Sent to us by Robert White, this photo shows Edmond and Annie Florence Reilly nee Shepherd with
members of Edmond's family.
(last updated: 1 June 2011)
Sent to us by Robert White, this photo shows Edmond and Annie Florence Reilly nee Shepherd with
members of Edmond's family.
Sent to us by Norman Carter this photo was taken at Ouyen in Victoria in 1946.
It is of William Henry and Frances Hickmott and their family during a visit by some of William's
Western Australian relatives. Those we have identified to date are:
Standing from R/L: Gladys Blake nee Hickmott, William Henry Hickmott, Robert Bowron, Ella Adeline Bowron nee Hickmott,
Sophia Elizabeth Carter nee Hickmott, Grace Dean nee Hickmott (nursing unknown), Charles Carter.
Second from the left, John Hickmott. Fourth from the left, Frances Hickmott nee Free. On Frances' left, Lorna Hickmott.
Provided by John Hasty, the great grandson of James Baden-Powell Hasty and Pearl Amelia Free,
this photo is, we think, of Pearl's older brother James Oswald Free and one of his daughters (Annie Florence
or Dorothy May Free). James was the son of James Oswald Free snr and Johanna Shepherd nee Mulchay. He married Emma Elizabeth Oliver at Lalbert in Victoria in 1913 and had six children.
Click here to read a brief account of their life and times.
Provided by Mary-Anne Lattimore and Geoff Beecher, a grandson of Arthur and Florence May Beecher (nee Laurence),
this photo was taken outside the school at Gillenbah near Narrandera in New South Wales
sometime in the 1920s. We assume that there are members of the Beecher and possibly Laurence
families present but, as yet, don't know which ones they are.
Click here to read more about Arthur and May Beecher. More photos of them
and their family can be seen here
Provided by Margaret Donnan, this photo is of Mary Ann Free, the youngest daughter of William Free and Eliza Flavell, and her husband John William Donnan. It was taken at their wedding at Watchem in 1899.
Mary Ann was born at Raglan in Victoria in 1878, John at Yeo, near Colac in the Western District of Victoria, in 1868. He was the oldest son of Irish immigrants Hugh Donnan and Susan Ardill who came to Australia in around 1853 and 1863 respectively and married in Melbourne in 1867.
Margaret tells us that after their marriage John and Mary Ann lived first on a farm at Sammy's Lake near Watchem and, after 1910, on one at Willangie. They had eight children: Hugh William (1900-1986), Ernest John (1902-1965), James Samuel (1903-1979), Robert (1905-1909), Leonard Harold (1907-1971), Arthur Harold (1909-1981), George (1911-2000), Mary (1914-14) and Eliza Mary (1919- ). In 1930 they moved off the family farm (which was taken over by their eldest son, Hugh) and went to live at Ballarat where John died in 1941. Mary Ann Donnan nee Free died there seven years later. They are both buried at Watchem.
Click here to read more about their lives and family.
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Provided by one of his descendants, Jane Fox, these photos are of William Masten Cheeseman, his eldest daughter Grace Terrel Tobin (nee Cheeseman) and her daughter Grace Cheeseman Tobin (peeping out from behind her mother), and William's second daughter Ethel Pauline ('Polly') Cheeseman (pictured on the left with her stepmother). Jane tells us that William's photo was taken in Victoria BC in Canada in 1912. The photo of the two Graces was taken in around 1928. The third photo, also taken in Victoria BC in Canada, was dated at 1938 and has written on the back: 'My Aunt Polly (my mother's sister) on left with my mother's stepmother'. |
William Masten Cheeseman was our Benjamin's nephew. He was born at West Hythe in Kent in 1843, the eldest son of Benjamin's uncle Stephen Cheeseman (1816-1898) and his wife Grace Tearall (1820-1862). He emigrated to the United States some time between 1871 and 1880 where he married an Irish or Irish-American woman, Alvina Miller (1844-1891). The couple had four children: 1) Grace Terrel Cheeseman who was was born in 1880 in Puyallup in Washington and died in 1958 in Portland Oregon. She married first Albert Lyrton Miller and then Francis Anthony Tobin with whom she had three children: Genevieve Marie Tobin (Jane's grandmother), Grace Cheeseman Tobin (who died young of tuberculosis) and George Tobin (who married but did not have children). According to Jane Fox, 'George is the last living member of that family'; 2) Ethel Pauline Cheeseman (1893-1978); 3) Stephen Cheeseman; and 4) William ('Bill') Cheeseman who went live in Vancouver in Canada. After Alvina's death in 1891, William remarried. His second wife is shown in the photo directly above. To date her identity remains unknown.
