder, born 16 Nov 1865; died 11 Jun 1949. E. J. R. W. Raymond newspaper obituary.

     
Edward & Carrie Raymond                         Bellingen Cemetery

Children of Edward J. R. W. Raymond and Helen M.C. Hilder were:
    19.   i.   Edward Harold Hilder Raymond
    20.  ii.   Sarah Augustus Ellie Josephine Raymond
    21.  iii.  Gertrude Ada Faulkenbridge Raymond
    22.  iv.  Joseph Frank Leighton Raymond
    23.  v.   Eva Hariett Hilder Raymond
THIRD GENERATION

5.   Gladys Augusta Raymond, b. 25 Mar 1897, Bowraville, NSW, Australia; d. 12 Jul 1978, Bellingen, NSW, aged 81 years, buried Bellingen cemetery.


Bellingen cemetery

6.   Augustus Walter Charles Raymond b. 6 Nov 1899 28, Bellingen, NSW; d. 25 Nov 1982 Bellingen, aged 83 years; buried Bellingen Lawn Cemetery; m. 1936 Smithtown, NSW, Alice May Saul "Dolly", b. 1905, Kempsey, NSW; d. 24 May 1999, daughter of John E. Saul and Alice J. Rowe.


Bellingen cemetery

Children of Augustus Walter Charles Raymond and Alice May Saul were:
    24.   i.    Elizabeth Raymond
    25.   ii.   Augustus John Raymond
7.   Catherine Jane Raymond, b. 13 Oct 1902, Bellingen, NSW; d. 23 Jan 1994, Bellingen, NSW, aged 91 years; buried Bellingen Cemetery.


Bellingen cemetery


8.   Lilian Raymond, b. 16 Jul 1905, Bellingen, NSW; d. 18 Jan 1989, Bellingen, NSW, aged 83 years; buried 20 Jan 1989 Bellingen Cemetery. Apart from a year spent at Redland's Anglican C of E Grammar School in Sydney she spent her whole life in the Bellinger Valley, dying in the same room in which she had been born.


Bellingen cemetery

9.   Harry Mead Raymond, b. 23 Mar 1908, Bellingen, NSW, Australia; d. 12 May 1966 Kempsey, NSW, buried East Kempsey Cemetery; m. 18 Feb 1939, St. Margaret's C of E Church, Bellingen, Lily Daphne Gordon b. 18 Jan 1911 at Bellingen, NSW; d. 20 Sep 1999 Bellingen, buried East Kempsey Cem., daughter of Wilfred Ernest Augustus Gordon (son of Meldrum Henry Gordon - first white settler at the Upper Bellinger River Valley Gordonville locality) and Ada Harvie (dau. of Walter Harvie - first white settler at Coffs Harbour). H. M. Raymond newspaper obituary.


headstone - East Kempsey cem.
Children of Harry Mead Raymond and Lily Daphne Gordon were:
    26.   i.    John Gordon Raymond
    27.   ii.   Judith Margaret Raymond
10.  Irene Robina Mackay b. 1886 19 reg. Nambucca River. She married (1) in 1911 20 Charles E. Parrington reg. Sydney, NSW. She married (2)   Sydney Barr.
Children of Irene Robina Mackay and Sydney Barr were:
    28.  i.     Gladys Mary Barr
    29.  ii.    Betty Barr
    30.  iii.   Robert Barr
 11.   Elva Augusta Mackay b. 1888 21 reg. Bowraville; d. 26 Jun 1965 22 reg. Macksville, NSW, buried Presbyterian Section of Bowraville Cemetery. She married 1913 23 Wilmot Henry Fuller reg. Bowraville., NSW; b. ca. 1891; d. 3 Mar 1978.


Bowraville cemetery 8
Children of  Elva Augusta Mackay and Wilmot Henry Fuller were:
    31.   i      Marjorie E. Fuller
    32.  ii.     Lionel Charles Fuller
    33.  iii.    Travers Fuller
    34.  iv.    Dudley Keith Fuller
    35.  v.     Errald Clyde Fuller
    36.  vi.    John Travis Raymond Fuller
12.   Robert Raymond Mackay, b. 1889 24 reg. Bowraville, NSW; d. 20 Oct 1965 25, 36 reg. Burwood, NSW, buried Presbyterian Section of Bowraville Cemetery. He married 1926 26 reg. Bowraville, Esther Pearl Owens.

Children of Robert Raymond Mackay were:
    37.  i.     Robert Darcy Mackay
    38.  ii.    Kenneth John Mackay

13.   Augustus Wallace Raymond b. 1894 (#1894-19412) reg. Macksville, NSW, Australia; d. 1960 reg. Hornsby, NSW. He married 1918 reg. at Kempsey, NSW, Clytie Hope Saul, b. 1893, d. 1980 (#104037), daughter of William John Saul and Hilda W.

14.   Robert Rex B. Raymond, b. 1896 (#1896-2016) reg. Bowraville, NSW, Australia; d. 5 Nov 1957. He married in 1919 reg. Macksville, Annie Lillian Hammond, b. 1895 Taree, NSW; d. 1954 Manly, NSW, daughter of Charles Hammond and Sarah Jane.


Bowraville cemetery 8

15.   Samuel Douglas Raymond, b. 1900 (#1900-10770) reg. Bowraville, NSW, Australia; d. 6 Jul 1972 Manly, NSW.


Bowraville cemetery 8

16.   Eric Harold Hilton Raymond, b. 1903 (#1903-10541) reg. Bowraville, NSW, Australia; d. 16 Oct 1967, Grafton, NSW. He married in 1928 at Bowraville, Ivy Grace,  daughter of Albert Ernest Grace and Louisa Jane Churchill.


Bowraville cemetery 8

17.   Edward Dudley Speery Raymond, b. 1908 (#1908-22602) reg. Bowraville, NSW, Australia; d. 1974 Bowraville, NSW. He married in 1937 at Bowraville, Nita Evelyn Saville.
Children of Edward Dudley Sperry Raymond & Nita Evelyn Saville were:
    39.   i      John Anthony Raymond
    40.  ii.     Barry Raymond
    41.  iii.    Caroline Carmen Raymond
18.   Angus Colin Raymond, b. 1913 (#1913-38210) reg. Bowraville, NSW, Australia. He married, Mildred May Beeton.

