A Story of Two Sisters
The immigration story of my maternal Granma’s ancestors is
well known and documented in historical and family publications. The short
version is thus:
Mr and Mrs Richard Bowey, with eight children, left Devon and
emigrated to South Australia in 1858. At Port Adelaide they were met by a
brother-in-law with bullocks and dray, and taken to Hartley Vale. Richard,
known as Dick, soon started a blacksmith business in the nearby town of Gumeracha.
Being on the main thoroughfare between Mannum and Adelaide the business prospered,
and Dick took his two eldest sons into the business. When land ‘opened up’ in
the Yorke Peninsula Dick went farming with sons, Richard and William, while he
left Henry to run the blacksmithing business in Gumeracha.[i],[ii]
There is no mention of the women in these accounts. Who was
Mrs Richard Bowey? What about their daughters? What were their lives like? What
happened to them? As a woman I want to know about my female ancestors – their
DNA is in mine. And who was the brother-in-law?
To answer these questions, I need to go back to where they
come from, that is Ugborough, Devon. Mrs Richard Bowey was born Mary Ann
Stoneman in 1817 and her sister Sarah Stoneman was born three years later.[iii] Both women worked as female servants until they married - Mary Ann was
26 when she married Richard Bowey and Sarah was 30 when she married Henry Ford.[iv],[v]
The sisters had their first babies within 12 months of being married, supported
by their mother and other older women.[vi]
In 1851 the Stoneman, Bowey and Ford families all lived within a three-mile
radius of each other.[vii]
Having lived in this small area of Devon for generations, I sense an
overwhelming intensity when Sarah’s husband announced they were emigrating to
Australia. The close family bonds were about to be severed and at the time no
one knew if they would see each other again.
Sarah and Henry Ford and their two small boys made the short
distance to Plymouth where they boarded the Magdalena, a 3 mast wooden ship.
They set sail on 11 October 1854 and arrived in Adelaide almost 100 days later.[viii]
There was no family to meet them.
Henry was farming in the ranges of Cudlee Creek when Sarah gave birth to their first daughter on 31 August 1856.[ix] There was no family to support her. The area was sparsely populated, the terrain hilly, and the roads impassable in winter when the rivers and creeks were flowing.[x] It’s highly likely that Sarah had the baby unaided. On the other side of the world Mary Ann was also pregnant and on 3 September 1856 she gave birth to another son.[xi] Two babies born three days apart in very different circumstances.
Imagine the joy and relief Sarah must have felt when she
received the news that her sister was emigrating to South Australia! In the
last few days of April 1858 Sarah’s husband Henry Ford, with the bullocks and
dray, collected Richard, Mary Ann and children from Port Adelaide. After three
and half years the families were reunited.
The sisters would have been busy providing for their
husbands and children, and although they may not have seen much of each other,
they were comforted knowing that they were not far from each other. In the winter
of 1859, they were both pregnant and this time Sarah was not taking any chances
of having the baby in the bush. On 10 June Mary Ann gave birth and five weeks
later Sarah had her baby, both babies born in Gumeracha.[xii]
Mary Ann’s eldest girl was now 15 years of age and she probably looked after
the smaller children. Life was busy, but it was good, and everyone was well and
happy.
Until 26 March 1860 when tragedy struck.
… the deceased Henry Ford died from apoplexy,
caused by excessive exertion and excitement, in endeavouring to put out the
fire which was threatening the destruction of his neighbour's property.[xiii]
Sarah was left a widow with four young children. Two months
later little John Bowey died in Mary Ann’s arms, 15 days before his first
birthday. Sarah and Mary Ann consoled each other in their losses and grief. Sarah
did not remarry and somehow she found the means to support her family. Her
eldest boy turned ten the following January and he probably went out to work as
a labourer. Maybe Sarah took in washing for menfolk without wives? Whatever she
did she kept her young family together. Mary Ann would have supported her as
best she could but she had a large family of her own to provide for.
