Australian royalty

If you haven't already, you'll want to read the story of the Launceston Library.  

Picking up where I left off: I had three siblings with land grants in Launceston, Tasmania (then called Van Dieman's Land). All of them were free persons--no convicts. My great aunt Marjorie had been adamant that there were no convicts to sully our name or reputation. But I couldn't help but wonder why an entire family that had been in the same village for generations would uproot to an unknown and distant land--reachable only by a two to five-month sea voyage that was in itself an ordeal.

I learned that the English government was offering a bounty to young men with a trade, which William "George" Beck was. He was  a carpenter, and I can remember seeing the chest he made in my great aunt's house. But that didn't explain why his parents and four of his aunts and uncles made the same trip. 

Having established that we had three siblings and their spouses thanks to my distant cousin just across the Canadian border, I learned from this same gentlemen that their father, Samuel Knight, had been the subject of a trial at the old Bailey on April 25, 1814. 

The transcript from the Old Bailey trial

Samuel, a cloth salesman, had moved his family to London in hopes to improve their economic situation, but that apparently had not worked out, and on an April evening, he and his brother and a couple of cronies took a crow bar to a warehouse door and stole  some furs. Both Samuel and his brother James were sentenced to death. Both of them had their sentences commuted to transportation.

On August 7, 1815, James and Samuel were transported to Port Jackson, Sydney in Australia aboard the Baring, along with 300 other convicts. In 1830, Samuel completed his sentence, and his son John, who had moved to Launceston, applied for a land grant for his father and brothers-in-law. In 1822, two things happened: James died, and Samuel earned a ticket of leave. Samuel then requested a transfer to Van Dieman's Land. By 1829, he had a conditional pardon, though his commuted sentence meant that he could never return to England. 

So it appears that Samuel, a convict, is most certainly the reason that the three siblings came to Launceston: the timing permitted petitions for Samuel's transfer and land grants for the siblings, all taken care of by his son John. 

In an interesting footnote, George Beck's first Daughter, Sarah, was left behind with his parents and aunties when he left for California. She ended up marrying an Irish man who had also received a death sentence--for stealing a gentleman's handkerchief--commuted to transportation: during his sea journey to Launceston, the transportation system was dismantled, and he found himself a free man upon arrival (except for the option of returning to Dublin). Thomas Hughes was a watchmaker, and provided well for his wife and 12 children. There are still many Hughes in Tasmania who can trace their roots to this couple.

The Lone Arranger

excerpted from a Sunday lay sermon by Madge Richardson Walsh

...I daresay many of us have known other women who played significant roles in our lives. It’s too bad that there isn’t a day for special aunts, or even mothers-in-law—Ruth Walsh, my husband Bert’s mother, was wonderful to me. But the stereotype prevails, and [...] I can see that a tribute to the woman who became my mother-in-law has to be a special one. She was to be a role model for me, though I don’t think I will ever be able to match her kindness, her patience, or her serenity—she was absolutely unflappable, even though with Bert as her son she was tested many times.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, Ruth happened to be a dear friend of my Aunt Marjorie, who was the aunt who played a particularly significant role in my life. Aunt Marjorie had no daughters, so her nieces had to do. The older niece, my cousin Jean, was working for Pan American Airlines and dating pilots; Aunt Marjorie considered “flyboys” poor husband material and tried to introduce Jean to more appropriate young men. Jean did not cooperate, however (she never did marry); and so Auntie turned her attention to me. I was showing no signs of settling down with any suitable boyfriend (one of the latest ones was a very talented artist, but you know how unreliable & irresponsible artists can be!) Since my parents had so far failed to marry me off, Aunt Marjorie decided she had better do something about it. 

Aunt Marjorie knew that Ruth Walsh had an “eligible” son, and of course Ruth knew of Marjorie’s niece. Ruth appeared to be an innocent bystander, perfectly willing to go along with Marjorie’s arrangement of what appeared to be a spontaneous meeting. My parents were conveniently out of town, and I was “batching” it, so when Auntie invited me for dinner I was happy to accept, even though she was not much of a cook. Ruth was attending a meeting at my aunt’s house that afternoon, and Bert was to pick her up there, so it was natural for Marjorie to have both of them stay for the meal. 

Believe it or not, this seemingly casual but carefully contrived meeting actually “took.” Bert and I joke that we have an “arranged” marriage—we affectionately refer to Aunt Marjorie as the “Lone Arranger.” We like to remember both Ruth and Marjorie--and their meddling—with fondness and love. They cared what happened to us. 

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What's fun about this little essay is that my father Bert's recollection is a tad different: he had just came from a hard day of work, and Madge had come straight from an archeological dig, all hot and dusty. For years, he would wait until Madge had told her story, and then he would wryly smile and say, “I like sweaty women!”

Once Upon a Time: Honolulu

by Marjory Cutting Hulting

     On December 13, 1899, on my seventh birthday, we sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu. It was a foggy, bleak day when we left Marmee’s house and went to the wharf, the last part of the trip over large noisy cobblestones. Our trunks and our cat Billie, a huge part Persian, in a crate, were taken to the ship, R.P. Rithet, by a neighbor, Esther Hayes the expressman.

     By the time we reached the dock, I was thoroughly frightened at the strangeness of it all and the confusion, smells, fussing relations and my mother’s determined good-natured impatience. Billie had escaped from his slatted box, made by my young uncle Howard; so with this excuse, I cried. Everyone asked what was the matter, and knowing grown-ups always must have a reason, Billie’s loss was the simplest. I can look back and realize that Billie was not the main reason, but merely my excuse. Loving relations were my grandfather and grandmother Cutting, my Aunt Evelyn, Papa’s Auntie Grace [Beck] and Howard, then about 18. We love them all dearly and, on their part we were going to a very faraway place.

     Papa had gone to Honolulu some months before as a salesman for Waterhouse & Lester, a carriage supply firm in San Francisco where he was a bookkeeper, and a firm in Honolulu called Honolulu Carriage Co. had offered him the position as manager. He came home, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Honolulu, leaving my mother to sell the furniture (except the piano), put the house up for rent and take four children by sailing vessel to make a new home.

Our captain was Capt. MacPhail, a young, slight Scotsman with a decided accent. The first mate was Dr. Mr. (afterward Capt.) George Weston Gove, and a close friend of the family for many years thereafter. The second mate was another Scott named Mr. Burns, the delight of us children because he sang sea shanty type songs for us and had ridiculous things to say about the passengers, especially one old man who used to go to a barrel of seawater every morning and put it on his eyes saying, “nothing is so good for the eyes is good saltwater.” The mate took him off perfectly. We had Christmas at sea, and a passenger, Capt. Frieze, dressed a Santa Claus, came down through the cabin skylight with presents for everyone.

The Cutting's 1902 voyage aboard the R.P. Rithet