Isaac Dawson (1830-1872), great great grandfather of my husband Greg, was born about 1830 in Corby, Lincolnshire. His parents were Thomas Dawson and Ann Dawson née Gibbons.
The 1841 census lists him as the ten year old son of Thomas, an agricultural labourer. Isaac was the second oldest child of Thomas’s four children.
On 6 May 1855 Isaac Dawson, son of Thomas Dawson, married Eliza Skerritt, daughter of Robert Skerritt, in St Wulfram’s church, Grantham, Lincolnshire. Isaac, Thomas, and Robert were recorded as labourers. Isaac signed his name; Eliza made her mark. The witnesses were Samuel Brown and Ann Skeritt.
Their marriage was announced in the Grantham Journal.
Isaac and Eliza had nine children:
John Thomas (1858–1931)
William (1859–1943)
George (1862–1863)
Henry (1864–1929)
Charles (1864–1928)
Elizabeth Anne (1867–1882)
Mary Eliza (~1869–1950)
George Robert (1870–1924)
Albert Edward (1872–1947)
On the 1861 census Isaac, age 30, was recorded as a railway labourer, living at 6 Sandalls Row, Corby. His wife Eliza and two children lived in this household.
In the 1871 census Isaac Dawson (age 40), licensed hawker, was the head of household at 106 High Street, Corby. His wife and seven children lived in the same household.
Isaac Dawson died on 17 March 1872 aged 42 years of phthisis (tuberculosis). He had been a licensed hawker. His death was announced in the Grantham Journal: Dawson.—At Corby, the 17th inst., Isaac Dawson carrier, aged 42 years.
Death registration GRO Reference: 1872 Jan-Feb-Mar in Bourn Volume 07A Page 208
This couple is said to be Isaac Dawson and his wife Eliza Skerritt. The identification, however, is possibly unreliable. Isaac Dawson was 42 when he died; this man looks older. And if the woman in the photograph was indeed Eliza Skerritt she must have been 35 or less; she looks older. [Photograph kindly passed on by an English Dawson cousin.]
The maternal grandmother of my husband Greg—mother of his mother Marjorie—was Edith Caroline Edwards, the daughter of immigrants from Cornwall.
Documents kept in the family, probably based on family Bible records, give Edith’s date of birth as 6:45 p.m. 16 September 1871, and the place Sunnyside, Ballarat. The birth was registered on 20 September 1871 in the City of Ballarat.
Edith Caroline Edwards was the daughter of Francis Gilbart Edwards, a twenty-year-old farmer, born in St Erth, Cornwall, and Caroline Ralph, twenty-one, born in Camborne, about ten miles away. Both Francis and Caroline had come to Australia with their families as children.
Edith’s parents were married in Ballarat in December 1870. She was their first child. The birth registration informant was Francis Ralph, her maternal grandfather, occupation stonemason, who also lived in Ballarat.
By 1879, when Edith was seven, the family had moved from Ballarat to Adelaide. Two more girls had been born in Ballarat, and three more were born in Adelaide. The family returned to Ballarat when Edith was about fifteen. A boy was born there, but he died a year later. The family was then living in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne. Another boy was born in Richmond in 1889.
On 12 December 1889, Henry Dawson and Edith Caroline Edwards were married at the Wesleyan Parsonage in Brunswick, another suburb of Melbourne. The marriage was conducted by Richard Fitcher, Wesleyan Minister, under license and according to the rites of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
Henry Dawson was a twenty-five-year-old bachelor, born in Lincoln, England. His occupation at the time of his marriage was railway porter, and his residence was Brunswick, Victoria. His parents were Isaac Dawson, a hawker, and Eliza Skeritt.
Her marriage certificate records Edith Caroline Edwards as a nineteen-year-old spinster, born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Her residence was Brunswick. Her parents were Francis Gilbart Edwards, a railway employee, and Caroline Ralph.
The marriage was performed with the written consent of Francis Gilbart Edwards, the father of the bride. The witnesses to the marriage were Francis Gilbart Edwards and Emma Manning.
Edith and Henry had eight children, all of whom survived infancy, and all of whom, unusually for the period, outlived both parents. They were:
As a railway employee, from time to time Henry was obliged to move to a new position. Their first daughter was born in Barnawartha on the northern border of Victoria. Their next child, Greg’s grandmother Stella, was born in Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria’s south. Their other children were born in Melbourne in the area around Brighton.
In 1909 Edith and her husband Henry registered to vote. They were living in McKinnon, a Melbourne suburb near Brighton. Henry was recorded as ‘railway employee’.
