In an unknown year in the late ’40s of the last century, my Everett great-grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth Everett migrated from Scotland to New South Wales. To them a son, whom they named Frederick Richard, was born, but there is no registered record of the date of his birth. That was not irregular, for it was not then a compulsory requirement of the law of the young Colony. However, a daughter named Edith was born to my great-grandparents in the year 1856, her birth duly entered in the official files of the Register of Births in Sydney. Supplementary dates suggest that my grandfather, Frederick Richard Everett, was born in or about 1847.
Beyond such meager facts, nothing is known of my Everett forebears until the year 1879, when grandfather registered in the office of the Government Registrar in the rural Town of Goulburn the birth of a daughter. The date of her birth was the 17th of January 1879, and her given name was Louisa Mary. Facts revealed on a certified copy of her Birth Certificate provide the information that her father, Frederick Richard Everett, was then 32 years of age, and was born in Sydney.
In the year 1871 he had been married to Archina Sinclair Campbell, born in Scotland in 1849. Seven children came to bless their home, named in turn Amelia, Wilfred George, Louisa Mary, Alice Clara, Albert Victor, Ida Jane, and Flora May. Louisa Mary was my mother.
The family line of my grandmother Archina Sinclair Campbell, is well documented. Her parents David Campbell and Mary Sinclair, were married in Stirlingshire, Scotland, in the year 1839. Their offspring numbered 11, born between the years 1840 and 1857. They were named in turn Christina, Agnas, Duncan, Ellen, Catherine (died in infancy), Sinclair (died in infancy), Archina Sinclair and Ann Gaunt (twins), Alexina Niven, David McLew, Williamina and William Sinclair. It is not known when the family or members of it migrated to the Colony of New South Wales.
My grandparents settled in the town of Goulburn where my grandfather was a bricklayer by occupation, facts revealed on the Birth Certificate of my mother. It was a trade then in demand, for an influx of population and activity had followed in the wake of continuing discoveries of gold throughout the Colonies of New South Wales and Victoria.
Even when the Great South Land was known only sketchily, it had been predicted that the Continent might contain gold and other precious metals, based on the fact that it was in the same latitude as Peru, Chile and Madagascar, countries then famed for their mineral wealth. Unsound though such a conclusion may have been, the prediction was true, for gold was found in New South Wales until the end of the century. In the rural town of Hill End the Holterman nugget was discovered in 1872, the largest single mass of gold to be unearthed in New South Wales. It yielded one hundred and eighty-seven pounds of pure gold troy weight of 12 ounces to the pound.
Enticing though it must have been I do not think my Everett grandfather ever followed the gold trail, but continued in his settled program of building, which provided security for himself and his growing family. Scant information has survived those early years of family increase, and the pattern of their lives can best be gauged by the prevailing style of that age. It included an education for a growing family in the traditional English pattern, though within narrow limits, with the higher branches of learning available in Sydney. The Everett girls received an average training, with emphasis in the domestic arts, and the boys learned the practical skills of home and farm.
From what I was told later the entertainment of the community centered around what the locals could themselves provide. They joined in singing the well-loved songs of their various homelands, at times swaying to the waltz rhythms of the Strauss family of musicians. From out of the distant past came memories of my mother, strumming on our Mignon piano in the favorite waltz, “Blue Danube” or “Over the Waves”.
Sharing the times of my ancestors were the songs of the shearing sheds and the cattle drovers. A national identity can best be established by emphasizing the customs, which distinguish one country from another. That is true in the matter of most Australian ballads and melodies, which provide the unique flavor of that which is different from the great Australian Outback. It is shown in various ways. There are the poetic efforts of A.B. (Banjo) Patterson, whom I have chosen from many others. He was born and lived for most of his life in the rural District of Orange, not far distant from my grandparents and their family. A pastoralist at heart, he was trained as a solicitor and journalist, and was the author of such popular ballads as “Waltzing Matilda” and the galloping story of “The Man from Snowy River”. It is a joy for me to read aloud the rippling words of “Clancy of the Overflow” which reveals so beautifully the author’s mastery of words. Only a man of the background of Banjo Paterson could . . . .
“See the vision splendid of the sunlight plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars”.
And go droving down the Lachlan River with his cattle and sheep. It is possible that the words that flowed so smoothly from his pen were heard in the community halls and private homes of Goulburn in the days of my grandparents.
Though they were born in Scotland, or of direct Scottish descent, at no time do I recall hearing the traditional brogue of their homeland, nor did I observe a response to the squeal of the bagpipes or the swirl of a Campbell tartan. Perhaps my youthful ears were not attuned to catch the nuances of speech, or perhaps the fine perceptions of childhood and early youth were lost in the more complex and personal concerns of living my own life. What lost opportunities now challenge me! Water flowed idly through the grinding mill of time. How much time I could have learned had I questioned those dear ancestors of mine.
