Where They Rest - The Burial Places Of My Brown Family

As I continue researching my family history, I have been looking more closely at the final resting places of my ancestors. Cemeteries and burial records provide another way of tracing a family's journey, revealing not only where our ancestors lived and died but also the connections between generations.

My Brown family forms part of my paternal ancestry, stretching back through my grandmother, Grace Olive Brown (1885–1974), to earlier generations of the family in New South Wales and, before that, England.

The Brown family has a particularly strong connection with the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, especially Lismore. Several generations of the family lived in the district, and many are buried in its cemeteries. Over time, however, some family members did move further afield, settling in Sydney, Queensland and even Western Australia.

Looking at these Brown family burial places together provides an interesting picture of how some from this branch of my family gradually spread across Australia, while so many remained close to the district where earlier generations had established their homes.

In this post, I have only brought together the burial locations of my direct Brown ancestors and their siblings.  I begin with the cemeteries where many family members are buried and then move further afield.  Some graves have surviving headstones, others are unmarked, and for a few ancestors the burial location remains a mystery.

East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales

East Lismore General Cemetery holds the graves of several members of the Brown family, including my paternal great-grandfather, Richard Joseph Brown, and a number of his siblings.

Richard Joseph Brown (1861–1947), my paternal great-grandfather, is buried in the Anglican section of the East Lismore General Cemetery, although his grave is unmarked and has no headstone. Richard was born in Lismore and lived his entire life in that town.

Several of Richard's brothers and sisters are also buried there.

His older brother, Alexander Johnson (Sandy) Brown (1849–1931), is buried in the Anglican section of the East Lismore General Cemetery. He is buried with his wife, Margaret Jane Brown (née Bustard). Their grave has a surviving memorial.

Another sibling, Anne Caroline Penelope Edwards (née Brown) (1853–1910), is buried with her husband, Edward Hocking Edwards and grandson Robert. 

Their substantial memorial, in the Non Sectarian section, provides a lasting reminder of this branch of the family and the connections between generations.

Henry Johnson Brown Jnr. (1855–1938) is also buried at East Lismore in the Presbyterian section. His grave, like his brother Richard's, is unmarked with no headstone. 

Henry was one of several members of the family to bear the name Henry Johnson Brown, a name passed down through successive generations.

Another brother, William Norman Brown (1858–1937), is buried in the Anglican section at the East Lismore cemetery with his wife, Eliza Brown (née Cusack).

With so many members of this generation buried at East Lismore, the cemetery is particularly significant in my Brown family research. This burial place reflects the very strong connection Richard Joseph Brown and some of his siblings maintained with Lismore throughout their lives.

North Lismore Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales

North Lismore Cemetery is another important burial place in my Brown family history, containing the graves of two generations of the family.

My paternal 2x great-grandfather, Henry Johnson Brown (1820–1868), is buried here. 

Henry was the immigrant who began my branch of the Brown family here in Australia. Born in Cumbria, England, he arrived in Australia with his sister Sarah at the age of 20 and began building a new life in New South Wales.

Sadly, his grave is unmarked, with no surviving headstone recorded in my research. 

Henry was the father of my great-grandfather, Richard Joseph Brown, and is an important link in tracing the Brown family further back through the generations.

Also buried at North Lismore Cemetery is another of Henry's sons, James Irving Clark Stephenson Brown (1859–1947), my paternal great-granduncle. His grave is also unmarked.

Although neither grave has a headstone, knowing their burial locations is valuable. It establishes another connection between two generations of the family and the district in which they made their homes. It is particularly interesting that Henry, who had travelled from England to begin a new life in Australia, is buried in the same town where so many of his descendants would spend their lives.

Lismore Roman Catholic Cemetery, New South Wales

Another Brown family burial in Lismore is that of Lillian Ruth O'Donnell (née Brown) (1887–1911), my paternal grandaunt and a sister of my grandmother, Grace Olive Brown.

Lillian is buried at the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Lismore. She died in 1911, aged approximately 24 years. Her comparatively early death stands in marked contrast to the long lives of some of her siblings, particularly her sister Elsie, who lived into her nineties.

I have not yet obtained a photograph of Lillian's grave.

Wardell Cemetery, Wardell, New South Wales

Marcella May (Marcy) Tyler (née Brown) (1892–1973), another sister of my grandmother, is buried at Wardell Cemetery.

Marcy is buried beside her husband, Alfred Loring Tyler, and their shared memorial survives.

Wardell is situated within the Northern Rivers district, adding to the concentration of Brown family burial places in this part of New South Wales. While some of Marcy's siblings eventually made their home further afield, her burial at Wardell reflects the continuing association of this generation of the family with the district.

Tintenbar Cemetery, Tintenbar, New South Wales

Sarah King (née Brown) (1822–1897) was a sister of my paternal 2x great-grandfather, Henry Johnson Brown.