When their youngest daughter Annie was born in 1912 they were living in North Brighton. By 1914 they had moved to the suburb of Chelsea. They later moved to the neighbouring suburb of Chelsea Heights then to Murrumbeena, where by 1921 where were living at Neerim Road, near the railway station.
Henry Dawson died on his 65th birthday in Kyneton hospital. He worked for the railways. All the family worked for the railways. He retired from the railways at compulsory retiring age. Came up to Kyneton for a holiday, and got sick with pneumonia or something. He was put into hospital and died. This was about 1930.
Marjorie’s recollections are much in line with Henry’s death certificate, which records that Henry Dawson died on 30 July 1929 at Kyneton Hospital, Victoria. His usual residence was Murrumbeena. The cause of death was pneumonia and heart failure. He was buried at Kyneton cemetery on 1 August. He had been born on 30 July. Marjorie had remembered correctly.
Kyneton is 90 kilometers north of Melbourne. Henry and Edith’s daughter Stella and her family, including Marjorie, were living in Chewton, 30 kilometers from Kyneton at the time.
Marjorie also remembered her grandmother:
‘She was called “Mam”. From about 1929 Mam helped to run a “commune” farm near Glenlyon called “Circle View”. [This was during the Depression. Her husband Henry Dawson had died in 1929.] “Circle View” was on the Melbourne road on the right going to Melbourne on top of a hill. Also on the farm were her daughter Edith (Rachel, called Rae) with her husband Johnnie Jones (they had no children, but their adopted daughter Jean (later Suttie was with them); her daughter Beatrice with her husband Alf Sanday with their two children; her son Ernest with his wife Vera née Shand; and her daughter Annie and various children.’
Marjorie recalled when they were living in Malmsbury visiting “Circle View”. About the time she was aged fourteen to sixteen. They often drove over to visit on Sunday afternoons.
The 1931 electoral roll records Edith living at “Circle View” Glenlyon; her son Ernest was also at Glenlyon. His occupation was ‘assistant projectionist’. On the 1934 roll Edith, her son Ernest and daughter Annie are recorded at Malmsbury, eighteen kilometers to the north-east, where Edith’s daughter Stella and Stella’s family lived from about 1932 to 1937.
On the 1936 roll Edith, Ernest, and Annie were back in Melbourne in Glen Huntly, a suburb near Murrumbeena. By 1942 Edith was living at 61 Catherine Avenue, Chelsea; there was no one else with the same surname registered at the address.
Edith Caroline Dawson age about seventy in 1941
On 1 November 1946, Edith Caroline Dawson died at her home, 61 Catherine Avenue, Chelsea. The death was registered the same day.
She was seventy five years old. She was born in Ballarat, Victoria, and had lived in Victoria for 75 years [the informant was unaware she had lived in South Australia for part of her childhood]. Her father was Francis Gilbart Edwards, a railway employee, and her mother was Caroline Ralph. She had been married in Ballarat [actually Brunswick] at the age of nineteen to Henry Dawson. She was a widow at the time of her death.
Her children were Rachel Edith, aged 55; Stella Esther Gilbart, aged 52; Beatrice Violet, aged 50; Ruth Evelyn Elsie, aged 46; Herbert Leslie, aged 43; Ada Frances, aged 40; Ernest Henry, aged 37; and Annie Millicent, aged 33.
The cause of death was Angina pectoris for two months, mitral stenosis with regurgitation for two years, and cardiac failure for one day. Her death was certified by Dr. R. Storey, who last attended her on 1 November 1946, the day she died. The informant was Walter Rose, an authorized agent, [the undertaker] residing at Charman Road, Cheltenham.
Edith Caroline Dawson was buried on 4 November 1946 at Kyneton Cemetery with her husband.
DAWSON.— On November 1, at 61 Catherine Avenue, Chelsea, Edith Caroline, loved wife of the late Henry and loving mother of Rachel (Mrs Jones), Stella (Mrs Sullivan), Beatrice (Mrs Sanday), Elsie (Mrs Macleod), Herbert, Ada (Mrs Robins), Ernest and Annie, Aged 75 years.
DAWSON - The Funeral of the late Mrs EDITH CAROLINE DAWSON will leave our parlor, 241 Charman Road. Cheltenham, on MONDAY, at 8.30 a.m. for Kyneton Cemetery, arriving 10.30 a.m. W. D. ROSE & SON. Cheltenham. Phone Chelt. 42.
We have visited Henry and Edith Caroline’s grave at Kyneton.
