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John Shoobridge (1811 - 1872)

John Shoobridge was born was born in 1811 in Rolvenden, Kent. He youngest child and second - and only surviving - son of Robert Shoobridge and Mary Weller. Robert and Mary may have moved around alot or alternatively had some issue with the church, because of their three youngest children, non were christened until 7 November 1819.

John married Elizabeth Brown in Rolvenden on 7 December 1832. Elizabeth was born about 1815, the daughter of William Brown and Jane Poile. There is limited information available on Elizabeths siblings, however it is known that she had a half brother William Poile, who was raised by her maternal grandparents.

John and Elizabeth had 8 children (4 sons and 4 daughters):

John and Elizabeth lived in Rolvenden from the time of their marriage onwards, and at the time of the 1841 census, they were living at the Rollinson Farm in Rolvenden, where John was working as an agricultural labourer. Life was tough in Kent as an agricultural labourer, the average weekly wage was 8s 4d.

The Kent during this period was a place of major rebellion, the declining rural economy saw a significant rebellion - the Swing Riots - in the 1830s, however these upheavals saw no improvement in conditions for agricultural workers.

In 1838 John's sister Jane and her husband Edward Piper had emigrated to Australia aboard the "Lady Nugent". In the early 1850s the government of New South Wales created and assisted immigration scheme. Under this, residents of New South Wales could pay a contribution to the government to bring out a relative or friend from Britain or Ireland, with the government subsidizing the cost of the passage. The total cost of passage was 32 pounds and 10 shillings.

So under a Government sponsored emigration scheme, John and Elizabeth and their 6 children boarded "The Morayshire" in Southampton on 9 October 1855 for a journey to Australia. The family arrived on 19 January 1856, and proceed to the Camden area where Jane and her new husband Henry William Dunn - a freed convict whom she married in 1842 - lived at The Oaks.

The family moved to Camden - near John's sister Jane - and shortly after their arrival, John selected land on the Warragamba River - some three miles downstream from where the Cox's and Wollondilly Rivers met to form the Warragamba. The upstream boundary of the property was Gogonnolly Creek (known as Shoobridge Creek) and the property shared a common boundary with the Fitzpatricks. The farm consisted of 5 blocks of land and when eventually surveyed was a total of 209 acres. The family cleared and fenced the farm and built yards a shed and a slab hut. John's grandchildren continued to live in the house until the early 1940s.

In the years after the family settled, they would mine coal in the upper burragorang valley. One of John's grandchildren reflected that John Jnr ".. build a sledge and would go up into the mountain and fill it with coal for the house fire - it would last longer than wood". This was years before the first official coal mined opened in the valley in 1895.

John later selected further blocks of land in the Green Wattle Creek area for grazing cattle, but it was at the Warragamba farm that the family lived

In the late 1860s John handed over running of the Warragamba Farm to John Jnr and moved to the Green Wattle Creek property - where his son George and daughter in law Sarah Alicia lived.

John experience poor health for a number of years, and finally on 9 November 1872 - after 15 years in Australia - John died at the Green Wattle Creek property. He was buried at the Church of England Cemetary in Lagoon Flats, Camden.

After John's death Elizabeth became unwell, and moved into Camden to live with relatives. She continued to reside there until her death six years later on 29 December 1878. She was buried 2 days later in the churchyard of St Matthews Church of England at Camden.

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