| Notes |
- William and Louisa and their two children emigrated to Australia from England on the LADY KENNAWAY under the British Government 's assisted emigration scheme paid for from the proceeds from the sale of land in the colonies. It is likely that they were recruited by Josiah Johnson who served as both an official for the Chesterton Union and an agent for the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission (CLEC). While the government paid for their passage, either the union or the parish of Haslingfield probably helped them pay their application fee, purchase the clothes and other items they were required by the CLEC to take with them, and cover the cost of travelling from Cambridgeshire to emigrant depot and departure port of Southampton.
The ship sailed from Southampton on 9 May 1853 and arrived at Hobson's Bay at Port Phillip on 15 August the same year. On 7 August, Louisa gave birth to an (unnamed) male child who died the next day and was buried at sea (the marine register shows that the child was born prematurely at latitude 40 degrees south and longitude 120 degrees east. He was buried at latitude 40 degrees south and longitude 123 degrees east). The ship's passenger list shows that, on arrival, they were engaged by a Mr Patterson of Collingwood for 6 months from 26 August 1853 for the sum of eighty pounds plus rations. All were recorded as belonging to the Church of England and none could read or write.
It seems that the family may have lived initially with William's cousin, William Free and his wife Eliza Morley, in Upper Hawthorn (where the latter's only son, Henry George, was born on 13 September 1853). For this is where Louisa died from chronic diarr hoear on 2 September 1853. Her death certificate shows that William was present when she died and that she was buried at the Melbourne General cemetery the following day. Louisa was 22 years old and had been in the colony a mere 15 days. The couple's first son, John, died of diarrhoea following a bout of measles in Boorandara (Camberwell) on 13 January the following year. Rebecca stayed with her father and eventually married a George Collett in 1875. She had one child, Frederick, before she was married (father unknown) and at least seven with George: John (1876), George (1878), Florence Louisa (1880), William James (1881), George Alfred (1883), Benjamin Charles (1885) and Samuel ( 1890). Rebecca died in Dunolly in Victoria in 1891.
After his son's death, William went to work as a shepherd on the Mount Hesse sheep station (Hesse was sometimes spelt Hefse which has been transcribed in the BDM index as Hope). Mount Hesse was named after the Hobart barrister George Brooks Legrew Hesse who, together with his friend Joseph Tice Gelligrand disappeared in the area in 1837 while on a trip of exploration from Point Henry to Corio Bay. Some believe they were murdered by blacks while others think they starved to death after becoming lost i n the bush. It lies due due west of Geelong, near where the town of Winchelsea is today.
The land around Mount Hesse was first leased as a sheep run by John Highett in 1837 and was managed by his partner William Harding who had arrived in the colony in 1841. According to Peter and Phyllis Kininmouth's book, 'Mount Hesse: History, Humour and Hazards on a Sheep Station, 1837-1985' (Melbourne: Robert Anderson, 1987) Harding found himself 'in charge of a run of some 67,000 acres' located on a largely treeless plain with some honeysuckle and acacia trees on the Mount. The grasses were mainly 'kangaroo grass growing in clumps, with the silver tussock covering the swampy country' (p. 10)
It seems that, around the time of William's arrival in 1854, the original run was divided into the Mount Hesse and the Mount Hesse No 1 runs where the first was leased by the Hopkins brothers until its lease was cancelled in 1870. The lease to Mount Hesse No 1 was held jointly by the Geelong merchants William Timms a nd John Wilson between December 1853 and October 1856 when Timms took over the lease until it was cancelled in January 1862. William was employed as one of the shepherds on the property who' were allocated an area of country known as a "run" on which to graze their flock [that] had to be kept out from sunrise to sunset, when the sheep were enclosed in a few permanent stone-walled folds'. A major task for the shepherds was to keep sheep from different properties separate, a job that was not made easy by a complete lack of fences. 'Apart from the usual station "jobbing", cropping, lamb marking and shearing, great importance was [also] placed on the washing of the sheep prior to shearing'.
William married Elizabeth Flavell at the St. Thomas Church of England in Winchelsea on 26 May 1856. The couple together with William's daughter, Rebecca, may have lived in Winchelsea or, more likely, in one of the shepherd's huts located on the run (indeed given the shortage of labour at the time, it is likely that Eliza, who was barely 16 years old, would have been employed as William's hut-keeper). The huts were small, single-roomed honey-comb stone buildings measuring 15 ft by 13 ft with walls just over 6 feet high and a roof made of wooded shingles.
