Fingerprints in time

Last week I wrote about the life of Hanna Wallbridge, my great-great-grandmother. As a result of that post, I was alerted to some more information on Hannah's life around the late 1850s when she was separated from her husband, Robert Geary Henderson.

My correspondent remembered seeing mention of Hannah concealing belongings from her husband. The website she remembered is no longer available, but she also remembered the mention of Hannah in a book about Sydney's colonial businesswomen. This eventually let me to the author of that book, who kindly provided me some of the background material she had. The material was a file on Hannah's insolvency.

These papers included a copy of the Court Order that Hannah obtained under the Deserted Wives and Children Act. From this material and other clues available from the newspapers, I have pieced together the following likely course of events:

• April 1858 - the licence for the Clarence Hotel is issued in Robert jnr’s name
• Sat 1 May 1858 - Robert leaves Hannah and moves to Brisbane Water. Hannah drafts her advertisement for the paper, which appears in Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday 4 May (it is in the third column on page 8 and is dated 1 May).
• Sat 8 May 1858 - Robert’s reply advertisement is published also in Sydney Morning Herald. He does not mention Hannah, just absolves himself of any debts (half way down the fourth column on page 1).
• Late Feb 1859, (Presumed) Robert and Hannah argue over the debts at the Hotel. Robert threatens to sell their belongings to cover the debts. Possibly Hannah is advised that she is unlikely to get the hotel license in her name while she is legally a married woman.
• 2 March 1859 Hannah applies to the court for the order under the Deserted Wives and Children Act and hides furniture and effects from Robert. (She possibly constructed a false wall in the hotel!)
• 3 March1858 - an order is issued protecting any of Hannah's future finances and assets from Robert - but he is still entitled to any of Hannah’s assets from before the order, and the order seems to exclude real estate. The date of desertion is given as 3 May because weekends don’t count as dates in such documents.
• April 1859 - Clarence Hotel license is issued in Hannah’s name
• Oct 1959 - insolvency proceedings against Hannah. She makes a declaration that her personal property is worth £68. The next day she writes that she has forgotten the hidden property and increases the value to £230 (was she caught-out perhaps and had to come clean). The property is sold at auction - this includes the licence for the Clarence Hotel.
• Dec 1959 - license for Clarence hotel transferred to T. Henderson - inference being that Robert snr has purchased the license in Thomas’ name. (List of license transfers in Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Dec 1859, page 4.)
• 28 Feb 1860 (presumed from a Government notice in December) Hannah gets her certificate of discharge as an insolvent. (Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Dec 1859 page 2.)
• 7 May Licence for the Clarence Hotel is renewed in Hannah’s name. 31st April crossed out and corrected to 7th May so possibly delayed while the insolvency was investigated. (Copy of Licence Certificate from NSW archives.)
• 1865 Hannah reportedly loans Robert snr 1,450 pounds! That is a LOT of money in those days - maybe $160,000 in 2020 money (based on  the real value). If this is correct, the hotel has done well under Hannah's management! (Empire, 24 August 1870, page 4 - Empire is a Sydney newspaper.)
• 1866 Robert snr makes Hannah an allowance of £2 per week - Robert jnr would later claim that was a loan repayment but a Court decided it was charity. Converted to 2020 value this might be $242 in real value or $2,590 in relative wage value (see note blow).
• 1868 Hanna died, probably from tuberculosis.

In trying to get an idea of the magnitude of money between the colonial era and today, I consulted a website on Measuring worth. This site provides a range of values based on different basis for the calculations. The lower values represent the value based on changes in GDP and the price of commodities, while the higher value is based on changes in wages. My interpretation is that wages in modern times are 10 times higher relative to the value of GDP than they were in colonial times.

Hannah Henderson nee Wallbridge

Sydney Morning Herald, 14 October, 1859

Hannah Wallbridge was born in Turners Puddle, Dorset in 1829, the eldest child of Luke and Sarah Wallbridge. Hannah emigrated to Australian when she was about 20, arriving just as the Australian Gold Rush was starting. Hanna's sister Mary Ann joined her in Sydney in 1853 and in 1856 her parents and remaining siblings also emigrated, settling in the Gosford district.

Hannah was working and living in Sydney when she met Robert Geary Henderson and they married in November 1852. Hannah was 23 and Robert 20.

In 1853 Robert took over the license for the Clarence Hotel which was owned by his father. Their first child, Catherine Hargraves Henderson, was born in August 1853, followed by Madeline Mary Geary Henderson in 1855 and Robert Francis Geary Henderson in 1856. 

