On March 21, 55 descendants of John and Ann Ellery (nee George) gathered at the Chewton Senior Citizens Centre.
Joyce Bartlett, the great, great granddaughter of John and Ann Ellery kindly shared some information about the reunion and family history.
This was the second attempt at a reunion, with the first coinciding with the Ravenswood-Harcourt bushfires on January 10. There were only
eight people on that occasion, with descendants of Mary Jane and Josiah meeting for the first time. Descendants of John and Ann now live in many parts of Australia and overseas.
John and Ann Ellery, natives of St Columb Minor, Cornwall, England, arrived at Port Melbourne, Victoria, aboard the ‘Prince Alfred’ on February, 17, 1854, in the midst of the Victorian gold rush, with six of their children. Gold mining features as an occupation of many of the family, but John and Ann settled in Faraday as farmers.
John and Ann had eight children, Silas, Elizabeth, John Jnr, Mary Jane, Josiah, Catherine, Ellen and Silas. (Their first born, 17 year old Silas, was drowned in 1846 in the worst historical Cornish mining disaster – the East Wheal Rose lead mine near Newquay, along with 38 others. The mine flooded when it was hit by a thunderstorm nearby (reported as a cloud burst).
Their eldest daughter Elizabeth married Josiah Inch in Cornwall in 1852. When they were both 21 (along with Josiah’s sister Tamsen), they sailed from Liverpool, England in late 1852 (it had left Liverpool in August 1852) on the now notorious double decked clipper ‘Triconderoga’ (starting with a total of 800 sailors and immigrants), and dropped anchor off the beach at the historic Portsea Quarantine station (Point Nepean), full of scarlett fever
and typhoid. 100 of the passengers and some crew died enroute to Australia, with a further 90 dying at Point Nepean (Portsea). This in itself is an interesting and intriguing story!
Other marriages in the family took place in Central Victoria – John to Isabella Montgomery in 1867, Mary Jane firstly to William Lewis in 1857 and then Thomas Metcalf in 1862; Catherine to William Lawry in 1860; Josiah to Elizabeth Bolitho in 1868; Ellen to Henry Tonkin in 1870 and Silas to Catherine Thomas in 1878.
John died in 1870 and is buried at the Chewton Cemetery, with his youngest son Silas who died in 1879 and a grandson Thomas Alfred Ellery, a son of John Jnr. who died in 1874.
Daughter, Elizabeth is also buried at Chewton. John’s wife Ann, died in 1891 at the home of her daughter, Ellen Tonkin and is buried with members of the Metcalf family at the Melbourne Central Cemetery. Many descendants of John and Ann are also interred at Chewton.
The day included a tour of Faraday and Chewton to visit significant sites, including Boyle’s Inn, the Faraday school, the site of the original house at the foot of Mt Alexander and finally, the Chewton Cemetery.
It was a noteworthy gathering for the wider Ellery family and many connections were made on the day.