My husband Greg had a great grandfather named Henry Dawson (1864 – 1929), who served for a short while in the British Army.
He was born on 30 Jul 1864 in Corby, Lincolnshire, the son of Isaac Dawson and Eliza Dawson née Skerrit. Henry had a twin brother, Charles, and at least seven other siblings.
In the 1881 census Henry, then 16, and his twin brother Charles, both agricultural labourers, were recorded as residents of The Terrace, Corby. On the night of the census their parents and other members of the family were away from home.
On 5 December 1883 Henry Dawson, labourer, then 19, enlisted at Lincoln as a gunner [private] in the Royal Artillery.
On 28 May 1885 Henry became ill and was found to have a faulty heart; he had had rheumatic fever as a child. Deemed medically unfit for service and discharged on 28 July 1885, he returned to Corby.
His army career cut short, Henry decided to emigrate to Australia.
I have not been able to find any record of his arrival. He may have been the 23 year old Henry Dawson, born Lincolnshire, who arrived in Townsville, Queensland, on 6 April 1888.
On 12 December 1889 Henry married Edith Caroline Edwards in Brunswick, a suburb of Melbourne. They had eight children.
On 30 July 1929, on his 65th birthday he died in Kyneton of pneumonia and heart failure.
My mother-in-law Marjorie talked to me once or twice about her grandfather Henry. She could remember his death in Kyneton on his 65th birthday when he was visiting her family there. She was 9 years old. Marjorie did not mention his brief service in the army, perhaps because she had never been told. She thought that he might have been to New Zealand. He hadn’t enjoyed it.
Henry’s brother Charles remained in England. He became a brickyard labourer then a colliery hand. He married but had no children. Charles died in 1928, a year before his twin.
Image retrieved from a family tree at ancestry.com
The grave of Henry Dawson and his wife in Kyneton cemetery, photographed in 2022
I have no forebears whose names begin with X, but ‘X, his mark’ on a document seems close enough.
Making an X is not a reliable way of identifying yourself, of course, and from time to time illiterate people were tricked into giving false endorsements of their intentions. One of these was my husband’s great great grandmother Eliza Dawson née Skerritt (1838-1899) who lived in Corby, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.
Though she apparently could not read and write, Eliza Dawson was a property owner and therefore entitled to vote for the local Board of Guardians. The Boards were committees that administered the Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930, elected by owners and bona fide occupiers of land liable to pay the poor rate. The property qualification was abolished in 1894, but in 1893, Eliza, widowed since 1872, was an owner or occupier of land liable to pay the poor rate and so eligible to vote for the local Board.
In the 1893 election Eliza was canvassed by a Mr Walsingham on behalf of Mr William Harrison, the local butcher, who was a member of Church of England. Eliza, however, wished to vote for the alternative candidate, a Roman Catholic, the Reverend Canon Baron. Walsingham seems to have told Eliza that her children could not complete her ballot paper on her behalf but that he could. However, perhaps contrary to her wishes, he completed the ballot in favour of William Harrison. She later asserted that ‘…she did not give him any direct permission to record her vote for Mr Harrison’.
Eliza protested, and in reviewing the election, the Local Government Board was satisfied that her ballot paper had not been completed in accordance with her intentions and that Eliza’s vote should be disallowed. This tied the vote and a fresh election was ordered.
Witnesses in the case included her sons William and Albert Dawson, and William’s wife Annie.
Two years before this, at the time of the 1891 census, Eliza Dawson was living at Stonepit Terrace in Corby with her sons George age 20 and Albert age 18, both farm labourers, and her grandson Arthur, age 12, still at school. The house previously enumerated on the Census was in Brown Road, with the occupants listed as Eliza’s son William age 31, who was a chimney sweep, William’s wife Annie, and a stepson, Frederick Munks aged 2.
Eliza presumably owned at least one of these houses, possibly both, giving her the legal status of property owner. (I haven’t been able to locate these addresses on a present-day map.)
I still have much to learn about the Dawson and Skerritt families. Until reading this article I had no idea that Eliza was a Roman Catholic [but see above, at ‘Second Thoughts’] or that she owned enough real property to qualify as a Board of Guardians voter.
A fresh election was held in January 1894. Canon Baron won the popular vote but the successful candidate was the Reverend Charles Farebrother, Anglican priest of Corby Vicarage. Depending on the value of his property, an elector had up three votes. It appears that the wealthier voters chose to vote for the Anglican clergyman.