She had accompanied her brother Henry when he emigrated from England to Australia, and both went on to establish their lives in New South Wales.

She is buried at Tintenbar Cemetery with her husband, Richard King.

Their substantial headstone is a particularly interesting surviving memorial from this earlier generation of the family.

Unlike the unmarked grave of her brother Henry at North Lismore, Sarah's burial place has a surviving monument.

Her grave provides yet another connection to the earliest generations of my Brown family in Australia and to the Northern Rivers district where both she and her brother settled.

Palmdale Lawn Cemetery and Memorial Park, New South Wales

Elsie Myrtle Harris (née Brown) (1890–1982) was another of my grandmother Grace Olive Brown's sisters.

Elsie was cremated and a memorial plaque commemorates her at the Palmdale Lawn Cemetery and Memorial Park on the central coast of New South Wales. She had been living with her daughter at Booker Bay, also on the Central Coast, and her memorial is located relatively close to where she spent her last years.

The surviving memorial records her name and the years 1890–1982, together with the inscription "Peace, Perfect Peace." Elsie lived to approximately 92 years of age, in marked contrast to her sister Lillian, who died at such a young age.

The differences in their lifespans are a reminder of how varied the experiences of children born into the same family could be. Elsie's memorial also represents a different form of commemoration from the traditional cemetery graves and headstones of earlier generations.

Moorefields Methodist Cemetery, Kingsgrove, New South Wales

Eliza Duncan Gall (née Brown) (1863–1938) was a sister of my great-grandfather, Richard Joseph Brown.

She is buried at Moorefields Methodist Cemetery in Kingsgrove, Sydney, close to the family home in Lakemba. Eliza shares her burial place with her husband, Robert Gall, their daughter Janet, and Janet's husband, James Luther McClelland.

This family grave is particularly interesting because it brings together members of two generations and several different family surnames. It is a good example of how burial records can reveal connections beyond the original Brown surname, helping to piece together the wider family tree.

Eliza's burial in Sydney also reflects the movement of some members of the family away from the Lismore district during their adult lives.

Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, New South Wales

Francis Summers Hayes (Frank) Brown (1865–1928), another brother of my great-grandfather, is buried in the Church of England section of Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.  

Francis had been living in the suburbs of Sydney for most of his adult life, and his burial at Rookwood reflects his long association with the city.  Like his sister Eliza, who is buried at Moorefields, Francis was among those members of the family whose lives eventually took them away from Lismore.

I do not currently have a photograph of Frank's grave.

Gympie Cemetery, Gympie, Queensland

Gympie Cemetery is especially important to me because it is the burial place of my paternal grandmother, Grace Olive Connors (née Brown) (1885–1974) and provides one of the closest connections between these earlier generations and my own family history.

Grace is buried beside her husband, George Connors. Her memorial records her death on 30 September 1974, and its inscription remembers her as a dear wife and mother.

Grace and George had led a rather nomadic life, working as milkers in the dairy industry in both New South Wales and southern Queensland. They eventually settled in Gympie when they were in the fifties.

Their movements reflect an aspect of family life that is not always apparent from birth, marriage and death records alone. Work and employment opportunities could take families from one district to another, sometimes resulting in quite considerable distances between relatives.

Grace's burial in Queensland, rather than in the Lismore district where so many of her Brown relatives are buried, is therefore part of the story of movement within the family.

Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, Queensland

Robert Frederick Bayley Brown (1866–1941), a younger brother of my great-grandfather Richard Joseph Brown, is buried in the War Section of Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane. Robert had served in the First World War, making him eligible for burial in this special section of the cemetery.

He had moved to Queensland around the age of 40, not long after the death of his wife, and subsequently made his home in that state.

His grave is unmarked, although its location has been identified.

Robert's burial in Brisbane is yet another example of the Brown family's connections extending beyond northern New South Wales into Queensland. It is also interesting that, although both Robert and my grandmother Grace are buried in Queensland, their final resting places are in different parts of the state, reflecting their individual movements and circumstances.

Karrakatta Cemetery, Western Australia

One of the more distant burial locations in the family belongs to John Thomas Brown (1850–1918), another brother of my great-grandfather.

John Thomas is buried at Karrakatta Cemetery in Western Australia. He had moved to Western Australia from New South Wales in his late forties, taking him a considerable distance from the Northern Rivers district where earlier generations of the family had settled. 

His grave is unmarked, but its location has been identified.

Of the Australian burial places currently known to me, his is among the furthest from the family's concentration of graves around Lismore. It raises interesting questions about the circumstances that took John Thomas to Western Australia and the course his life followed there.

Burial Locations Still Unknown

Not every family history search leads to a known cemetery or surviving headstone. Several Brown family members remain without an identified burial location.

