John GRANLEESE
| First name | John |
|---|---|
| Last name | GRANLEESE |
| Country of Origin | Co.Fermanagh, Northern Ireland |
| Date of Birth | 1849 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1886 |
| Submitted by | Marlene AUSTIN |
Story
John Granleese was born 7/3/1849 in Stughan, Lisnaskea, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, to parents John Granleese (farmer) and Catherine Elliott. He married c1870 to Anastasia Lacy and they had 5 children who were baptised in the Manchester Cathedral in England. Sadly the mother died probably in childbirth and he remarried on 20/11/1881 in Middlesex to Eliza Jane Harrison. Eliza 1861-1942 had been born in Maidstone Kent to parents Thomas and Jane (nee Dixon) Harrison, her father was a coachbuilder/herald painter.
John and his second wife Eliza had a daughter Martha Elizabeth (Lila) born 29/6/1883, and they lived in Manchester when they decided to emigrate to South Australia. Eliza, with the youngest child of the first marriage (Annie) and the eldest child of the second marriage (Lila) arrived in South Australia on the Orient steamer JOHN ELDER 10/7/1886 via the Suez, having left on 27th May. There is no record of when John Granleese and the four eldest children arrived, but John was presumably waiting for Eliza in Adelaide as their second (and last) daughter Mary Ann Adelaide Granleese was born 20/4/1887.
Of John’s 7 children –
Margaret 1871-1901 would have been invaluable to her father looking after her younger sister and two brothers 11 & 8 on the boat journey to SA when she was only 14 or 15. Margaret married Charles Fotheringham (his father a brewer of Kapunda) and had 4 or 5 children before she (like her mother) died in childbirth. Charles remarried and died 23/9/1953.
Catherine 1872-1955 m. Stan Fielding 1877-1952, Chief Warden of the Fremantle gaol in Western Australia. They had 2 sons, Arthur and Norman.
John Thomas 1874-1948 went to the Boer War then married Eliza Yorke 1874-1957, had 2 daughters in WA and 3 sons in SA, Amy, Margaret, Jack, Cliff, Bob. John was a carrier and later a boiler attendant.
Robert 1877-1952, a carriage and motor painter. Died diabetic and blind.
Anastasia 1880-1950 married Arthur Mansom d. 1955. Had daughter and a son, Dorothy 1905-1978 (an equestrian and opera singer) and Dudley.
Martha “Lila” 1883-1942 married Jim Bryan. Lila had a stroke c1930 and was helpless, and her younger widowed sister Mary looked after her and also their 70 year old mother Eliza. Both women died within a week of each other.
Mary 1887-1962 married Thomas Wilson Austin 1884-1919, draper of 187 Sturt St. Adelaide. They had a son Brian Wilson Austin before Tom died when 35 in the worldwide flu epidemic, and Brian was too young to remember him. Brian served in WWII in the Army then Air Force and afterwards returned to the Public Service from which he retired early due to ill health on account of the stress of the job. He married Marlene Trenberth but died 30 years later of pneumonia.
John Granleese had been a provision merchant, financial agent etc. but in 1899 lost all his money on a horse that fell, and his Chief Clerk gave him a job as his Chief Clerk! John died 1924 aged 75 and is buried in West Terrace cemetery, Adelaide, with his wife Eliza (who died in 1942 aged 81) and 5 other family members.