Travels with my Ancestors #20: Now for the Newtons!
April 14, 2025So far in the Travels with my Ancestors series, I have dealt with successive generations of Eather family and descendants, and people from other families who joined the spreading branches of that growing family tree. The final post of the Eather story concluded with my grandmother, Florence, who was born Florence Creek, but whose mother was an Eather before her marriage.
Florence’s married name was Newton.
So now I want to go back in time a little and tell the story of the Newton family’s beginnings: where did they originate; when and why did they come to Australia?
This is the Newton family story.
All photos by author unless otherwise indicated.
People from the West Country – Part One:
WILLIAM BENJAMIN NEWTON (1804 – 1881) and
ANN LONG (1800 – 1858)
Ship’s rigging at historic Portsmouth harbour, England, 2023. A west country family
The Una was moored at busy Plymouth harbour when William and Ann boarded the ship. It was July 1849 and they were about to set off on a momentous journey that would forever change their lives and those of their children. Did they hear echoes of far-off lands in the cries of gulls wheeling above their heads? No doubt the rigging on the brigantine’s two tall masts was bewildering to them both, having never stepped aboard a ship until then. They had to hope that the crew knew the ropes, and the captain would keep them safe.If the weather and their luck held, in a few months the family would be disembarking on the shores of New South Wales, far away from Somerset in England’s west country, where they’d been born and raised.
William Benjamin Newton came from a family with deep roots in Somerset. His forebears had lived there for at least four generations. There were stories about links to Wales, of a Newton who’d ventured across the Bristol Channel in search of a new place to settle. One story told of a Newton family amongst the wealthy nobility. It was possible, but so long ago that it hardly mattered. The Somerset Newtons had little to show from any reputed affluence of earlier generations.
Above left: Map of UK showing location of Somerset in England’s west. Source: Google maps
Above right: Northern Somerset, showing villages around the Quantock Hills where Newton & related families lived: Stogursey, Nether Stowey, Crowcombe, Dunster, Bridgwater, among others. Wales lies across the Bristol ChannelA good number had lived in Crowcombe, one of several villages around the Quantock Hills in the north of the county. Newtons had been baptised, married and buried at Crowcombe’s Church of the Holy Ghost since at least the seventeenth century, possibly even earlier. 1
The church was like most in those parts: a tall, square tower topped with blunt pinnacles, fronting the rest of the building, all of dark stone. Always a little gloomy, even daunting, those churches. Inside it was a different story. Crowcombe’s church was known for its intricately carved bench ends on the pews. Hard to say how old they were, but they dated from the middle ages, at least.
Crowcombe Church of the Holy Ghost, 2023.
The carvings were lovely to look at, but what made them special were images from old Somerset tales, told to generations children by parents. Several depicted the legend of the Gurt Worm, a dragon, and the fearsome battle where two men cleaved the beast in half. This, so the story went, was how two local hills were formed, back at the beginning of time. Crowcombe children at least had interesting things to see, should a sermon be too dull.
The church’s carved pew ends depicting local legend of the
Gurt Worm
2023 Will had been born in 1804 in the village of Stogursey on the northern edge of the Quantocks, to parents Thomas Newton, a butcher, and Martha Buller. 2
Many Newtons had married into families from surrounding towns and villages: Bridgwater, Bicknoller, Combe Florey, Nether Stowey. His parents had lived at Nether Stowey when they married, then Crowcombe for a time, but moved to Stogursey before his birth.3 Stogursey had an old water mill, the ruins of a castle, and a cheerful brook that ran through pastures at the edge of the village. It was a pretty place, but not always easy to make a living for people of limited means.
Above: Scenes from Crowcombe, Stogursey & Nether Stowey in Somerset, in 2023
Will’s mother Martha came from a better-off family; her father and grandfather had both owned land, and were considered ‘gentlemen.’ Her father, George Buller, had left a will, in which Martha inherited an equal share of the property—with the provision that, should any one of his six children quarrel about the will or challenge it, they should be cut out without a shilling and their part divided among the rest.4 Perhaps after all, it was less troublesome to be a tenant farmer or employee with little to leave when you died, other than memories.Most folk around the Quantocks made their living as labourers on farms, harvesting apples for the tasty Somerset cider; here and there a saddler, carpenter, or cordwainer (shoemaker.) There was also work to be found in the all-important wool industry, from shepherding to wool washing.
West country folk were proud of their independent nature, the bounty of their land, their small communities that wrapped like comforting blankets around individuals and families.
The youngest of five children, William had learned to read and write—both he and Ann signed their own names on their marriage record.5 He had probably received a basic education in the local parish charity school.
He’d taken up his father’s trade of butchery, which should have brought in a reasonable living. But his family had grown, with seven children; downturns in the economy meant unemployment, rising food costs, and less money for people to buy his meat. New machines and factories replaced workers on farms and home-based producers of goods, like rope makers, weavers or straw plaiters.
Though far away from London, the seat of government and royalty, Somerset was affected by these changes as much as the rest of England.
In the public houses and the market, there was talk of opportunities for emigrants to the southern colonies. Should he apply for assisted passage under the generous terms offered by the colonial government? Skilled men such as himself were in demand; and colonists also wanted domestic staff. Ann had experience as a housekeeper, while their three older daughters were housemaid and needlewomen, and son Thomas had taken on the family trade of butchery. All the youngsters could read and write, except for John; the lad was only eight and still learning. He’d be able to to continue his schooling on the voyage, at daily lessons given to the children on board.
The passage for one person to Australia was beyond William’s reach; for a family of nine it was impossible. Under the Bounty Immigration scheme, the government would pay the passage of those it thought would be useful in the colony.
To leave behind family and home, likely forever—it was not something a man would consider asking his wife to do if the rewards weren’t likely to be considerable. There were many risks; things could so easily go wrong. Still, they had to think of their youngsters and hope that they’d all find better prospects in the colony.
Ann Long was from Dunster, on Somerset’s northern edge. From the nearby beach she could look across the Bristol Channel to Wales. It used to be a busy port for trade in wool, wine and grain. Since the sea had retreated several hundred years earlier, it had become a centre for cloth manufacture: Dunster woollen cloth was rightly famous throughout the whole country.
Walking through the village, under the gaze of Dunster Castle on its lofty hill, Ann would have passed the ancient octagonal Yarn Market, a reminder of the days when the town dominated trade in wool and cloth.
Above: Dunster Castle on the hill; and the medieval era yarn market in the village centre, 2023
Ann’s father was William Long, a saddler: a skilled occupation which easily supported his small family of wife Martha Headford and their three children.
While still a single woman, Ann had given birth to a daughter in 1825. She’d had to endure the sting of seeing baby Eliza described as a base-born child in the baptismal record.6 After Ann and Will married at the majestic Church of St George in Dunster in 1827, that no longer mattered: they were a family, though Eliza kept her mother’s maiden name of Long.
The family had settled at Tower Hill in Stogursey, just across the hills from Crowcombe. Ann’s father went to live with them after the wedding, since his wife had died the previous year.7 Other children arrived quickly: Martha in 1828; Mary Ann the year after; Thomas in 1833. Then came Beadon in 1836, Elizabeth in 1839 and lastly John in 1841. They were all baptised at Stogursey’s St Andrew’s church.8The voyage
Now the family was preparing for the Una’s departure. Most of their belongings were stowed below decks in trunks and boxes. They’d put clothes and items they’d need for the voyage in their allotted space in the emigrant quarters. Emigrants were told that there would be very little room on board, as the ship also carried cargo for stores and households in the colony, so they had to balance the needs of their family over a voyage of several months, and limited washing facilities, with the small area they would occupy.