The Henderson family take name confusion to dizzying heights! First a mixup in the baptism entry saw Madeline's name being incorrectly recorded as 'Adelaide' (this permeates later records because the baptism record was considered legal). Then they set off a tradition of naming sons Robert Henderson! That probably continues to the current generation. I have tried very hard to make it clear in the draft chapters, but with four-barrelled names it can become hard to follow!

In March 1858 Hannah Hannah applied for an order under the Deserted Wives and Children's Act on the basis that Robert had ‘gone away with another woman’. He was living with Elizabeth Delaney at Woy Woy. Hannah was granted the order, which meant she was able to run the hotel business and maintain her own finances completely independent of her estranged husband. The licence for the Clarence Hotel is in Hannah's name when it was renewed in 1959.

Unfortunately for Hannah, the debts for the hotel exceed her assets and within 18 months she is facing bankruptcy. I wonder if she had started behind the 8-ball with debts accumulated by her husband. As shown in the advertisement above, Hannah's belongings were sold at auction in an effort to cover the debts. It is hard to follow from the newspapers, but it seems that she was eventually able to get a certificate of discharge and resumed the license at the hotel.

There are hints that, after this initial setback, she ran the hotel at a profit, to the extent that she is able to make a substantial loan to her father-in-law in 1865. But Hannah was not well. Both she and her eldest daughter contracted tuberculosis. Catherine died in 1866 and Hannah in 1868. Hannah did not leave a will and all her property was liquidated to satisfy her creditors. The administrator appointed by the Court was Frederick Tooth a partner in the Tooth brewery.

Care of Madeline and Robert Francis fell to Hannah's in-laws, Robert and Catherine Henderson. The children were both sent to exclusive boarding schools and Robert snr made generous provision for their future in his will.

In 1870, after Robert snr's death Robert Geary Henderson made a claim on his father's estate for the money he alleged that Hannah had loaned to Robert snr in 1865. The court ruled that while the loan may have been made, he had no right to claim repayment as it had been loaned after he had deserted his wife (take that you cad).

In researching this story I thought it surprising that Hannah's parents seem to have had little role in her later life. Hannah died at the Henderson property at Veteran Hall and was buried there, and the Henderson grandparents took charge of the children. 

There is also an interesting account of a paternity claim made by Hannah's sister, Eliza Wallbridge, against Thomas Henderson, Hannah's brother-in-law. From the newspaper reports, I formed the view of the Wallbridge women to be forthright and strong women, who stood up for themselves and supported each other. I also formed the view that Robert Henderson snr did not have any sympathy for Eliza Wallbridge. (Eliza named he child Mary Eliza Henderson Wallbridge in acknowledgement of the child's father.) It you want to read up on this juicy story I have loaded a transcript under the resources for Robert Geary Henderson - see 1858-henderson-thomas-paternity.pdf or see the original on the National Library of Australia website.

Judging character from the distance of time

One of Robert Geary Henderson's grandchildren
not in any way important to our family story
but a wonderful character photo!

This week I started to move on from the long research into Robert and Catherine Henderson and the logical next step was their son Robert Geary Henderson. As many will know he was a very different man to his father, but it got me thinking about how we judge character through the mists of time.

The photo right is Robert Frederick Henderson jnr, grandson of Robert Geary Henderson. He is not important to our story, but he is such a grim looking character, I could not resist the temptation!

Sometimes there is something written about a person's character, but in my experience this is rare, and often tainted by the context.  A glowing character reference given in a eulogy for example, has to be taken with a grain of salt, because unsavoury character references are unlikely in this context - it is a picture biased by the context.

More often we rely on the actions of a person as recorded by what evidence survives. 

In the case of the first Robert Henderson we have a lot of small pieces of information about his business and personal activities drawn from a range of sources. They generally paint a picture of an ambitious, industrious and basically honest man, even if he did dabble in a bit of smuggling now and then! There are hints that he was ruthless in business dealings.

In contrast, we have very little information about his wife, Catherine Geary. That is not unusual for the times in which she lived where most references were to the husband. But to what extent were the actions of Robert the result of Catherine''s influence? Could it be that the kinder side of Robert that occasionally shows through is actually Catherine quietly influencing from behind the scenes? We will never know!

