The Story of Eliza Exton

This week's story is about my paternal Great Great Grandmother, Eliza Exton (1838 - 1914).

Born in 1837 in the small village of Manthorpe in Lincolnshire, England; Eliza's father James Exton was aged 21 at the time, and her mother Susannah Lancaster was aged 22.

Eliza was their second born, and their second daughter.

Sister Sarah had been born in 1835, and there were to be another two siblings born in England.


Sister Ann was born in 1840.
Sister Emma came along in 1842.

Interestingly, the 1841 Census document for the township of Manthorpe in the borough of Grantham shows Eliza's father James and mother Susannah living with six-year old Sarah, four-year old Eliza (my great great grandmother), two-year old Ann, a Sarah Lancaster (who was Eliza's aunt, her mother Susannah's sister) and a Harriet Lancaster, aged 8.

Harriet was later listed as 'the daughter of Susannah before her marriage' in other records, and James Exton was listed as her stepfather.  That made her my great great grandmother Eliza's half-sister, so there were 4 daughters in the family at that time.  Then Emma came along the following year.

The village of Manthorpe, where my great great grandmother Eliza was born, was an estate village established near the estate of Belton House, built for the Brownlow family and completed in 1689.  Manthorpe lies around 1 mile to the north of Belton House.  I think it would be safe to make the assumption that many of the men and women living in Manthorpe would have worked on the estate of Belton House.

At the time of the 1841 English Census, Eliza's father's and mother's occupations were listed as 'labourer', so I will make the quantum leap and guess that they were both working as farm labourers on the estate, and not working for themselves.  Times would have been tough for the family, attempting to live on poor labourer's pay.  It would not come as any surprise therefore that Eliza's parents made the decision to emigrate, lured by the prospect of a better life.

The introduction of the 'assisted immigration' scheme, often referred to as the Bounty System, enabled many people, primarily from Ireland, but also from Scotland and England, to migrate to Australia.

Indentured immigrants were bought out to Australia as contract labourers for employers who paid the Government for their passage.









The 'Briton' set sail from Liverpool on March the 15th 1844, bound for Australia.  There were 269 bounty immigrants aboard, including the members of the Exton family.

James, aged 27; Susannah, aged 28; Harriet (listed as their daughter) aged 11; Sarah, aged 8; Eliza, aged 6; Anne, aged 4; and baby Emma, aged 1; left England on a three-month voyage to Australia.

As 'assisted immigrants' they would have been packed into steerage aboard The Briton, and conditions would have been tough. They would have been living in cramped shared spaces, with no privacy.  Aboard The Briton it's likely they slept on hammocks instead of beds. Illnesses would have spread quickly, and no doubt sea-sickness would have afflicted many.

My mind immediately turns to the boredom that must have set in.  There wasn't much to do every day in such conditions, although I'm sure James and Susannah would have taken the five girls up on deck for some fresh air and to provide some space to play a little.  Would that have happened every day?  I wonder.  I also wonder what impression it all left on my great great grandmother Eliza, who was only six years old when sailing on this voyage to Australia.

Australian (Sydney, NSW), Thursday 27 June 1844, page 2.

I always try hard to find out as much as I can about the voyages of my immigrant ancestors, but in the case of the Extons' voyage in 1844, I have been unable to find out any details at all, other than the fact that the ship arrived in Sydney on the 26th of June; as noted in The Australian newspaper dated June 27th.





The family went to live and work in the Richmond River district, as Eliza's father had been employed to work as a farm labourer in that area.  Eliza's mother would have worked as a farm servant as well, and there is no doubt at all that all the daughters would have worked alongside their mother and father every day.

The following year, in 1845, brother William was born when Eliza was 7 years old.
Brother Thomas was born in 1847.

Eliza's older sister (her half-sister) Harriet married that same year, 1847.  She was aged 14, and married a convict who had been transported out to the colonies, nine years previously.

Elizabeth (known as Betsy) came along in 1849.
Lucy was born in 1851, when Eliza was aged 13.

In December of 1852, my great great grandmother Eliza married.  She was aged 15 and married a convict named Patrick Cusack who had been transported out from Ireland.