Click here to read more about William's parents, siblings and forbears.
One of a number provided by Ian and Moina Bodger of Tamworth, this photo shows, on the right,
Ian's father Herbert Ainsworth Bodger and possibly two of Herbert's brothers Arthur and William Bodger.
It was taken during the First World War
Herbert was the youngest son of William and Elizabeth Bodger (nee Ainsworth). Born in Leytonstone
in Essex in England in 1888, he emigrated to Australia sometime between 1901 and 1915,
and served as a Sergeant in the 42nd Infantry Battalion of the First AIF during the Great War.
At war's end he lived initially in Queensland and then in Rabaul and New Guinea where he worked as
secretary to a gold mining company. While in New Guinea Herbert met and married
Edith Maud Bennett who had travelled to the island the previous year and was working as a governess.
Ill health forced him to return to Australia where he died in 1940 in Tamworth in New South Wales.
Click here to read more about Herbert and Edie's lives. The other photos of the family can be seen here
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Born at Snake Valley on 13 January 1885, Walter was the eldest son of William Anthony and Amy Bridget Chibnall (nee Wright). He enlisted in the First AIF on 15 March 1916 and embarked from Melbourne on the HMAT ASCANIUS with the 1st reinforcements for the 39th Battalion. He was transferred to the 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery where he was promoted to Corporal on 15 September 1917. On 12 October of that year he and another soldier were obliterated by a shell while taking shelter in a crater during the battle of Passchendaele. He is commemorated on Panel 19 of the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres in Belgium. The photo, part of the collection held by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, was contained in a file of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau. According to the War Memorial, this commenced operation in October 1915 and sought to identify, investigate and respond to public enquiries about the fate of Australian military personnel overseas. Its main office, run by Alfred Deakin's daughter Vera, was located in London. It opened some 130,000 individual case files overall and provided around 400,000 responses to various enquiries. |
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Provided by Fiona Lewis, this photo is thought to have been taken at Tyntynder near Swan Hill in Victoria. She is not sure whether it is of Henry Edward and Elizabeth Ann Hickmott (nee Owen); or George S.P. and Catherine Lewis (nee McGuire); or George and Grace Casey (nee Heavyside). |
| Born at Charlton East on 25 October 1885, Edith Olive Hickmott married Herbert Digby Lewis at Charlton in 1903. Herbert's parents were George Sugden Price Lewis (1838-1877) and Catherine Ellen MacGuire (1848-1933) who were born respectively at Hobart Town and Belfast (Port Fairey) in Victoria. Edith was the sixth child of Henry Edward and Elizabeth Ann Hickmott (nee Owen). She had four children before dying of complications from another pregnancy on 29 August 1912. The photo, provided by Fiona Lewis, is of Edith's Memorial Card. |
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The photo on the left, which was sent to us by a member of the Skipton Historical Society, was thought to be of Alfred William Cheeseman who went to South Africa in 1902 with the 6th Battalion of the Australian Commonwealth Horse. Click here to read about Alfred's Boer War service and subsequent life and times.
We have since heard from Paul Kruger, who is researching the Boer War and the Australians who participated in it, that the photograph is not of Alfred but Philip Leslie Russell from Carngham. Paul tells us that 'he served with the British Army, as a Lieutenant with the 17th Lancers, and was killed in action at Tarkastad, Cape Colony, 17/9/1901.' These details are contained on the frame of the original photograph which is held by the Beaufort Historical Society. The Australian Dictionary of Biography informs us that Philip was the only son of Philip Russell (c1822-92), MLA and owner of Carngham station, and his second wife Mary Ann Carstairs Drysdale who he married at Kilrie in Fifeshire in Scotland in 1877. Mary Ann died giving birth to Philip jnr. As an interesting aside, Alfred's maternal grandfather, John Saunders Wright, worked all his life for Philip Russell snr, initially as a bullock driver and later as the overseer of Carngham station. |
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Provided by Margaret Free, this photo is of the marriage, at Kerang on 17 February 1926, of Harry Walter Free (1901-1955) and May Victoria Jobling. The couple had four children: Enid May Booth (nee Free), Morris Henry Free, Alice Clare Codling (nee Free) and Barrie James Free. Harry (or Dick as he appears to have been known) is the seventh child of James Oswald and Johanna Free (nee Shepherd). A photo of James and Johanna's family is included on the Free family photos web page. |
| Taken in 1913, the photo on the right is of Rebecca Hickmott who was born in the Adelaide Hills (probably near Meadows) in April 1851. She married Joseph Colmer Smith in 1869 and lived at Waubra (located about 20 kilometres southwest of Clunes), Bungeeluke North and, from 1878, on a farm near Lalbert in the Wimmera district. Click her to read more about their life and times in Victoria.