They had to bring their own basic cooking equipment, plates and cutlery, as well as bedding and towels; and a ‘slop bucket’ or chamber pot for use as a privy, especially at night. Each family group would be issued with daily rations to prepare meals. The food would seem very monotonous after a while: salted meat or fish, dry biscuit, porridge of oatmeal or barley, peas and potatoes, and cheese. They’d have an allowance of tea, sugar, and dried fruits such as currants. The younger children would probably screw up their faces at the compulsory doses of lime juice, which they were told would prevent the dreaded shipboard disease of scurvy. Water would also be rationed. A plain diet: but at least they’d all be adequately fed during the voyage.
Images from on board HMS Victory at Porstmouth Historic Dockyards, 2023
The assisted emigrants’ quarters in steerage was a large space divided by a long wooden table down the centre, with berths arranged in rows on the sides. Passengers constructed partitions of sorts between family groups to give some privacy; a bedsheet or blanket if they could be spared. There were over three hundred emigrants just like the Newtons: married couples, single men and women, and about eighty children and babies.
‘Immigrants at Dinner, 1844‘, engraving.
With kind permission of Australian National LibraryThe odours in the stuffy space were terrible: so many bodies together along with the smell of mutton boiling or fish frying. It was a relief to go above and breathe in the tang of the sea breeze. The unfamiliar sensations as the ship lifted and sank with the swell made moving around difficult until people found their sea legs.
The youngsters were likely brimming with excitement at being on board, running along the deck, examining the rigging and all the other unfamiliar sights and sounds. Perhaps Ann and the older children had mixed feelings. As the Una drew anchor and sailed out of the shelter of Plymouth harbour, did they look on the shores of England for the last time with some sadness, wondering what lay ahead?
As it happened, the voyage was to prove more dangerous than they could have anticipated.
They’d been warned of the usual difficulties and perils of a long sea voyage: seasickness, shipboard fever or accidents, storms, hot weather through the tropical regions around the Equator. Boredom which would set in after the first week or so: shipboard routines were important for cleanliness and health, but repetitive; and after a while the experience of being surrounded by nothing but sea became tiresome.
What they had not expected was a mutiny.
William and Ann’s story will be continued next week…
- Marriage of Thomas Newton & Edith Bossley 23 Dec; Burial of Thomas Newton 8 Feb 1690; Somerset Parish Records, 1538-1914; Reference Number: D\P\crow/2/1/1; Somerset, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials 1531-1812 From Ancestry.com, accessed 6 October 2023; Baptism of Abraham Newton 13 Jan 1663; Marriage of Abraham Newton & Sarah Sulley 31 Oct 1701 in Phillimore’s Transcript File line number 171, Somerset Crowcombe Parish Registers; Burial of Abraham Newton 27 July 1729; Baptism of Wm Newton 24 March 1703; Baptism of John Newton 24 Aug 1748; Burial of John Newton 1 May 1789; 1653: in Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Somerset Parish Records, 1538-1914; Reference Number: D\P\crow/2/1/1 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024
- Baptism of WIlliam Nurton (sic) 21 May 1804 in Somerset Heritage Service, Taunton, Somerset, England; Somerset Parish Records 1538-1914; Ref No D\Pstogs/2/1/4Via Ancestry.com, accessed 10 Oct 2023
- Marriage Martha Buller & Thomas Newton at Nether Stowey 1798, in England, Pallot’s marriage Index, 1780-1837 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024; Baptism Charlotte Newton 6 Oct 1800 in Somerset Heritage Service, Taunton, Somerset, Somerset Parish Records 1538-1914 Ref No D\P\crow/2/1/2 via Ancestry.com.accessed 22 June 2024
- Will of George Buller of Nether Stowey 1 Oct 1799,in National Archives, Kew Surrey, England, Records of Perogative Court of Canterbury Series PROB 11, class: PROB 11, Piece 1331 Will Registers 1799-1801 Howe Quire numbers 693-745 (1799) via Ancestry.com, accessed 5 Oct 2023
- Marriage of William Newton & Ann Long 15 Nov 1827 in England Select Marriages 1538-1973 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 29 Sept 2023
- Baptism of Eliza Long 13Nov 1825 in Somerset Heritage Services, Taunton, Somerset, Ref no D\P\du/2/1/6,Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 via Ancestry.com accessed 7 March 2024
- Burial of Martha Long 18 Oct 1826 in England, Select Deaths & Burials, 1538-1991, Dunster, St George Parish Reg no 195 Somerset Heritage Services Ref no D\P\stogs/2/1/7
- Baptism of Thomas Newton 11/12/1831; Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 Beadon Newton bapt. 13/10/1836; Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\stogs/2/1/7 Elizabeth Newton bapt 21/10/1839
Women’s wartime legacies: ‘The Surgeon of Royaumont’ by Susan Neuhaus
I had not long finished reading and writing about another book on WWI (Soldiers Don’t Go Mad) when this new release landed on my ‘to be read’ pile. A novel, rather than non-fiction, it also deals with the dark legacies of war: the devastating injuries inflicted on young bodies which doctors and surgeons must try to repair.
Susan Neuhaus is herself a surgeon and an ex-army officer and she has chosen to tell the story of some of the trail-blazing women who undertook this challenging task during that earlier war.
It almost beggars belief, given how stretched the Allied armed services were then for trained and competent medical practitioners who could serve where needed, that attempts by qualified and experienced female doctors to enlist were refused. More than a dozen such women attempted and failed in Australia, but Australian women did serve as doctors overseas, most paying their own way and working in various hospitals in Britain, France, Belgium, Malta, or Turkey, among others. They did not wear the uniform of the Australian services, nor are they remembered on Australia’s memorials for those who served in the nation’s conflicts.
This novel has gone some way to bring to light their existence through a story that weaves fictional characters, events and places with real historical ones, and the author has done a fine job in doing so.
We meet Clara, a proud medical graduate working in a Sydney hospital, with dreams of becoming a surgeon. When war breaks out she wants to ‘do her bit’ but ambition also plays a part in what she does next. Defying her family’s wishes, she heads to Europe where she begins work at a hospital in France that is operated and managed entirely by women, not far from the Western Front where her fiance is also working as an Army doctor.
On arrival she is almost immediately confronted by the realities of warfare and the realisation that as a woman, she faces more hurdles than the male colleagues she left behind in Sydney. This, and her impetuous nature, lead her to some unwise choices, but she is lucky to be guided by the level-headed and incredibly dedicated and more experienced head of the Royaumont Abbey Hospital where Clara is sent.
Readers are not spared the detail of the some of the injuries confronting the surgeons and nursing staff as they work to repair shattered bodies. The contributions of other women, such as the voluntary aid detatchment who so often brought comfort and reassurance to the injured, are depicted as well.
Clara makes mistakes, some of them with grave consequences, and struggles with her own conflicts both internal and with others; all the while holding her dream of becoming an Army surgeon close to her heart.
Her year at Royaumont Abbey is intense, exhausting, and exacting at a personal and professional level. When she leaves to embark on her next challenge, she has learnt much and developed in ways that are surprising to her.
