The Eldest Son
1816–1842
The eldest of the nine — a ship’s carpenter who sailed as a married man of twenty-one, lost a baby daughter to measles in the Channel, and was dead himself within four years of landing. His widow married again, and his children carried the name up-country to Tamworth.
Samuel Jeffries was the eldest of the nine — born at Polperro on 30 November 1816, a year and a day after his parents’ wedding, and carried to the Wesleyan font at Talland that December.1 He was ten when the family moved up to Clifton and Samuel and Anne had their five eldest christened together at the parish church, putting the record in order; and he was a grown tradesman, rated a ship’s carpenter, by the time the emigration papers were drawn.1 Where his father built houses, the son built hulls.
He married first. On 28 September 1835, at Bedminster across the water in Somerset, “Samuel Jefferd” and “Mary Warn” were married by banns; both were of the parish, and both signed the register in their own hands.2 Mary’s people were Warns — her father Samuel, her mother Elizabeth — and the emigration clerk would set her down as a house-servant, a native of Clifton.28 Their first child, Jane Elizabeth, was baptised at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on 31 January 1836, her father entered as a “ship carpenter”; on the same day, at the same font, Samuel’s own parents had their youngest, Elizabeth, christened too — an aunt and a niece, four months apart.3
Both babies died on the passage. The barque Layton cleared Bristol on 8 September 1837 with measles about to break out in her steerage, and among the seventy-odd emigrant children it killed were Elizabeth and Jane, buried at sea within days of one another.4 Samuel and Mary came ashore at Sydney in January 1838 with no child left, both of them twenty-one, and began again. Three more were born in four years — Amelia in 1838, Samuel William in 1839, and Henry Gillies in 1841 — the two boys baptised at St James’s church in the town.5
Samuel did not see the youngest grow. He died early in 1842 — the burial register gives his age as twenty-four, and a family record puts the date at 25 January and the grave in the Devonshire Street burial ground, the old cemetery later cleared for Central station.6 He left Mary a widow at about twenty-five, with three children under four. She married again within the year — James Smith, at Sydney — and as Mary Ann Smith lived on more than forty years, dying at Tamworth in 1885, by which time her sons had settled there.7 It is part of why the colonial “Samuel Jeffries” records of these years are so hard to sort: father and son carried the one name in the one town, and the 1841 household of eight at Bourke Street, or the shopkeeper “Samuel Jeffries” of Elizabeth Street on the 1842 citizen roll, might be either man.6
The next generation
Mary took her children up the Hawkesbury, to the farming country around St Albans on the Macdonald River — Henry Gillies is said to have been born there in 1841, though he was christened in Sydney.5 It was there the two boys married, a year apart and into what were almost certainly the same family: Henry Gillies to Mary Hanna in 1863, Samuel William to Margaret Hannah in 1864, the register spelling the sisters’ surname both ways.910
Each raised about nine children, and both households moved the same way — from the Macdonald River in the mid-1860s, north and west to the Tamworth district, where the births run on into the 1880s and where their mother died in 1885.7910 Henry Gillies died at Tamworth in 1901 and was buried in the general cemetery there; Samuel William died a little further west, at Gunnedah, in 1913.910 Between them they gave Samuel and Mary something like eighteen grandchildren — Reubens, Aarons, Ebenezers and a Manoah among them, the plain chapel names of the family that had come out on the Layton.
One born in England and lost on the voyage; three born in the first four years at Sydney. Amelia’s line went to Queensland; both her brothers’ stayed on the northern tablelands of New South Wales.
1836–1838
Buried at sea
The daughter born before the voyage. She took the measles on the Layton with the other children and was buried at sea, eighteen months old; the passenger list carries her only as “Jane, 1½, died at sea.”34
born 1838
To the Queensland goldfields
The eldest of the colony-born children. She married John Leetch at Sofala, on the Turon diggings, in 1852, when she was about fourteen; a son, Samuel John, was baptised at Prospect in 1854.7 The family then crossed to Queensland — children registered at Wide Bay and Maryborough — and Samuel John Leech died on the far-northern goldfields at Mareeba in 1893.7
1839–1913
Macdonald River & Tamworth
Married Margaret Hannah at the Macdonald River in 1864 and raised a large family that moved on to the Tamworth district. He outlived his brother by twelve years, dying at Gunnedah in 1913.9
1841–1901
Macdonald River & Tamworth
He married Mary Hanna at the Macdonald River in 1863 — a year before his brother married her sister — and followed the same road to Tamworth, by way of Warialda. He was buried in the Tamworth general cemetery, his mother’s name on the record given as “Mary Ann Smith.”10
The Record
Baptisms, 1816 and 1827
General Register Office nonconformist register RG4/430 (Wesleyan), Talland circuit, Cornwall — entry 57: Samuel Jeffreys, son of Samuel Jeffreys of the parish of Talland and Ann his wife, born 30 November 1816, baptised 22 December 1816 by James Heaton, minister. Polperro lies within Talland parish. He was baptised a second time, into the Church of England and with his four next siblings, at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on 18 March 1827 (Family History Library film 1595528); the shared christening is described in the companion chapter above, “Five children christened in a morning.”