William and Eliza's first four children - John, William, William and Samuel - were born at Mount Hesse between 1857 and 1861. There first daughter, Phoebe Ann, was born at Teesdale on 7 July 1862. The birth certificate shows William to be a butcher, suggesting that he left the Mount Hesse No 1 run after its lease was cancelled in January of the same year. Sometime between then and 1864, the family moved to Raglan (a small town a few kilometres north of Beaufort) where they stayed until around 1880. It is possible that William worked as a shepherd on the Eurambeen station near Mount Cole. While there one of their twin sons, Alexander, died at the age of 13 weeks and was buried at the Buangor cemetary. In 1880 the family moved onto a farm at Corack East , near Donald.
The area around Corack was first settled in the 1840s with thee stablishment of the Corack and Banjenong sheep stations. The Corack station was around 100, 000 acres in size and was owned by a series of people including, from 1870 to 1882, a Samuel Craig (Craig sold the property to Edward Perry and his two sons Frank and Henry). Working for Craig at the time was a boundary rider , John Shepherd, whose daughters would later marry William's sons Samuel and James. As elsewhere in Victoria, the 1869 Land Act broke up the squattor's holdings and opened the way for selectors to move into the area. Early selectors in the the Corack district included the McCallum, Gilchrist and Bruce families into who some of the Free women would later marry. Establishing farms was not easy since 'most of the country was heavily timbered with native pine, buloke and box, and had to be cleared prior to cultivation. Clearing had to be done by hand using axes, picks and shovels, [although] some settlers used a bullock team and a few even owned a grubber, which was also known as a "forest devil"' (Cambell, 1997: 9).
A number of Frees apart from William and his family seemed to be living in the area during this time. In 1893, for example, the Corack North State School (No. 1784), which operated between 1877 and 1894, included the following Free children: Enosh (11), Frederick (10), Marion (9), Eliza (7) and Emily (6) all of whom lived some two and a half miles from the school (there was also a sister Sarah, aged four years, who was elligible to attend in the following year).
The Federation records show William Free 1829-1890 parents as Samuel Free & Mary PINKLER. Reg # Vic BDM 6748
William Free and Louisa (Chapman) his first wife left Southampton, England on the "Lady Kennaway" on the 10th May 1853 and arrived in Melbourne on the 15th August 1853, as Free Settlers. It was during this voyage on the 8th August that their child was born and died.
He was unnamed. Cause of death, Premature Birth.
He was buried at sea on the 9th August 1853 off the coast of Western Australia.
William and Louisa had three children. Louisa died on the 2nd September 1853. Age unknown.
William Free was 27 years old and Eliza Flavel only sixteen when they married. They had fourteen (14) children.
William Free died on the 2 June 1890 at Corack. He drowned in a tank on the farm. He was 61 years old.
His seconded (2) wife Eliza (Flavel) Free remarried on the 7th November 1894. She married William Bruce, a farmer from Watchem.
Eliza died on the 1st January 1925 and is buried in the same grave as William Free in the Corack cemetery. She was 69 years old.
Surname Given names Age Month Year Ship Code Fiche Page
FREE AUGUSTA B 29 AUG 1853 WALMER CASTLE B 050 005
FREE ELISA 22 FEB 1853 MARION MOORE B 030 003
FREE HARRIETT 24 FEB 1853 MARION MOORE B 030 010
FREE JOHN 1 AUG 1853 LADY KENNAWAY B 048 006
FREE LOUISA 22 AUG 1853 LADY KENNAWAY B 048 006
FREE REBECCA 3 AUG 1853 LADY KENNAWAY B 048 006
FREE VALENTINE 20 NOV 1857 CARRIER DOVE B 135 005
FREE WILLIAM 24 AUG 1853 LADY KENNAWAY B 048 006
FREE WILLIAM 26 FEB 1853 MARION MOORE B 030 003
Entries for William and Elizabeth Free and their family. Some minor differences/additions I noticed are;
1) I had their early children being born at Mount Hesse (which was a sheep run near where Winchelsea is today - I guess it could have been renamed Mount Hope during World War I);
2) Fanny Shepherd (Samuel's wife) died at Quambatook in Victoria in 192
3) I think the Victorian BDMs show James and Alice Free being born at Raglan (which is close to Mount Cole); and
4) Alexander Free is buried in the Buangor cemetery (got that from a history of the region).