There is no doubt the latest inventions of that progressive age had reached the Australian colonies, bringing with them new methods of farming, cattle rearing, and wool production. Home facilities were not forgotten. High on the list of public benefactors was Elias Howe with his sewing machine. How else could my Everett forebears have coped with the lacy furbelows and fol-de-rols of that puff-pantaloon era? In much-treasured family photographs, themselves a miracle of those times, are revealed the fashions of a day now gone forever, garments from the hands of my mother, who was skilled in the art and craft of sewing and designing billowing gowns. It was an age long predating our “off-the-hook” generation, an age of personal endeavor and inventiveness.
Meanwhile, the Australian Government was prospering in basket and store, with sheep and cattle spreading far and wide, even to the saltbush country, where deep-fleeced Merinos thrived to perfection. However it was the glitter of gold which alerted the world to the hidden potential of the land still needing more population to fill its miles of virgin country.
Unfortunately gold brought the unwanted breed of man, preying on weary travelers moving from place to place in horse-drawn coaches and carriages. Not new to crime and thievery, the earliest bushrangers were “Bolter Convicts”, who had escaped from their guards, and found refuge in the gulches and canyons, where displaced aboriginals and native animals moved silently through their native haunts.
Jack Donahoe, transported from Dublin for “intent to commit a felony” was the best known of the “Bolters”. He was killed in a bloody confrontation with the Horse Police. Martin Cash, also transported from Ireland for housebreaking, was a Tasmanian bushranger, who twice escaped from the almost impregnable convict gaol in Port Arthur. With the abolition of the convict transportation to Australia the once feared Martin Cash settled down to a peaceful life on a Tasmanian farm.
Much nearer the days of my Everett ancestors was the notorious Kelly Gang. These men have found a place in the folklore and history of Australia, immortalized in ballads, songs, and even the graphic arts, witness the grotesque paintings of Ned Kelly and his accomplices, from the brush of Sidney Nolan, of recent fame. He painted a series on the life and death of Ned Kelly, a notorious bushranger, who died at the hands of the Law declaring, “Such is life.”
Though my Everett ancestors told tales of those spine-tingling times, never were they held in ransom by a bushranging gang, but they knew well the record of many of these men, and sang the ballads of their exploits.
During such times Australia moved steadily forward, probably under the motivation of recurrent discoveries of gold, discovered eventually in every colony of the Continent. Long-ranging projects and ambitious schemes had been undertaken in anticipation of continuing prosperity. However with the dawning of the ’90s of the last century there was an uneasy awareness of the coming depression, coupled with a shattering decline in gold production.
Then like a clap of doom, the Great Depression of the Nineties burst upon the unbelieving world. In Australia twenty-two banks closed their doors, at least temporarily, and only two came through unscathed. I take my figures from the well-credited Australian historian, Marjorie Barnard. Scarcely a household did not experience in one way or another the effects of those fateful years.
The Everett family felt the impact of the almost complete eclipse of the building and construction trades on which my grandfather relied. Vaguely I recall my mother telling me of those stressful times, when the Everett family moved from Goulburn to a large suburb of Sydney, Redfern, where per chance were more opportunities for the building industry, work for the older members, and spouses for the eligible ones. Indeed, there persists a hazy memory of grandfather investing some of his savings in what mother was pleased to call a “General Store,” a project of tremendous appeal to my fertile imagination. So bold an idea deserved to succeed: that it failed was to be expected. Such facts are part of my early childhood memories, important and unverifiable.
All I know is that my Everett grandparents and their family resided in the outskirts of Sydney for an unknown length of time, where their eldest daughter, Amelia, met and married an up‑and-coming gentleman’s tailor, Frank Morpeth. They established a home in the inner suburbs of Sydney, Centennial Park.
Those years during the height of the Depression were probably difficult for all, but nothing is on record concerning them, and I am left with the assumption each member of the family save grandmother, found work to his or her ability, with school for the younger members of the family. Possibly, Louisa Mary and Alice were soon involved in the art and craft of costumiere, a glorified title for designing and sewing voluminous gowns for fastidious patrons. In unknown ways the Everett family held together, patiently waiting for the heavy hand of the Depression to lift.
Slowly each Colony worked out its destiny in its own time and fashion. Offers of help wherever possible had been received, noticeably one from Cecil John Rhodes, financier and empire builder. As Prime Minister of South Africa, then staggering under the weight of immense reserves of gold and diamonds, offered his country’s surplus wealth on loan in an effort to stabilize another member of the British Empire, Australia. Such bonds of unity were various countries of that Empire tied together and to the tiny Isle, “this plot, this earth, this realm, this England!”
Though it was more than 100 years since Captain Arthur Phillip celebrated the first Australia Day on the rocky headlands of Port Jackson, on Sydney Harbor, it was still a relatively undeveloped land with a vast desert heart defying entry. Then, with delicious unpredictability of time itself, Gold in yet unknown quantities was discovered in Western Australia, bringing in its train work for thousands of people from the world’s ends. It was a signal from my grandparents and their family to travel around the Continent to Fremantle, and eventually to rejoin their eldest son, Wilfred, who several years earlier had journeyed to Western Australia to seek his fortune. To that land the family was now committed.