Grantham Journal 13 January 1894 page 3
Postscript
I am descended from a long line of Huguenots – French Calvinists – on one side and German Lutherans on the other, supplemented by Anglicans (mostly) and various other Protestants. My husband Greg’s family were nominally Anglican, or if not, Non-conformist or, occasionally, followers of unusual creeds, not all of them trinitarian.
So it has been easy to assume that our families were Protestant Christians of one kind or another, and it was a surprise to discover a direct forebear who appears to have been a Roman Catholic.
The evidence is slight, however. To say that Eliza Dawson née Skerritt was described by an 1893 Corby newspaper as belonging to the Roman Catholic church reminds me of the cautious scholar who, seeing a mob of black cows, one of them white, reported that he had observed at least one cow white on at least one side.
There are very few facts, and they are difficult to interpret. Eliza Skerritt married Isaac Dawson in an Anglican Church, possibly before she changed her religious allegiance – if that’s what happened. I have not found her will or probate record, and I do not know whether she was buried a Roman Catholic. I know nothing about her husband’s denominational affiliation, nor her chilren’s.
Greg, raised in a sect which believes the Bishop of Rome to was accurately described by John in Revelation 17, will not be hurrying off to Mass on Sunday. I am waiting for more evidence before I can say with confidence that not all our recent forebears were Protestants.
Second thoughts
On re-reading the ‘Grantham Journal’ piece of 9 December 1893, I find I agree with the interpretation of Linda Curry (in the comments, below). Although she favoured the Catholic candidate, Eliza was persuaded that she should not vote against her own denominational interests, ‘her own’ meaning Anglican. She was a member of the Church of England.
Progress on our family tree using DNA evidence has been slow. Cousin matches are either with people where we have no idea how they fit into our tree, or with cousins whose place in the tree we already know. The second kind of matches are useful, however, because they help to predict where on our tree those otherwise unlinked matches might belong.
When we received our first DNA results in July 2016 one of the first matches I contacted was A B. She was predicted to be Greg’s 4th cousin with AncestryDNA stating Greg and AB shared 21.6 centimorgans across 2 DNA segments. She had a private tree, so I was unable to view what links there might be between our tree and hers. Her member profile gave no hint as to where in the world she was.
Later in the month AB replied and shared her private tree with me. Neither of us could see where the link was. We both uploaded our DNA kits to GedMatch.com, which confirmed the link, giving slightly more information than AncestryDNA had provided:
Comparing Kit A828918 (*G C Y) and Axxx (*AB) Minimum threshold size to be included in total = 500 SNPsMismatch-bunching Limit = 250 SNPsMinimum segment cM to be included in total = 7.0 cM
Chr
Start Location
End Location
Centimorgans (cM)
SNPs
8
22,956,646
32,079,918
12.6
1,731
12
64,128,525
77,383,427
13.3
2,210
Largest segment = 13.3 cMTotal of segments > 7 cM = 25.9 cM2 matching segmentsEstimated number of generations to MRCA = 4.6 441334 SNPs used for this comparison.
At the time no other kits uploaded to GedMatch matched AB and Greg. AncestryDNA also showed no shared matches.
AncestryDNA offers a view of surnames and places of birth that two trees have in common. We noticed early on that there were a large number of places in Lincolnshire from AB’s tree and some close to those on our family tree.
.
The orange markers are birthplaces on AB’s tree. The blue from our tree, and the green are birthplaces appearing on both trees.
Because of the Lincolnshire birthplaces we looked at both Dawson and Plowright lines as possible connections but came to no conclusions.
In September AB looked again at her tree, focusing on her great grandfather John William Gibbons. AB had noticed that she and her father shared DNA with an AncestryDNA match, To2, and that Greg also shared DNA with To2, although not the same segments (hence not showing as a shared match). AB found that her shared ancestors with her father and To2 were John Gibbons and Frances. Frances was possibly the daughter of Robert Atkin and Frances Smith.
Greg had no forebears with the surname Gibbons in his tree but looking at his DNA matches there were some matches who had Gibbons in their tree, in particular several had Rebecca Gibbons (1843-1897).
Rebecca was born in Moulton, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Thomas Gibbons. In 1866 she first married William Noble Waite (1845-1879). They had five children and emigrated to the United States in the 1870s. William Waite died in Utah. Rebecca’s second marriage was to Lemuel Sturtevant Leavitt (1827 – 1916) in 1882 in Utah, USA. I had noticed that several of Greg’s DNA matches had Leavitt as one of the surnames.
Lemuel Leavitt was a Mormon pioneer who travelled overland to Utah at the age of 21 in 1849.