James Free's wife Johanna Shepherd was Fanny Shepherd's sister (the two families lived near each other). James and Johannah's children are: James Oswald (born 1892), Johanna Victoria (1893), Eliza Jane (1894), John William (1896), Ernest Albert (1897), Pearl Amelia (1899), Harry Walter (1901), Alice Martha (1903), Allan Joseph (1911), Frank Rowland (1906), George Bruce (1905) and Norman Alexander (1908). The last five listed were born in Lalbert in Victoria.
William Free (snr) committed suicide by drowning at Corack East when he was 61 years old. The 'Donald Times' recorded the event as follows:
'The residents of Corack East were startled yesterday with the intelligence that Mr Wm. Free, an old resident of the district, had committed suicide. From the information to hand, it appears that Mr free got up in the morning as usual, and taking a reins with him, went out as if to feed the horses. Some time afterwards as he did not return, one of his sons went into the paddock to look for him. About 300 yards from the house there is a small dam, near which was a haystack and here Free's body was found, with a rope around his waist and attached to a sheaf of straw. It was at once evident that he had drowned himself as there was no evidence of any foul play. It is stated that has been peculiar of late, but it is not thought that he would attempt to take his own life. His having attached himself to a rope tied to a sheaf of straw is supposed to have been done with the object of letting his family know that he was in the dam. Deceased leaves a widow
and large family. Constable Corbett and a Justice of the Police [sic] proceeded to Corack this morning for the purpose of holding an inquest' (Donald Times, 3 June 1890)
'Mr J. A. Meyer J.P., held an inquest at Corack East on Tuesday on the body of William Free, who was found drowned in a dam near his residence on the previous day. The evidence adduced was to the same effect as that published in our last issue but the rope attached to a sheaf of straw was round deceased's neck and not round his waist as previously stated. After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased drowned himself while of unsound mind' (Donald Times, 6 June 1890).
A deposition to the coroner's inquest written for Eliza (who signed it with a cross) read as follows:
'The deceased William Free was my husband. On yesterday 2nd June my husband got up as usual about 7.30 am, I gave him some clean clothes to put on he said that is right. I saw him shortly afterwards putting on his coat and going around the house. at break fast time he had not returned and i sent my son Ernest to call him. The boy came back and said father is not there. The next I heard of him being found drowned in the tank in the paddock which is about half mile from the house. My husband was failing in health for the last two years, for the last fortnight he was some what worse and was very low spirited which I thought was caused through his illness, and occasionally complained of pains. For the last week he appeared quieter than usual. There was no disagreement between him and any of the family, they were all in the best of terms with him. I do not know of any reason why my husband should commit suicide except it might be through his illness. we had a family of twelve children eight of those are living at home and were about on yesterday morning.'
William's death certificate shows he was buried in the Corack cemetery on 4 June 1890. His issue at the time of death were recorded as: John (deceased), Rebecca Louise (41), John (34), William (deceased), William (31), Samuel (29), Phoebe Ann (27), James (26), Charles (24), Alice Martha (23), Alexander (deceased), Alfred (21), Benjamin (19), George (15), Mary Ann (11) and Oswald Ernest (9).
"Haslingfield is a parish, bounded on the east by the river Cam, 2 miles north from Harston station on the Hitchin and Cambridge branch of the London and North Eastern railway and 5½ south-west-by-south from Cambridge, in the hundred of Wetherley, petty sessional division of Arrington and Melbourn, union of Chesterton, county court district of Cambridge, rural deanery of Barton and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. Lord's Bridge station on the Cambridge, Bedford and Bletchley line of the London, Midland and Scottish railway is in the north part of the parish."
"A portion of the Manor House remains, with the moat. The soil is chalky and clay; subsoil, chalk and clay. The chief crops are fruit. wheat, beans and oats. The area is 2,564 acres of land and 9 of water; the population la 1921 was 590."
[Kelly's Directory - 1929]
"Cambridgeshire, (Cambs.) inland eastern county of England; bounded North by Lincolnshire, East by Norfolk and Suffolk, South by Essex and Herts, West by Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire; greatest length, North and South, 48 miles; greatest breadth, East and West, 28 miles; average breadth 16 miles; area, 524,935 acres; population 185,594. The North section of the county, including the Isle of Ely and part of the Great Bedford Level, is a large flat expanse of country, which, for the most part, formerly consisted of fen and marsh. It is now intersected in all directions by wide trenches or canals. The land, thus drained and reclaimed, is a rich, black soil, and bears excellent crops. From this tract the pleasant vale of the Cam stretches away to the south-west, and contains a great number of excellent dairy farms. Cambridgeshire comprises 17 hundreds, 172 parishes with parts of 7 others, the parliamentary and municipal borough of Cambridge (1 member and Cambridge University 2 members), and the municipal borough of Wisbech (pronounced Wizbeech)."