The ending is unusual for a novel of this kind and possibly more realistic for it.
Clara, the times and surrounds in which we meet her, are all presented in a way that makes her a totally believable character as she interacts with the real historical figures who also people the story. She is flawed in ways the modern reader can relate to, while we also admire the guts and determination of women like her who forged new pathways at some of history’s most difficult moments. They not only made a difference in their own time, but also opened doors for those women following them.
The Surgeon of Royaumont is published by HQ Fiction in April 2025.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.
Beautiful challenges: ‘Murriyang: song of time’ by Stan Grant
First up: a confession. This is one of the most difficult blog posts I have written about a book. Mostly because I have found it hard to put into words what I think – and more importantly, feel – about this particular book.
It is beautiful.
It is challenging.
It is in turn confronting, comforting, confusing.
I was very keen to read it because:
(1) it is the first publication by Bundyi, the brand-new imprint of Simon & Schuster Publishing. Bundyi is a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘to share with me’ and the imprint is curated by well-known author and Wiradjuri woman Anita Heiss, with the aim of publishing books written, edited and designed by First Nations people. (source: https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/p/Bundyi), and
(2) I’d heard it described as ‘in part, Grant’s response to the Voice referendum‘ and ‘a book for our current moment, and something for the ages.’
Like many Australians, I’d been hurt and disheartened by the ‘no’ result, denying my fellow Australians of First Nation heritage both long-overdue recognition and a legitimate Voice about programs and policies that affect them. I hoped that Stan Grant’s book might offer some healing words.It does, and it goes further.
The author reaches for his spiritual faith – a deeply Christian one – which he ties closely with his indigenous spirituality and deep family connections:
I come from a spiritual people – before anything else, we are a people of the unfathomable and inexplicable, and I love that about us. We have lived here in this Country for as long as human memory, in a state beyond the measurement of time, as close as possible to God. Baiyaame, that’s my people’s name for God: a creator spirit that commands the heavens, who gave us our place and our law…
Nothing of God was strange or unknown to us. We lived here in a thin space between Earth and Heaven – Murriyang – where the mystical realm was a breath or a touch away.Murriyang, pp13-14
Grant seeks to replace his lifelong career of journalism where he covered international and domestic politics, wars, and all the tragedies that humans can bring upon ourselves – with love.
Just love? This is where I struggle. It is such an amorphous concept. What does that mean at an individual level, or for a family, a community, a nation, for nations at war? How do we apply this in today’s world where it is a quality in very short supply?
I won’t pretend to understand the answers to these questions. What I will say is that for me, where the book demonstrates these ideas most clearly is in the more personal parts, which are in the sections interwoven within the main narrative. Titled Babiin (meaning ‘father’ in Grant’s Wiradjuri language) these are short snippets about family, mostly to do with Stan and his father, a Wiradjuri elder and cultural leader with whom he had a sometimes troubled, yet loving relationship. It is here we understand what love can mean: not the gooey silly Hallmark card variety, but the warts-and-all, realistic kind that can endure in families through the hardest of times, as it did in Stan’s.
Within the main narrative the author canvasses a wide range of concepts and ideas, including philosophers ancient and modern, mathematics (‘a source of mystery beyond our supposedly known world’), music (‘the heartbeat of God’), forgiveness, ageing and illness, time, nature and being on Country, memory (‘the delicate aroma of all we have been and of those we have loved’), language.
If that sounds like a shopping list of concepts, it’s not: each of these ideas is beautifully expressed and left me wanting more, even if I sometimes felt as if I could not quite grasp the depth of what was being said.
For me, reading Murriyang felt a little like reading the personal diary of a man who has seen – and experienced – too much suffering. It is a lament, but also a song of joy, if such a thing were possible. He is seeking solace, not in the artificial constructions of politics or society, but in the beauty of ancient spiritual beliefs and in the simplicity of love. The final pages express this beautifully:
I won’t lie; it is confronting watching Dad and Mum enter their final years: I face my mortality. My parents have found peace and acceptance: they are happier now than at any time I can remember.
Their days have a glorious monotony; they grasp for nothing. Whenever I am there, it is the simple things that mean the most: a cup of tea becomes a ritual. Dad is showing me how to live and when my time comes to pass, this is what I will remember.
Murriyang p251Murriyang was published by Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in 2024.
War, mental health…and poetry: ‘Soldiers Don’t Go Mad’ by Charles Glass
This is the story of the very beginning of recognition of the condition suffered by so many veterans of war, now known as ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ or PTSD. During and after World War I, it was often colloquially called ‘shell-shock’ – but that was when it was recognised as a medical condition. Too often, it was seen as malingering or cowardice and sufferers ridiculed, abused or even executed for desertion.
The author describes the particular conditions of this war that led to the high numbers of both officers and enlisted soldiers suffering from this ‘nervous and mental shock’: high explosive artillery, rapid-fire machine guns, modern mortar shells, aerial bombardment, poison gas and flamethrowers, and trench warfare in which soldiers were often forced into a helpless, passive position for hours, days or weeks at a time. In other words, warfare of an industrial nature on an industrial scale.
Something had to be done to restore soldiers to some semblance of health, when physical wounds had been healed but the mutism, shaking, nightmares, paralysis, or blindness remained with no apparent physical cause. Craiglockhart was a specialist military hospital established in Scotland specifically for the care of shell-shocked British officers. By the end of its first year of operation, it had admitted 556 patients. By the war’s end, it had treated over 1,800.
Unfortunately, enlisted men received no special care and were either expected to return to active service or invalided out of the army with no treatment available to them.
The book describes the care provided at Craiglockhart under the direction of the two principal psychiatrists: Dr William Halse Rivers and Dr Arthur Brock; two men whose treatment approaches and general philosophies differed widely but when matched with the ‘right’ patients, they were able to effect great change for the officers involved.And this is where the poetry part of the equation comes in.
Two officers who were perfectly aligned with their therapists’ approaches were the (later to become famous) war poets Wilfred Owen (treated by Dr Brock) and Siegfried Sassoon (treated by Dr Rivers). Poetry was at this time a revered literary form and each of these men found solace and expression of their wartime experiences in writing.
When Wilfred Owen first came to the hospital he was young, inexperienced and at the very beginning of his literary career. He was thrilled to meet the older, published Sassoon, who became something of a mentor, and Owen’s writing developed as the two men exchanged ideas and discussed their work. All the time they were also engaged with the various therapeutic programs set out for them by their respective doctors.
Sassoon is an interesting character, because he came to despise what he began to see as the deliberate continuation of the war by the Allied governments: rather than seeking peace he believed they were prolonging the war in order to crush Germany completely. He was so appalled by this that he initially risked court-martial rather than obey orders to return to the front. Again, an example of the difference in treatment of officers (usually from upper and middle class ranks) and enlisted soldiers (usually working class men). Sassoon had also won a Military Cross for bravery early in the war so his stance proved very embarrassing for the War Office at the time.
When the Armistice was finally declared in November 1918, he described it as: ‘a loathsome ending to the loathsome tragedy of the last four years’ and ‘They mean to skin Germany alive. A peace to end peace.’ Looking at what happened just two decades later, who could argue he was wrong?
What took Sassoon back to the front was not support for the war but for the soldiers who served under him and concern for their welfare. He felt guilty (as many at Craiglockhart did) for living in relative comfort while his men suffered.
