Travels with my Ancestors #22: Troubled Waters

This is the continuing story of my Newton family history. The first instalment can be found here.
Travels with my Ancestors is an ongoing series of posts in which I explore my family heritage, sometimes involving travels to their places of origin, sometimes travel through archives, online sources and history books.
All photos are by author unless otherwise indicated. Names in bold indicate those people from whom I am directly descended.

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Troubled Waters

BEADON NEWTON (1836 – 1919) and
ELIZABETH TOPPS ROBINSON (1849/1850 – 1902)

Locked up

Greta, Hunter Valley NSW, 1876

Things began to go badly for Elizabeth Newton (née Robinson) when Constable Powell entered the Newton’s cottage, one step behind her husband Beadon. They were followed by Mr Leaver, one of Beadon’s employers from the Greta store where he worked. What was going on? Why were they here?
When the constable began looking through the rooms of the house, under beds and in cupboards, it was apparent that something was very wrong. Powell drew out assorted objects from various hiding places around the cottage: a man’s new shirt, sweets and tobacco, a bucket and garden spade, canned goods, crockery, calico…They were hidden under their bed, beneath the old couch in the living room, and in the lean-to shed outside.

Mr Leaver looked on with dismay. At one point, he exclaimed: ‘Beadon, what made you rob us in this way? Have we not given you everything you required?’

The goods recovered by Constable Powell and identified by Mr Leaver by his store’s mark, amounted to £20 in value, the equivalent of six month’s wages.²

Why had Beadon stolen? His employment at Chapman and Leaver’s store in Greta paid him a wage of 15 shillings a week, and the family had lodgings in a cottage provided by his employers. His duties weren’t overly demanding—he delivered goods to customers, helped keep the stock tidy and swept out the store at the end of each day. He was sometimes alone then, and now he admitted to taking things he found on the floor, protesting that he thought there was no harm in that.

Had he became trapped in a cycle of petty theft, neither being able to own up and return the items, sell them, or use them? Elizabeth must have noticed the things appearing in their cottage. Perhaps he lied and told her he’d bought them. Or, if she suspected them to be stolen, she was bound to silence as mother of two small children, dependent on him and unwilling to force an issue which could see him go to gaol.

Constable Powell told her that he had spotted several items partially hidden under a tree in nearby bushland. Suspicious, he’d replaced them under the leaf litter, and returned at dusk, climbed a nearby tree, and waited. A man on horseback approached, stopped at the tree, and began stowing the goods in his saddlebag. The constable nabbed him in the act. It was Beadon, who claimed to have paid for them at the store and left them there to retrieve later.³

Constable Powell was having none of that story. He returned to the Leaver and Campbell store in town, and asked Mr Leaver to accompany them both to Beadon’s home, where the other stolen goods were then found.

Beadon was taken to Branxton police lock-up, about fifteen kilometres away, there to await trial.⁴ As he left the cottage with the constable, Elizabeth probably looked with despair at their sons: three-year-old Albert and baby William. What was she to do now that Beadon was arrested and she would no longer have a house to live in? She would have to take up domestic service work again, as she’d been doing before the boys were born. But who would care for them while she worked? The future looked bleak.

To date, she’d not had much luck in marriage. She’d wed her first husband, James Pendall Morley, in 1870 when she was twenty. They married at her father William Robinson’s home at Down Park, the estate where he worked near Hinton, on Wonnarua land near the Hunter and Paterson rivers. The young couple didn’t have much between them: she was a servant and he a labourer. The ceremony was conducted by a minister from the Primitive Methodist/ Wesleyan church, the faith that her family had brought with them from Lincolnshire.⁵

They had a child, named after the baby’s father and his maternal grandfather: James Hardy Morley, born around the year of their marriage. If Elizabeth had been pregnant with this child before the marriage, it was likely a rushed wedding. It’s possible that he was several years younger than her. These circumstances could have made for a difficult start to married life for both.

Within two years, James was gone. He may have deserted her or died. Either way, he’d disappeared from her life. A ‘James Morley’ was in and out of Sydney’s Darlinghurst Gaol around this time, usually on charges of drunkenness.⁶ Was this the man who had so briefly been her husband?