[Bartholemew's Gazetteer of the British Isles, 1887]
Life in Australia:
After arriving at Port Philip in 1853, William Free went to work at the Mount Hesse sheep station which was located inland from Geelong. While there he met and married Elizabeth ('Eliza') Flavell at the St Thomas’ Church of England in Winchelsea on 26 May 1856. William and Eliza stayed at Mount Hesse until the mid-1860s when they moved to the Eurambeen station at Mount Cole near Carngham. They then moved to Raglan, possibly as part of the gold rush there, and then to Corack East, near Donald, in about 1878. While at Corack, a number of William and Eliza’s children married and began their own lives and families. The couples’ eldest son, John, married Mary King in 1878. Mary was the daughter of William Wyman King and Ann Tarry. They went to live at Cohuna and had six children there. On 15 October 1881, Phoebe Ann married John Thomas Gilchrist, a son of one of the first families to move into the Corack district. They lived on a farm at Watchem and had 13 children. William jnr married Margaret Barbour on 7 February 1883. Alice Martha Free married a son of another pioneering family, Edward Angus McCallum, in 1896. Alfred married Emma Tissot in 1890 and moved to Western Australia where, following Emma’s death in 1917, he married Eunice Schmidtt. And, in a double wedding held at Corack East on 6 April 1891, brothers Samuel and James married the two Shepherd sisters Fanny and Johanna. The happiness of this last occasion would have been offset, however, by the death, in the previous year, of William Free and the circumstances that surrounded it. As reported by the ‘Donald Times’, William had committed suicide by drowning himself in a dam on his property. William’s death led a number in the family to sever their ties with Corack. William’s wife, Eliza, moved to Watchem where she married William Bruce on 7 November 1894 (Eliza died in Watchem on 1 Jan 1925, aged 86 years). His sons William, James and Samuel Free and their wives and families moved to Lalbert in the northern Wimmera.
Life Before Australia:
William Free was born in the village of Haslingfield in Cambridgeshire in England on 2 March 1829. His parents were Samuel Free (1802-1979) and Mary Finkell (1805-1882), and his paternal grandparents were John Free (1760-1785) and Alice Harper (1764-1855). On 16 November 1848, William married Louisa Chapman in Haslingfield. Five years later the couple and their two children Rebecca Louise (3) and John (1) emigrated to Australia from England on the LADY KENNAWAY, arriving at Port Phillip on 15 August 1853. A week before their arrival, Louisa gave birth to an (unnamed) male child who died the next day and was buried at sea. Weakened by the event, Louisa herself died in Melbourne on 2 September 1853. The tragedy was compounded when the couple’s son, John, died in Boorandara in Melbourne on 13 January the following year. Elizabeth Flavell was born in the village of Landbeach in Cambridgeshire in England on 20 November 1840. She was the eldest daughter of William and Maria Flavell (nee Phillips). William and Maria and their family emigrated to Victoria on the THAMES in around 1855 in order for William to work for a Charles L. Swanston on his sheep station at Inverleigh.
Some minor differences/additions I noticed are;
1) I had their early children being born at Mount Hesse (which was a sheep run near where Winchelsea is today - I guess it could have been renamed Mount Hope during World War I);
2) Fanny Shepherd (Samuel's wife) died at Quambatook in Victoria in 192
3) I think the Victorian BDMs show James and Alice Free being born at Raglan (which is close to Mount Cole);
4) Alexander Free is buried in the Buangor cemetary (got that from a history of the region).
Dr Graeme Laurence Cheeseman - G.Cheeseman-at-adfa.edu.au
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1829 - 1890 (61 years)
Has 40 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.
1825 - Abt 1842 (16 years)
William FREE, b. UNKNOWN d. DECEASED (3 x Great Grandfather)
Samuel FREE, b. 18 Jul 1802, Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire, England 
: Address
: Location
: City/Town
: County/Shire
: State/Province
: Country
: Not Set