I used Wikitree to document some of my research on the branch and connect the branch to the wider single tree. Lemuel Leavitt was on the tree but I needed to create a profile for his wife Rebecca. Several ancestry trees included Rebecca but she was not well researched and facts were sometimes factually wrong, for example on one tree she was shown as being married to Lemuel Leavitt in 1850.
I found a possible Gibbons link to our tree, an 1826 marriage record in Horbling in Lincolnshire for Thomas Dawson. The spouse was Ann Gibbons, who lived there.
Greg’s 4th great grandfather was Thomas Dawson (1775 Gunby, Lincolnshire – 1861 Bennington, Lincolnshire). He was married to an Ann. I wondered if this was Ann Gibbons of Horbling.
AB identified Rebecca Gibbons Waite Leavitt in her tree, confirming a link to the trees for the descendants of Lemuel Leavitt and Rebecca Leavitt formerly Waite nee Gibbons with whom we shared DNA. These descendants had apparently not yet researched Rebecca’s parents or origins.
In early November the General Register Office of the United Kingdom launched a new index of birth registrations. This revised index included mother’s maiden names. From this, AB discovered the record of Betsy Dawson’s birth in 1838. Bestsey was the youngest child of Thomas Dawson and Ann. The birth index showed the mother’s maiden name Gibbons. Bestsey appeared n the 1841 census with her parents Thomas and Ann and sibling Isaac (1831-1872). Isaac was Greg’s great great grandfather. There were two other siblings, Eliza and William. This gave us confidence that we had correctly identified the 1826 marriage of Thomas Dawson to Ann Gibbons as being the marriage of Isaac Dawson’s parents.
Thomas Dawson married Ann Gibbons at Horbling which is 5 miles from Aslackby, where AB’s Gibbons forebears lived.
We started to speculate. AB gave a surname to the wife of John Gibbons. She wrote:
I have added a surname to Frances (Atkin/s), wife of John Gibbons at the top of my tree. This is what is in many other people’s tree, and its true that the marriage dates seem to fit. HOWEVER – the reason why I am not sure is that the records for the parish of Aslackby for this time period have not yet been fully digitised, but are at the archives. I need to look at them anyway for my mum’s tree.
So having added the surname ATKINS it has thrown up some hints from other trees and in a couple there is a daughter ANN born 1801 Spalding, sister of my George and of Thomas – the ancestor of the LDS’s. I do feel that this would be about the right generational distance between our families.
I am not convinced about the accuracy of the online trees but it is worthy of further investigation.
The next day on the lincstothepast website AB found a baptism for Ann on 16 December 1801, daughter of John and Frances Gibbonds, at St Mary and St Nicholas Church, in Spalding, 15 miles from Horbling .
This was the only ( I think) church in Spalding at this time, as st Pauls was built by my Quinton ancestors ( as labourers) in mid / late 19thC. St Mary and St Nicholas was the church where John Gibbons and Frances Atkin were married.
The date seems to fit the age Ann Dawson when she died. In identifying a forebear I would not normally rely on such a slim connection but the DNA seems to be another piece of evidence, in particular the additional DNA matches to several descendants of Rebecca Gibbons.
In conclusion, DNA is really just additional evidence, to be reviewed with documents and indexes. Given the DNA evidence I am reasonably confident we have identified the maiden name of Greg’s great grandmother Ann Dawson (1801-1842) and we now know who her parents were: John Gibbons (1780-1840) and Frances Atkins (1772-1856). This means that Greg and AB are 5th cousins, within the range predicted by AncestryDNA and GedMatch.
Places associated with research into Ann Dawson nee Gibbons (1801-1842) Map created using MapAList
I looked though my collection of birth, death and marriage certificates for examples of people who could not sign their name.
On the birth certificate of Alice Young, born in 1859, the informant, her mother Caroline néeClark, could not sign her name and made an X. On the birth certificate of Caroline Young in 1867, the informant was her father George Young. He signed his name. In 1878 the birth of James Ernest Young was registered and the informant was Caroline. This time she appears to have signed her name. The informant’s name is in a different handwriting to the details on the rest of the certificate. Perhaps Caroline had learned how to sign her name in the twenty years between the births of Alice and James.
Informant’s details from the birth certificate of Alice Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 4807 of 1859. Caroline was also the informant on John Young’s birth in 1856. She signed with her mark on that certificate too.
Informant’s details from the birth certificate of James Ernest Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 20382 of 1878. Other details from the certificate and from the preceding certificate have been left to show the difference in handwriting, which suggests that this might be the signature of Caroline.