19.   Edward Harold Hilder Raymond, "Harold"  b: 16 Feb 1891 in Bellingen, NSW, Australia; d. 10 Oct 1969 Bellingen, NSW; m. 1921 in Bellingen, NSW, Jean Stuart McDougall, b. 1900 in Bellingen, NSW; d. 5 Dec 1999, aged 99 years, dau. of Robert S. McDougall and Clara M. Baker. Their children were - Robert and Phyllis.


Bellingen cemetery

Children of Edward Harold Hilder Raymond and Jean Stuart McDougall were:
    42.  i.    Robert Raymond
    43.  ii.   Phyllis Raymond
20.   Sarah Augustus Ellie Josephine Raymond b. 1893 in Bellingen, NSW, Australia; d. 11 Jul 1979 in Bellingen, NSW; m. 1919 in Bellingen, NSW, Albert Balcomb, b. 30 Jun 1891 in Lydd, England; d. 25 Mar 1981 Bellingen, NSW - both buried Bellingen cemetery. Their children were - Raymond, Richard Raymond & John Raymond.


Children of Sarah Augustus E. J. Raymond and Albert Balcomb were:
    44.   i.     Raymond Balcomb
   
45.   ii.    Richard Raymond Balcomb
   
46.   iii.   John Raymond Balcomb
21.   Gertrude Ada Faulkenbridge Raymond, b. 1896 in Bellingen, NSW, Australia; d. 1 Dec 1980 34 at Mosman, NSW, Australia ; m. 1922 in Bellingen, NSW, James Alfred Bowring, b. 1896 in Nowra, New South Wales, Australia; d. 15 Mar 1977 34 at Mosman, NSW, son of James A. Bowring and Mary Green.
Children of Gertrude Ada F. Raymond and James Alfred Bowring were:
    47.         Betty Mary Raymond Bowring

22.   Joseph Frank Leighton Raymond b. 26 Feb 1898 in Bellingen, New South Wales, Australia; d. 2 Jun 1968; m. 1919 in Macksville, NSW,  Sylvia E. Willis, b. ca. 1895; d. 28 Jul 1984.


