James & Mary Phillips

Story

James Phillips was born in Herefordshire 1823 to parents James and Ann.

His father was an agricultural labourer,

siblings included Mary Ann 1820,

*Richard 1826,

*John 1833,

*Enoch 1835,

Hannah 1840,

and Job 1844.

All or most of their baptisms took place at a village called Canon Pyon.

(* denotes immigrated to Australia)

Mary Draper was born in 1833 Chelsea SW London to parents Edmund & Mary.

There were two sisters Ann 1835

and Eleanor 1837, their father’s occupation, coal merchant.

James & Mary married July 1852 at St. Mary’s church in Neasden Lane,

Willesden, the Church is still in use. John Phillips and Ann Draper

signed as witnesses.

As with so many James & Mary took advantage of Assisted Immigration

for a new life.

Aboard the ship Confiance Captained by Joseph Price, they sailed from

Birkenhead (Liverpool) on 8th December 1852. Due to unfavourable

weather conditions the voyage took 125 days reaching Port Phillip

heads near Geelong on 6th April 1853. It was recorded that

twenty-three children and four married women passengers had passed

away during the voyage, 40 passengers where ill with whooping cough

and 26 with scurvy. The ship was placed under quarantine at Sea with

120 of the 400 passengers placed in a quarantine camp at Ticonderoga

Bay, Point Nepean for up to six weeks. At that time a permanent

Government Quarantine Station had not been established, one passenger

commented ‘Most shameful on the part of the Government to send a lot

of sick people on shore on such a wild uncultivated unchristian like

place as this, where beef and damper were the only food for the

living, and where the dead were buried like dogs.’ Without coffins or

religious services.

James & Mary settled in the Geelong area and raised a family: Mary Ann?

Eliza (Sandford) 1855-1928,

Edwin 1857-1938, Emily 1860-1940,

Alice (Spriggins) 1862-1921,

Ellen 1864-1868,

Edith 1865-1868,

Annie (Cooper) 1867-1950,

Edith Jane (Wilson/Murray) 1869-1950.

James & Mary were active members of the local Wesleyan Methodist

Church including involvement in the building of a small bluestone

church in the late 1860’s at Germantown now called Grovedale on

Torquay Road, still standing.

Mary passed away at Geelong 4th March 1871 aged 37.

James remarried 18th April 1872 to widow Ellen Jane Walter at the

Wesleyan Methodist church in Yarra street Geelong. At some time after

this event James, Ellen and the youngest of the Phillips children

moved to the Gippsland region. James passed away at Traralgon in

December 1896 aged 73.

James & Mary’s descendants live in Victoria.

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