What happened to the baby after Elizabeth and James parted ways? He lived to adulthood, married, and eventually died in his fifties at Lithgow, NSW.⁷ It’s unclear whether he stayed with his mother during his childhood years.

In 1872 she tried marriage for a second time. This ceremony was held in the Trinity Church of England in Lochinvar. Her new husband was Beadon Newton, twenty-six, a labourer.⁸

On the marriage record, Elizabeth declared herself a widow – was this a convenient lie to erase the mistake of her first marriage?

On the day, she juggled baby Albert Harvey (Bertie) in her arms. He’d been born almost eight months earlier, in February.⁹ It’s possible that the delay in the marriage of his parents was due to the need for authorities to confirm that Elizabeth was, as she claimed, a widow.

They settled into life at Greta, just up the Old North Road from Lochinvar. Beadon worked in Chapman & Leaver’s store; in his free time, he probably enjoyed a drink at one of the four pubs in town. He also served as church verger for the Reverend Walsh.

The railway had arrived along with exploratory mines to dig for coal; Greta was an up and coming place, though still quiet enough for a young family. The village was surrounded by expansive paddocks of pasture with scrubby patches of eucalypts and pockets of more densely forested woodlands.

Their next baby, William, arrived in 1875; Elizabeth’s days were busy.

Something the couple shared were their experiences as young immigrants from England: Beadon from Somerset when he was thirteen; Elizabeth from Lincolnshire at three years of age. Both transplanted, but young enough to make New South Wales their home.

Perhaps he told her the story of attempted mutiny by some of the crew on the immigrant ship Una. She may have spoken sadly of her mother whom she barely remembered, because Mary had perished on board the Irene before reaching Australia. Elizabeth’s baby sister Hannah had died too, not long after their arrival.

And now, for the second time in a few short years, she faced life alone without a husband by her side.

Back to Hinton

Fortunately she had family still in Hinton. Her father Hardy lived there with his third wife Anne and their children, so Elizabeth took the two little boys and moved back to await Beadon’s trial.

In March, Beadon came before the Maitland Sessions court. He was found guilty after a ten minute deliberation by the jury, although they recommended mercy on account of the nine testimonials in his favour, including one from the Reverend Walsh, which stated that Beadon had assisted him at the church for the previous four years.

The magistrate was less impressed. He said sternly that he’d liked to have passed a severe penalty, but given the character references, he sentenced Beadon to imprisonment with hard labour in Maitland gaol. Elizabeth’s husband would be gone for eighteen months and she would need to get on with her life for the duration.¹⁰

Two months after the heavy door slammed shut on Beadon’s cell, little William took ill with a cold or infection. A fever set in and he began crying irritably and shivering, even though his little body was hot to touch. The crying stopped—but Elizabeth’s relief must have turned to alarm when he became listless and refused to take any fluid. Soon after he began convulsing and he died in her arms.¹¹

She had to deal with the grief of burying their baby without her husband. Her father and stepmother were doubtless some comfort. She occupied herself with Bertie, now three, and may also have needed to find work until Beadon returned.

Troubled Waters

Once Beadon was released in 1877, it seemed their life together had at last settled. He found work in carpentry and they moved into Plaistowe Street, West Maitland. All their remaining six children were born in Maitland: Robert (born 1878), Mary (1880), Frances (1882), John (1885), Ernest Beden (1888) and George (1891).¹²

Their street ran straight to the banks of the Hunter, so they had to cope with numerous river floods over the years, including a devastating one in 1893.

After sudden torrential rains, warnings came from upstream about rapidly rising levels and a bell rang through Maitland sounding the alarm. The fast current and a huge load of debris in the river swept houses and farm structures away, inundating shops and homes in the central areas of town. People had to be rescued off roofs and out of trees; despite heroic efforts, at least fifteen people died.¹³

Added to the heartache, the terrible economic effect compounded the pain of the 1890’s depression.

Elizabeth endured the death of another child in 1879; this time it was Robert, still a baby.¹⁴ There was more sadness when Beadon’s father died in 1881 and Elizabeth’s father in 1900.

However, their surviving children were growing, some were marrying and establishing families. Like the rest of their community they had to try to move on.