Rebecca gave birth to fourteen children between 1870 and 1894. She died in Lalbert in 1914. Joseph died there in 1926. The original of the photo is held by James Margetts. He informs us that on the back is written: 'Green Hills. Bolinda. Feb 12 1913. Dear Mr and Mrs Margretts [sic], with love to yourselves and baby. Hoping this finds you well. From your very sincere friend, Rebecca Smith'. James continues that Rebecca 'was writing to my great grandparents, Frank and Rhoda Margetts, and the baby she is referring to is Frank James Margetts, who is my grandfather.' The two photos below are of Rebecca Smith (nee Hickmott) and her husband Joseph Colmer Smith. They were provided by one of their descendants, Lisa Sukra, who thinks they were taken at the same time as the first one of Rebecca. |
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Also provided by Lisa Sukra, these two photos are of John Albert and Eliza Grace Smith (nee Brooks) and their family.
John Albert (or 'Al' as he was known) was born at Waubra in 1878, the sixth child of Joseph Colmer and Rebecca Smith (nee Hickmott). Not long after his birth he moved with his parents to Bungeeluke North near Lalbert. He attended the Lalbert state school after it opened in 1889 with his siblings and cousins from the Hickmott family.
Al married Eliza Grace ('Gracie') Brooks at Waubra in 1910, around the time that he took up a block of land at Wornack near Ouyen in the northern Mallee district.
In 1912 Al and Gracie were joined by Al's cousin and good friend William Henry Hickmott and his wife Frances and their two girls Grace and Gladys. William had earlier helped Al clear his block of much of the Mallee scrub then covering it and was waiting to be granted his own allotment of land near Borongie, north-east of Ouyen.
Al and Gracie had at least six children including Lisa's grandmother Shiela Smith (later O'Connor). Al died at Footscray in Melbourne in 1944.
Also from the collection provided by my mother, Elsie Cheeseman (nee Hickmott),
the postcard with this photograph has written on it: 'To Sam and Fanny from
Maggie and Will wish you a happy Xmas 1909'.
Sam and Fanny are my mother's maternal grandparents Samuel and Frances ('Fanny') Free.
Will is Samuel's older brother William Free (1860-1951) who married Margaret ('Maggie') Barbour
at Emerald Hill in Melbourne in 1883. After their marriage the couple lived on William's
farm at Corack East at least until 1900. They had eight children while at Corack:
Mary Ann Flavell, Eliza Ada (who married John Hickmott at Lalbert in 1903), Emily Alice,
Sarah, Annie, Annie Wilson, William Walter Henry and Allan Walter.
We know that William Free died in Perth in June 1951 so it is possible the family
went to Pingelly from Victoria sometime between 1899, the date of birth of their last child,
and 1909. If this is the case, William may be one of the people in the photograh.
This is a copy of a photograph contained on Arthur Lipscombe's website,
'The Family Tree of the Adlers, Edwardses, Hogans, Lipscombes and Olivers'.
The original of photograph is held by Hilda Dean. It was taken in 1913
on the occasion of the marriage of Jack and Ruby Oliver (nee Bennett).
The persons in the photograph of direct relevance to us are James Oswald and
Emma Elizabeth Free (nee Oliver) who are fourth and fifth from the left in the rear row.
Born at Thalia in 1892, James was the eldest son of James Oswald and Johanna Free (nee
Shepherd). He married Emma at Lalbert in 1913 and farmed in the area all his life.
James died at Kerang in Victoria in 1967. Emma died at Lalbert in 1955.
The couple had six children: Robert James, John Henry, Annie Florence,
George Arthur, Dorothy May and Ronald Oswald.
According to Arthur Lipscombe, all those shown in the photograph are:
Rear row: David Adler, Jack and Ruby Oliver, Jim and Emma Free, Charlie Cass,
Jane Oliver (later to marry Bert Jobling) and Bob Oliver.
Centre row: Mary Ann Adler, nee Oliver, (later to marry Will Edwards) holding
Annie May Adler, Robert Hamilton Oliver holding Jack Cass, Mary Ann Oliver (nee Edmeads),
Lucy Cass holding Elizabeth Cass and Sarah Oliver (later to marry Colin Cuffe).
Front row: Nell Oliver (later to marry Stan Wigley), Bertha Oliver
(later to marry Jack Hughes), Amy Cass and Jean Cass.