Marriage, Bedminster, 1835
Parish register of Bedminster, Somerset, page 92 — marriage no. 276: “Samuel Jefferd” of the parish, bachelor, and “Mary Warn” of the parish, spinster, married by banns on 28 September 1835 by M. R. Whish; both signed; witnesses William Edwards and Benjamin John Room. Ancestry indexes the surname as Jefferd, Jefferies and Jeffries in turn. Mary’s parents — Samuel Warn and Elizabeth — are named on her 1885 death registration (reference 7).
Baptism of Jane Elizabeth, Clifton, 1836
Parish register of St Andrew, Clifton, Gloucestershire, baptisms 1836 — no. 144, Jane Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Mary Jeffries, father’s trade “ship carpenter,” baptised 31 January 1836; and directly above it, no. 143, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Ann Jeffries, “carpenter,” of Hotwells — the grandparents’ own youngest child, baptised the same day. Both girls died on the Layton (reference 4).
Emigration and the two deaths at sea, 1837–38
State Records NSW, bounty immigrants per Layton, 1838, with the immigration board’s “Married Male Immigrant” card for Samuel jr: Samuel Jefferies, 21, ship’s carpenter, native of Polperro, son of Samuel Jefferies; wife Mary, 21, house-servant, native of Clifton; daughter Jane, 1½, “died at sea.” No baptism or character certificate was produced; religion Protestant; “reads & writes”; engaged by the Government at Sydney at 6s 8d a day. The barque Layton sailed from Bristol on 8 September 1837 under surgeon-superintendent William Rogers R.N.; measles broke out among the emigrant children after she left the Channel and killed about seventy of them, the two youngest Jeffries girls — Elizabeth and Jane — among the dead. The voyage and the shipping notices are set out in full in the companion chapter above, “Measles in the Channel.”
The children born in the colony, 1838–1841
NSW BDM birth index — Amelia Jeffries, reg. 332/1838, district CA; Samuel W. Jeffries, reg. 532/1839, and Henry G. Jeffries, reg. 556/1841, both district CJ; each with father Samuel, mother Mary. Samuel William and Henry Gillies were both baptised at St James, Sydney (Family History Library films 993952 and 993953). A family tree gives Henry’s birth as 30 June 1841 at St Albans on the Macdonald River; as he was christened in Sydney, that birthplace may be the family’s later home read back.
Death, 1842 — and the two Samuels
NSW BDM death index — Samuel Jeffries, reg. 33/1842 (V1842 33 / 108), age given as 24. An Ancestry-attached family record gives the death as 25 January 1842, City of Sydney, with burial in the Devonshire Street cemetery — the old Sandhills burial ground, cleared from 1901 for Central railway station. Because Samuel senior was also “Samuel Jeffries” of Surry Hills at this date, colonial records naming the name cannot be assigned with certainty to one man: among them the 1841 census return no. 224 (residence Bourke Street, Surry Hills; eight persons) and the Citizen Roll for Cook’s Ward, City of Sydney, 1842–43, line 110, “Jeffries Samuel, shop, Elizabeth-street south.”
Mary Warn after 1842, and Amelia’s line
NSW BDM marriage index — Mary Jeffries and James Smith, Sydney, 1842 (vol. V). NSW BDM death index — Mary A. Smith, 1885, Tamworth, reg. 14502; father Samuel, mother Elizabeth; buried Tamworth General Cemetery, aged about 69. Amelia Jeffries married John Leetch at Sofala in 1852 (reg. vol. V C). Their son Samuel John was baptised at St Bartholomew, Prospect, on 15 October 1854 (born Eastern Creek, 9 September 1854, father a “servant”); James Leetch was born in Queensland on 3 October 1857 and died there on 3 November 1862; Elizabeth Leetch was registered at Maryborough in 1859; Samuel John Leech died at Mareeba Shire, Queensland, on 10 January 1893 (reg. 1893/C/4656), buried in a lone grave.
Mary Warn on the emigration papers
The immigration board’s card (reference 4) records Mary as a house-servant, aged 21, a native of Clifton, Gloucestershire, and daughter of a Samuel “of the same place.” The Bedminster marriage register (reference 2) had entered her simply as “of this parish.” Clifton, Bedminster and the Hotwells all adjoin around the mouth of the Avon.
Samuel William Jeffries & Margaret Hannah
NSW BDM — marriage of Samuel Jeffries and Margaret Hannah, Macdonald River, 1864, reg. 2267. Births registered to Samuel and Margaret at Macdonald River (1865, 1867) and then Tamworth (1869–1883) — about nine children, several also indexed under a district code “YD” that appears to be a second church-register series of the Tamworth entries. Death of Samuel Jeffries, Gunnedah, 1913, reg. 2243; father Samuel, mother Mary.
Henry Gillies Jeffries & Mary Hanna
NSW BDM — marriage of Henry Jeffries and Mary Hanna, Macdonald River, 1863, reg. 2106. Births registered to Henry and Mary at Macdonald River (1864, 1866), Warialda (1872) and then Tamworth (1874–1885) — about nine children. Death of Henry Gillies Jeffries, Tamworth, 12 November 1901, buried Tamworth General Cemetery, mother’s name recorded as “Mary Ann Smith.” The two brothers’ marriages a year apart at the Macdonald River, to Mary Hanna and Margaret Hannah, make the two wives almost certainly sisters.