James Ansell
| Town/City | Reynella |
|---|---|
| First name | James |
| Last name | Ansell |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | Baptised 17.5.1818 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1855 |
| Submitted by | Heather Rayner |
Story
James Ansell, son of Richard and Elizabeth Ansell, was baptised on 17.5.1818 at Gravely, Hertford, England. Soon after the family moved to the nearby village of Wymondly and it was there that he grew up. James worked as a labourer and carrier and as a carrier he carted stone to Windsor Castle for restoration work.
He married Sarah Aldridge in the Stevenage Parish Church, Hertford, on 21.9.1843 and the certificate indicates that neither could write as they both made a X for their signature. A daughter, Elizabeth Condor Ansell, was born on Christmas Day,1844. By 1847 Sarah was expecting their second child but it was a sad time for the family as she was suffering from tuberculosis. The child, a boy, was born on 29th April but did not survive and Sarah died shortly after on 1.6.1847 aged 22.
James remarried in 1851 to Elizabeth Maynard.
In 1855, James, his second wife and two daughters, Elizabeth10 and Sarah 2 years, boarded the ‘Taymouth Castle’ for South Australia and arrived at Port Adelaide on 25.6.1855. During the voyage two year old Sarah fell while on deck and broke her nose.
The family first settled at Black Forest and subsequently moved south to the Aldinga, Yankalilla and Inman Valley areas where James was engaged in farming and shearing activities. During this time eight more children were born
In 1851 he bought several acres of land at Strathalbyn and moved there. Here he ran a few cows and carted the cans of cream into the town on a spring dray. He also rented land for farming and was recognised as one of the most practical of farmers and noted for the stamina and general condition of his horse teams. Not until the age of 81 was he compelled to finally relinquish work. James passed away on 8.7.1905 aged 86 and is buried in the Strathalbyn cemetery.
His eldest child, Elizabeth Condor Ansell, was ten when she arrived in South Australia. While working at Willunga she met John Palmer Hutchinson of Hackham and they were married in the Primitive Methodist Chapel, North Adelaide on 12/3/1867. They farmed at Inman Valley and raised a family of eleven. Around the mid 1880’s John was one of the first in the district to use a wheat harvester. That year the crop looked good but as he reaped it with the new machine all that could be seen was a big cloud of red dust drifting out to sea. When he opened the bin to see how much wheat had been collected – it was empty – red dust also new to the district, had completely destroyed the crop and left the family financially ruined.
The children helped their father gather and sell gum from yaccas and also bark the native wattles and tie it is bundles to sell at the bark factory in Yankalilla. Wattle bark is high in tannin and was used to tan skins and hides. An evening pastime of the boys was to go out mooning possums in the boughs of trees and the older boys would shoot them as the skins were worth one shilling (10 cents) each.
As Elizabeth and John grew older they found the climate too cold at Inman Valley so in 1900 they bought a farm at Watchman Plains near Balaklava and moved there with their four youngest children, Annie, Fred, Angus and Sam. As horses were the only means of transport, Fred who was 15 years of age and another young lad took the goods and chattels on a tip dray attached to two horses – a distance of 210 km.
They bought the property freehold for 1 pound ($2) an acre as there had been three previous droughts in a row. Here they depended on dams and underground tanks for stock water and when they dried up water had to be carted from near the Wakefield River about 7 km away. Sometimes the stock would be waiting at the trough for the water and when it arrived they would drink the tank empty and then John would have to go back for another supply. This water had to be paid for which was a great drawback.
Elizabeth died on 26.1.1906 aged 61 and John on 14.4.1910 aged 64 and both are buried in the Balaklava cemetery. Two sons, Frederick and Angus, fought in France during World War 1. Fred was severely wounded in Cyprus in 1917 and invalided home.
Their eldest son, James (Jim) Hutchinson, was an expert shearer with the blade and was the ‘ringer’ in both northern and southern sheds. He died in 1919 from hydatids, the result of drinking water from a stream. He left a wife Harriet and 4 children, Doris, Joseph, Walter and Adele.