Elizabeth was only fifty-four when she died in August 1902.¹⁵ She’d developed septicaemia, or blood poisoning. This meant high temperature, headache, chills, nausea, and pain. She was admitted to hospital but there was nothing more that could be done for her; all they could do was hope and pray.

They buried her at Campbell’s Hill cemetery in West Maitland on a wintery day six weeks after she became ill.¹⁶

Beadon was left alone; now in his sixties, he was doing general labouring work where he could find it. He’d moved from Plaistow Street to a house he built at 16 Cross Street.

In 1912 he suffered the shock of hearing the news that his youngest son, George, had been arrested and imprisoned for indecent assault.¹⁷ At twenty-one years of age, George was getting off to a very bad start. He spent three months in gaol and was released on a hefty bond. Beadon’s own time in front of court and in gaol must have come rushing back to him. George appeared to have learnt from this experience and did not come before a court again.

Beadon died a few years later in August 1915, when the nation was in the throes of the Great War.¹⁸ Perhaps he was glad to close his eyes on a world convulsing in violence and suffering. He was laid to rest alongside his wife at Campbell’s Hill.¹⁹

Beadon and Elizabeth merged the Newtons and the Robinsons, people from either side of England: the west country of Somerset and the Lincolnshire fens in the east. As children, they didn’t choose to come, but by making the journey with their families they planted successive generations here, in Australian soil.

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Travels with my Ancestors will be continued in future posts…

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1. Maitland Mercury & Hunter River Advertiser, 16 March 1876 p3, Maitland Quarter Sessions. Via Trove, accessed 11 June 2024
2. NSW Police Gazette & Weekly Record of Crime, 9 Feb 1876 p209. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 19 March 2024
3. Maitland Mercury & Hunter River Advertiser 29 January 1876 p10 Via Trove, accessed 11 June 2024\
4. New South Wales, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1854-1930, 9 Feb 1876 p42. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024
5. Marriage of James Pendall Morley & Elizabeth Robinson, Transcript of reg no 2703/1870.
   State Archives NSW; Kingswood, New South Wales;
6. Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930; Series: 2134; Item: 1921; Roll: 276. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024
7. Death of James Hardey Morley https://centralcoastfhs.org.au/Unrelated%20Death%20Certificates_Mar%202014.pdf p11; State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; Indexes to deceased estate files; Archive Series: NRS 13341; Series: “Pre A” Series (1923-1939); Reel Number: 3231 Accessed 22 June 2024
8. Marriage of Elizabeth Morley & Beadon Newton reg no 2864/1872 NSW Births Deaths & Marriages, Marriage. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024
9. Birth of Albert Harvey Newton reg no 12927/1873, Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024
10. State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; Clerk of the Peace: NRS850 Returns of Criminal cases heard at Country Quarter Sessions, 1875-1877; Series Number: 850; Reel: 3638. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024; Maitland Daily Mercury 16 March 1876 p3, accessed 22 June 2024
11. Australia Death Index, 1787-1985, William R Newton, Reg no 7761/1876. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024.
12. NSW Birth Reg no’s 15531/1878; 17562/1880, 20854/1882, 24921/1885, 27288/1888, 20815/1891. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024.
13. Chas Kays, ‘The Great Flood of 1893’ 2022, in Maitland Stories at: The great flood of 1893 — Maitland: Our Place, Our Stories (maitlandstories.com.au)
14. Death of Robert Newton 1879, reg no 6502/1879 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024
15. Death reg for Elizabeth Tops Newton 1902, Cemetery, Military, and Church Record Transcripts, 1816-1982″, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVB6-B2BV: Sun Mar 10 14:35:15 UTC 2024 Accessed 13 June 2024
16. Burial of Elizabeth Newton at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/80623438/elizabeth-newton Section A1 Plot 3, accessed 22 June 2024
17. State Archives NSW; Kingswood, New South Wales; Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930; Series: 2232; Item: 3/5978; Roll: 5122 NB: the estimated birth year on this record is incorrectly given as 1893 Via Ancestry.com, accessed 22 June 2024
18. NSW Death Reg no 9561/1915. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 20 March 2024
19. Burial of Beadon Newton 4 Aug 1915 in Australia and New Zealand, Find A Grave Index, 1800s-Current, accessed 22 June 2024