Two brothers of my great-grandfather, Richard Joseph Brown, died in early childhood:

• Henry Johnson Brown (1847–1848), who died as an infant.

• Elias Brown (1856–1858), who died at approximately two years of age.

Their exact burial locations have not yet been established.

The deaths of these two young children are a reminder of the difficulties faced by families during the nineteenth century. Although their lives were short, they remain part of the family's history and deserve to be remembered alongside their siblings who survived to adulthood.

There are also gaps in the earlier generation of the family. 

The burial places of William Brown (born 1814), Alexander Brown (born 1816) and Ann Brown (born 1829), siblings of my 2x great-grandfather Henry Johnson Brown, remain unknown.

My research suggests that they may have remained in England, but their places and dates of death have not yet been established.

Further back still is my paternal third great-grandfather, Henry Johnson Brown (1782–1853). 

His burial location has not been confirmed, although my research suggests that he may have been buried in or around Whitehaven, Cumberland, England, which was the birthplace of my 2x great grandfather and his siblings.

What These Burial Places Tell Me

When I look at the Brown family burial locations together, several interesting patterns emerge.

• The most obvious is the family's strong association with the Lismore and the surrounding Northern Rivers district of New South Wales following Henry Johnson Brown's arrival in Australia from England. Over time, however, the graves became more widely scattered. Some members of the family were buried in Sydney, others in Queensland, and one in Western Australia, reflecting the movement of individual family members away from their original home district.

• Another interesting pattern is the variety of cemetery sections in which members of the family are buried.  This really surprised me! Among the burial records are Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholic and Non Sectarian sections. This suggests different religious or denominational connections withing the extended family, although burial records alone do not necessarily tell the full story of an individual's beliefs.

• I was struck by the number of unmarked graves. At least six relatives in this collection have identified burial locations but no recorded headstone, including my great-grandfather Richard and my 2x great-grandfather Henry.

• Finally, there are those relatives whose burial places remain unknown. For some of the earlier Brown family members who may have remained in England, I have yet to establish their dates and places of death.

Remembering the Brown Family

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The accompanying Brown Family Burial Places table records each relative's name, relationship to me, dates, cemetery location and additional notes, where applicable. It also identifies unmarked graves and burial locations that remain unknown.

As with all my family history research, this is a work in progress, and I hope to add further information as new records and photographs become available.

Name of Relative	Relationship to Me	Burial Location	Notes
My paternal grandmother and her siblings
Grace Olive Connors nee Brown 1885-1974	Paternal Grandmother	Gympie Cemetery, Gympie, Queensland, Australia	Buried beside her husband George Connors
Lillian Ruth O'Donnell nee Brown 1887-1911	Paternal Grandaunt	Roman Catholic Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	No photo available
Elsie Myrtle Harris nee Brown 1890-1982	Paternal Grandaunt	Palmdale Lawn Cemetery & Memorial Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	Buried at a cemetery close to Booker Bay where Elsie had been living with her daughter
Marcella May (Marcy) Tyler nee Brown 1892-1973	Paternal Grandaunt	Wardell Cemetery, Wardell, New South Wales, Australia	Buried beside her husband Alfred Loring Tyler
My paternal great-grandfather and his siblings
Richard Joseph Brown 1861-1947	Paternal Great-Grandfather	East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Unmarked burial plot – no headstone
Henry Johnson Brown 1847-1848	Paternal Great-Granduncle	Burial location unknown	No photo available
Alexander Johnson (Sandy) Brown 1849-1931	Paternal Great-Granduncle	East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Buried with wife Margaret Jane Brown nee Bustard.
John Thomas Brown 1850-1918	Paternal Great-Granduncle	Karrakatta Cemetery & Crematorium, Karrakatta, Western Australia, Australia	Unmarked burial plot – no headstone. Had moved to Western Australia in his late 40s.
Anne Caroline Penelope Edwards nee Brown 1853-1910	Paternal Great-Grandaunt	East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Buried with husband Edward Hocking Edwards in a plot with quite a substantial monument.
Henry Johnson Brown 1855-1938	Paternal Great-Granduncle	East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Unmarked burial plot – no headstone.
Elias Brown 1856-1858	Paternal Great-Granduncle	Burial location unknown	No photo available.
William Norman Brown 1858-1937	Paternal Great-Granduncle	East Lismore General Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Buried with wife Eliza Brown nee Cusack.
James Irving Clark Stephenson Brown 1859-1947	Paternal Great-Granduncle	North Lismore Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Unmarked burial plot - no headstone.
Eliza Duncan Gall nee Brown 1863-1938	Paternal Great-Grandaunt	Moorefields Methodist Cemetery, Kingsgrove, New South Wales, Australia	Buried with husband Robert Gall, daughter Janet and her husband James Luther McClelland.
Francis Summers Hayes (Frank) Brown 1865-1928	Paternal Great-Granduncle	Church of England Cemetery, Rookwood, New South Wales, Australia	No photo available.
Robert Frederick Bayley Brown 1866-1941	Paternal Great-Granduncle	War Section, Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia	Unmarked burial plot – no headstone. Robert had moved to Queensland around the age of 40, not long after the death of his wife. He served in WW1.
My paternal 2x great-grandfather
Henry Johnson Brown 1820-1868	Paternal Great Great-grandfather	North Lismore Cemetery, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia	Unmarked burial plot – no headstone
William Brown 1814-	Paternal 2nd Great-Granduncle	Burial Location Unknown.	No photo available
Alexander Brown 1816-	Paternal 2nd Great-Granduncle	Burial Location Unknown.	No photo available
Sarah King nee Brown 1822-1897	Paternal 2nd Great-Grandaunt	Tintenbar Cemetery, Tintenbar, New South Wales, Australia	Buried with her husband Richard King in a burial plot with quite a substantial monument
Ann Brown 1829-	Paternal 2nd Great-Grandaunt	Burial Location Unknown	No photo available
My paternal 3x great-grandfather
Henry Johnson Brown 1782-1853	Paternal Great Great Great-Grandfather	Burial Location Unknown – Likely in Whitehaven, Cumberland, England	No photo available

