R - Richard

Richard Gibson was born in Corraderran in the parish of Killeshandra, Cavan in Ireland in about February 1841. He appears with his family on a surviving piece of the Irish census taken on the night of 6 June 1841. It was a great census, with so much more information collected than the English census which was taken that same night.

He was the 12^th and youngest child in his family. By the time of his birth four of his elder siblings had died. George aged 16 in 1839, Margaret age 13 in 1838, William aged 1 month (a visitation of God) in 1836 and William Henry in 1840 aged less than 1 year. His 2^nd eldest sister Hester had already emigrated to America and was employed there as a servant.

This census recorded the population of Ireland as being 8, 175, 124 million. By the time the next census was taken in 1851 the population had dropped over 1.5 million. This was because of the Famine which was responsible for approximately 1 million deaths and the great migration which saw about a million people leave Ireland to start new lives in England and in the colonies.

Not a lot more is known about Richard's siblings and how they fared through the Famine. A brother James emigrated to New South Wales in the late 1850’s marrying in 1860. His bride has been born in Fermanagh, Ireland and emigrated as a baby with her parents and siblings in 1839. Another brother Ephraim emigrated to New York with his wife in the early 1860s.

Richard too, packed his bags and left Ireland, arriving at Twofold Bay, (Eden) New South Wales on 21 May 1867 as a passenger on the Lighthorse Brigade. Just over a year later he married the younger sister of his brother’s wife and settled into farming in the south coast hinterland; Kiama, Berrima, Burrawang, Jamberoo, Robertson before moving to Unanderra in his later years.

Richard and Harriett raised a family of seven children. They lost their eldest grandson at Pozieres in July 1916 and saw many other grandchildren grow and marry in their lifetime. They were great grandparents by the time of their deaths.

Richard was my daughters 3 x great grandfather. She has four 3 x great grandparents born in Ireland who emigrated to Australia and New Zealand and three of them are from County Cavan - but from completely opposite sides of the county.

How’s that for a Random fact – to round out this letter of the alphabet !

A Lottery Win

Inspired by my discoveries last week in the expanded collection of Illawarra newspapers available on Trove, I have been search for other people who resided in the area. I found a little article which mentioned the younger sister of Alice Halsey the child bride from an earlier post.

The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW 1842 - 1954) Tuesday 8 November 1910 page 11 article15165214-7-001

Carrie was the 13 year old witness to her sister's marriage in 1880, and married herself three years later to David Owen. Here she is, the wife of a miner winning the Eight Hour Art Union prize. A tiara valued at £500.

I wonder what she thought. Did she wear it ? Did they keep it ? If they did, does the family still have it ? Or did they sell it ? Did it make a change to their lives ?

I learned something else, as I researched this post. In 1910 the Labor Government introduced a national currency to Australia. Up until then it had been made up of all sorts. The private banks had issued paper money denominated in pounds as far back as 1817. Earlier than that foreign currency was used, or goods were traded - rum being acceptable currency. Australia's first coinage was issued in 1813 in New South Wales by punching out the middle of a Spanish dollar. This produced two coins. The holey dollar was worth five shillings sterling, and the dump (the piece from the middle) one shilling and three pence. They were only able to be used in New South Wales. Pound coins, sovereigns and half sovereigns came later. In the lead up to Federation the currency in the colonies was made up of British silver and copper coins, Australian minted sovereigns (worth £1), half sovereigns, locally minted copper trade tokens (although these were suppressed by 1881) and private bank notes. Wikipedia has lots more information about this.

I found an article about the new money on Trove in The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 2 December 1910, page 6. It is quite wordy, so I have just used the link instead of the whole article.

The new national currency was based on an Australian pound, made up of 20 shillings, and each shilling made up of 12 pence. It was fixed, as it had been since colonisation, to the value of British sterling; so pound for pound. The Reserve Bank of Australia has a great inflation calculator on their website. According to their calculation with inflation £500 would be worth $AUD61783 today. This doesn't take into account what the mineral worth of a piece of jewellery such as this might be though. 

Still I daresay for a most of us today, an extra $60K would be a welcome windfall. I imagine it could have made quite a difference to  Carrie's family. Sadly she passed away only five years later. I hope if she kept it, that it was handed on to her only surviving daughter Ethel.


This post forms part of Trove Tuesday as suggested by Amy, from Branches, Leaves & Pollen .

A new branch to explore

So, opportunity presented itself to me last night in the form of a tweet about new editions of various newspapers having been digitised and made available on Trove . 

A lot of the titles were from New South Wales, and some even from the South Coast and Illawarra area. Too tempting, I couldn't help myself

Here is one of the gems I discovered, about a branch I don't know too much of. But I will be finding out more now that I have been re-inspired - watch this space.

The Kiama Independent and Shoalhaven Advertiser (NSW 1863 - 1947) Saturday 20 April 1912 page 2 article102131970-3-001

John was part of a large Irish family which had arrived in the Illawarra in 1840. His sisters, the Mesdames James and R Gibson were married to brothers who had also emigrated separately, from Ireland in the 1860's. Mrs R Gibson is my daughter's 3 x great grandmother. And how great to get the married names of two other sisters - since this family seems to be indexed as IRVINE, IRVIN, and IRWIN on the bdms I have studied. Maybe soon I will be able to pinpoint some of the other family members.

From my little search just now on Trove, I think there may have been other members of the wider family who emigrated at the same time as John's parents, eldest sister and grandparents.

Check back soon, I'm saving some awesome ANZAC tidbits which mention the Gibson family for another post. Have to say that Trove is in my top ten favourite sites list, and getting pretty close to the top position.

This post forms part of Trove Tuesday as suggested by Amy, from Branches, Leaves & Pollen .