Job Miller and Susan Rumble, goldrush immigrants

I have been following the maternal ancestry of my grandmother, Lena Parry. Today I will cover the story of her grandparents, Job Miller and Susan Rumble.

Job Miller was born in Elmdon, Essex in 1828, the son of Job and Jane Miller. His family had been in the area for many generations and were working class people. Job was named after his father, and the name has biblical origins. It is pronounced 'jobe' and rhymes with 'robe'. Job grew up in Elmdon and would have started work as an agricultural labourer about the age of 12. 

Job was 19 when he married Sarah Chester in 1848. Sarah was a straw bonnet maker. Their first child, George was baptised in Elmdon in July 1852.

Susan Rumble was born in Barkway ,Hertfordshire in 1831, daughter of Joseph and Sarah  Rumble. Barkway is only about five miles from Elmdon. Like. The Rumble family had been in the general area for many generations and her father's family were from a village almost next door to Elmdon. In fact, Susan and Job were probably 4th cousins. Both had John and Ruth Pity in their ancestry, five generations before!

Susan's mother died when Susan was 10. Her father moved the family back to his home village of Little Chishall in Essex, which is less than three miles from Elmdon. Susan's father worked as an agricultural labourer, and Susan possibly cared for her younger siblings.

By 1850, conditions for agricultural workers in England were tough. Many of the big landholders were mechanising the harvesting and processing of crops and wages for labourers were vfalling. Meanwhile the British colonies in Australia were growing rapidly and were desperate for workers. The British Government would pay the fare for any workers willing to emigrate to the colonies. The attraction increased substantially after gold was discovered in 1851 and by 1853 there was a full-blown gold rush under way. Other families from the Elmdon area took up the Government assistance, including Job's aunt, Susannah Barker, nee Corbey, who had emigrated to Victoria with her whole family in 1851.

Job and  Sarah took their infant son and boarded the Dea in February 1953, arriving in Melbourne in May. Susan left a month later, boarding the Childe Harold in March 1853, arriving in Geelong in June. These were clearly people seeking a better life, not fortune hunters attracted by the lure of gold. Their tickets would have been in 'steerage', which was a deck below the waterline of the ship. People were crammed into common spaces with no privacy. The ships were sailing vessels and the decks were work areas for the crew, so passengers were allowed very limited access to the deck and then were confined to a tiny area. It would not have been a pleasant voyage.

Job went straight to work as a carter in Melbourne, while Susan was contracted to work for a Geelong man for three years for a salary of £24, including rations.

Job and Susan were not the last of their families to leave their ancestral home. Susan's sister Ellen Rumble married a second cousin and emigrated to Western Australia in December 1853.  Job's brother William Miller emigrated  to Victoria in about 1854.

Within weeks of arriving in Melbourne, hope turned to sadness for Job Miller. His wife Sarah died in Melbourne in June 1851. The cause of death has not been discovered, but circumstantial evidence points to death in childbirth. If so, the child did not survive either. (In those days, a stillborn child would not be baptised and therefore was not given a formal burial - the child would have been buried with the mother). Job was left as a widower with his small son, George, to care for.

History does not record whether Job and Susan knew each other before they emigrated, or how they came to meet up in Australia, but in October 1855 they were married in Melbourne.

The family movements from this point can be followed from the records of births, deaths and marriages.  Their first child, Sarah Jane was born in Melbourne in 1857. Then Thomas was born in Geelong in 1859. Eliza was born in 1861, and Joseph in 1862, both near Kyneton, Victoria. Next came Edward in 1864 and Charles in 1866, both born in Penrith, NSW. Finally, their last child, Alice was born in Hartley, NSW in 1867.

They were still in Hartley in 1869 when two of their children died. Joseph was seven  and George (Job’s son from his first marriage) was 17. 

In 1875 their eldest daughter Sarah married Lionel Clothier in Wellington.

Their movements in NSW are probably connected to the building of the Western railway line. The Railway had reached Penrith in 1863. The Blue Mountains section of the line was built between 1867 and 1869. It reached Bathurst in 1876, Wellington in 1880 and Dubbo in 1881.

Job died at Dubbo in May 1882. His headstone says he was aged 62, but he was only 53.

I have not found any definite trace of Susan after Job died. She was 50 when he died, so it is possible that she remarried. I think that she must have moved to Sydney or perhaps the Central Coast.  Eliza married John Moore at Burwood in 1874, then Alice married William Parry in 1885, also in Burwood. That points to the family home being near Burwood at that time.

Thomas Miller was working on the railway when he was killed in a horrific train accident in 1886. The newspaper reports say that the deceased 'has parents residing at Gosford'. I don't place a heavy reliance on this reference, but it is an interesting pointer that Susan may have been in Gosford.

I would be very interested to hear is anyone knows what became of Susan Miller.

The children:

• George, who was Job's son by his first marriage, died in Hartley in 1869, aged 17.
• Sarah raised a large family with her husband, John Clothier. They lived at Guerie. She died in 1930. 
• Thomas was killed in a work accident at Newcastle in 1886. I don't think he married.
• Eliza had eight children with John Moore. They lived in Dubbo. After John died she lived in Sydney. She died in Gosford in 1921 and was buried at Woy Woy. Interestingly, the funeral notices mention Charles Miller and the Clothier and Moore families, but not Alice or John's families.
• Joseph died in 1886 aged 7.
• John was also known as Edward. He possibly married and had children, but if he did, details have not yet been uncovered. He died in a work accident at Burrenjuck Dam in 1924. His obituary mentions Charles, Mrs Parry and Mrs Clother.
• Charles married Louisa Absalan. They lived at Brooklyn and did not have children. Charles died in 1929. He was possibly close to his sister Alice and her son, Henry Parry, was executor of Charles' will.
• Alice was just 17 when she married Bill Parry, who was 30! They had 12 children, including my grandmother, Lena Parry. Alice died in 1941.