Sarah Way néeDaw was the informant on the 1868 birth certificate of her daughter Emily Way. She could not sign her name and made a mark. However, in 1896 Sarah’s husband John Way signed his name as the informant for the registration of the death of his son John.
When she registered the birth in 1864 of Henry Dawson at Corby, Lincolnshire, Eliza Dawson née Skerritt, his mother, could not sign her name. Her husband Isaac was able to sign his name when they married in 1855. She signed the marriage register with her mark.
These are the only examples I could find in my family documents of people who could not write their own name. All three women were great great great grandmothers of my husband. Eleven of his other great great great grandparents could sign their name.
These women were all born in the first half of the nineteenth century. All their husbands could sign their own names. In the next generation, their children, both girls and boys, could write their own name.
Some demographers have argued that illiteracy is linked to the size of families, in particular that education diminishes fertility. For example, a study of demographic changes in Britain from the 1850s to the early twentieth century found that “the extension of basic literacy is related to increases in female labour market participation, which is in turn related to fertility reduction”. (Newell and Gazeley) The data from my family does not support this hypothesis. None of the women in the table below were ever in paid employment. I cannot see any link between the literacy of my own and my husband’s great great great grandparents and the size of their families.
Age at marriage, children and dates of birth for our great great great grandmothers
Name
Ahnentafel number
literacy
number of children
age at marriage
age when first child born
age when last child born
age at death
lived
Notes
Caroline Clarke
33
no
13
18
18
43
44
1835-1879
Includes one set of twins.
Sarah Daw
35
no
10
17
18
37
58
1837-1895
Ellen Murray
37
passenger list stated she could read and write
11
19
20
41
64
1837-1901
Margaret Smyth
39
passenger list stated she could read and write
7
21
19
38
63
1834-1897
had a child before she married
Eliza Sinden
43
signature appears on birth and death certificates
8
25
26
41
85
1823-1908
Eliza Skerrit
45
no
10
21
24
38
65
1834-1899
Includes one set of twins. This is the only English family. The last child was born at the time Eliza’s husband, Isaac Dawson, died.
Caroline Ralph
47
signature appears on marriage certificate
10
20
21
43
46
1850-1896
Annie Frances Chauncy
49
yes
2
20
21
24
25
1857-1883
died young
Jeanie Hawkins
51
yes
4
21
22
31
79
1862-1941
Margaret Budge
53
yes
13
21
22
44
67
1845-1912
Ellen Jane Mainwaring
55
yes
10
20
20
37
75
1845-1920
The women in this table were Australian, with the exception of that of Eliza Skerrit, wife of Isaac Dawson, who was from Lincolnshire, England. I have not included my German great great great grandparents as I do not have the relevant data.
A graphical representation of the above data for our great great great grandmothers
click to enlarge
Reference:
Newell, A. and Gazeley, I. (2012) The declines in infant mortality and fertility: Evidence from British cities in demographic transition, Economics Department Working Paper Series, University of Sussex, No. 48-2012 retrieved from http://ftp.iza.org/dp6855.pdf 27 April 2014
The Commonwealth of Australia Electoral Roll of 1909 has him still employed as a railway employee. He probably hadn’t updated his voting registration.(1909 Australian Electoral Roll, Bentleigh polling place, Division of Balaclava, State of Victoria)
On 1 January 1912 Henry Dawson recommenced work with the railways
On 4 August 1914, 27 February 1918 and 7 April 1921 he was with the transportation branch as a lampman. He was still in that job on 24 November 1925; his weekly pay was 14 shillings 8 pence.
I have no pictures of sick children who are related to me, but in my family tree there are many instances of childhood deaths from illness.
During my childhood, I suffered appendicitis and was hospitalised but had no major infection, though I think I remember suffering from chicken pox. I can remember my brother having the mumps and having his tonsils out when he was small.
My parents both spoke of serious illnesses in their childhood. Among these illnesses, my father had scarlet fever and my mother diphtheria. My father was an only child and my mother has one sister – neither suffered the death of a sibling.
The father of my husband Greg was an only child, but Greg’s mother had several brothers and sisters including one, Gwendolyn Phyllis Sullivan (6 January 1933 – 30 May 1935), who died young. Marjorie, Greg’s mother, had helped to care for Gwendolyn and never forgot her little sister who died of meningitis when only two. Marjorie, who was 13 years older, had left school to help look after Gwenny when she was born. Marjorie recalled the little girl was sick with stomach cramps on Monday and died on Wednesday; 30 May was in fact Thursday but perhaps she died early that morning. Gwendolyn is buried at Malmsbury cemetery, Methodist Comp. 2 Sect 1 Grave 164. It seems that she has no headstone. (Judkins, Carol. “Malmsbury Cemetery.” Carol’s Headstone Photographs. Rootsweb, Apr. 2008. Web. 20 Sept. 2013. <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ausvsac/Malmsbury.htm>.)
