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.