The Eldest Daughter
1821–1891
The eldest of the three Jeffries daughters to reach Australia. She married a Sydney painter, lost him to a fall into a quarry in 1858, was left a widow with young children and “nothing for their support,” and ended her life at Bowden in Adelaide — the same suburb as her mother.
Ann Douglas Jeffries was the third of the nine children and the first of the family’s four daughters. She was born in Bristol on 16 September 1821 — not in Cornwall: when she was baptised, three weeks old, at Portland Chapel that October, the family was living at Limekiln Lane in the parish of St Augustine, her father entered as a carpenter and joiner.1 She was baptised a second time, with her four elder brothers and sisters, at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on the one morning in March 1827 when Samuel and Anne put the family record in order.1 The middle name Douglas, which she kept all her life and passed to a daughter, has no explanation yet; it reads like a surname carried down from an earlier generation. She was sixteen when the Layton came up the coast in January 1838.
In Sydney she married. The register enters the groom as Samuel W. Wilton in 1840; every later record calls him William.2 He was a painter. Four children came over the next eleven years — William Thomas Reynolds in 1841, another Ann Douglas in 1844, Ruth in 1849, and Harriett Ruth in 1851.3 The middle two carry the family’s movements in them: Ruth was born, and died at about four months, at Hindmarsh in South Australia in 1849, while Harriett Ruth was born in the City of Sydney in 1851.39 Something took the Wiltons to Adelaide and brought them back, but what, and exactly when, has not been found.
On a Saturday evening in the middle of February 1858, William Wilton was walking home from the gardens of the nurseryman John Baptist, on the eastern edge of Surry Hills, where he had been at work. He fell into a stone quarry and was killed; he was forty-one. The City Coroner held an inquest at the Tower Inn in George Street South two days later.4
The widow was left, in the coroner’s own words, “with three children, and having now nothing for their support.” John S. Parker, the coroner, did an unusual thing: he wrote to the Empire, enclosed a letter from a man who had visited her and vouched for her as “a woman of excellent character,” and asked the paper to help open a public subscription for her.5 Four years later a notice in the Herald told “Mrs Ann Douglas Wilton” that she would “hear of something to her advantage” by calling on John Baptist’s son — whether wages owed, the subscription money, or a small bequest, the notice does not say.6
She did not stay in Sydney. By the last years of her life she was in Adelaide, at Bowden — the same suburb in which her mother, Anne Jeffries, was then living, and where Anne died in 1885.11 Ann Douglas died at Drayton Street, Bowden, on 25 September 1891, “aged 70 years; a colonist of 40 years. Sydney papers please copy,” and was buried at Hindmarsh, in the ground where her infant daughter Ruth had been laid forty-two years before.911 Her son William’s family stayed in Sydney; her daughter Harriett Ruth’s remained in the Adelaide district, and are there yet. Of the younger Ann Douglas nothing certain is known after 1858, though an Ann Wilton who married William Hollier at Sydney in 1871 may be her.8
The next generation
I have visited the widow of the late William Wilton, and found her to be a woman of excellent character. Situated as she is with three children, and having now nothing for their support, I look upon her as an object of charity.
The South Australian years. Ruth Wilton’s birth and death at Hindmarsh in 1849, and the statements at the end of Ann Douglas’s life that she was “a colonist of 40 years” and had thirty-six years’ residence in the colony, all point to a spell in South Australia around 1849–1850. But the family was demonstrably back in Sydney by 1851, no shipping record or Adelaide address has been found for the earlier stay, and nothing yet explains it.
The younger Ann Douglas Wilton, born 1844. She was presumably one of the three children the widow was left with in 1858. After that there is no certain trace. An Ann Wilton married William Hollier at Sydney in 1871 — the age fits — but the identification is unproved, and no death has been found under either name.
William Wilton himself. He is “Samuel W.” at his marriage and “William” at his death, a son of William and Harriet E. Wilton; his birth, his origins, and the “Reynolds” handed to his eldest son are all unaccounted for.
The 1840 marriage. The date and the church have not been located — only the index entry survives.
The 1862 notice. What John Baptist’s son had for “Mrs Ann Douglas Wilton,” four years after the accident, is not recorded.
One line stayed in Sydney and one went to Adelaide; one child died an infant, and one is still lost from the record.
1841–1914
A Redfern family
The eldest. He married Amelia Frances Talbot at Sydney in 1863 and raised a large family in the Redfern streets — among the children Arthur Reginald, Albert Ernest and Daniel Joseph (born 1880).7 He died at Balmain North in 1914 and was buried at the Field of Mars cemetery, Ryde.7
born 1844
Lost after 1858
Named for her mother, and one of the three children left destitute in 1858.8 No certain later record: an Ann Wilton married William Hollier at Sydney in 1871, which would fit her age, but it is not confirmed.8
1849–1849
Died an infant at Hindmarsh
Born and buried in South Australia — the one firm trace of the family’s otherwise unexplained time there. She was about four months old.9
1851–1926
Sydney-born, Adelaide-buried
She married first Henry Thomas Webber, then William Wood, and lived out her life in the Adelaide suburbs; her daughters married into the Gardner, Digman, Elliott, Hall and Paine families.10 She was buried at Hindmarsh, in a grave later shared with her daughter Rosina Minnie Elliott.10
The Record
Baptisms, Bristol 1821 and Clifton 1827
Register of Portland Chapel, in the Bristol parish of Westbury-on-Trym, baptisms 1821 — no. 38, Ann Douglas, daughter of Samuel and Ann Jeffers, abode Limekiln Lane in the parish of St Augustine, father’s trade “carpenter & joiner,” baptised 7 October 1821 “aged 3 weeks,” by Jonathan Barker. She was baptised again, with her four elder siblings, at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on 18 March 1827 (entries 604–608; birth given as 16 September 1821). The 1821 entry shows the family had left Cornwall for Bristol by that year; the shared 1827 christening is described in the companion chapter above, “Five children christened in a morning.”