Owen, too, was discharged and returned to active duty. Unlike Sassoon, he did not see the Armistice declaration. He was killed in northern France at the age of twenty-six, just two weeks before the cease-fire. As Charles Glass notes in this book:
‘Owen was a success for Craiglockhart and for ergotherapy [the therapeutic approach of Dr Brock], but for him the outcome was death.’ (p279)There are many interesting characters in this book: military people, early figures in the field of psychotherapy, well-known literary and artistic people of the era. For me, the stand-out ‘character’, if you will, is the poetry, snippets of which are quoted throughout, illustrating the state of mind of the two main poets discussed. It is especially enlightening to see the nature of their poetry change as they discarded the patriotic ‘heroic’ themes of the era for more gritty realism as their own war experience began to bite, and in Sassoon’s case at least, his growing pacifist beliefs were reflected in his verse.
So, here are two samples of poems by these men because they and their work should not be forgotten. Especially now as the world seems to be once again moving towards darkness.
Wilfred Owen
Source: WikipediaAnthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Wilfred Owen (written 1917, published posthumously 1920)
Siegfried Sassoon
Source: WikipediaAftermath
Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
Siegfried Sassoon (written 1919)Soldiers Don’t Go Mad is published by Bedford Square Publishers in March 2025.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.Travels with my Ancestors #19: In the Shadows of War (Part Two)
This is the continuing story of the family and descendants of convicts Thomas Eather and Elizabeth Lee in Australia. You can find the very first post in this series here. That one deals with my journey to discover Elizabeth’s beginnings in Lancaster; following posts explore the Eather roots in Kent, then the journeys of both on convict ships to NSW, where they met and created a family and life together.
This chapter in the Eather family story is about my grandparents: Florence May Creek (1896 – 1973) and Ernest Beden Newton (1888 – 1955). You can find part one of their story (Travels with my Ancestors #18) here.
In Part One of In the Shadows of War we saw Florence struggling with the devastation of the loss of her beloved eldest son ‘Snow’ during the 1942 fall of Singapore to the Japanese. At home, she had to deal with a volatile and violent husband. In this part of the story we learn a little more about that man: where his people came from and the life he made with Florence.
Son of English Immigrants
Ernest’s parents (Beadon Newton and Elizabeth Robinson) had both emigrated from England with their parents as children. Their families had settled in the Hunter district and that’s where Ernie was born, the second youngest of eight children, in 1888.1
As a youngster he was involved in a scrape which brought him before West Maitland Police Court in early 1905. He was seventeen and with his brother George (aged fourteen) and two other boys, had stolen 40 pounds of lead from the roof of a local school. The little gang had crept out in the dark of night to purloin the material which they then sold to a second-hand dealer. Lead was a popular roofing material because of its flexibility, malleability, resistance to corrosion and wear, and it could be endlessly recycled—very alluring for a dealer.While they initially succeeded in their plan, they were found, arrested, and charged with theft. They were fined £2 10s which was paid on their behalf by unnamed ‘friends.’ 2 The boys could have fallen foul of an unscrupulous dealer offering money for stolen lead; otherwise it was youthful foolishness and hoping for a quick quid that led them astray.
Ernie learnt from this experience because he never came before a court again—despite his later behaviour at home. As Florence knew, a man’s violence towards his family was rarely punished, no matter how much damage he inflicted.
His father had been a carpenter but Ernie worked as a fettler for one of the private railway lines that operated around the Hunter then. With the expansion of coal mining in the district, rail transport was in demand to move coal and mine workers, and private lines ran to and from places like South Maitland, Kurri Kurri and Cessnock.3
He had a shed in the yard where he did work on saddles, bridles, fences and anything else that needed doing. Like most working men of his time, he could turn his hands to many practical tasks. The cows and chickens they kept provided milk, butter and eggs. He shot rabbits for the dinner table. He brought home coal for the fire, from mines near his work on the rail lines. They were poor, but his many flaws did not include a failure to provide for his family as best he could.To the Mountains
After the war ended, Florence and Ernie made the move to Bilpin, to live on the property Snow had taken up there before his enlistment. Snow had named her as administrator of his will and his interest in the Bilpin land formed part of his estate.29
Despite the official Army notification of Snow’s death, she continued to hope that he would return to her. Living in Bilpin meant that if he did come home, she would be there to meet him. She could feel close to him, in the mountain village he’d chosen as his future home.
Ernie agreed with the move; Snow had been the apple of his father’s eye, too.
The journey from Maitland to the Blue Mountains took over two weeks, travelling by horse-drawn wagon. Ernie had converted an old cart for the purpose; it was piled with their modest household items and possessions. Ernie took the reins and the horse plodded its slow way south.
It nearly ended in tragedy. When the horse reared up, startled by something on the road, Florence was tumbled from the cart which then ran over her prone body. A stint in hospital was needed for her injuries to heal before she could settle in Bilpin.
It was a difficult start for the family, especially for youngest daughter Isabel, who at thirteen had to cook and clean house for her father while her mother was in hospital. Making matters worse was the discomfort of the old house they rented from a local man, Mr Heyde; it was a dark and cold place where winter winds sent cold fingers into the many cracks in the floor and walls.5
From 1950 Florence leased Snow’s land while a cottage was built for them by Oswald Johnson, whose son Bill was later to marry Isabel. In 1953 Florence successfully applied to the Lands Department to convert her lease to a Conditional Purchase.6 Son Bob built his house on the other half of the property.
The Bilpin cottage c 1951 She had returned to settle in the mountains that edged the Hawkesbury valley, where she’d been born and where her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had lived. It was the valley where her convict ancestors had farmed alongside the Hawkesbury river, the ancient winding waterway that ran from the mountains to the sea. New generations of Eather and Lee descendants would now regard the valley and its surrounding mountains as home.
Moving from Maitland to the tiny hamlet of Bilpin took some adjustment. First sparsely settled by Europeans in the early years of the colony, Bilpin was still small, with few services. There was a weatherboard School of Arts hall, a tiny school, post office and telephone exchange, a petrol bowser with hardware and produce store. Electricity was not available until 1953; before that everyone lit their homes with kerosine or pressure lamps, or had their own generators.7
Transport was often a problem, as the road from Richmond to Bilpin and out the other side to Lithgow always needed maintenance and upgrading. Many locals used horse and buggy or cart into the 1950s. Groceries, meat, bread and milk deliveries were made by stores at Kurrajong or Richmond; there were no doctors or other medical services in Bilpin.
Her new home was surrounded by hills thickly forested with eucalypts, tree-ferns and climbing vines, punctuated on the lower slopes by neat orchards.
The cool climate and productive soil suited fruit growing. Bilpin was known as the ‘Land of the mountain apple,’ with many flourishing orchards producing a variety of apples along with pears, plums, peaches and nectarines. From early times, the beautiful stands of tall native trees attracted timber getters; there were still sawmills near the village.
Their cottage in Bilpin was a simple one, with a vegetable garden and chicken coop in the back near the outhouse. Life was as busy as ever with many chores that needed doing.
She had left behind the ever-present risk of river floods, and exchanged that for a new worry—bushfires which could take hold on the thickly forested hills and threaten homes and lives.
Still, many of her children and grandchildren lived nearby, visiting often. Christmas afternoons were for the grandkids, who came to show their Christmas gifts to Nanna.8 She loved those times with the young ones all around her. And she was at home on the land chosen by Snow.