Bellingen cemetery
Children of Joseph Frank : Raymond and Sylvia E. Willis were:
    48.  i.    Joyce Raymond
    49.  ii.   Frank Raymond   
23.   Eva Harriett Hilder Raymond b. 1900 in Bellingen, NSW, Australia; d. 17 Mar 1990 35 in NSW, Australia. She married in 1925 in Bellingen, NSW, John Henry Rudolph Lindman d. 1961 Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia. (note in 2008 the NSW BDM indexes had her birth registration had Eva H. A. and the marriage registration had Eva M. M.).
Children of Eva Harriett Hilder Raymond and John Henry Rudoph Lindman were:
    50.  i.    Helen Raymond Lindman
SOURCES:
1   The Augustus Raymond christening date and the name of the church are as per the International Genealogical Index (IGI). Regarding the christening date it has been assumed the IGI date of 4 Jan 1822 is correct and, that arising from a miscalculation by his father when providing the data to the Company of Watermen and Lightermen at the time of the 14 Oct 1836 binding of Augustus to him as master, the dates given in the company's apprenticeship binding records of 27 Sep 1820 for his birth and 4 Jan 1821 for the christening are erroneous in so far as both are one year too early. Supporting that the birth year was 1821 is the age of 19 years given in the 1841 census of England taken on 6 Jun 1841 indicating a birth date between 7 Jun 1821 and 6 June 1822 and the age of 55 years at death given in both his 18 Jan 1877 NSW death registration and the newspaper death notice indicating a birth date between 19 Jan 1821 and 18 Jan 1922.
2  As recounted to the compiler in the 1960s by Gladys Raymond, who was the 1897 born eldest daughter of Augustus' eldest son Augustus Mead, her understanding was his first wife had died on the voyage out from England. However advice received from John Matthews in March 2013 of official South Australian BDM records and newspaper arrival mentions etc. (see #64 below) established such was not the case.
3  NSW BDM Indexes #1856-1525 - a transcript of the registration record has the groom's status as widower, his occupation Carpenter and Joiner, that Catherine Dornan had 7 living children from her former marriage and, whilst the ceremony was performed in accord with the rites of the Presbyterian Church both parties were of C of E denomination. Place of the marriage was given as Poley Creek (first noted spelt as "Pola Creek" in the Government Gazette notifcation dated 24 May 1856 of the sale of the 5 lots of which the largest was purchased in Alexander Dornan's name. Noted spelt as "Poley" in private documents well into the 1880's), groom's birth place given as Camberwell, near London, England, father Mead Raymond, occupation corn factor, and mother Ann Chapman. Witnesses were William and Mary Ann Sanders.
4  Glenn C. Bradley, When the River was the Road, 1994 - "When Augustus Raymond was left a widower with four young children he married Margaret Chambers née McKay in 1867 ... William Bradley (senior) was a witness to this marriage which took place at Pola Creek on the Macleay, the home of the Dornans'. William Bradley was born in the Colony in 1814 and married Margaret McKay's younger sister Elizabeth b. 1823 in Aberdeen, Scotland."
      at p. 118 he has the marriage date as 9 Dec 1867 instead of 19 Dec 1867 as per the registration record. NSW Marriage Index #1867-2289.
      In respect of the identity of the witnesses the compliler knows of no reason why William Bradley would have been William Sr (1815-1892) instead of 13 June 1848 born William Jr. other than in Dec 1867 Jr. would have been 19 so under 21. William Sr was a tailor by trade, the son of former convict and Parramatta schoolteacher James Bradley (1782-1857) who arrived in the colony on 11 June 1813 under a sentance of transportation for 14 years after being convicted for forgery who obtained a ticket of leave in 1820 after serving 7 years. The other witness Jane Bradley would have been William Jr's sister Jane who married in John Mitchell in 1872 and died at Scone in 1912 whose birth is not NSW Birth indexed.
5  Ibid #1896-2791
6  NSW Death Index #1877-112 - the index gave his age at death such being used by the registry as an identifier where the informant did not provide either parent names. The age given of 55 indicates a birth before 19 Jan 1822 consistent with his 4 Jan 1822 Christ Church, Southwark, London christening. A partial transcript of the registration details, excluding the place of last marriage, name of his spouse as such were already known and their children names as there were none, gave the date of death as 18 Jan 1877, place as the Sydney Infirmary, occupation as a carpenter, age as 55, birthplace as London, time in the colony as 30 years. Informant was son Augustus Raymond of 29 Bank Street, cause of death - injury to the spine, paralysis, bronchitis, and 20 days the period in hospital, date last seen by a medical attendant was 18 Jan 1877 and it was stated that there was a Coroner's Order which was usual in cases where a death occurred resulting from an accident suggesting the causing condition was not of long standing.
    Sydney Morning Herald, 19 Jan 1877, DEATHS - Raymond - January 18, Augustus Raymond, late of Macleay River, in the 55th year of his age. THE FRIENDS of MR. AUGUSTUS RAYMOND are invited to attend his funeral; to move from his late residence, No. 20, Banks-street, Chippendale, on Saturday Afternoon, at 2 o'clock for the Necropolis. J. and G. Shying and Co., Undertakers, 717 George-street South, 120 Oxford -street.
     NOTE - on 6 Oct 1871 The Sydney Morning Herald incorrectly reported a child named Augustus Raymond was killed at Nambucca River by the fall of a tree on the 7th October. It was a garbling of a previous report in the paper on 21 Sep 1971 that reported on the evidence given at an inquest held in Augustus' house into the 7 Sep 1971 death of his 7 year-old stepson William Chambers who was killed when crushed by 30ft long X 1ft diameter tree that he and same age half-brother Edward Raymond felled on the Capeharrow Hill farm during their parents absence at a funeral.
7  NSW BDM Indexes #1893-4518
8  Augustus Raymond Rookwood cemetery headstone image provided courtesy of Peter Matthews and Bowraville cemetery headstone images courtesy of Dennis Cox. The inscription on the Catherine Raymond Frederickton cemetery headstone reads - "Sacred to the Memory of Catherine. The beloved wife of Augustus Raymond who went to her rest on the morning of Easter Sunday 1866. Leaving a husband and many children to deplore their loss. A little while and ye shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me because I go to the Father.   John XVI 16"
      Catherine died intestate. The NSW Government Gazette for 1867, p. 2933, carried a Supreme Court notification that 14 days after 31 Oct 1867 an application would be made to grant letters for administration of Catherine's estate to eldest son Alexander. For location of the admin. packet see - NSW State Records web site - "Index to Early Probate Records" where the reference for the holding is - "probate 1867, Macleay River, Series NRS 13502 item 6/4195".
9 Nancy Mackay Edge, Our Highland Heritage (Angus McKay of Sutherland), n. p. 1988, pp. 113, 127 quoting from an article by Alex Gaddes. At p. 128 is an also strange claim that Bowraville's first Court House was on the Raymond Caparra Hill selection - obviously incorrect as it would not have been on private land a mile and half west of the town but situated with a police station on government land in the 1870 proclaimed township. It would seem the author confused Grassy Hill with Caparra Hill.