This is one of the reasons I am writing the chapters of my family history about a couple rather than individuals. I would like to think that the success or otherwise of a family is a result of two people, and because of the paternal nature of earlier times, the women in our family story are often unrepresented. I would hate to think that by combining the stories into one I make it seem that the women don't matter.

People in the past also had different ideas about character. Robert Baden-Powell (the founder of the scouting movement) wrote about how you could judge character by the way a man walked or wore his hat! Needless to say I think that is rubbish!

I don't think you can judge character on appearance, so I would be reluctant to judge the Henderson pictured above on the basis of the photo alone. The context is important - in this case it came from the records at Darlinghurst Prison! More important perhaps is the details of the crime. I would judge a man more harshly if he perpetrated domestic violence than if he stole food to feed his children. But it is a sad fact of history that a man would more likely to find himself in prison for the stealing offence. Domestic abuse went largely unreported.

I found a case this week when a granddaughter of Robert Geary Henderson was beaten in public by her abusive husband. The husband was fined £15. The story justified just three lines in the newspaper!

Robert and Catherine completed

This week I finalised the draft chapter on Robert Henderson and Catherine Geary. The growing complexity of draft chapters, supporting chapters and research notes forced me to rethink the organisation of my website and this occupied quite a bit of time this week. There is now a page dedicated to each proposed chapter in the family history, with the resources and research notes for that chapter all available from that page.

The page for Robert and Catherine is shown above. The draft chapter is on the right of the page, and you can expand it into a separate window. Go to the page on Robert Henderson and Catherine Geary.

After I spotted a namesake in the family this week (another Bruce Ward), I spent some time updating the information I have on Manasseh and Madeline Ward's youngest son Bruce.

Family legend has it that young Bruce Ward was the best horseman of the Ward family. He had a natural way with horses. He enlisted in the army soon after the outbreak of WWI.

He served on the front line in the middle-east campaign where he was a machine gunner in the 2nd Light Horse. The military records are brief on detail, but it seems he may have been wounded during the unsuccessful attempts to free Gaza in July 1917. The records mention deafness, but later evidence suggests that Bruce had shrapnel scars on his back and leg, so it is likely that he was injured in an explosion, such as from shelling. He was returned to Australia were he was discharged as medically unfit. (Gaza was finally liberated after the legendary Battle of Bersheeba - but Bruce was in hospital).

Bruce next married Esther Rich, an English-born woman who had arrived with her family when she was six. They married in 1924 - Bruce was 28 and Esther just 18! Two children arrived in quick succession. Joyce was born in 1924 and Bruce jnr in 1925.  Unfortunately Esther died in 1929, The cause of death was peritonitis following a self-induced abortion.

The timing at this point becomes unclear. We know from family stories that Bruce left the children with his mother, then forged a cheque on his mother's account and vanished. This was possibly in 1930 or shortly after and Madeline was about 75 and in no state to look after two children. My father, Laurie Ward remembered having Bruce jnr as a playmate and missing him when he was sent away (Dad was two years older than Bruce jnr. and lived almost next door to Madeline's home.)

When it was clear that Bruce snr was not coming back for the children, they went to live with their mother's family., From later records it would seem that they were taken in by Esther's older sister Matilda Jacobs nee Rich. Joyce was known to use the name Joyce Rich.

The Ward family never heard from Bruce again. We now know that he lived out his life in the Petone–Levin area in New Zealand (on the west coast, just north of Wellington) where he worked in his trade as a fitter and mechanic. He died in a War Veteran's home in 1976.

In an interesting twist to the story, I found Bruce jnr's WWII service records. He was a fitter like his father and he served as groundcrew in the RAAF. Among the military records, the next of kin has Bruce Leon Clive Ward listed, with his correct address in New Zealand! This is crossed out and 'Joyce Doreen Rich, Sister' is written above. I conclude from this that his children knew where he was, even if his siblings didn't.

I have written up the Bruce story on my website. It is under 'Sidetracks' for the time being, but eventually will probably move to be with profiles of the rest of Manasseh and Madeline's children.

Am I named after Bruce? I don't think it is as direct as that. Bruce was not an uncommon name for the 1950s, but I don't think my Mum and Dad were following family names when my older siblings and I were born. It was clearly different with my younger sisters who both have family names (from different sides of the family).

The accidental publican?

Robert Henderson may never have intended becoming a publican, but that is what he became in 1844 when he became the licensee of the Dove Inn in Erskine Street Sydney.