The Newton home at Bilpin c1960s She cared for her aunt Isabella until Isabella’s death in 1955, and Aquilla, Florence’s eldest brother, during his illness a few years later. 9 Florence was known and loved for her generosity and kindness.
She lived there with Ernie until his death after a stroke in 1955.10
On the January day he was buried, as Florence stood at the graveside at St Peters, Richmond, she was finally free.11
She had eighteen years without him, peaceful years to enjoy her family. But she never forgot her first born child, keeping his memory alive, especially at Christmas.A Quiet Courage
Florence died from pancreatic cancer in 1973 at Kurrajong hospital, at the age of seventy-seven.12 She was buried alongside Ernie at St Peters, Richmond. She could rest at last, even lying so close to the man who had bullied and abused her for so many years. He could no longer hurt her.
The gravestone of Ernest and Florence at St Peters churchyard in Richmond, NSW. A plaque commemorating their son, Doug, sits beneath. Nearby are graves of other Eather family members and descendants. She was a gentle and generous woman, a simple wife and mother who did not draw attention to herself, preferring to keep in the background. Her life with Ernie blunted much of her sense of self-worth. She did her very best for her family with the meagre resources she had, coped with a volatile and bullying husband, and raised her children in trying circumstances.
A photo of her as a young woman, taken before her marriage and all that came with it, shows a pretty girl with dark hair and a full mouth. She is not smiling: her thoughtful gaze is to the side of the camera. Was she dreaming of what her future might hold?
She deserved a better life than the one she went on to have. The undying affection of her children and grandchildren may have been some compensation for that. She made sure that her family knew they were loved; not by demonstrative hugs or declarations but by her hard work and kindness. All who knew her loved her; she was affectionately called ‘Aunty May’ (her middle name) by many.
Footnotes:
1 Birth registration of Ernest Beden Newton 1888/27288 Certified copy 31 Oct 1988
2 Newcastle Morning Herald & Miner’s Advocate 28 January 1905 Via Trove, accessed 12 Jan 2023
3 Stephen Miller Smith, The History of Rail Services in the Hunter Valley, University of Newcastle, at https://hunterlivinghistories.com/ Accessed 15 Jan 2023
4 Ernest Harvey Newton in Indexes to deceased estate files; Archive Series: NRS 13341; Series: A Series (1939-1948); Reel Number: 3277State Records Authority of New South Wales, Australia; Via Ancestry.com, accessed 26 Jan 2024
5 Isabel Johnson to Denise Newton, telephone discussion, 2024
6 Certificate of Granting an Application for Conversion of a Special Lease Tenure 54/5900, in family collection of Doug Newton
7 Meredyth Hungerford, Bilpin, The Apple Country: A Local History, p307
8 Kris Newton to Denise Newton, conversations 2023
9 Isabelle Johnson to Denise Newton, telephone discussion 2024
10 NSW Births, Deaths & Marriages, Death Reg 1955/427
11 Windsor & Richmond Gazette 25 Jan 1955 p12 Via Trove, accessed 21 January 2023
12 NSW Death Registration Florence May Newton No 1973/64407
Travels with my Ancestors #18: In the Shadows of War (part one)
Ernest Beden Newton & Florence May Creek This is the continuing story of the family and descendants of convicts Thomas Eather and Elizabeth Lee in Australia. You can find the very first post in this series here. That one deals with my journey to discover Elizabeth’s beginnings in Lancaster; following posts explore the Eather roots in Kent, then the journeys of both on convict ships to NSW, where they met and created a family and life together.
This chapter in the Eather family story is about my grandparents: Florence May Creek (1896 – 1973) and Ernest Beden Newton (1888 – 1955)
A Missing Son
On Christmas Day 1942, Florence Newton (née Creek) set the table as usual for the family lunch. Eight plates, knives and forks: a set positioned in front of a chair for each of her children and her husband, Ernest Beden Newton. She omitted a setting for herself—she would eat later, once everyone had been served and were enjoying their meal. Until then, she would hover, in case Ernie wanted something. She’d bring extra potatoes or peas, dashing back to stir the gravy pan over the fuel stove in the hot kitchen. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades and ran into her eyes as she worked.
Once she could finally sit on the back step, a plate on her lap with a jumble of crispy potato skins and salty crackling from the roast, she’d fan her hot face with a corner of her apron and long for a cooling breeze.
One chair around the table would remain empty: the one facing the setting she’d laid out carefully for her eldest child. Lovable, kind, smiling Ernest Harvey—nicknamed ‘Snow’ because of his fair hair in a family of dark-haired and hazel-eyed children—would never again join them for Christmas dinner. But she refused to believe that he was gone forever.1
Private Ernest Harvey (‘Snow’) Newton In June 1940, after the German invasion of France, Snow had told her he was off to Paddington to enlist, where he joined the 2/18 Australian Infantry Battalion.2
At the time, he was living in Bilpin in the Blue Mountains, on a property he’d leased in 1939 and named Snow’s Carinya.3 He’d chosen Bilpin because a cousin, David Horsefield, lived there; the two lads were good friends.4 Most of the family were still at Homeville, the suburb of West Maitland where Snow had been born. Younger brother, fifteen year old Doug, had accompanied him to Bilpin, but returned to Maitland when Snow enlisted.
Like most mothers she’d have experienced a mix of pride and dread when her eldest signed up for war. She naturally assumed he’d be sent to the Middle East, where much of the action involving Australians had been to that point. It was hard to imagine her boy fighting in the desert against the Germans or Italians.
First, though, came training. Basic training began at the Army Camp at Wallgrove—not so far away, so that was reassuring. Then to Bathurst, for open field training to prepare for that desert war. The new year arrived, and in February 1941 he was on a troop ship, sailing out of Sydney to an unknown destination.
The surprising news came that he’d landed in Malaya. Far from desert warfare, his letters home described the tropical jungle environment, the sights, sounds and smells in the local villages, rest and recreation days in Singapore with its crowded streets and shops:
I rode {along} the waterfront where it is barricaded like a fortress with barb wire and pill boxes and the harbour is simply one mass of boats all shapes and sizes and coloures (sic).5
That was reassuring. Like most Australians, she assumed that the island of Singapore, controlled and fortified by the British, was protection against Japanese expansion into southeast Asia and Australia’s north.6 There were unsettling cartoons in the papers, depicting bayonet-wielding Japanese using the islands of Singapore and Indonesia as stepping stones on their way to Darwin7, but Singapore was safe. If Snow was in Malaya or Singapore, he really was defending his country.
His letters were full of stories of movie nights at base camp, the torrential rain of the wet season, shopping excursions to buy gifts for people back home, and messages of thanks for letters and parcels received.
The worst injuries he’d suffered so far had been fractured ribs in a footy match with his unit, and a head laceration from a fall, but nothing to worry about. He’d enjoyed dancing with Chinese women at the ‘New World’ dance pavilion in Singapore, set up for the entertainment and relaxation of the troops.Snow had always loved motor bikes and had his rider’s license, so it was no surprise that he was tasked with the role of rider. He sent a photo of himself proudly astride his motorcycle. In one letter, he corrected his mother’s use of the abbreviation ‘DR’ (dispatch rider):
I see you are putting D.R. before my name. Well, I’m not a D.R. in the eyes of this Battalion as they pay an extra 1/- (one shilling) a day for D.R.s. They may want some later on they say, as a new organisation is being developed. Here’s hoping as 1/- would mount up each fortnight.8
In November he wrote to say that he was starting a month-long course to become a driver/ mechanic, and he’d be working on vehicles affected by the humid and muddy environment.9
In every letter, he asked after family and his girlfriend, Doris:Has Doug been called up yet? And has Ralph heard anything about coming over since last you wrote? I will enclose a lot of {photo} negatives and match box tops for Doris…
Don’t leave yourself short by putting money in the Bank and don’t forget to help yourself if necessary.
