DARYLE HENDERSON'S FAMILY still have a very old Henderson bible. It is not known who the original owners were. The bible has a publication date of 1822. Making it old enough to have once belonged to Thomas and Janet Henderson. It may have been brought out to Australia with them when they arrived here in 1836. Quite often parents wrote in the first one or two pages of the bible, the birth and baptism dates of their children. If it was Thomas and Janet Henderson's bible then they didn't do that. This leads me to suspect that the bible's original owners may have been Thomas and Sarah Henderson. Both Thomas and Sarah's date and place of birth are recorded in the bible along with their 11 children. It may have been Sarah Henderson who made the detailed entries in the book.
The bible is now kept by Daryl Henderson.
According to the Henderson bible, Thomas Henderson II, was born at Delgatie castle in Scotland.
The entry from the bible appears below.
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Thomas Henderson Born 1 May 1820, Dulgaty (sic) Castle, Aberdeenshire. |
On the 7 May Thomas was baptised in the Turriff church. Turriff is about 3 kilometres from Delgatie Castle.
There is a fifteen year gap between Thomas's birth in 1820 and his appearance on the passenger list of the Coromandel in 1835. The Coromandel was the ship that brought the Henderson family to Australia. According to the passenger list, in 1835 Thomas was 16 years old and living with his his family in Langecliffe, Yorkshire, England. His occupation at that time was horticulturalist (Gardener) The Coromandel arrived in Adelaide in January 1836.
A Thomas Henderson appears in a population census for South Australia in January 1841. It is very likely that it is Thomas Henderson II (1820-1858) who is listed in the census. The census contains very little detail. All it says is that Thomas was under 21 and over 14 years old. Thomas would have turned 21 in June of that year. So he qualifies in terms of his age. Another reason for believing that this could be Thomas Henderson II is the fact that he appears in census district B, along with the Hamilton family. Thomas married Richard and Ann Hamilton's daughter Sarah the following year 1842.
Sarah's father Richard Hamilton was vigneron (a grower of vines for wines) and farmer. The Hamiltons were originally from Dover in Kent. They came out to Adelaide in the Katherine Stewart Forbes on the 17 October 1837. The ship had previously been used to transport convicts in 1830 and 1832.
Both Richard and his wife Ann died at Marion, South Australia. |
Marriage. Trinity Church - later Trinity Cathedral
In 1842, Thomas Henderson II married Sarah Hamilton at the Trinity Church, Adelaide.
They had eleven children the oldest of which was Jane's father Thomas Henderson. Their first three children were born in Adelaide and baptised at Trinity Church. Their fourth child Robert Allan was born in April 1847 and baptised at Saint Marys on the Sturt. It would appear that the family moved from Adelaide sometime between 1845 and 1847. Subsequent births and baptisms took place at Saint Marys on the Sturt and Saint Johns Church, O'Hallarins Hill. Their tenth child Agnes was born in December 1856 and baptised at Amherst, near Maryborough, Victoria. This would indicate that the family left South Australia around this time and settled in Victoria.
Accidental death of Thomas Henderson II
Raleigh's Punt
According to the Herald newspaper, rain fell on the first day of winter in 1858. The wind in the morning blew from the west, and changed to a south westerly by mid afternoon. It was an ominous beginning to a day that would end in tragedy. At six thirty on Tuesday evening the 1 June, Jane's grandfather Thomas Henderson II was accidentally crushed against a rail while crossing the Marybyrnong River. He died early Wednesday morning. It was tragedy because Thomas was just 38 years old, the father of ten young children all under the age of 16. His young wife Sarah was pregnant with their eleventh child a daughter Sarah who was born six months later. She died the following year barely nine months old.
An Inquest was held into Thomas's death. His son Thomas (Jane's father) witnessed the accident and gave the following account.
Yesterday the 1st of June, I started from Melbourne with my father Thomas Henderson, and two younger brothers in charge of three loaded drays for Daisy Hill near Maryborough, we got as far asRaleigh's Punt.
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Thomas Henderson Junior's Deposition
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My father's dray was the first to get on the punt, while in the act of getting the dray on the punt the rear wheel struck against a post, which caused the bullocks and dray to swerve around unexpectedly and knocked my father against the rail, and jammed him up, before we could extricate him, we had to show the pole bullock off, when loosened he fell down from the injuries he had received at the lower part of his body across the hips and bowels.
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