The Irish Connection
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THE IRISH CONNECTION 1 INTRODUCTION: In the process of putting together the Knott and Witt Family Stories it is only natural that the family of Honorah Knott, wife of George James Knott, needed to be put together to finalise that part of our family. As a child I was always told we had Irish ancestry and all through this I could not find the connection. This document then makes up the final corner of the family for the Witt and associated families in Western Australia. It wasn’t until Catherine Medley stumbled on Honorah’s birth details that the final part of this jigsaw was put together. This part of our family starts in County Cork and England and reaches back to 1854 when they arrived in South Australia. It starts with John Edmonds and Hanora Tobin. John Edmonds : John was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire England around 1826. Details are a bit sketchy and it is quite possible he was born out of wedlock as we cannot find any details of a father in English records. In the descendant chart below, Johns mother Elizabeth married Peter Moore, but no father is shown. • Thomas Edmonds b c1736 m Elizabeth Cooke o Thomas Edmonds b c1767 d c1836 m Ann Verney Mary Edmonds b c1797 d 1797 Mary Edmonds b 1804 Elizabeth Edmonds b 1808 Buckinghamshire England d 1896 m Peter Moore John 'Edmonds' (sic) b 1826 Buckinghamshire England d 1909 m Honora Tobin Thomas Edward Edmonds b c1856 m Sarah Ann Fry Ada Florence Edmonds b 1883 Jerry’s Flat, South Australia Edith May Edmonds b 1885 Woodside, South Australia Estella Harriet Edmonds b 1893 Forest Range, South Australia Elsie Catherine Grace Edmonds b 1897 Mt Pleasant, South Australia You will notice that the above chart does not list Hanorah Edmonds or Johanna Edmonds. The reason for this is because no-one had ever been able to link Honorah to John Edmonds apart from his name on her wedding registration in 1882. This chart is from England. You must appreciate Edmonds is a relatively common name. 2 I have searched through the Ships List online and the only John Edmonds I can find left England in March 1854 and arrived in Victoria in July 1854. This does fit our family timeline. I can only assume if I have the right John Edmonds, that he travelled across to South Australia very soon after. Further research into his English heritage would provide further evidence to support this. Hanora Tobin: Hanora was born in County Cork, Ireland around 1826 to the best of my knowledge. We know Hanora arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia on 3 rd May 1854 and the only discrepancy is her age is listed as 33. This would have made her born in 1821 but I cannot verify anyone close to that date and have stuck with the age of 28 as it matches her age when she died. To further complicate the matter, she lists her age as 32 on daughter Honorah’s birth entry in 1861, which would have meant she was born in 1829. In records her name is spelt in several different ways (Hanora, Hanorah, and Honora) typical of the times when many people were either illiterate or of little education and recording was in the hands of the person making the entry. For the sake of this story I have used the name on her Wedding Certificate. She was known by the shortened name Nora. She arrived at Port Adelaide on the 3 rd May 1854 on the Taymouth Castle, a ship of 680 tons. The ship, skippered by Captain Adam Logan, had left Plymouth, England on the 7 th Feb 1854 so the journey took 86 days. The journey was the eighth government ship for 1854 to arrive with assisted passengers for the fledgling South Australian colony. There were 6 births and 1 death on the journey, a very satisfying result for the time I would imagine. On the ships manifest Hanora listed her occupation as servant. so that the total number of souls on arriving was five more than the period of departure from England. We have learned with great pleasure that there has been much harmony during the voyage, and that the emigrants, who appear to be in high spirits, speak very warmly in praise of the Surgeon Superintendent, as also of Captain Logan, his officers, and crew. The Weather is said to have been extremely favourable during the voyage. The Emigrants are chiefly from England, and their healthful condition is highly satisfactory. Source the Ships List. 3 Marriage and Children of John Edmonds and Hanora Tobin They married at Gumeracha, in the Adelaide Hills on the 29 th April 1855. Information from this period is very scant and little can be ascertained from records. Their first son, Thomas Edward Edmonds, was born on the south coast and the birth registered at Victor Harbor. Thomas was born on the 28 th April 1856. Their second child born Johanna was born at Cudlee Creek in the Adelaide Hills on the 15 th December 1857. Sadly Johanna passed away at Cudlee Creek on 11 th October 1860 when she was a couple of months shy of her 3 rd Birthday. Their third and last child was Honorah , born in East Melbourne, Victoria on 29 th August 1861. Whilst there was no second name on the birth certificate, she does tag Elizabeth on the birth registrations of her children later in life. This name was her Grandmothers name on her father’s side of the family so this link is very feasible. The birth details of Honorah proved to be the key to solving a total dead end. Catherine Medley had a copy of Honorah’s death certificate stating her birthplace as East Melbourne. Years of looking and many hours trolling all regular genealogy sources could not locate Honorah. Cath had looked at John Edmond/Hanora Tobin link but could never prove or tie in the link. I revisited this scenario and sent an email say that the links seemed really strong, we just needed to prove it somehow. This led to Cath doing a wild card search on Ancestry and she found a Honorah Edwards, born in Victoria. She sent the information back to me; I promptly went to Victoria Births, Deaths and Marriages, found the details and purchased a birth extract. Like magic everything fell into place and a great family puzzle was solved. 4 BELOW: Extract Copy of John Edmonds and Hanora Tobin Wedding at Gumeracha, SA in 1855. 5 How long they stayed in Victoria is unknown at this stage and why they went there is also unknown. It seems strange that they called themsleves Edwards on the Victorian records. It could simply be mistaken hearing by the registrar entering the name or they had changed their name for other reasons. We will never know why. It obviously could not have been too serious as Hanora recorded her maiden name on the birth entry. They lived at Currency Creek on their return from Victoria, an area north of Goolwa on the south coast near the Murray Mouth. There were Edmonds also settled in the area and they may have been related. There is a story which I will relate later in this document from the time we know they did live in the area. Whilst I am not able to determine the years, Honorah Edmonds did regale stories of their time there. John and Hanora (Nora) later settled at Forest Range, an area only a few kilometres east of Basket Range. I am not entirley sure what they did as an occupation as details are scant and it was only a small family with two children. Hanora died on Boxing Day 1894. A copy of her death notices below indicate her last days were obviously not as wonderful as they could have been. Dropsy is now known today as oedema and is an accumulation of fluid which can occur in many parts of the body. It is highly likely Nora’s last days were very unpleasant as her heart would have struggled with the fluid build-up until it would have given way with the strain. John Edmonds passed away 15 January 1909 at Forest Range when he was 83 years old. Sadly I couldn’t find any more information on John and the search needs to continue. 6 The Two Living Children of John and Nora: Thomas Edward Edmonds: Thomas, the brother of Honorah Knott, was born at Victor Harbor, South Australia on 28 th April 1856. He married Sarah Ann Fry at her father, Mr John Brock Fry’s residence, at Jerry’s Flat (now known as Lenswood) on 26 th October 1882. Sarah Ann was born at Stony Creek, Lenswood South Australia. Sarah’s mother, Harriet Brown had arrived in South Australia as an 8 year old in 1840, so they were very much an original South Australian family. This was only 4 years after the settlement of SA. In an article about Harriet when she died in 1917, at the age of 86, it states there were only 6 permanent houses in Adelaide, one shop and not a lot else (in the area we now know as the City block) at the time of her arrival. Bread was very expensive and they collected water from the River Torrens, something you would never do today as it is heavily polluted. The photograph right, most likely taken around 1885 was provided by Jo Shaw of the Forest Range Heritage Group.