Family Stories
Tales of lives less ordinary...
...from rogues to heroes and everything in between
Our family tree is littered with interesting stories. Sailors, priests, convicts, those who dreamt big and those who overcame whatever life threw at them. Here is my list of ancestors with unique stories to tell.
Charles William Beasley (1776-1837)
Ancestor of Veronica Beasley
The son of a minister who fell into a life of crime in London. Arrested for highway robbery at 16, he only narrowly escaped the hangman's noose before being sent to Australia - with no hope of return
Ancestor of Norma Oliver
A "poor child" of Westminster, he was forced into an indentured apprenticeship and he used it as a ticket to success, earning a living as a peruke-maker in Georgian England.
Rev. John Edmonds (1798-1858)
Ancestor of William Fletcher
He grew up in Poole, the son of a mariner, but was called to the ministry. As a member of the London Missionary Society, he travelled to India with his wife to bring Christianity to the native people of Chinsurah, learning and teaching in Hindu. He was called back to England, becoming the Congregational minister for chapels in Staffordshire and Lancashire.
Rev. Joseph Charles Edwards (1816-1896)
Ancestor of Colin Batten
Another priest but this one who sadly appeared in papers for all the wrong reasons. He was in-and-out of debtors prison before he met and married an heiress. Life was good, until he was caught in flagrante delicto with a young assistant at the village school. What followed was a trial that was reported nationally and a poor child who never knew her father. Oh, and he had a peg leg.
Ancestor of Norma Oliver
He was the youngest editor in south London and worked all his life as a journalist. He covered the Jack the Ripper murders and worked as the Lambeth Court reporter for almost 50 years. He advocated ceaselessly for more green spaces in south London, resulting in the opening of Vauxhall and Brockwell parks.
Ancestor of Norma Oliver
The daughter of Welsh immigrants, she was one of the first graduates of the Guildhall School of Music and a celebrated mezzo-soprano in the London music scene.
John Greenhalgh (1795-1876)
Ancestor of Veronica Beasley
A Lancashire man, he was caught trying to use a forged £1 bank note to pay for goods. He was sent to Australia for life but was reunited with his family in the colonies. He then got caught for sheep stealing and was sent to the "horror" of Moreton Bay Penal Settlement...
Charles Joseph Fletcher (1894-1941)
Ancestor of William Fletcher
The man who gave our family its name. He was raised by his grandmother and her second husband, in the quiet township of Farleigh, northern Queensland. He volunteered to fight in World War I, seeing action in France and Belgium, then volunteered again (reducing his age to do so) to fight in World War II, where he was sent to Libya.
Margaret Josephine Kavanagh (1861-1931)
Ancestor of Veronica Beasley
After surviving famine in Ireland and the death of her mother, Margaret emigrated to Australia with her father and sisters. After time on St Helena Island as the wife of the island's Officer-in-Charge of sugar boiling she made her way north with her family to the sugar cane country around Mackay. She survived the death of her first husband and the brutal murder of one of her daughters.
William Charlton (1771-1839)
Ancestor of Veronica Beasley
Growing up in rural Wiltshire, William volunteered to enlist in the 102nd Regiment of Foot, the corps for the new colony in Australia. He arrived in Sydney on the Second Fleet in 1790, only two years after the arrival of the First Fleet. He served in Sydney and Norfolk Island, and was in Sydney for the Rum Rebellion of 1808.