10  In 2008 the microfiche copies of the St. Catherine's House Marriage Index listed the marriage as - March Qtr. 1849, vol. 4, p. 38 under the groom's name of Augustus RAYMON (sic) and double indexed it under the bride names of Sarah TERRY Sumerfield and Sarah TERREY Sumerfield. The registration details, extracted from the linked to copy of the official registration record provided courtesy of Carmel Stuart née Laverty of NSW, are as follows:-
      Augustus Raymond, bachelor, engineer, of Park Road,  married (after banns) Sarah Terrey Sumerfield, spinster, of York Grove, in the Parish Church of Saint Giles Camberwell, County of Surrey, on 1st Feb. 1849. Both parties signed the register in the presence of Mead Terrey Raymond, Elizabeth Raymond, Margaret Terrey Sumerfield and Ann Dorothy Gould. The ages of the parties were just given as “full age”.  Augustus' fathers name was given as Mead Raymond, lighterman and Sarah’s as Thomas Benjamin Sumerfield, coal merchant. Celebrant was curate Robert A Currey.
11 Date advised per email from by Dennis Cox dated 21 Jul 2007
12 NSW BDM Indexes #1857-7760
13 Ibid  #1858-9227
14 Ibid  #1936-5617
15 Ibid  #1886-5863
16 Ibid  #1925-15642
17 Ibid  #1861-8773
18 Ibid  #1864-9825
19 Ibid  #1886-25569
20 Ibid  #1911-611
21 Ibid  #1888-26785
22 Ibid  #1965-32254
23 Ibid  #1913-11866
24 Ibid  #1889-25590
25 Ibid  #1965-36663 & Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Oct 1965 - Deaths, Mackay, Robert Raymond - October 20, 1965, at private hospital, Marrickville, of 32 Hanks Street, Ashfield, widower of Esther Pearl, dearly loved father and father-in-law of Robert & Patricia, Kenneth & Shirley, fond grandfather of Jennifer, Tony, Katherine & Paul, aged 74 years, internment Friday at Bowraville.
26 Ibid  #1926-18085
27 Ibid  #1874-13014
28 Ibid  #1899-28644
29 Post Office London Directory 1846, June Edition  (W. Kelly & Co 1846 - 1994 facsimile edition) - the earliest London directory consulted by the compiler.
30 Sep. 2007 and 1 Oct 2007 emails from Neil Rhind MBE FSA - a social and architectural historian - advising the census taken on 6 & 7 June 1841 listed at Paradise Street, Rotherhithe - Mead 55 lighterman, Augustus 19 lighterman's apprentice, Elizabeth 21, Ann Dorothy Gould 28, and two female servants and several London directory listings of the businesses of the brothers John and Mead Raymond.
31 Burial Register of St. Saviour's Church, Southwark - transcription by John Hanson and Monnica Stevens
33 The Company of Watermen & Lightermen Bindings Index 1692-1949  (CD-ROM version).
34 The Sydney Morning Herald - Death Notices - James Albert Bowring & Gertrude Ada Bowring issues of 19 Mar 1977 p. 120 & 2 Dec 1980 p.19. The latter read - BOWRING, Gertrude Ada December 1, 1980, late of Mosman, dearly loved wife of the late James Alfred Bowring, loving mother of Betty, devoted grandmother of Graeme, loving mother-in-law of Kenneth. The 3 Dec. funeral service was at Northern Suburbs Crematorium.
35 Ibid - Eva Harriett Hilder Lindman, aged 89, late of Port Macquarie issue of 19 Mar 1990.
36 Advised July 2008 by Camel Stuart of NSW
37 Assisted (Bounty) Immigration, AONSW reel #1336 - the family arrived with 280 other immigrants in Sydney from Greenock, Scotland on 28 Aug 1841 on the Percy. The immigration and ship records gave the birth place of Charles Dornan and Catherine as Ballanahinch, Co. Down, their respective ages as 21 and 20 & son Alexander 11 months, and parents of Charles were given as Alexander & Anne Dornan and Catherine's as Michael & Anne Lougherty (the surname spelling is a phonetic variant of Laverty - both Dornan and Laverty being Irish names respectively anglicised from O Dornain and O Laith Bheartaigh with the former name found mostly in Co. Down and adjoining Co. Antrim). The person certifying as to registry of baptism for Charles was Rev. Charles Boyd vicar of the Ballynahinch C of I, and for Catherine Rev. William Mortimer curate of Magherahamlet C of I church where the rector was Rev. H. E. Boyd who was also rector of Dromara C of I and brother of Rev. Charles Boyd (the reason a C of I vicar and not an R. C. priest certified as to the register of baptism as it was stated in the immigrant's application is not known and can only be speculated upon. It has been suggested that Catherine was perhaps her mother's eldest child and her mother Ann Boyd was either the widow of a protestant Boyd or Catherine was born out of wedlock and baptised as a protestant before her mother married Michael Laverty). The Ballynahinch birth place of both Charles and Catherine could mean they were either born in that town or it was the largest town to where they were born. The above arrival record and details researched and advised by Carmel Stuart. Note: - the "Digger" CD-ROM titled Bounty Emigration to NSW 1828 to 1842 has the Dornan family surname incorrectly indexed as Doran.
38 This photo of Margaret Raymond formerly Chambers née Mackay and two sisters and a young boy appears at page 120 in a 1991 published by the Mackay Family Association book titled - The Mackay-McKay Family History. It is held by the Bowraville Museum and National Library of Australia but not by the NSW State Library. At page 164 it also has the lower down the page photo taken in the 1880s of Margaret standing in front of her house in Mount Vernon Street in Forest Lodge in Glebe.
     In the photo of the three sisters the compiler favours Margaret Chambers née Mackay as the one seated at front as she bears a close resemblence to Margaret in the later photo taken in front of her house in Glebe. It is possible the photo was taken at the time of the Dec 1867 marriage of Margaret to Augustus Raymond at Pola Creek at Macleay River, as sister Elizabeth Bradley was at the Macleay (her husband to be William Charles or his father William was a witness at the marriage), and Margaret's half-sister Jane Gaddes could easily have attended from the 866 acre part of the once Major Innes owned "Cogo" property at Upper Rollands Plains where six of her children were born before the family moved to Bowraville ca. 1870 where the rest were born of which the first was on the Augustus' property with Margaret acting as midwife. By 1867 the once suitable only for travel on horseback mailman's track from Rollands Plains to the Macleay was replaced by a dray trafficable road over the Marlo Merrican range. If taken at that time likely the boy (appears to be 3-4 years old) was Margaret's 25 Sep 1863 born son William who did not live beyond his 7th year. However it could have been taken on a family occassion at any time between the 1867 marriage and late 1872 or early 1873 when Margaret left the mid-north coast to reside in Sydney or after about 1884 to 1885 when it is indicated Margaret returned to the Macleay where she died in Kempsey in 1887. Elizabeth's died in 1890 and the much younger half-sister Jane at Bowraville in 1931.
     Based on the 1880s photo of Margaret standing in front of her house in Mount Vernon Street in Glebe she would be the one seated center with the young boy beside her. The caption on the photo in the 1991 published The Mackay-McKay Family History identified Margaret as seated in the center with her 20 years younger half-sister Jane Gaddes née Mackay standing on the left and sister Elizabeth Bradley née Mackay on the right. If it was taken at the time of the 1867 marriage to Augustus Raymond naturally Margaret would have been seated in the center. However a card to which a copy of the photo is attached held by the Bowraville Museum has a note written on it that Jane Gaddes is on the left with Margaret Chambers standing on the right and Elizabeth Bradley in the center. Glenn Bradley in his 1994 book titled When the river was the road just had a cut-out from the photo of the sister in the center identifying her as Margaret Chambers. A 1990 published book by Alex Gaddes titled Red Cedar Our Heritage simply said the photo was of Jane Gaddes and sisters Margaret Chambers and Elizabeth Bradley without as is the usual practice with published photos stating the names of those appearing are from L to R. Photos of Jane Gaddes taken in her old age confirm she had a relatively narrow face and took more after her father Angus who was of slight build than mother Christina whose photo suggests the opposite.