Marriage, Sydney, 1840
NSW BDM marriage index — Samuel W. Wilton and Ann D. Jefferies, Sydney, 1840, vol. V B. The exact date and the officiating church have not been located. The groom is entered as “Samuel W.” here; at his death (reference 4) and in the newspaper accounts he is “William.”
The Wilton children, 1841–1851
NSW BDM birth index — William Thomas Reynolds Wilton, 1841 (father William/Samuel W., mother Ann D.); Ann D. Wilton, reg. 184/1844 (V1844 184 / 55), district IA, father Samuel W., mother Ann D.; Harriett Ruth Webber Wilton, City of Sydney, 1851. Ruth Wilton was born and buried in South Australia in 1849 (reference 9). The “three children” the widow was left with in 1858 (reference 5) would be William Thomas, the younger Ann Douglas and Harriett Ruth, Ruth having already died.
Death of William Wilton, February 1858
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 1858, “Coroner’s Inquest” — an inquest held on the Monday by the City Coroner at the Tower Inn, George-street South, on the body of William Wilton, aged 41, “killed by falling into a quarry whilst on his way home on Saturday evening”; the deceased “was a painter, working for Mr. Baptist, near his gardens.” The coroner’s own letter (reference 5) gives the death as “the 14th instant”; the Saturday was the 13th. NSW BDM death index — William Wilton, reg. 247/1858, Sydney; father William, mother Harriet E.; buried Devonshire Street cemetery.
The coroner’s appeal, 1858
Empire (Sydney), 22 February 1858, “To the Editor of the Empire” — a letter from John S. Parker, City Coroner, dated 20 February 1858, forwarding a letter dated Sydney, 17 February 1858, from a correspondent signing “Philanthropy” who had “visited the widow of the late William Wilton” and found her “a woman of excellent character … with three children, and having now nothing for their support … an object of charity.” A subscription list was to be opened at Messrs. C. T. Sandon and Co.’s, stationers, next door to the Empire office.
“Something to her advantage,” 1862
Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 1862, advertising column — “Mrs. Ann Douglas Wilton will hear of something to her advantage by calling upon, or communicating with, John T. Baptist, jun., Surry Hills, near Sydney.” John Baptist was the nurseryman for whom William Wilton had been working when he was killed. The purpose of the notice is not stated.
William Thomas Reynolds Wilton (1841–1914)
NSW BDM marriage index — William Wilton and Amelia Talbot, Sydney, 1863, reg. 530. Sydney Anglican baptism register, 1881 — Daniel Joseph, son of William Thomas and Amelia Frances Wilton, of Walker Street, “labourer,” born 21 November 1880, baptised 19 January 1881 (Redfern district); the family’s other children include Arthur Reginald and Albert Ernest Wilton. NSW BDM death index — William T. R. Wilton, 1914, Balmain North, reg. 6828, father William; buried Field of Mars Cemetery, Ryde.
Ann Douglas Wilton, born 1844
Birth registration reference 3. No marriage or death has been securely identified. NSW BDM marriage index — William Hollier and Ann Wilton, Sydney, 1871, reg. 197/1871: a possible match on age (she would have been about 27), but unproven, and no death has been found under Wilton or Hollier.
Ruth Wilton (1849)
Hindmarsh Cemetery, South Australia — Ruth Wilton, born 1849, died 10 September 1849, daughter of William Wilton and Ann Douglas Wilton. Her presence in an Adelaide burial ground in 1849, with the later “colonist of 40 years” and thirty-six-years’-residence statements about her mother (reference 11), is the principal evidence for a South Australian stay before the family’s documented return to Sydney by 1851 — a stay not yet otherwise substantiated.
Harriett Ruth Webber Wilton (1851–1926)
Born City of Sydney, 1851 (reference 3). Death notice, Chronicle (Adelaide), 16 January 1926 — “Wood.—On the 9th January, at Adelaide, Harriett Ruth, beloved wife of the late William Wood and late Henry Thomas Webber, and dearly loved mother of Mrs. H. Gardner, Plympton; Mrs. J. Digman, Gawler; Mrs. R. Elliott, Kingswood; Mrs. L. Hall, Enfield; Mrs. J. Paine, Forestville.” Other children include Leonard Samuel Wood and Henry George Webber. Buried Hindmarsh Cemetery; the headstone is shared with her daughter Rosina Minnie Elliott, died 25 February 1964, aged 82. In-memoriam notice, Chronicle, 14 January 1932 (a niece, Eileen Webber).
Ann Douglas Wilton in Adelaide, 1885–1891
Adelaide Hospital, Record of Patients, 1885 — Ann Douglas Wilton, of Hindmarsh, aged 64, married, Church of England, born Bristol, thirty-six years’ residence in the colony, 97 days in hospital. Death notice, Express and Telegraph (Adelaide), 26 September 1891 — “Wilton.—On the 25th September, at Drayton-street, Bowden, Ann Douglas Wilton, aged 70 years; a colonist of 40 years. Sydney papers please copy.” Buried Hindmarsh Cemetery, 27 September 1891. Bowden was also the home of her mother, Anne Jeffries, who died there in 1885 (companion chapter, reference 9).