He probably acquired the hotel as a part of a property purchased from John Anderson in 1836. At that time it was called the Sprig of Shillalah and was licensed to William Bergan. A record survives of an agreement signed in 1838 where the lease for the hotel is signed over to Robert Henderson, with Bergan remaining as the lessee. 

When Bergan died late in 1841, Robert advertised in the newspaper for a new lessee (see advertisement above right). A few months later Jeremiah Callaghan transferred the licence of the Dove Inn from its former site in George Street to Robert's Erskine Street site, replacing the Sprig of Shillalah. But Callaghan was then declared insolvent in August 1843. The Courts appointed Henry Smith as the new licensee.

The name Henry Smith rang a bell with me, but it took a while for the penny to drop. Robert and Catherine Henderson had taken in an orphan child named Sarah Murray around the time they moved to Brisbane Water. Sarah was grown up, but still with the family when they moved to Sydney in the early 1840s and Robert was a witness at her marriage in August 1843. Her new husband was the same Henry Smith and they were married in the same month that Henry became the licensee at the hotel! According to Sarah and Henry's descendants, Henry was a shoemaker who had a shop on the corner of Erskine and Sussex Street (probably within the Dove Inn). Henry Smith was virtually a son-in-law to Robert Henderson, having married his foster-daughter.

When the next license is issued for the Dove Inn in May 1844, the licensee is Robert Henderson. It looks to me that Robert tired of unstable tenancies and when Callaghan went bankrupt, he put his son-in-law in as the licensee while he put his affairs in order and took over the license himself when it came up for renewal.

The pattern was repeated when Robert opened a new hotel just down Erskine Street from the Dove Inn. The first licensee of the Clarence Hotel was Henry Smith in 1852. Then Robert's son, Robert jnr took over the license when he turned 21.

Robert retained ownership of both hotels until he died and they were both included in his Will. He sacked his son Robert jnr as licensee when he deserted his wife, installing the deserted wife Hannah as licensee in 1860. It seems significant, to me at least, that Robert left the hotels to his grandchildren (the children of Robert jnr and Hannah), and not to either of his sons. Perhaps he didn't trust his boys after their antics in early adulthood.

Assigned convicts

This week I was writing up a section of Robert Henderson's story. The section was broadly about the convicts and other people that Robert employed and there are quite a few small snippets of information from a range of sources. Piecing them together, they tell a story of a man who looked after people who were loyal to him, but would not hesitate to pursue those who betrayed his trust.

It is a slow process to pull together the threads of information from different sources. Each source gives a different slant on the picture. This week I found records of convict assignments published in the Government gazette between 1830 and 1840. Some of the assignments make perfect sense from what we know about Robert's activities, but two raised my eyebrows just a bit:

• In 1833 he was assigned a house painter, so maybe this was when he was building the new house at Veteran Hall?
• Later in 1833 he was assigned two labourers.
• In 1834 he was assigned a shoemaker. A shoemaker?
• In 1835 he was assigned a seaman and this fits in with his expanding shipping business at that time.
• In 1839 he as assigned two more labourer's and a tailor!

I wonder if the tailor was in preparation for Robert and Catherine's move to Sydney? Were they preparing for more social activities in the growing town (he said with a smile)?

Of course I am not even sure that Robert was asking for these particular skills or whether it was just the luck of the draw. My thinking is that they would not publish the trades if it was not relevant, so I think he probably wanted a tailor or something similar.

I am also aware that we might misinterpret the trades and occupations of that time and what they did. I noticed that the only convict assigned to William Ward in these lists was a 'metal fork maker'! I assume this was garden forks, because a maker of household cutlery was a 'cutler' (I did see one cutler assigned to someone else). Many of the trades common in the 1830s are now extinct, or at best maintained by a small band of historical enthusiasts.

Another resource that I found were lists of 'absconding' convicts that were published in the newspapers. William Billett ran away from Robert's employ in 1830 and Robert Mitchell absconded in 1833.

I have also looked at Ticket of Leave records – Robert supported applications for James Freeman, Robert Forsey and James Franks. These records are hard to find, because they are not indexed under Robert's name. I discovered these three while trolling through the Brisbane Water Police Letter books.

There may also be information in the convict muster lists, but once again, they are indexed under the convict's names only. In one muster I found four convicts listed with Robert, all with names starting with 'F' (Freeman, Forsey, Fordy and Franks). 

I am getting closer to the first draft of Robert's story. After I finish this section, there us just one more on his time as a publican to complete, and most of the research for that section has already been done.