Marriages at such a young age were not uncommon in the colonies at that time.  There had been a severe imbalance of white men and white women in the colonies since the First Fleet had arrived.  The population had been critically short of women for about a century. Under the assisted immigration scheme, the ratio between men and women had reduced significantly by the 1840s.  By then, it was 2 to 1.  Of course, for the women who were living in Australia in the 1840s onwards, there were very limited opportunities for them to support themselves and marriage was really their only option.  There was no better future for them.

At the time, Eliza's father was working as a cedar cutter alongside his son-in-law, Harriet's husband.  Cedar cutting was a dangerous occupation and the families of these men lived in quite harsh conditions.

Cedar cutters required a licence, paid every year, that allowed them to fell trees on unallocated crown land.  While it gave the cutters the right to cut down and export the timber, they could not settle or build permanent homes on this land.  As a result, the sawyers and their families lived in temporary camps.  Eliza would have been living in such a camp for at least a couple of years before her marriage.

Patrick Cusack, now Eliza's husband, was also working as a cedar cutter and no doubt Eliza would have met him whilst living in one of the cedar cutter's camps in the Richmond River area with her family.

I will stop at this point to mention the #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.  This week, the prompt is:  Going To The Chapel.

For many couples wishing to marry while living in places such as the Richmond River area at this time, there was no church or chapel nearby to attend on their wedding day, and very often the minister was just too far away unless the wedding was planned to coincide with one of the minister's expected twice-yearly journeys around the area baptising, marrying or burying.

Luckily for Eliza and Patrick however, the minister Coles Child was obviously in the area in December and was able to conduct the event.  As can be seen on the marriage record above, they were married in the 'usual place of public worship' at a place named Tunstall.

Tunstall was in fact a pastoral property, what we refer to here in Australia as a station.  It was around 19,000 acres in size with about 1200 cattle grazing on the land, close to what would become known as the town of Lismore. Whilst there would have been a house on the station, it's highly unlikely that religious services were conducted inside that house.

It's far more likely that worshippers gathered under a tree somewhere nearby, perhaps by the creek on the eastern side.

That is where Eliza and Patrick would have been married ... out in an open space under the blue sky ... an open-air chapel.  There would have been no special wedding dress and no wedding reception.





Eliza and Patrick went on to have 11 children over a period of 21 years.  Most of these children were born in similar timber cutter's camps to the ones Eliza had lived in before her marriage.  The family moved around to wherever Patrick was able to find work as a cedar cutter.

Thomas was born the year after Eliza had married.  She would have still been 15 years of age at the time.
Daughter Susannah (named after Eliza's mother) was born in 1855.
James was born in 1856.
Patrick came along in 1858.
Ann was born in 1860.  By this time, Eliza was 23 years of age.
Ellen (my great grandmother) was born in 1862.
Daughter Eliza came along in 1864.
Julia was born in 1867.
William came along in 1869.
Sarah was born in 1871.
Mary was born in 1874.

The years between her marriage and the birth of her last child would have been years of hard work for Eliza, often on the move, living in camps in non-permanent shelter, taking care of the children and the daily chores.  I have a vision of a weather-beaten face, sunburnt arms, wrinkled and calloused hands, but great inner strength and resilience.

Example of a slab hut in the 1870s

At some point around the early 1870s, it does appear that Patrick and Eliza were living on a small landholding in a more substantial permanent type of home, likely made of hand-hewn wooden slabs.

It may have looked something similar to this example shown here, although perhaps a little larger given that it would have housed 13 people.





Unfortunately for Eliza, the next few years would test her considerably.  Her husband Patrick died in early 1876 at the age of just 47.  They had been married for 23 years.  Eliza's father James passed away just a couple of months later, aged 59.  That was not the end of the horrors for Eliza in 1876 however, as her daughter Mary, her youngest child, died the same year at the age of 2.  What a terrible year for Eliza.  One blow after another.



By this time her daughter Susannah was 21, had married and had begun her own family.  Eliza's eldest sons, James and Patrick, were aged 20 and 18 and were already out working, beginning a life of their own.  Eliza's other children would have been still living at home with her as Ann was 16, Ellen 14, Eliza was aged 12, Julia was 9, William was 7 and Sarah was 5 years old.  I have found no evidence as yet to indicate just how Eliza supported her family at this time.  I would assume her family, her mother and siblings, would have provided much needed assistance to help her deal with such heartbreak.