Tell Ralph not to knock the bike around as it will have to do a long trip when I get back…
Bob seems to be doing alright for himself … I hope he does well, tell him to watch himself. Doug is also getting a good wage, damn near as we get in our pay. Ron is also doing well. You can tell them to keep it up and look after themselfs (sic) and wish them a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year for me please.
Will send a piece of poetry next letter and the boys all join in sending a merry Xmas and a happy new year.Always her ally, he hadn’t forgotten how difficult his father could be:
Glad to hear Dad has gone back to work, I suppose it is a load off your mind to have him away.10And every letter he signed off as: your loving son, Snow.
Now it was Christmas and she must have longed for another letter. His last had been dated a year earlier: 18 November 1941. While she waited, she couldn’t know that Japanese troops had received orders to begin an assault on Malaya.
As the new year dawned, they overcame key British targets along the Malay peninsula, covering hundreds of kilometres at a frightening pace.11 They were better equipped, better trained and more professional than Australians had been led to believe.12
Snow’s unit was ordered to move south to defend Singapore Island, the last bulwark against further Japanese expansion. During the night of 8 February, they faced an all-out assault on the island, while Japanese planes rained bombs on Allied airbases. Waves of Japanese soldiers streamed through gaps in defences, seemingly unstoppable.
Fighting throughout that night and into the early hours of the next morning was hand-to-hand, much of it in thick mud and mangrove swamps. As men fell, they sank into warm, sucking mud.13 It was a chaotic frenzy of fear, violence and adrenalin, with little time to think. All the Australian boys could do was react, fend off the ferocity of the Japanese, try to survive the night.
Snow was last seen at a rubber plantation near the Tengah airfield, in the island’s northwest, probably killed during that first night of intense fighting, rather than the retreat that followed.
‘Missing Presumed Dead’ declared the Army casualty list, several days before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.14 Another two hundred and twenty two families received similar news, while four hundred more heard their boys had been wounded.15
Survivors were marched to prison camps in Japanese occupied countries. Many died from their wounds or the terrible conditions in the camps.
Florence could never accept Snow’s disappearance on that dreadful night. Even when the official Army Certificate of Death arrived in May 1946, she did not want to believe the stark words on the page. A more hurtful notice arrived a few months later, in the form of a flimsy paper on which an Army clerk had typed a list of ‘war gratuity entitlements’ payable on her son’s behalf: his service and his life apparently valued at £ 270.16
She continued setting a place for him at the Christmas table for many years.
Snow’s disappearance echoed down the years for the whole family, including his siblings. Decades after the end of the war, his younger brother Doug began researching the events of February 1942 in Singapore and Malaya. He contacted Lynette Silver, historian and Honorary Member of the 2/18th Battalion and 2/19th Battalion AIF, who provided information on what was known about the fighting there, and the likely date and place of Snow’s death. This helped Doug and others in the family come to terms with the loss of their beloved brother.
A Mighty War
The frightening news of Singapore’s surrender meant that those back home had to consider the possibility of a Japanese invasion of Australia: something that before had seemed unthinkable. This was a new worry, added to the sorrow of the gaping hole left by Snow’s disappearance.
More anxiety was in store. In 1942, son Bob enlisted.17 At least he would serve in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF) within Australia, as a motorcycle dispatch rider at Wagga Wagga and Bathurst army camps. Members of the regular Army often derided the CMF as ‘chokkos’ or ‘chocolate soldiers’ who would melt in the heat of battle, but for a time there were many more CMF than AIF soldiers, and CMF troops fought at Kokoda and other parts of New Guinea alongside the AIF. Bob, however, remained in NSW.
When she heard the news that he’d been in a serious accident while on duty, she must have feared the worst. He ended up with an amputated leg, but he lived, and was discharged as medically unfit in 1946, much the family’s relief.18
In 1943 her fourth son, Doug, decided to sign up.19 He first joined the Citizen Military Forces as his brother Bob had done, and spent time in Australia before transferring as a gunner in the AIF. Departing from Cairns on board the Mexico for New Guinea, he landed at Aitape, in northern New Guinea. He was twice admitted to the Australian camp hospital—for malaria and then bronchitis—but no telegram arrived at Maitland to inform Florence that he had been killed or was missing, like Snow.He was finally demobbed in 1946 and arrived home, safe and sound—although as for many war veterans, there were injuries, illnesses and mental scars that would appear later. For Florence, the main thing was that he was alive and home again. The fear that she might lose another son to this war was very real.
Through all this she also dealt with wartime rationing, trying to keep house and home together through restrictions on some foods. As during the Great War thirty years earlier, mothers and housewives worked hard to make sure their families had food and clothing. In the back yard at Station Street, Homeville, Florence grew vegetables and kept poultry and a few cows, so they had fresh food, though she needed to save her coupons to buy sugar, tea, meat and clothing.
She cooked over a wood stove; lighting was from kerosine lamps and heating by a coal fire. She was handy with a needle to darn and mend; Prime Minister John Curtin himself had declared that the darning needle is a weapon of war.20
She’d always dressed plainly, as had her mother. No fancy frocks or expensive shoes: just a homemade cotton dress with an apron or pinny to keep it clean. She never went to a beauty salon—they were for women with money to spend on professional haircuts or a weekly set in rollers. She wore her hair bobbed or scraped back into a simple bun—again, exactly as her mother had done. No makeup either. Her needs were few, apart from Sunlight soap and a warm wash with the flannel.
Her widowed mother, Jo, lived a few houses away on Station Street and was a great support. The children would often visit their grandmother and be treated to biscuits from an old tin on her kitchen bench.21Jo’s death in 1942 added another grief to the burdens piling up during those hard years.
Ernie’s wage did not bring in much, but at least now it was just the youngest children still living at home. They were all used to wearing hand-me-downs, so not much changed there.
Florence had given birth to six sons and two daughters, all of whom lived to adulthood.22 She had avoided the anguish of burying a child—the fate of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmothers. The children all attended school, but without government financial support, there was an urgent need to start earning, so most left after primary school. Higher education was not possible, even if they had dreamt of something different.
The children all had chores depending on their ages: milking the cows each morning, separating the milk, making butter, cleaning out the dairy shed, weeding the vegetable garden, feeding the stock.
On top of the constraints and worries of wartime, a different kind of threat hung over her every day.
When she’d married in 1916, like most brides she hadn’t expected to live in fear.23 Ernie could be charming—indeed, people sometimes commented on what a pleasant fellow her husband was. But at home, it was a different matter.