39 The following records held by the London's Guildhall Library were checked for a steamboat ownership - (1) Ms 6408 - Register of steamboats, giving owners, numbers of permitted passengers, and masters' names and addresses, with index to boats and masters 1846-1848, (2) Ms 06312/1-2 - Indexes to registers of licensed passenger boats 1828 - ca. 1910, (3) Ms 10022 - Register of boats for hire, numerically arranged, giving names and abodes or moorings of watermen or craft owners, and names and types of boats 1827-59.
40 His address in the 1872 Grenville's Post Office Directory was given as Bowra River, Bowraville and occupation as farmer. A total of 58 persons were listed under Bowraville in the P.O. Directory. Their occupations were listed as: 54 farmers, 4 sawyers, and 1 stockholder. Stated was that mail was received and dispatched twice weekly - taking 6 days to arrive from Sydney via steamer to Port Macquarie or Kempsey and then overland to the P.O. For the Sep 1871 coroner's inquest at which he gave his occupation as farmer see above source footnote #6.
41 The Northern Courier, 3 Dec 1942. LATE S. J. RAYMOND - Mr S. J. Raymond, whose death occurred at Bowraville last week, at the age of 81 years, was one of the oldest and best known men on the Nambucca, where he had a very successful business career. He was born on the Macleay River and as a young man was apprenticed to the butchery trade in Sydney. He also had experience in his father's grocery business and became a successful trader and buyer. Sixty years ago he went into partnership with his brother Gus, who died at Bellingen, recently, in a wheelwright and butchering business at Bowraville. Later they purchased a butchering business at Bellingen, but afterwards dissolved partnership and each carried on alone in business. In 1893 deceased married Miss Mary Mackay at Bowraville, and there is a family of six sons. Deceased conducted the butchering business at Bowraville for 51½ years and then handed it over to his sons. He was prominently associated with various public organisations on the Nambucca and held high executive positions in some of them. He was one of the first Justices of the Peace on the Nambucca.
42 Assisted Immigration to NSW, AONSW microfilms - 1853 Telegraph reels 2137 & 2465 (name of relative in colony given as sister Catherine Dornan), 1865 St. Hilda reels 2139 & 2483 (name of relative in colony given as brother-in-law Augustus Raymond, Pola Creek, County Macquarie, NSW).
44 Alex Gaddes in his book Red cedar, our heritage : a personal account of the lives and times of the men and women who worked in the red cedar industry at page 102 dropped the incorrect claim Augustus had started a boarding school, and instead with his own added comment quoted from autobiographical notes written at an undisclosed date, but presumably late in a long life by John "Jack" Robert Bradley (1861-1952) who it will be noted made no claim of personally having attended either the 1st or 2nd Capeharrow Hill schools - viz. "Grandfather Raymond was instrumental in getting the first school teacher here, a Mr Cluff, and many went to the school that was built, near where Mr McCullen now lives". To which Alex Gaddes added the following comment - "until the arrival of Mr Cluff, Augustus M. Raymond was carrying out the duties of getting some education, at least, to the local children. He was an itinerant tutor who divided his time between The Gogo (Wilson River), Pola Creek, and Bowra, each getting three months of his time. [I know this, because he taught the elder members of the family of William and Jane Gaddes. Auth.]."
45 NSW State Records, at the Western Sydney Records Center, 145 O'Connell St., Kingswood hold the Augustus Raymond will probate granted 3 Jul 1877 - ref. "Series 3 Probate/Packet No. 1387". Neither the will or land grant and deed transfer records have been researched to ascertain land holdings. The NSW Supreme Court Probate Index lists Augustus Raymond died 18 Jan 1877, Nambucca. No Coroner's Inquest was listed in the Registers of Coroner's Inquests 1834-1901 index.
46 In 2008 the linked to web page had a transcript of the Angus Mackay obituary. The newspaper source is not given but presumably it appeared in a week ending 21 Oct 1894 issue of The Macleay Argus that began publication in 1885.
47  Glenn Bradley, op. cit. p. 118
48  Ibid  op. cit.p. 134
49  Ibid  op. cit. p. 118
50  The legislature of the colony in 1866 passed an Act authorising the appointment of teachers in sparsely populated areas, and the establishment of privately owned schools in areas where there was no public school, provided there were at least 15 students and fewer than the 25 required for the establishment of a Public School. The schools were eligible for grants and subject to periodic inspection by the Council of Education and were known as "Provisional Schools" with the parents providing the building and furniture while the NSW Government Council of Education paid the teacher and supplied the books and equipment.
     Government schools of New South Wales 1848 to 2003, published 2003 by the Dept. of Education & Training, under Bowraville has the first "official" school as Capeharrow Hill - a provisional school from Sep. 1872 to Apr. 1875. It was followed by Bowra Public from Apr. 1875 until Mar. 1890.
      A booklet titled Bowraville Centenary 1875-1975, has a 1875 sketch map showing Capeharrow school located a mile from the future township on the north side of the Lower North Arm Rd. road just past the Lower Buccrabendinni Rd. junction placing it on portion 5 the Augustus Raymond election. The booklet states following the petition for the establishment of a public school the Council of Education while at first ready to grant a public school changed its mind and instead offered a Provisional School.
     It stated the first teacher at Capeharrow Hill was George Robinson. It is said he was born in Londonderry in Ireland and trained as a school teacher in Limavady, Ireland, and prior to Capeharrow Hill taught at Dingo Creek (Wherrol Flat) - Robyn Anne Munro ca. 2000 query to the Rootsweb AUS-NSW-L mail list.
     The above cited Bowraville Centenary 1875-1975 booklet has Capeharrow Hill school as beginning on 15 July 1872 with 28 pupils in a large room lent by Mr. Raymond - presumably the room was in his homestead. It has that whilst George Robinson began teaching at the school on 15 July his official status at the provisional school as the teacher dated from when it became such on 1 Sep 1872 and that in 1872 he leased a cottage in which the school was conducted. Thus in the latter months of 1872 the school moved from the original room "lent" by Augustus Raymond, situated just over a mile from the future Bowra township, to a rented cottage on Brouggy's Hill about a half-mile closer to the future town before in April 1875 again relocating to within its' boundary. In the official application petition for the establishment of a public school, Augustus and William Gaddes were two of 11 parents professing an intent to send 31 children to the school. Augustus proposed sending only two.
51  Nancy Edge, op. cit., p. 128 - original source given as an article titled The family of William and Jane Gaddes. Also see Norma Townsend, op. cit. p. 321, in notes re the school's Capeharrow name, quote - "The name is probably a corruption of the Aboriginal keepara, which means corroboree."
