Henry Myddleton
| Town/City | Mackay |
|---|---|
| First name | Henry |
| Last name | Myddleton |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 1820 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1843 |
| Submitted by | Ross Wallace |
Story
Henry Myddleton was born ROBERT NEWMAN on 23 August 1820, the youngest child in a family of ten. His father, John Newman, a tea and grocery merchant in Exeter, Devon, England, died in 1822, and his mother, Susannah (nee Cornish), died six years later. Robert was baptised on 16 September 1820 at St. Petrock’s Church, Exeter.
Robert went to Oxford University, destined for the church, but in his own words knew “more of dancing than divinity, of billiards than the Bible”, so his family shipped him off to Australia. He was a “remittance man” although he doesn’t seem to have received much support from his family. He arrived at Port Phillip on 14 September 1843 on the barque “Lord Keane” as a fare-paying passenger. Once in Australia, he lost all his money, changed his name several times and at one time was known as William Nimmo when he was a cook. Writing home in 1845, he says “hurrah for the dish cloth” – and was fond of quoting Latin in his letters.
Christina Fraser was born on 28 November 1819 at Ballagan, Dores, in the shire of Inverness, Scotland. When her birth was registered, she was named Cursty. She was the third of 11 children of Alexander Fraser, a farmer, and his wife Magdalene McTavish. When she was 21, Christina came to Australia with her family, arriving on the barque “Perfect”. They arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales on 20 December 1840. From there, they travelled to Victoria and settled on “Merton Station” near Mansfield.
On 1 March 1852, Henry Myddleton (having changed his name from Robert Newman) and Christina Fraser were married at the house of John Bigiule at Avenal, West of Merton. They were married by licence with the consent of Simon Fraser, Christina’s brother, and the address for Henry and Christina was then given as Delatite River. They had four children: Magdalene (born 1852 and died 1853), Francis Hugh (Frank) (born 1854), Jean Fleming (born 1856) and Christina Fanny (born 1857).
In 1856/7, Henry was station superintendent of “Dueran Station”, near Mansfield, and received a salary of one hundred pounds per year from the owner, Keith Jackson King of Norwood, Surrey, England. They had some very hard times, and Christina wrote several begging letters to Henry’s family in England. In the 1860s, they had a general store on the corner of Nunn Street and Bridge Street, Benalla.
The drought of 1866 ruined Henry and he died on 21 July 1866, at the age of 45, from “peripheric paralysis”. Christina carried on the store until her death two years later on 3 March 1868 from hepatitis. They are both buried in the Benalla Cemetery. Their children all settled in Queensland.