She’d quickly learned to keep her mouth shut and her eyes downcast when he was in a ‘mood.’ The wrong look or word could result in a beating. At meal times, he kept a leather strap handy near his seat, so that if any of the children spoke out of turn, they’d get a beating, too. The whole family ate in silence, eyes on their plates, never speaking unless spoken to by him. She tried to make sure the kids had everything on their plates before they sat down, so they wouldn’t need to ask for the salt or butter. If Ernie exploded at someone and she tried to intervene, it made things worse for them all.24
There were many small cruelties: if he cut one of the children’s hair, the scissors sometimes took a little piece of their neck along with hair. A hinged lolly tin sat by his armchair and sometimes the children were allowed to have two each. They learnt to be quick in grabbing the sweets—too slow and fingers would be caught in the tin as he slammed the lid down.25
There was no possibility of leaving him. One by one the older children found jobs and lives of their own. Snow’s move to Bilpin had been in part because it was a comfortable distance from his father. That was a source of grief, but she understood. She stayed, making the best of things with the few resources available to her, enduring his outbursts and attacks. Where could she go? She’d had only a basic education and few skills for a job to support herself and the younger children were still in school.
She was needed most at home, making do—and worrying. This was the lot of wives and mothers, especially in wartime.
She was fighting a mighty war of her own.
Florence and Ernest’s story will be continued in the next Travels with My Ancestors (#19) post
Footnotes:1 Personal communication of recollections by Doug, Doreen and Kris Newton, multiple dates
2 Ernest Harvey Newton NX27296 in National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947; Series: B883, Accessed 12 Sept 2023
3 Historic Land Records Viewer, Historical Parish Maps, County Cook, Parish Bilpin, Sheet ref 1, Edition 6, 1933 EH Newton Special Lease 39-9; Via Museums of History NSW, State Records Collection, accessed 1 Feb 2024
4 Isabel Johnson to Denise Newton, telephone discussion, 2024
5 Letter from Pte EH Newton to Florence Newton 13 May 1941 (copy in collection of family of Doug Newton)
6 Commemorations Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs, A Bitter Fate: Australians in Malaya and Singapore Dec 1941 – Feb 1942, 2002, p2
7 Commemorations Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs, p13
8 Letter from Pte EH Newton to Florence Newton, 27 Oct 1941 (family collection)
9 Letter from Pte EH Newton to Florence Newton, 18 Nov 1941 (family collection)
10 Letters from Pte EH Newton to Florence Newton, 13 May, 27 Oct, 6 Nov 1941 (family collection)
11 James Burfitt, Against All Odds: the history of the 2/18th Battalion AIF, Monograph published by the 2/18th Battalion Assoc, c. 1991
12 Email from Lynette Silver, Historian and Honorary Member of the 2/18th Battalion and 2/19th Battalion AIF, to Doug Newton, 11 Sept 2001, Copy in collection of family of Doug Newton
13 Email from Lynette Silver 11 Sept 2001
14 Commonwealth War Graves Commission Casualty details for Private EH Newton. Singapore Memorial, Kanji War Cemetery, memorial reference Column 120; Aust War Memorial Roll of Honour Canberra Panel 41; Certificate of Death on War Service dated 30 May 1946
15 James Burfitt, Against All Odds, p1
16 State Records of NSW; EH Newton Will Packet NRS-13660-28-8526-Series 4_338224
17 Arnold Robert Newton in National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Citizen Military Forces Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947; Series: B884, Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 June 2024
18 Arnold Robert Newton in N156695Australia, World War II Military Service Records, 1939-1945, Series B884: Army Citizen Military Forces Accessed 20 Sept 2023
19 Douglas Frank Newton NX174633 in National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947,. Accessed 15 Sept 2023
20 National Archives of Australia, Empty shelves: rationing in Australia | naa.gov.au Accessed 15 Sept 2023
21 Isabel Johnson to Denise Newton, telephone discussion, 2024
22 NSW Birth registrations Ernest Harvey Newton 1917/45938/; Edward Ralph 1920/16849; Arnold Robert Newton 1922/36722; Douglas Frank Newton 1925 from Australia, World War II Military Service Records, 1939-1945; Family records for Ronald George Newton 1927; Alma Newton 1928; Albert Newton 1933; Isabel Newton 1935
23 Marriage of Ernest B Newton & Florence M Creek, Aust Marriage Index 1788- 1950, 1916/15549 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 6 Jan 2023
24 Recollections of Doug Newton
25 Isabelle Johnson to Denise Newton, telephone discussion 2024The spaces between: ‘In the Margins’ by Gail Holmes
Australian writer Gail Holmes’ debut novel is inspired by a real woman who lived in seventeenth-century England, a time when bitter Civil Wars transitioned into Puritan religious and social intolerance.
Frances Wolfreston is a rector’s wife and as part of her role assisting her husband in his parish duties, the laws of the time require her to record the names of those who do not attend weekly church service. This sits uneasily with her, especially after her own mother is imprisoned for the crime of praying in the old, Catholic, manner. Frances is torn between her duty to her mother, to her husband and her young sons, to the church and the new government, and to those vulnerable souls in her community who need more care.
She is also a collector and lover of books, something her mother passed on to her, and an unusual pursuit at a time when the literacy rate amongst women was very low.
As I often do when reading a novel based on or inspired by a real person or event, I went straight to the author’s note to see which bits of the story were from the historical record. I was delighted to learn that one of the ways historians have learned about the real Frances was her habit of inscribing her name in her books. Something many of us do today without much thought, but as the author points out, a subtly powerful gesture at a time when married women had almost no property rights of their own.
After years of researching and writing about women in my own family history, I am very attuned to the challenges of ‘finding’ women in historical documents, confined as many were to birth, marriage, and death records, and largely absent elsewhere.
So a novel woven around the life of a real woman who lived over 370 years ago about whom sparse records exist is both a stretch and an invitation – and the author has taken up the latter with enthusiasm and sensitivity.
This is a story about the tragedy of intolerance in all its guises (and let’s not kid outselves it went out with the Puritans). It’s also about the oppression of women in small ways and large – it touches chillingly on the witch trials of the seventeenth century – and the persecution of anyone deemed ‘different’.
But it’s also about the small acts of kindness and even of defiance that can glue families and communities together: the seemingly insignificant things done or words spoken, often by women and sometimes by men, too, that can make a difference in one life or many.
‘We are like the spaces between the words of a book. The words are what people see, what they argue over, fight wars over, swoon over, collect. Yet without the spaces between, there is nothing at all. We are the spaces, Mrs Edwards.’
‘Yet you want to teach all these common children to read those very words.’
‘If you can read the words, you can begin to see the spaces.’
In the Margins pp 273-274In the Margins was published by Ultimo Press in 2024.
My thanks to the author for a copy to review.
Harsh realities: ‘A World of Silence’ by Jo Skinner
Classified as contemporary women’s fiction, A World of Silence deals with the all-too-timeless and pervasive issue that blights so many lives: intimate partner abuse and coercive control.
The three women at the centre of the novel, all entirely believable and relatable, have been connected since their youth. Now in their thirties, their lives have taken different trajectories but now have reconnected, in ways not entirely welcome or comfortable for each of them.
Kate is a psychologist with two young kids and a husband who seems more intent on reviving his music career than on his family duties. When a former client commits suicide after her violent partner is unexpectedly released from gaol, Kate can’t shake the awful images of the suffering Bea had endured at that man’s hands.
Her best friend is Tori, a single mum who has created her dream business, a vintage clothing and furniture store, while raising her son. Tori is determined not to let the man whom she knows to be unworthy of the title of father into her boy’s life.