Finding out that Mary Ann’s eldest daughter was pregnant would
have been a shock. Unwed mothers were shunned so several months before the baby
was born Sarah Ann Bowey was sent to the home of Mr and Mrs Edwards in Kenton
Valley. On 1 June 1867 Sarah Ann had a baby boy and she named the father as
John Blue, a previous employee at her father’s forge.[xiv]
We don’t know what Mary Ann and Sarah thought about this, but they probably wanted
to keep it quiet. However, if people didn’t already know they certainly knew by
September when it was published in the newspapers! Richard Bowey sued John Blue
for damages. In his statement he said:
She acted as servant - did all
kinds of work, and used to make the clothes, for our family… I have to pay 15s
a week to Mrs Edwards for my daughter, and also the doctor and other expenses
connected with her confinement. Have had to bring home another daughter from
her situation to take Sarah Ann's place, whose services were worth 10s a week.[xv]
£50 in damages was awarded against John Blue. It is believed
that the baby was adopted by Mr and Mrs Edwards.[xvi]
In the mid-1870s both the Ford and Bowey families bought
land on the Yorke Peninsula. William Henry Ford bought land southwest of
Minlaton at Minlacowie (Brentwood), where he moved to with his widowed mother
and siblings.[xvii],[xviii]
The following year Dick Bowey and
two sons Richard and William purchased land near Port Victoria.[xix]
The two families were some 30 miles from each other so they didn’t see each
other regularly but in Australian terms they weren’t too far from each other.
Mary Ann and Dick retired to Adelaide in 1884.[xx]
Sarah remained at Minlacowie until her eldest son finally married in 1891,
about which time she probably moved to Adelaide also.
On 22 November 1899 Mary Ann, aged 82, died at her home at
Battams St, Stepney.[xxi]
Six months later Sarah died at her daughter’s residence in Gloucester Street,
Prospect.[xxii]
The two houses were about 2.5 mile from each other. The sisters are buried side
by side in the Payneham Cemetery, Adelaide. In death, as in life, the two
sisters remained close.
[i]
Monfries, JE (ed.) 1939, A history of Gumeracha and district, South
Australia, 1839-1939, Lynton Publications, Adelaide, SA.
[ii]
Bowey, RR 1999, The descendants of William Bowey 1856-1940 and Sarah Ann
Barnes 1862-1925, Ross Bowey, Lower Mitcham SA.
[iii] Ancestry.com. England,
Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 [database on-line].
[iv] Ancestry.com. 1841
England Census [database on-line].
[v] FreeBMD. England
& Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915 [database
on-line].
[vi] Ancestry.com. Devon,
England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920 [database
on-line].
[vii] Ancestry.com. 1851
England Census [database on-line].
[viii]
State Records of South Australia, Official Assisted Passage Passenger
Lists-1845-1886, Series:GRG35_48_1
[ix] Genealogy
SA, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, [database
on-line].
[x] State
Library of SA, 1870, Torrens Gorge Road [B 1885] Photograph.
[xi] Ancestry.com. Devon,
England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920 [database
on-line].
[xii] Genealogy
SA, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, [database
on-line].
[xiii]
South Australian Advertiser, 1860, March 30, Gumeracha. Sudden death and
coroner’s inquest.
[xiv] Genealogy
SA, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, [database
on-line].
[xv]
Express and Telegraph, 1867, September 18, p2, Local Court. Gumeracha. Bowey
v Blue
[xvi]
Gumeracha Local History, 2024, September 13-17, Emails between J Georgio and C
Maughan
[xvii]
Yorke Peninsula Past and Present, nd. Minlacowie, www.veryphotographic.com.au/minlacowie-hundred-map
[xviii]
Chronicle, 1935, May 23, p66, Old saw pit days
[xix]
Neumann, B. 1983, Salt winds across barley plains, District Council of
Central Yorke Peninsula
[xx]
Bowey, RR 1999, The descendants of William Bowey 1856-1940 and Sarah Ann
Barnes 1862-1925, Ross Bowey, Lower Mitcham SA
[xxi]
Evening Journal, 1899 December 27, p2, Death Notices - Bowey
[xxii]
The Advertiser, 1900 May 21, p6, The Late Mrs Ford
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