      (ED. The aboriginals had no written language. Whilst in agreement with Norma Townsend that "Capeharrow" was a corruption of the aboriginal word keepara (or the same sounding caparra and other variant phonetic spellings noted in 19th century accounts of aboriginal customs such as keeparra, keeparah, keeparrow, kipparah, kabbarah etc.) it is apparent the sacred sites to which the aboriginals applied the term were most definitely not corroboree grounds. The aboriginal word for corroboree sounded completely different. In a paper on the grammar and vocabulary of the Kattang language as spoken by central coast of NSW tribes, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of NSW, vol. XXXIV, 1900 p.p. 103-118, W. J. Enright gave won-gul-lin as the word for corroboree and keè-păr-ră as meaning the ceremony at which youths of a tribe were initiated into manhood. The previous year (1899) the same journal carried a lengthy paper by the same researcher titled "The Initiation Ceremonies of the Aborigines of Port Stephens" which referred to a 1896 paper by R. H. Mathews titled "The Keeparra Ceremony of Initiation" that dealt in great detail with the ceremony as it was and had been practiced by coastal aboriginal tribes northwards from Newcastle to at least the Macleay River.
       Specifically relating to the Nambucca River aborigines, Glenn Bradley op. cit. p. 136-138., quoted George S. Mackay in the “The Tribune” of April 27, 1883 as follows - “Another ceremony performed by the blacks is called ‘Caparra’; that is the initiating of the young men of the tribe into all forms of manhood. This ordeal is a severe and trying one to the young man, so severe is that instances have occurred of young men dying under the operation. Women and children are not permitted to watch this ceremony, nor are the men allowed to make known any of the rites, to the women. They are held a profound secret among the men.”
      Glenn Bradley op. cit. p.p. 24, 25, 38, wrote that quote - "It has been said Capeharrow Hill was an aboriginal keeparrow ground. He wrote that such was a place away from the women of the tribe (i.e. away from the main camp) to which a boy going through the final stages of initiation into manhood was taken and kept for a period on a restricted diet. Specifically in reference to the Nambucca, Bradley referred to an extract from a 1893 story by Philip Cohen as saying there was a keeparrow ground on the eastern slope of Bald Hill about a mile south-west of Gumma Hill at Nambucca Heads, and that the Corroboree ground known to locals as Biddes Farm was a further mile south. Clearly it was being said the main camp, the corroboree ground, and the keeparrow or man-making ground, were all separate places. There is no reason to suppose up river at Bowra it was any different.
       In North Queensland for geographic reasons the word caparra could not have meant corroboree ground. Archibald Meston who was raised on the Clarence River, where he learned the dialect spoken by the local tribe, in a 23 Dec 1896 article in The North Queensland Register titled The Bride of Caparra, wrote of the word as follows - ‘Three miles off the mouth of the Mulgrave river in North Queensland, is the "High Island" of the Frankland Group, known to the mainland natives as "Caparra", two miles in circumference, rising 400 feet, and covered by dense tropical jungle except on one green grass covered spur shooting out from the north east side.’ Mainland aboriginals did not have corroboree grounds on jungle clad islands three miles out to sea! It is said in South-East Queensland in addition to Keepara other names used for the initiation into manhood ceremonies were Burbung, Bunan Jerail and Wundarral.
      The manhood making ceremonies marking the passing through from boyhood into adulthood were an integral part of Aboriginal society throughout Australia. They were strictly a male gathering, with women banned from participating and even viewing parts of the event. A cleared circle or oval shaped ring with a stone or earth border, generally known as a Bora Ring, was a central feature at a Keepara site and was usually situated on a high place such as a hill. Walter Harvie, the first settler at Coffs Harbour, writing in 1927 of a tribal battle he witnessed in the vicinity of the Bellinger River, wrote that the initiates were known as caperas (i.e. keeparras), and whilst going through the initiation into manhood process lived apart from the main camp guarded at all times by an elderly aboriginal armed with a bullroarer to warn the unwanted to keep away, and specifically they were kept away from the women of the tribe and their diet excluded specific foods that were taboo that he named as bush turkeys, goannas, flying foxes and several kinds of game. It will be noted that what Harvie wrote roughly accords with other 19th century accounts.
      Thus it is quite apparent, if as it seems likely the Augustus Raymond selection was known to the aboriginals as caparra it would have been the place where the local tribe held initiation into manhood ceremonies and as such a sacred place with carved trees and bora ring etc. However as there is no record that prior to the coming into existence of the Capeharrow Hill school the Augustus selection was known as a caparra ground, it remains a possibility that subsequently it has just been assumed by someone aware of the aboriginal word and its' meaning, that the Capeharrow name must have been derived from that word and accordingly the selection on which it was located must have been an aboriginal keeparra gound. However a possibility that cannot be completely excluded is that the first teacher George Robinson, being aware of the caparrra word and its initiation into manhood process meaning, named the school Capeharrow on the basis it was to be the venue for the initiation of the local settler's children into an education - or in other words a white youth's Keeparra. This possibility is based on the thinking that Robinson would have been aware of the word and its "initiation" meaning as he came to Bowra directly from teaching at Dingo Creek where a nearby locality is named Caparra with a creek of same name.
52  Advised by Carmel Stuart - original source op. cit. Nancy Edge, p. 68. ED. - the 1869 conditional purchase is confirmed by official records and the 1872 move to Sydney is confirmed approximately by his eldest son's obituary which suggests it was perhaps in early 1873. It may be that the hansom cab driving and "accident" referred to were shortly after his ca. 1872/73 move to Sydney and subsequently he went back to his carpenter and joiner occupation before a second accident (perhaps a fall) in late December 1876 that caused the spinal injury resulting in paralysis and death after 20 days in hospital in the Sydney Infirmary in Macquarie Street.
53  Norma Townsend, Valley of the crooked river, 1993, p. 237 in Notes has - "[37] Duncan Forbes Gaddes birth is registered as born at Hampden Court (the name of Raymond's selection). Mrs. Raymond was the midwife. See registrations of birth, 13 November 1870, Kempsey Court House." (ED - the child's mother Jane Gaddes née Mackay was a half-sister to Mrs Margaret Raymond) and Duncan Forbes was her 8th child and 7th son.
