We have recently updated what we know about: 1) Mary Medlyn nee Lee (1854-1910); and 2) William Laurence (1893-1957) and their respective families.

Using information provided by her daughter, Rosalie Dolliver, we have updated what we know of Florence Ella Davenport nee Hickmott, youngest daughter of George Alfred Hickmott (1889-1945) and Mena (Minnie) May Spice (1899-1969) who were married in Perth in 1920 and had four children. Ella married Reg Davenport (1927-2014) at Yealering in Western Australia in 1953. They have five children and 10 grandchildren we know of all of whom live in the West.

We are presently looking at James Hickmott (1809-81, a nephew of our Samuel Hickmott (1799-c1872) who was transported to Tasmania in 1840. James, together with his wife Sarah and their son Thomas sailed from England to NSW on the emigrant ship MAITLAND which set sail from Gravesend on 24 June 1838. After spending time in the Hawkesbury River region of NSW he and Sarah and their then three children moved to Burrendong near Wellington in the Central Western Slopes Region of NSW. James and Sarah both died and are buried at Burrendong, he in 1881 and she five years later. Their three children - Thomas Hickmott (1835-1909), Mary Ann Newton (1846-1901) and James Hickmott jnr (1848-1926) - all lived out their time in NSW and produced a total of 17 grandchildren we know of (many of whom lived and worked in Queensland).

We have begun looking at the forebears, lives and times and family and descendants of other Hickmotts who came to Australian starting with Charles Hickmott (1813-95). Born at West Farleigh in Kent, Charles married Mary Ann Maynard there in 1835 and had twelve children between then and 1860. Mary Ann died in Kent in 1872. Twelve years later, Charles emigrated to Queensland where he died at Rockhampton on 16 March 1895. He followed two of his sons - James (1843-1905) and William Page Hickmott (1855-1913) - who had travelled to Queensland in 1873. Charles and Mary Ann's youngest daughter, Kate Maynard Brotherwood nee Hickmott (1860-1936) later emigrated to Australia in 1912.

We have added details of the children and descendants of William Hickmott (1859-1948) and his second wife, Kate Elizabeth Eaton (1888-1960). Married at Yuleba near Roma in Queensland in 1909, they had nine children between then and 1923: Edward (1908-58), William John (1910-88), Veronica Eileen May Krause (1911-81), Henry (1913-73), Cecil James (1916-91), Lorna May (1918-22), Violet Graham (1920-2015), Doreen Merle Dalrymple (1926-73) and Irene Mavis Dalton (born in 1923).

Using information sent to us by Yvette Moule as well as Ancestry, Trove and other sources, we are updating what we know about John Richard Owen (1858-1937), younger brother of Elizabeth Ann Hickmott nee Owen (1855-1923). Born at Bet Bet near Dunolly in Victoria, John married Catherine (Kate) Buist (1854-1923) at nearby East Charlton on 28 January 1878. Four years later, they moved to northern Queensland where they spent the remainder of their lives. John and Kate both died at Cairns and are buried in the local cemetery there. They had eight children, four of whom died young. The surviving four children all reached adulthood, married and, at the time of John's death in 1937, had produced a total of 15 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

With the help of photos and information provided by Malcolm Cox, we have expanded what we know about Ruth Manderson Pearce Davies (1905-99) and her family and forebears. Born in Perth in 1905, Ruth married George Henry Hickmott (1901-80), eldest son of Alfred Hickmott (1869-1956) and Alice McLeod (1871-1913), there in 1929. Ruth and George lived all their married lives in the inner Perth suburb of Mount Lawley and had one daughter - Ruth Alice Hickmott (1942-2024) who married Raymond Donald Yates (1939-98) - and one grandson we know of.

A photo provided by David Dixey has spurred us to update what we know about the life, times and descendants of our Sarah Bodger's younger brother James Bodger (1831-1911). Born at Grafham in Huntingdonshire, James was twice married, first to Naomi Fairey (1835-80) in Huntingdonshire in 1859 and second to Ann Holmes (1840-1920) in Kent in 1886. In 1865 James and Naomi sailed to Australia where James worked for a time at Streatham in central Victoria (and near where his sister Sarah and her husband, John Saunders Wright (1826-88), were then residing). Naomi died at Streatham in 1880 and James and their only son, John Charles William Fairey Bodger (1872-1965), returned to England where both lived for the remainder of their lives. James had no further children. His son John Charles married Sarah Dixey in Middlesex in 1902 and, like his father, had one child we know of. This was John James Dixey Bodger (1902-65) who was born in Middlesex and married Lilian Sybil Norman (1916-99) there in 1939. We don't think they had any children although this is still to be confirmed.

We have added what we know about Henry Edward Hickmott's second wife who he married at Victoria Park in Perth in 1925. This was Sarah Ellen (Nelly) Clarke who we think was born Sarah Eleanor Waites at Moyston near Ararat in Victoria in 1870. After living for a time at Brookton in the WA wheat belt, Nelly returned to Perth where she died on 4 October 1957.