Greg’s paternal grandfather Cecil Young had one brother, one sister and three half-siblings. His sister Caroline Young (June 1895 – 10 July 1895) died 2 1/2 weeks after she was born on 10 July 1895. The cause of death was given as “debility from birth”. She is buried in Timor cemetery.
Greg’s paternal grandmother Elizabeth Cross was one of ten children. They all lived to adulthood. Greg’s maternal grandfather Arthur Sullivan had four brothers and sisters, a half-sister and a half-brother, William Ernest Dare Morley, who died on 2 February 1880 at East Brighton of “congestion of the brain” aged 15 days. Greg’s maternal grandmother, Stella Esther Gilbart Dawson, was one of eight children, all of whom survived until adulthood.
Of my grandparents, only my maternal grandmother had a sibling who died young. Emil Oswald Manock was born on 17 April 1914 at Steglitz, Berlin and died there on 3 December 1914. My grandmother told me her brother died from “a hole in the heart”.
Our great grand parents’ generation
John Young, my husband’s great grandfather, had 12 siblings, five died young. The first child of George and Caroline Young was George Young who was born and died in 1854, probably at Beechworth. His birth and death predate civil registration in Victoria and there is no death certificate. He was remembered on each of his sibling’s birth certificates. Annie Young died 16 April 1873 aged 10 months of dysentery at Lamplough. In 1876 the Young family lost three children within a month. On 31 March Laura Young died aged 2 from diphtheria after an illness of 5 days. On 21 April her brother Edmund Young aged 6 years also died of diphtheria after an illness of 14 days. On 27 April Caroline Young aged 8 1/2 years died of scarletina maligna (acute scarlet fever) after an illness of 1 week.
Sarah Jane Way, the wife of John Young, had nine siblings of whom four died young. William John Way died aged 6 months on 18 January 1858 of “congestion of the brain” at East Collingwood, Melbourne. Mary Jane Way died age 4 months on 19 June 1859 of “cancer of the eye” also at East Collingwood. Martha Way died aged 13 months on 10 August 1875 of rubella at Parkes, New South Wales. Harriet Elizabeth Way died two days after her ninth birthday on 18 May 1879 of typhoid fever at Parkes.
Frederick James Cross had ten siblings. One died young. Thomas Bailey Cross aged 2 died at Carngham on 28 January 1875. In the photograph below taken about 1890, Thomas is represented by the dark cloth on the floor in the lower right hand corner of the picture. On the back of the photo his name was with those of his brother’s and sisters.
Ellen Cross and family about 1890. Picture from Gale Robertson, great grand daughter of Frederick James Cross and great great grand daughter of Ellen.
Ann Jane Plowright, wife of Frederick James Cross, had six siblings. Two died young. John Plowright died on 20 January 1872 aged 4 days old after a premature birth at Homebush near Avoca, Victoria. Frederick Edward Plowright died aged 14 years at Homebush on 24 April 1878. He was cutting down a tree and it fell on him, breaking his neck. He died instantly.
Anne Morley had seven siblings. Five died young. William Morley born about 1849 and Peter Morley born about 1851 had both died in England before the family emigrated in 1853. Elizabeth Morley died at Collingwood Flat on 10 March 1854 aged 5 years old of “Tabes Mesenterica“: tuberculosis or swelling of the lymph glands inside the abdomen. Children became ill drinking milk from cows infected with tuberculosis. This is now uncommon as milk is pasteurised. (“Tabes Mesenterica (Meaning Of).” Encyclo Online Encyclopaedia. Encyclo, 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. <http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/tabes mesenterica>.) Harriet Ann Morley died at East Collingwood on 5 January 1858 of atrophy aged 15 months. Mary Jane Morley died age 3 in 1858.
Henry Dawson, the son of Isaac Dawson and Eliza Skerrit was born on 30 Jul 1864 in Corby, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. He had a twin brother, Charles, and at least eight other siblings, of whom one, George Dawson (1862 – 1863) died aged less than two years old.
Edith Caroline Edwards, daughter of Francis Gilbart Edwards and Caroline Ralph was born on 16 Sep 1871 in Sunnyside, Ballarat, Victoria. She had nine siblings of whom two died young. Benjamin Gilbart Edwards (1887 – 1888) was born in Ballarat and died aged 10 months at Richmond in Melbourne. Ernest Francis Gilbart Edwards (1891 -1901) died aged 10 in Brighton.
