Cousin found

For those of you who have read Time Tells All, you will know about Sir William George McBeath, my grandfather’s uncle, my 2x great uncle. And you might recall one of my works in progress is his biography (a giant in Victorian politics and huge contributor to Australian society).

I’ve been trying for some time to find descendants of William. He had four children: a daughter who died at 19 days of age, one son who in turn had one daughter, who died at the age of eight, a daughter who never married, and a daughter who married and had four children. Obviously, any descendants would have to come from these four children. Eureka!!!!!

This morning I received an email from a gentleman who read and enjoyed Times Tells All, and wait for it, we are third cousins – he is one of the descendants I’d hoped to find.

I’ll wait to hear from him again and with some luck, he will have some family information he can share that I might be able to include in the biography.

Watch this space.

They just keep piling up

(Old Commercial Bank Building, Lancefield. Photo by J. O'Connell.)

Like her counterpart Mary Hamilton Allan, Mary Ann Darby’s husband died young. James Darby died on 29 March 1872 at aged forty-five, from pneumonia. James Allan died a year later on 9 April 1873 from the result of a wagon accident. He was forty-three. The Darbys were in Lancefield, the Allans in Monegeetta (towns sixteen km apart).

James Allan and Mary had eight children, (the eldest married, the youngest, two at the time of his death) and Mary was pregnant with the ninth when her husband died. The infant was a female, stillborn in July of the same year, and buried with her father. James left Mary with the farm in Monegeetta and she probably managed it with her eldest son Robert. Perhaps she also had help form her sons-in-law George Jeans and John Foy (Foy also had a farm in Monegeetta). Mary didn’t leave the area until the 1880s – she had to survive on something – one assumes she did so with the farm.

Not so fortunate Mary Ann Darby. When her husband died she had five surviving children (the first two did not survive), eleven and under, and just pregnant with another. (This child was born seven months after his father’s death, so Mary then had six children twelve and under. According to the Letters of Administration and Probate files (Darby died intestate) Darby left debts of eight hundred and eighty seven pounds.

The amount of debt is hard to fathom. Darby rebuilt the flour mill in Lancefield after it burned down in 1871, was a Magistrate in the District, was on the Roads Board, and held other important positions in the local community. Nevertheless, he died leaving Mary in a dreadful predicament. There was a mortgagees auction for the flour mill on Wednesday 27th November 1872, one month after Mary’s son was born. At some point after, she moved into the old Commercial Bank Building and started a business. The advertisement doesn’t say what she’s selling. (She did complete a dressmaking apprenticeship in England before emigrating.)

M.A. DARBY (Widow of the late Mr. Jas Darby, Lancefield Flour Mills) Respectfully intimates that she has removed to the premises formerly occupied by the Commercial Bank, where she has OPENED A STORE In soliciting a share of the patronage of her friends, and those of her late husband, Mrs D. desires to express her grateful ? of the kindness of those friends by whose generous liberality she is enabled to enter into business.
But by 1878 Mary is living in Melbourne. The tragedies just keep piling up.

How does a 12 year old cope with this?

The further I dig into the murky past of family history; the more discoveries cause me to shake my head in despair. Not least, the deposition to the coroner of twelve year old Henry Allan McKee on 27th September 1895, regarding the suicide of his thirty-four-year old police constable father THE DAY BEFORE!!! (My 2x great grandfather and Henry’s mother were siblings.)

Marion McKee (nee Allan) took three of her six children on a week’s holiday to Melbourne, staying with her mother, Mary Allan, leaving on Friday 20th September 1895. She took six year old William, three year old Ellen, and nine month old Marion. She left twelve year old Henry, eleven year old Ethel, and eight year old Leslie at home with their police constable father in Cranbourne. [Bear in mind the police constable and his family lived in the house attached to the police station.]

There is nothing in Marion’s or her son Henry’s deposition about the whereabouts of Ethel and Leslie at the time of their father’s death.

About 8 o’clock on the evening of Wednesday last my father complained about great pain in his head and wished he was dead and was raving. He was then in bed, he was sober. About 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning he sent me to the hotel for two shillings worth of brandy he said he thought it might do him good. After 8 o’clock from the manner in which my father was talking I hid his revolver and razor… About half an hour after this my father began to complain of the pain in his head again. He continued to complain until about a quarter past seven when he got up when he washed and dressed himself and went into the office and made some entries in his books. He asked me where his revolver was I said I won’t tell you, he pressed me and I gave him the revolver he was then in the kitchen. I went out to the stable and while there I heard the report of a shot in the house.