54   Glen Bradley,  op. cit.,  p. 96 - "Baptism: 1 December 1820 -- Angus Mackay, furniture dealer, and his spouse, Jane Clark, had a daughter, named Margaret baptised by Reverend Mr. Doig, in the presence of George Mackay a labourer and Robert Calder, carter. (ED. note - Rev. Robert Doig was one of the ministers of Aberdeen and married Angus Mackay & Jane of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, on 26 Mar 1815 in his house. Presumably the church where the baptism occurred was the Galic Chapel, in Galic Lane, as that was where Murdock Mackay married in 1823). Margaret Mackay's age was given as 17 in the list of government immigrants aboard the James Moran that departed Lochinvar on 10 Oct 1838 and arrived Sydney 11 Feb 1839 - see Bounty Immigrants 1839 AONSW reel #1303 & Disposal Return on reel #2654. (ED. at p. 96 the Bradley book gave her age in the passenger list as 19. However it was clearly listed in two places in those records as 17. However it is also indicated there she was born 4 Dec 1821 which is considered in error as would be inconsistent with the 1 Dec 1820 christening date. If 17 was her age when the she embarked in Scotland on 10 Oct 1838 it follows Margaret was born between 11 Oct 1820 and 10 Oct 1821 which is consistent with her christening date of 1 Dec 1820. Thus it has been concluded she was born in Oct. or Nov. 1820.
55   Glenn Bradley, op. cit., p. 70.
56   Alex S. Gaddes, Red Cedar Our Heritage, Wyndham Observer 1990. p. 100 - ED. the "Grandfather" appellation would have come about as by 1871 he was grandfather to three James Bradley/Mary Lavender Dornan children and about four children of Chambers daughters, with a host more to come as several more married in the immediately following years. The anecdote went on to say by luck a doctor was visiting at Wirrimbi, who supplied a medicine and scarified the snake bite wound, and after a night through which his brothers kept him awake by riding about with him on horseback the next day he was again feeling fine although the wound was a little sore!
57   Norma Townsend, op. cit., p.p. 98-100, a University of New England History Lecturer devoted a full chapter to the history of the Bowraville schools titled: "A School is Much Wanted".
58   Original held by the Bowraville Folk Museum - edited version published courtesy of same.
59   Norma Townsend, op. cit. p. 237 footnote [37].
60   The Gaddes' married at Dungog near Maitland about the same time Augustus married at Pola Creek and their first child William Jnr. was born in 1857. However they did not become related to Augustus until ten years later in Dec 1867 when he married a half-sister of Jane Gaddes née Mackay. Her husband William Gaddes, who was near Dungog at Willliams River and then at Rollands Plains on the Wilson River, selected at the Nambucca in Missabotti Parish on 15 Jul 1869. After they moved to Bowra and before residing on the selection at Missabotti it seems the family may have lived initially on Augustus' selection or very nearby as they had a child born on his selection in late 1870 with Augustus' wife Margaret acting as midwife. So located, as nephews and nieces of Margaret the eldest Gaddes children would naturally have been included when Augustus was teaching his own children the basics before the first formal school was established on his selection in July 1872.
       Before Fernmount on the Bellinger River got its first school in Nov. 1871 government records state the closest school to Bowra was 50 miles away at the Macleay and that a school at Bowra was "much wanted". Details of the establishment of the first school on the Nambucca, first teacher etc. were published in a booklet titled: Bowraville Centenary 1875-1975 distributed by the Bowraville Folk Museum fifteen years before the Alex Gaddes book was published but were either unknown to him when he wrote in 1990 or were just ignored in favour of his own unsupported by evidence construct. To quote historian Norma Townsend the broad facts ascertained from government records are that - "from 1867, inspectors from New England had visited the district and tried to arouse sufficient interest to get a school established. ... In 1871, ‘about a dozen settlers convened to discuss certain important matters connected with the future of the river’ ... The next year, a group of families who had settled around Bowraville organised a school, the first on the river ... a group of parents invited George Robinson, a Council of Education teacher at Dingo Creek from where some of the families had come, to open a school on the Nambucca. Robinson accepted and the school began in a room which Augustus Raymond lent for the purpose" 57.
       Whilst apparently by implication Augustus did tutor his own children, and those of relatives such as the Gaddes' at places he resided (Pola Creek and Bowra), it is considered highly unlikely the Alex Gaddes claim is correct in regard to his occupation after moving to Bowra having been an itinerant tutor or that he ever was such. The claim on page 102 of the Gaddes book appears to this compiler be no more than a seriously garbled, and sad to say concocted version, likely but not necessarily by him, of what was factual. One has to ask why during the approximately three years from 1869 to 1872 that Augustus would have resided on his Bowra selection before moving to Sydney where he remained until his death, he would have absented himself from his wife of only two years and, his children and step-children, for no less than half of each year to tutor at what, because of the limitations of his own education, could only have ever been at very basic level, children back where he had previously lived from at least 1856 at Pola Creek and where all his Dornan step-children due to their ages had left any school days behind them, and also further south on the Wilson River at Rollands Plains ? At Macleay River why would the children of settlers not have attended the local schools staffed by suitably qualified Council of Education paid teachers? It make no sense! The only reason for the inclusion of the Wilson River in the claim appears to be that the Gaddes' family spent time there after initially moving to Rollands Plains from the Williams River before their final move to Bowra River.
       Many early settlers were not able to teach their children the basics skills of reading, writing and simple arithmetic because they could not read or write themselves or could read only. If so inclined those that could taught their children the basics and sometimes also the children of relatives and neighbours. An example was at Fernmount on the Bellinger that did not get its' first public school until 1 Nov 1871. It has been written that a daughter of one of the earliest settlers recalled, that prior to the establishent of the government school at Fernmount, there being many children in that town and no teacher, the local blacksmith John Williams had conducted classes for the children in his Smithy and it was where the older members of her family had obtained their early education (see compilers web page re John Williams the first blacksmith at Bellingen). If John Williams had also taught his and other children the basics in his Smithy when he was earlier at Cundletown at Taree on the Manning River would his occupation at Taree and later Fernmount have been an itinerant tutor instead of a blacksmith ??
