Lewisham

U for Umbrella Maker

Miss W. 1821-1850, 1851-1880, 1881-1910, Early families, General information , , , , ,

Thanks to Jo Hopkins for writing this post for the A-Z challenge.

UMBRELLA MAKER is not a trade that springs readily to mind, however that is the occupation that James Jones gave when he was committed to trial in London in 1837.

James Jones was born in 1817 in Shoreditch London. On 27 June 1837, James approached John Love in the street and demanded money, making him a ROBBER.1

He was sentenced to transportation for twenty-one years and began his time as a CONVICT. He was transported on the Moffatt and arrived in Hobart on 1 April 1838. His convict record  has umbrella maker crossed out and the comment LABOURER inserted.2

James Jones was allocated to the New Norfolk area to labour in a WORK GANG, then after his probationary period he was assigned to Robert Thorne of Pitt Water. Thorne was the son of Samuel Thorne, a marine who arrived in Hobart Town in 1804.

As an ASSIGNEE Jones was required to undertake any tasks allotted by his master, and Thorne had varied business interests – coastal shipping, farms, a ferry, the Rose and Crown Inn. Thorne had a grain store on the foreshore in Lewisham and probably operated a passenger ferry from there across to 5 Mile Beach (The middle of the three ferries). James Jones is likely to have been a FERRYMAN who rowed across the channel.

James Jones received a Ticket of Leave on 25 December 1842 and married Ann Kennedy in 1843. On the birth registrations of their three children (William 1844, Harriet 1845 and James 1848), he was described as a MARINER. In 1847 he attained a Conditional Pardon.

By 1848, James Jones had acquired and was the LICENCEE of the Victoria Inn in Lewisham. (The building was extensively remodelled for a century then demolished around 1968. The Lewisham Tavern was built on the site.) 3

NS1553-1-420 Lewisham House

Ann Jones died in 1857, and James remarried to Charlotte Stacey, daughter of John Stacey and Hannah Stacey (Green).  The 1858 marriage record lists him as a LICENCED VICTUALLER. Their son Charles and their eight daughters were born in Lewisham between 1859 and 1875.

For many years James was a great SUPPORTER of the local area. Newspaper reports (found through Trove) see him on organising committees for race meetings held at Forcett and for regattas at Lewisham. The Victoria Inn was often the venue for meetings and celebrations.

In 1865 James Jones, SHIP OWNER, together with Robert Harrod launch the Lewisham Belle, a 55-foot schooner to trade between Sorell, Lewisham, the Tasman Peninsula and Hobart. Unfortunately, the new and uninsured boat sinks off Taroona
with the loss of three crew and the cargo of wheat.

James Jones continued to live in the Lewisham area where he had been assigned in 1839. By the time of his death, he was a LANDHOLDER owning 169 acres of land around the area. Much of the property was farmland – around Boathouse Hill and the hill behind and including the Rose and Crown Inn (no longer licenced). His estate included the Victoria Inn and the parcel of land immediately to the north of the inn. This block, perhaps mistakenly sold by the government, contained the local Watch House, making James a GAOL OWNER.

  1. Digital panopticon The Digital Panopticon James Jones b. 1817, Life Archive ID obpdef2-1634-18370703 (https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/life?id=obpdef2-1634-18370703). Version 1.2.1, consulted 20th April 2022. ↩
  2. https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON27-1-7P172#  Founders and Survivors Record ID fasai37630 ↩
  3. Victoria Inn. AA Rollings photo NS1553-1-420 ↩

Cemeteries in the district

Miss W. 1821-1850, 1851-1880, 1881-1910, 1911-1940, 1941-1970, 1971-2000, Early families, General information, Religion, Towns , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Tasmanian Family History Society Inc. has transcribed and photographed headstones of 800+ cemeteries in Tasmania and much of this information can be found in TAMIOT. Here is a list of the CDROMs available for purchase – I use mine on my desktop using Windows 10 without any problems.

Hobart Branch put together the series of three CDROMs of all the cemeteries in the Sorell District in 2004. The information on the CDROMs is not necessarily found on the internet. For each cemetery, they include a description, plan of the graves as well as names on the graves. Most also have images of the gravestones with a transcription and plot number. Many of these cemeteries have had further burials since 2004 when the CDROMs were created.

The One-Place Studies group often do statistical posts so I thought I might do one today about the local cemeteries with information gained from the CDROMs.

Name of Cemetery No. of graves Earliest grave Most common surnames
Carlton River Congregational 20 1838 Henry Morriss Dodge, Steele, Thorne
Copping General 359 1884 Sarah Copping Allanby, Alomes, Brown, Burdon, Copping, Dransfield, Franklin, Gillie, Jacobson, Kingston, Richardson, Swan, White, Woolley
Dunalley General 264

1870 John Clark

1870 Emma Lester

 Bird, Button, Fazackerley, Hildyard, Hyatt, Murphy, Rattenbury, Spaulding, Wiggins
Forcett – Lewisham 199 1876 Charlotte Jones Alomes, Clark, Dodge, Gangell, Long, Reardon, Rollings, Young
Marion Bay at Bream Creek 55 1852 Ann Dunbabin  1852 Louisa Ann Kingston Dunbabin, Kingston
Henry Street, Sorell 446 ** 1828 Charlotte McGinniss Allanby, Bellette, Duncombe, Featherstone, Gatehouse, Hayton, Newitt
Scots Uniting, Sorell 89 ** 1847 Hugh Taylor Denholm Denholm, Hean
St Thomas, Sorell 124 ** 1865 Thomas Wright Bresnehan, Butterworth, French, Montgomery, Wells
St Georges, Sorell 718**  ## 1829 Elizabeth and Susannah Walker – sisters Bellette, Bidgood, Braithwaite, Davis, Featherstone, Jones, Kean, Newitt, Peacock, Phillips, Reardon, Schofield, Walker, Wiggins

** Some women mentioned twice with both maiden and married name.

## Also includes memorials

Many of the cemeteries also had plots with unknown names and dates due to deterioration of headstones.

Readers: Do you know of a relative buried in one of these cemeteries earlier than that mentioned on the CDROMs?