The siblings of my paternal great grandparents all survived to adulthood except one. Mary Jane Cudmore, one of 13 children, died aged 11 months on 20 November 1884 and is buried at Brighton cemetery, Adelaide.
I know only a little of the siblings of my maternal great grandparents and I have details only of those that survived to adulthood. It may be that they all did survive, but more research is needed to be sure.
I don’t have enough details to look back one further generation to the siblings of my and my husband’s great great grandparents. While I have details about a few of the families, information on others is missing. Hence I shall mention only one death from that generation.My great great great grandfather wrote about the death of his son at Heathcote and sketched his grave. The headstone, although damaged, still survives.
Sketch by Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy of the grave of his son Philip who died at Heathcote aged 3 years. From opposite page 33 of his book Memoirs of Mrs. Poole and Mrs. Chauncy
Philip Lamothe Chauncy (23 March 1851 – 19 May 1854) was the first son of Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy and his wife Susan Mitchell. He died before my great great grandmother, Annie Frances Chauncy was born. In his memoir about his wife, Philip wrote:
… our first son, named Philip Lamothe, was born on the 23rd March, 1851. I think my dear Susie’s maternal instincts were unusually strong, and oh how true she was to them! How devoted she was to that child! He grew up to be a lovely boy, the admiration of all who knew him; but he had too heavenly a look for this world. He was the source of the most inexpressible delight to his mother; her eyes used to feast on his beaming little face; she looked the most un-utterable blessings on him. But alas, he was too exotic a plant to live on this earth, and was taken from us by our all-wise God, at Heathcote, Victoria, on the 19th of May, 1854. To the day of her death, his words and looks and little actions were fresh in her memory. I think she never completely recovered from the shock occasioned by the death of our little Philip; indeed, I now remember she said, shortly before she was taken from us, that she had never got over it, although she was quite resigned to the will of God, and would not have been so selfish as to have wished him back again. (Chauncy, Philip Lamothe Snell Memoirs of Mrs Poole and Mrs Chauncy. Lowden, Kilmore, Vic, 1976.Pages 37-8)
In May 1854, our darling little Philly caught cold, and Dr Sconce, the Government Assistant Surgeon, was called in to attend him. On the 12th of that month, Dr Robinson happening to be in our parlor-tent, and hearing Philly cough, said, “That child has croup.” O what agony the information caused his dear mother. A day or two after this we removed him into the large new stone building which had just been erected for officer’s quarters, but he gradually sank, and expired on the 19th May 1854, after a week’s illness. (Chauncy Memoirs already cited, page 47)
Most of our forebears came from Victoria and we are fortunate in the high quality of vital records which provide a lot of information for family history. In the summary below, where cause of death is not stated I have not obtained the death certificate.
Summary of our aunt, great aunts and uncles and great great aunts and uncles who died as children :
Aunt :
Gwendolyn Phillis Sullivan died age 2 in 1935 of meningitis
Great aunt and great uncles :
Caroline Young died age 2 1/2 weeks in 1895 of “debility from birth”
William Ernest Dare Morley died age 15 days in 1880 from “congestion of the brain”
Emil Oswald Manock died age 7 1/2 months in 1914 of a “hole in the heart”
Great great aunts and great great uncles :
George Young died as an infant in 1854
Annie Young died age 10 months in 1873 from dysentery
Laura Young died age 2 in 1876 from diphtheria
Edmund Young died age 6 in 1876 from diphtheria
Caroline Young died age 8 in 1876 from scarletina maligna
William John Way died age 6 months in 1858 of “congestion of the brain”
Mary Jane Way died age 4 months in 1859 of “cancer of the eye”
Martha Way died age 13 months in 1875 of rubella
Harriet Elizabeth Way died age 9 in 1879 of typhoid
Thomas Bailey Cross died age 2 in 1875
John Plowright died age 4 days in 1875 having been born prematurely
Frederick John Plowright died age 14 years in 1878 from an accident
William Morley died as an infant or small child before 1853
Peter Morley died as an infant or small child before 1853
Elizabeth Morley died age 5 in 1854 from Tabes Mesenterica
Harriet Ann Morley died age 15 months in 1858 of atrophy
Mary Jane Morley died age 3 in 1858
George Dawson died before he was 2 in 1863
Benjamin Gilbart Edwards died age 10 months in 1888
Ernest Francis Gilbart Edwards died age 10 in 1901
Anne's Family History 