Using information left by some of their children and other sources, I have expanded the account of the life and times of my paternal grandparents, Alice Maud Laurence (1890-1967) and Alfred William (Fred) Cheeseman (1881-1949). Wed at Narrandera in NSW in 1910 they spent all their married lives in country Victoria, initially on Fred's small bushland property near Beaufort then on farms at Skipton and Walpeup. They had seven children: Alice Winifred (Winnie or Win) Stafford (1911-2000), Christina Mary (Teen) Bainbridge (1913-2011), Laurence Alfred (1915-82) - whose lives and times are detailed in Children and descendants Part 1 - and Leslie William (1917-90), Reginald George (1922-99), Lance Edward (1928-99) and Alfred John (Freddie) Cheeseman (described in Children and descendants Part 2), and 18 grandchildren.

We are updating what we know of the Australian-based descendants of our Benjamin Cheeseman's cousins, Stephen Lorden (1834-94) and Charles Loud Lorden (1835-1901) who were both born at Dymchurch in Kent and emigrated from England to Australia in the late 1850s. Stephen married Emma Kendall Badcock (1843-93) at Ballarat in Victoria in 1861 and had eleven children - who variously lived and worked in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia - and 28 grandchildren we are aware of. Charles married Sarah Minehan at Dubbo in central NSW in 1885. He had one child, Charlotte Loud Dalton (Nita) Lorden (1887-1972) who was born at nearby Forbes, was twice married, lived much of her later life in Sydney and had two daughters and one grandson.

Photographs and further information provided by Fay and Des Menzel are helping us update what we know about the children and descendants of Ernest Oswald Free (1881-1964) and Adeline Ellen Bennett (1887-1961). Born at Corack in central Victoria, Ernest was the youngest son of William Free (1829-90) and his second wife, Eliza Flavell (1840-1925). Married at Donald in Victoria in 1906, Ernest and Adeline had eight children: Lilian Elizabeth (Doll) Marshall (1906-99), Ernest John (Mick) Free (1907-60), William Edward Free (1908-13), Mary Eliza O'Neil (1909-62), George Robert Free (1910-84), Amy Maud Menzel (1912-2005), Elsie May Walker (1914-97), and Mavis Shultz (1917-2013).

Using Ancestry, Trove and other sources, we have updated what we know about the family and descendants of Joseph Hickmott (1872-1928) and Helen Watt (1885-1966) who were married at Barrakee in Victoria in 1907 and had six children: Francis Joseph Hickmott (1908-99), Gladys Helen Pendock (1910-99), Reginald Hubert Hickmott (1911-91), Ronald Henry Hickmott (193-95), Leslie James Hickmott (1915-89) and Angelina Harriet Stevens (1917-2001).

Using Ancestry, Trove and photos and information provided by Rosalie McCormack, we have put together what we know about her side of the family including the forebears, lives and times, and families and descendants of the Mitchell, McCormack, Williams and Davies families.

Samuel Hickmott was transported with his brother, Thomas, to Van Diemen's Land in 1840. After being granted a certificate of freedom in January 1850, he travelled from Tasmania to South Australia where his son, Henry Hickmott, was then living. In around 1856 Samuel left South Australia for the Victorian goldfields (we think he may have accompanied Henry and some of his colleagues on their overland journey to Bendigo but have no evidence for this). Our last sighting of Samuel was in January 1872 when he was admitted to Victoria's Maryborough and District Hospital (Henry was registered as living at Maryborough late in 1871 prior to taking up land at nearby Charlton). The hospital records don't indicate how long Samuel remained a patient, merely stating that, on discharge, he was 'sent to his friends'. We have not been able to trace Samuel after this or ascertain when and where he died and was buried. It is possible he joined Henry at Charlton, or went to Warrnambool to where his brother Thomas had moved in the 1860s (Thomas died and was buried at Warrnambool in August 1871. Or he may have gone somewhere else entirely. The search continues.

Together with his wife, Jane, and three small children, Benjamin Cheeseman emigrated from England to Australia in 1853. He was contracted to work for a James Egan of the Major's Line station near Heathcote in central Victoria for a period of six months. It seems that after completing their contract with Egan, Benjamin and Jane left Heathcote for the Maryborough and later the Ararat goldfields. Some time between 1854 and 1866, Benjamin died where the versions of what happened to him differ slightly. Some in the family thought he died of thirst on the 'Old Man's Plains' while trying to walk to the Orange goldfields in New South Wales. Others thought he was found wandering in a state of delirium on the 'Emu Plains' and was taken to the Ararat mental asylum where he died soon after admission (this was more likely Jane's second husband, William Henry Robinson). Whatever the truth of the matter, we have found no official record of Benjamin's death or of his burial - his final whereabouts remains a mystery.

One of Benjamin and Jane's grand-daughters, Emily Grace Cheeseman was born near Morchup in central Victoria in 1889 and married Victor James Mills in Melbourne in 1911. They had had two boys by the time Victor enlisted in the First AIF and departed for overseas service in 1916. Emily and her boys lived with her family at Beaufort during the war. On hearing Victor was coming home, Emily took the boys to her mother-in-law's at Ballarat and left them there. According to her niece she feared resuming her life with Victor and saw leaving him as her only way out of 'a bad marriage'. Sadly her decision also led her to be separated from, and ostracised by, members of her own family. 'Aunty Ada was the last of the family to see her, long after we went to the Mallee, Ada just shut the door on her, said she was with an Army officer and was well dressed'. Some in the family believe Emily had a daughter, Shiela Grace Cheeseman, who was born after the war although we have been unable to confirm it.