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Australian Society of the Lacemakers of Calais Inc. |
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NELSON The Nelson was a 603 ton barque
built at Clyde in 1844. An advertisement in The London Times,
describes the ship as follows: 'Nelson - A splendid fast sailing Clyde built
barque, loading the London Dock - full poops with beautiful accommodation
for passengers.’ The Strong family consisted of Samuel and Mary Louise or Louisa Strong (née Cooper) and their three young boys (James, Henry - who was also referred to as Woufel, and Samuel #2) all under the age of ten years. In 1845 a double tragedy had struck the family. Their only daughter at that stage, Elizabeth, died on the 8 January at 2 am, aged eight months, and Samuel #1 died on 13 January at 11 am, aged two years and seven months. There is nothing recorded regarding the cause of their deaths. The Strong family had originally been listed to travel to Adelaide aboard Harpley but the Nelson was destined to offload its passengers at Port Phillip. It docked there on 11 November 1848. The Strong family spent the first two weeks at Port Phillip aboard the ship as was allowed under the emigration rules. On 28 November 1848, the family disembarked and went to the Melbourne emigration depot. On 11 December 1848, Samuel Strong was engaged by a Thomas Stevens, a carpenter, on a salary of three shillings per week, without rations. Louise at this time was 7 months pregnant and on 24 January 1849 a son, John, was born in Lonsdale Street. He may have been named after his maternal grandfather John. Melbourne at the time was only 14 years old, and very primitive, so you can imagine what the conditions were like . Tragedy struck the family again on 25 March 1849 when John died. He had been baptised two days before at St Peter’s Church [built in 1847], Eastern Hill Melbourne. A year later a second daughter, Elizabeth Mary Strong, was born on the 6 August 1850. Their address at this time was “off Bourke Street” and Samuel was employed as a bricklayer. Gold was discovered in a creek near the slopes of Mt Alexander in 1851. Louisa was born in 1852 and the same year, six year old Samuel died on the 21 December in Melbourne. The gold rush to Mt Alexander was on in earnest, but this didn’t attract the family to the “diggings” until 1853. Samuel may have ventured up there on his own before then, to put his hand to panning for gold like many thousands of others. They eventually arrived there settling down to a life in a tent. When the alluvial gold started to get harder to find, Samuel started working for a mining company as a miner. Another son, George, was born at the diggings, now called Forest Creek, on the 10 December 1855 and a daughter, Marianne, was born on the 10 January 1858 in Forest Creek. Marianne was the last child they had. In 1860 tragedy happened again. In November at Forest Creek, George died of diphtheria aged six. The family stayed on at Forest Creek, renamed Chewton. One of the houses they lived in burnt down losing all their possessions, including beautiful large photographs and crocheted tapestries etc. By 1871 Samuel was living in a hut in Adelaide Hill, Chewton and on 1 January 1882 Samuel Strong died, aged seventy two years. He died of “progressive softening of the brain”, after being paralysed for six months in the Castlemaine Asylum. He was buried in Chewton Cemetery on 3 January 1882 in an unmarked grave. In October 1998, Doug Strong and his cousin, Ray Strong (who compiled most of these notes), and with contributions from other relatives, had a headstone mounted. Of the ten children, only five survived Samuel. They were James Charles, Henry, Elizabeth Mary, Louisa and Marianne. Six families had originally been approved for the Harpley and then rejected on the strength of the number of children under ten in their families. Convinced as the Immigration Board were of the danger of sending large numbers of children in any one vessel, they felt it necessary not to take the whole of these families by the Harpley, but to distribute them in such a manner, in separate vessels, as to reduce the proportion of young children to the adult passengers. The Strong family was one of this six. Another family was Oliver & Eliza Lowe with three children under ten who came on Agincourt. Yet another family was that of John & Eliza Wand who had seven children, five of them under ten years of age. What of the other three families? Perhaps William & Harriett Rogers who came on the Walmer Castle were part of that original list? They had four children, the eldest of whom was twelve. Perhaps another family was that of Thomas Goldfinch and his second wife, Hannah with their combined family of six young children. The Goldfinch family came aboard the Emperor.
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