Sadly, Eliza's mother Susannah passed away just three years later in 1879.  By this time Eliza was 41 years of age.  The next period of her life would have been filled with joy, as she watched her other children leave home and begin families of their own; but also filled with further sadness, as she experienced the loss of several other family members.

Her daughter Ann had married in 1878 and began her own family.
Her son James married in 1882.
Sisters Ellen and Eliza married brothers in 1883.

Sadly Eliza lost her son Thomas in 1886, when he was 33.
Eliza also lost her sister Sarah in 1891.

Her daughter Sarah married the following year, in 1892.

Then Eliza's son William passed in 1901.

Daughter Julia married in 1903.

Eliza lost her sister Lucy in 1904.

By this time Eliza was aged 66, and was living with her unmarried son Patrick.  It appears that she had moved in with him sometime shortly after all her daughters had married.  So that could possibly have been around 1901.

There is a census record for 1913 that shows her living at Crown Street in Lismore, with her son Patrick.  By this time however, she was ill.  She had been quite ill for around two years, and Patrick had been looking after her.

Not long after this census however, Eliza became completely bed-ridden and moved in with her daughter Ellen.  Eliza remained in Ellen's house for eight months, until she died in March of 1914.

Eliza's death certificate lists chronic endocartitis (which she had apparently suffered with for several years), senility and heart failure.

Eliza's obituary appeared in the Northern Star newspaper on Friday the 13th of March.  It stated:

"THE LATE ELIZA CUSACK.

One by one the links forged with the past are dropping out, and now another has gone in the passing away of the late Mrs. Eliza Cusack in her 79th year at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. R. Brown, Woodlark Street, Hospital Hill. 

The deceased, the third daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. James Exton, was a native of Lincolnshire, England, coming to Australia with her parents in 1844 when she was nine years of age. After landing in Sydney they came up to Tomki under engagement to the late Mr. Clarke Irving. 

Early in the fifties she married Mr. Patrick Cusack who predeceased her nearly 40 years ago. After her marriage she resided for some time at Bungabee, her husband being engaged in the timber trade. Then they went to Boorie and Terania Creek. Since all her daughters married she has been living with her youngest son, Patrick, till eight months ago, and then resided with the daughter above mentioned who nursed her to the last. 

The deceased was one of the oldest residents of the district, and many have been the tales told by her of the early pioneering days, its difficulties and trials, encounters with the blacks, etc. During her long illness of 2 1/2 years, the last eight months of which she has been bed-ridden, her spiritual wants were attended to by the Rev Canon Whyte, Church of England, of which church she was an adherent."


The part of her obituary I particularly loved was the last section, which detailed the legacy she had left behind.

"Four generations of descendants has she lived to see born into the family fold, iv., two sons and six daughters .
James (Byron Bay)
Patrick (Lismore),
Susannah (Mrs H Harris, Kerrong),
Annie (Mrs. W J Cooke, Broadwater).
Ellen (Mrs. R. Brown, Lismore),
Eliza (Mrs. W. Brown, Keerrong),
Julia (Mrs. Proctor , Sydney ),
and Sarah (Mrs. Noonan, Mullumbimby).

Then fifty-two grandchildren, forty great grandchildren, and the great great grandchild."

What a wonderful legacy!  Eliza was survived by two of her sons, six of her daughters, fifty-two grandchildren, forty great grandchildren, one great great grandchild, four of her sisters and two of her brothers.  Most of this large family lived nearby and it's likely Eliza would have seen them quite regularly.

So ended the story of my great great grandmother.  Eliza was buried in the Church of England section of the new Lismore cemetery in 1914.  Despite her age being recorded in her obituary as 79, and then recorded as 75 on her cemetery headstone, Eliza was in fact aged 77.

Ten years later, her son Patrick, whom she had lived with and been cared by in her latter years, was buried beside her.

Special Note to any family members:  If you have information to share, can I graciously ask that you do so.  Please use the comments box below or email me.  It may prove to be invaluable to the story and provide future generations with something to truly treasure.


Extra note:  I'm joining Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks project / challenge.

The prompt for Week 22 is 'Going To The Chapel'.

You can join by blogging or posting on social media with the tag #52ancestors.

Check out this FB page:  Amy Johnson Crow