When superstar football player Daryl turns up in their seaside town, complete with his beautiful blonde wife Shelley and their three children, both Kate and Tori are shaken. Daryl and Shelley have played important – and not always positive – roles in both their pasts. And now it seems they are back to upend their worlds once again.
There is an undercurrent of tension that builds to an almost unbearable climax towards the end as the three women at the centre of the story try their best to sort out the complexities of their own situations and to help each other.
They make mistakes – don’t we all? – and as a reader I felt moments of intense frustration (similar to watching a TV program when I want to yell at a character ‘don’t go outside! there’s someone out there with a knife!’ You know the kind of thing I mean…it seems obvious to us as readers or viewers, right?) But of course, when we are immersed in a situation in real life, it is anything but. So, good on the author for allowing her characters to be human with everyday frailties and make real, human mistakes.
One of the key mistakes the characters make in this novel – and that people make in real life, especially around issues of partner violence and coercive control – is to keep silent. Not to speak up, speak out, share concerns, worries, hunches. So the title of this novel is spot on. And the cover illustration chillingly evocative.
A World of Silence is a gripping read. Chances are, it may remind you of someone you know. Sadly. Novels like this are a good way of getting more understanding of these difficult issues out there into the wider community. I was pleased to read it.
It’s published by Hawkeye Publishing in April 2025.
My thanks to the publisher for an early copy to review.Love & magic for grownups: ‘Cherrywood’ by Jock Serong
If versatility is a sign of a writer’s skill, then Australian author Jock Serong’s latest offering proves he has bucket loads of the stuff.
From his earlier works of surprising, emotive crime fiction, to his trilogy of historical fiction beginning with Preservation, he has explored darker aspects of the human psyche and behaviour.
Cherrywood is different in that it is a playful work that evokes themes of deep magic, while setting the work firmly in the prosaic Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy across two timelines – early twentieth century and the 1990’s.
There are two main characters. Thomas is heir to a Scottish industrialist family fortune who gambles it all on a fanciful scheme to build a paddlesteamer to ply its trade across the bay in Edwardian-era Melbourne. The boat is to be built entirely from a load of beautiful cherrywood, whose mysterious provenance in eastern Europe forms part of the novel’s backdrop of vague menance. He travels to Australia in search of his vision, followed later by his loving wife Lucy and their young daughter Annabelle. Fortune does not favour either the family or his plans.
In 1993, Martha is a lawyer working for a major law firm. She is a fish out of water, being clever but saddled with a conscience, in a company and surrounded by colleagues without one. One evening she stumbles across the Cherrywood, a pub she has not seen before in Fitzroy. She becomes obsessed with the place, as it seems to elude her efforts to find it again. Gradually her future, and the hotel’s, become intertwined…
The novel has many layers, all seemingly disparate, but its brilliance is the way they all interconnect by the end. There is so much here about love, and vision, and endurance, loss and grief, about the ordinary lives of people and the hurdles we must all overcome. The magic underlying the cherrywood motif is beautiful, subtle to begin with, intruiging enough to have this reader want to push on, to find the clues, to figure it all out along with Martha.
Readers familiar with Melbourne will enjoy the author’s descriptions of both the early years of the city and the version of thirty years ago. The Cherrywood of the title is very much at home in both.
Cherrywood is a novel that works as a modern fable, as historical fiction, as a love letter to Melbourne, as a romance. It’s a complex and beautiful novel.
It was published by HarperCollins in 2024.
Unrecorded lives: ‘Tell Me Everything’ by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is a genius at the small moments. The lift of an arm, the turn of a head, a hand on a shoulder. A fallen blossom. Slushy snow on a sidewalk, wet shoes. A blush, a smile. Speaking, listening, being truly heard.
The small moments that build to make a friendship, a relationship, a marriage, a family. A life.
Tell Me Everything features characters from previous Strout novels such as Olive Ketteridge, Oh William! Lucy By the Sea. It is now post-Covid (or not quite, because Covid doesn’t seem to really go away, does it?) and Lucy and William have remained in their Maine house near the sea. Lucy’s friendship with local lawyer Bob Burgess has developed and deepened; they take regular long walks together where they talk – and really listen – to each other.
And who – who who who in this whole entire world – does not want to be heard?
Tell Me Everything p198Meanwhile Bob has taken on the defence of a local man accused of the murder of his mother. It’s a complicated case with many layers of hurt and history to uncover and understand.
Around Bob and Lucy, are other layers of hurt and misunderstanding as various members of their families struggle with illness, accidents, separation, grief and loss.
How each person deals with these inevitable setbacks are what makes up this novel’s dramatic sweep. Nothing out of the ordinary: they are the kinds of stumbling blocks to be found on the paths of most of us at some point or another, unless we blessed with a totally charmed life.
Another thread throughout are the visits Lucy pays to ninety year old Olive Kitteridge, during which they tell each other stories about people they have known – ‘unrecorded lives’. Some of the stories are almost unbearably painful, others shocking, a few mundane. But in their telling, the lives described are given meaning. And is that not what most of us seek in our lives – a meaning to the living of them?
So, in one sense Tell Me Everything is a novel where nothing in particular happens. In another, it’s a book where a great deal is happening a great deal of the time.
Tell Me Everything is a beautiful, gentle, heartfelt book. If you haven’t read the earlier books by this author, I would recommend you at least read Lucy by the Sea first, as it will help to place Lucy and William, Bob and Margaret, into the Maine town where this novel mainly takes place. Actually, do yourself a big favour and read all the books in this collection about Lucy, William, Bob and so on. Elizabeth Strout’s writing really is a masterclass in ‘less is more’, in subtlety and in using everyday language and keen observation to great effect.
Tell Me Everything was published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, in 2024.
He’s back: ‘We Solve Murders’ by Richard Osman
I’ve missed the gang from Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series so much: Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron, and their associated buddies. I wasn’t sure I would warm to Osman’s new series as much. I mean, how could any new characters be as wonderful as those four?
I needn’t have worried. While We Solve Murders features new characters, new crimes, and definitely a much more multinational setting, the charm and trademark humour is there, the quirkiness of many of the characters, the twisty plot guaranteeing a page-turning absorption.
As always for me, the crimes and plot are incidental. It’s the characters and their emotional arcs, and Osman’s dry humour, that grab me and keep me reading.
In this new series we meet three main protagonists. Steve is a retired cop, settled now in a small village in England’s New Forest. While he still grieves the death of his beloved wife Debbie, he’s become a part of this community: the pub quiz on Wednesday nights, the group of friends he meets there for lunches, his cat Trouble. He likes his routine and the predictable life he’s created here.
His daughter-in-law Amy, on the other hand, thrives on adrenaline and adventure as a private security officer who crisscrosses the world on the job. At the novel’s opening Amy is on a private island, tasked with keeping Rosie D’Antonia, famous author of thriller and crime novels, safe.
That’s where the novel starts but it doesn’t stay there long. Amy and Rosie begin a chase to find a killer before he or she can get to them, and Steve is – very reluctantly – dragged in to help.
It’s a complicated and at times madcap series of events from here that lead to the final showdown. In the process we get to know the threesome well and – speaking for myself at least – I was reluctant to part with them at the final page.
It is a measure of the author’s skill that he can leave the reader breathless on one page and then on the very next, have a scene between a father and son that is both incredibly moving and very funny, so that you don’t know if your tears are from sadness or from laughter.
I’m already looking forward to We Solve Murders #2
We Solve Murders was published by Penguin Random House in 2024.