       As it was with John Williams so it would have been with Augustus. The evidence is his primary occupation in Australia was carpenter and joiner, with non-tradesman status as he had not undertaken an apprenticeship. In an isolated area as Bowra River was when he moved there, and although nominally a farmer, without an availability wood turning equipment he would likely have used his carpentry and joinery skills to made rough furniture and have helped other selectors build very basic dwellings. When at Pola Creek and then at Bowra it may be that not only relatives received their early education from him but also some children of nearby settlers. There is no record of there having been a private or public school in the Kempsey area between the years 1851 to 1859. According to her 1841 immigration arrival record his wife Catherine could neither read or write so after their 1856 marriage the task of imparting some basic education to her seven children would have fallen to Augustus. His formal schooling apparently ended about his 15th birthday. However as he was employed by his father there may have been opportunities for further study in selected areas, as is perhaps suggested by engineer (presumably of a steam tug as he was a licensed lighterman) being given as his occupation in 1849 when he first married. The level of education he reached would have been adequate to enable him to teach young children at an elementary level. So whilst he would not have earned his living as a professional tutor it is reasonable to assume he imparted some education to his own and the Dornan and Chambers step-children when living at Pola Creek. From 1869 at Bowra until the establishment of Capeharrow Hill school on 15 Jul 1872, the same would have applied with his and the youngest Chambers step-children and must have included the eldest children of his sister-in-law Jane Gaddes, none of whom were even been born when Augustus married at Pola Creek in 1856. As Norma Townsend has suggested, the Gaddes family may have initially lived on his Capeharrow Hill selection and sent children to the Capeharrow Hill school when it began in July 1872 59. William Gaddes was one of the 11 parents who signed the petition for the establishment of the Capeharrow Hill school and undertook to have children attend.
61   Email advice dated 23 Sep 2011 from Meurig Jones ( compiler of "The Register of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902" at www.casus-belli.co.ukweb ).
62   Email advice dated 8 April 2012 from Margaret Chambers descendant Karen Dimond who also provided a copy of the 3 July 1877 probated will held in the probate packet at NSW State Records. Advised was that among the documents in the probate packet were 1877 affidavits from James Chambers, John Howells and George Robinson - James Chambers being a farmer, John Howells a drayman and George Robinson by then a book keeper residing in Sydney. Also advised was that there was an unspecified document in the probate file that his occupation as a "cab proprietor" crossed out and "farmer" written in.
63   The NSW BDM Index of Macleay River baptisms and birth registrations from 1850 to 1872 does not have a single instance of a given name spelt "Hellen" and only eight spelt as "Helen". By contrast there are 58 with Margaret as a given name and about the same number for Ellen which sounds the same as Helen and in some cases later became spelt Helen. No surname of the parents of a Helen matched a surname of those who had a Margaret. About nine different parents had two daughters named Margaret and Ellen. It is of course possible Margaret and Helen were not sisters, or at least not full-sisters, and/or one or both were baptised or had their birth registered elsewhere than at Macleay River.
64  Email advice in March 2013 from Peter Matthews of online official BDM records at http://www.familyhistorysa.info/ as follows:
BIRTH 1850 3/54 RAYMOND Sarah Terrey born 19-5-1850 at Kensington, father RAYMOND Augustus, mother SUMMERFIELD Sarah
DEATH 1850 2/19 RAYMOND Sarah Terrey died 24-5-1850 age 25 at Kensington; relative Augustus (H)
DEATH 1850 2/24 RAYMOND Sarah Terrey died 24-6-1850-06-24 age 5w at Kensington; relative Augustus (F). NOTE: SA death registrations in 1850 did not include the name of the burial cemetery - in Kensington the most likely graveyard would have been St Mathhews Anglican Church that was built in 1848-1849 (the grounds of which have been cleared and headstones relocated to beside the church - a list of known burials does not include any for a Raymond - see list at the Australian Cemeteries website. The SA State Library holds burial records for this church from 1849 on microfilm - these have not been not consulted so not known if above linked to list is a full transcription of the microfilms?). Another possible cemetery was Kensington Park now cleared of graves with the names inscribed on a central plaque - no Raymond listed.
65  South Australian Register 18 Oct 1852 page 3 - Augustus Raymond was listed in a list of unclaimed letters held at the Adelaide Post Office dated 30 Sep 1852.
      Empire (Sydney) 18 April 1853 - advertisement reading - MR. AUGUSTUS RAYMOND Letters from your brother, in England, await you at the Post-offices, Adelaide and Sydney."
66  South Australian (Adelaide) Friday 22 June 1849 p.2 - Shipping Intelligence, Arrivals, June 20 - The bargue Posthumous, 390 tons, R. Davidson, from London and Plymouth - Passengers: ... Augustus Raymond and wife ... in the steerage.
      The only report noted of the passage was of an occurrence on the day before the vessel made port as follows: - "On Tuesday afternoon a seaman of the Posthumous, named Grace - one of the smartest fellows on board - fell from the chains while harpooning porpoises. Captain Davidson threw him life-buoy from the poop. The whale boat was instantly manned, and in less than a quarter of an hour from his falling he was again on board. The crew loudly cheered him on his return, as also the chief mate (Mr. Ware) who commanded the boat."
67  Sydney Morning Heralds 4 July 1851 - In a letter addressed to the Citizens of Sydney, former dismissed Police inspector Pearce wrote that at the inquiry into his conduct held on 3 June 1851, when giving evidence on his behalf, "Augustus Raymond, cabinetmaker" had stated -"Have only been three months in Sydney : did not know Inspector Pearce until he was pointed out to me ; saw him in Pitt-street on the night of the 24th ; he was sober from the way in which he did his duty ; I did not speak to him."
68  A quarter of corn was an old English measure of corn containing 8 bushels. The granary storage capacity of 16,000 bushels of corn was equivalent to 406.4 metric tonne - a bushel of a shelled maize (corn) at 15.5% moisture by weight is 56 lb = 25.4012 kg.
69  New South Government Gazette 1859, page 2796 - Title Deeds Ready for Delivery - #1689 Raymond, Augustus, Dudley, 29 acres, portion 54. Also advised in the same notice as available were the deeds for adjacent portions viz: portion 55 James H Kemp, 53 James Smith, 51 & 52, Edward McQuilan, 50 John Hiller. The auction of these farm portions in the County of Dudley took place at the Police Office at Belgrave on Monday 14 March 1859 (auction of Crown Lands advertisment in NSW Government Gazette Supplement dated Wed. 2 February 1859). 32 portions in the Parish of Cooroobongatti were offered for sale, with an upset price of £1 per acre described as situated "on or near the left bank of the McLeay River" plus 20 in the Parish of Kinchela and 3 on Darkwater Creek etc.
70  New South Government Gazette 23 Aug 1854 - as per the The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River Advertiser 30 Aug 1854, page 1. The portion 11 and portion 25 grants were before the introduction of Volume and Folio numbers for land titles and the titles for the two respectively had the dates 1.10.1855 and 4.12.1856. The later adjacent Alexander Dornan purchases of portions 67 & 68 respectively had the titles as - Vol. 34, Folio 58 & 67.
75  In 2013 the Membership Registers for 1823-1866 and Student Fees Ledgers 1837-1857 of the London Mechanics Insitute were held by Birkbeck College Archives at the University of London and were accessable to researchers by application to the college Master's Secretary.
76  As per William Sanders's 1910 Macleay Argus obituary as trancribed in 2017 on the "Sanders of Kinchela"
webpage at: https://sandersofkinchela.wordpress.com/

Researched and compiled by John Raymond, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
First posted 14 June 2007 - last updated 14 Jul 2017



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