Sarah Brownbill

Story

One of the six children born to James Henry and his wife Jane (nee Cousins), Sarah was born on November 4th 1830 in County Armagh Northern Ireland. It is doubtful if she or any of the children had any formal education. Attracted by positive news of life in Australia sent back by Margaret (nee Cousins, Sarah’s aunt) and husband Andrew Black who had gone there in 1841 as bounty migrants, the family made the decision to go to Australia – also as bounty migrants. James and Jane Henry together with their five remaining children (one child having died) sailed from Greenock (Port of Glasgow) on October 21st 1841 on the former convict ship the “Manlius” and arrived at Port Phillip on February 16th 1842.

Typhus fever had broken out on the ship while it was still at Greenock and many people, including Sarah’s father James Henry, died during the voyage, and others including her mother Jane, died in quarantine at Williamstown. When the five orphaned children were finally released from quarantine in late April they were collected by their late mother’s sister, Margaret Black, and taken to Carraragarmungee, a 60,000 acre property near Wangaratta held under licence by Mrs Agnes Reid and her sons David and John. Andrew Black worked on the property as a shepherd and wagon driver. The early life of the five children was spent on this property.

Sarah’s elder sister, Eliza, married ex-convict and shepherd William Howell. He was one of a group of three men who discovered gold at what is now Beechworth, and was also involved in the following discoveries of gold at Reid’s Creek, the Woolshed, and possibly the Buckland Valley.

These discoveries resulted in a major change to the fortunes of the Henry children. They all seemed to become involved in the gold rush at Spring Creek, as Beechworth was then known. On June 12th 1849 aged 19, Sarah married Peter Broderick, also an ex-convict. In 1854 she and husband Peter together with their two surviving children Anne and John, (a daughter, Margaret, had died at Spring Creek), decided to leave the colony and return home to Britain. They left on the “Golden Age”, on May 5th. Details of the voyage are sketchy, but Peter Broderick is listed as having died at sea on October 4th 1854. Sarah’s stay in Britain was brief – she decided to return to Australia, and with her two children arrived on the “Eastern State” in Port Phillip on April 25th 1855. She lived briefly in the Collingwood area, but following the death of her son John, she and daughter Anne moved to Avoca where her older brother, Thomas William Henry, was running a boot shop and investing in mining ventures.

At Avoca she met and married William Brownbill who was working on the goldfield as a miner and blacksmith. Her daughter Anne became one of the Brownbill family, and the early years of marriage were spent in and around Avoca. Husband William made some gold discoveries and bought land. Their financial situation stabilised and the majority of their eight children – William Henry, Ellen Victoria, Elizabeth Mary, Fanny Adelaide, James Henry, Thomas Henry, Alfred Henry, and Sarah were born there.

In 1864 Sarah and their growing family moved to Newbridge where husband William had bought farming land and was granted a Publican’s Licence for the Liverpool Hotel. While they were living at Newbridge, on January 2nd 1874 one of their sons, James Henry then aged 11 years, plunged into the nearby Loddon River and saved three people from drowning. One of the three, George Bayley then aged six, was later the discoverer of gold at Coolgardie in Western Australia. For his bravery on this occasion James Henry was awarded a Royal Humane Society Silver Medal. The family’s enterprises continued to prosper, and William bought and leased land in the Tarnagulla and Simpson’s Creek areas. In 1879 he sold the Newbridge property and the family moved to their farm at Simpson’s Creek. It was here that Sarah spent the rest of her life in close proximity to several of her children and grandchildren.

Sarah was a strong, resourceful woman. In all she had 11 children – four dying in infancy. She was a pillar of stability for her intellectually brilliant, eccentric, energetic husband William, and matriarch of an extended family that was to make its mark in fields as diverse as medicine, dentistry, banking, engineering, education, business, and agriculture.

Sarah died at her Simpson’s Creek home on June 25th 1904 and was buried in the Tarnagulla cemetery.

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