Spotlight on ... A Name With Meaning

Some names in a family tree simply repeat. They appear generation after generation because they were familiar, fashionable, traditional, or expected. 

That kind of repetition is one of the most common realities of genealogical research. It can be helpful, because it shows continuity. It can also be maddening, because several people with the same name, living in the same area, can take quite a bit of careful sorting.

But sometimes a name does more than repeat. Sometimes a name seems to carry meaning.

In my paternal family tree, Crittenden began as a surname — a Kentish surname carried by several generations of my direct ancestors. Later, after the surname itself passed out of my direct line through marriage, it reappeared in another form. First it was used as a given name. Then it appeared again as a middle name, carried by descendants in Australia and New Zealand.

It feels like one of those small family clues that could easily be overlooked. But once noticed, it begins to suggest something more: a name remembered, a maternal line preserved, and perhaps a quiet sense that this surname still mattered.

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A Kentish Name

The surname Crittenden is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is generally understood to be a habitational surname. In other words, it likely began as a name connected to place — to families from the villages of Crittenden or the lost village of Cruttenden in Kent, England.

The exact meaning is not completely settled. One interpretation suggests it may mean a person living near a woodland pasture. Another links it to Old English elements, possibly combining a personal name with -ing, meaning association or belonging, and denn, meaning woodland pasture.

Whatever its precise linguistic origin, the Kent connection is strong. By the late nineteenth century, around half of all recorded Crittendens in the United Kingdom were living in Kent.

That makes the name feel firmly rooted in that south-eastern corner of England.

And that is where my own Crittenden line appears.

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My Crittenden Ancestors in Kent

The earliest Crittenden ancestor I have researched so far is my 7th great-grandfather, Johnathan Crittenden.

Johnathan Crittenden

c.1651–1713
My paternal 7th great-grandfather
Lived in Halden, Kent, England

Married Elizabeth Fullagar.

His son, also named Jonathan, continued the family line in Kent.

Jonathan Crittenden

1684–1760
My paternal 6th great-grandfather
Lived in Woodchurch, Kent, England

Married Susannah, whose surname I have not yet identified
They had a son also named Jonathan.

Jonathan Crittenden

1723–1786
My paternal 5th great-grandfather
Lived in Woodchurch, Kent, England
He had two children with his wife Ann Ransley, and five children with his wife Sarah Dandy.

My family line continued on through their daughter Elisabeth Crittenden, but it was at this point that the name Crittenden begins to shift from surname to given name.

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Elisabeth Crittenden and the Hukins Family

The Crittenden surname passed out of my direct line through my paternal 4th great-grandmother, Elisabeth Crittenden.

Elisabeth Crittenden

1754–1808
My paternal 4th great-grandmother
Lived in Woodchurch, Kent, England
Married John Hukins
They had seven children.

When Elisabeth married John Hukins, her children carried the Hukins surname. In the usual course of things, the name Crittenden might have faded from this branch of the family.

It could have become one of those maiden surnames we record carefully in our notes, but rarely see again. But that is not what happened.

The name stayed.

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When a Surname Became a First Name

Elisabeth Crittenden and John Hukins had a son named James Hukins, my 3rd great-grandfather.

James Hukins

1792–1871
Son of Elisabeth Crittenden and John Hukins
My paternal 3rd great-grandfather

Lived in Woodchurch, Kent, England and New South Wales, Australia

Married Susannah Fullagar.

They named their fourth-born child, a son, Crittenden Hukins.

This is the moment where the name begins to feel especially meaningful.

Repeating first names is common. But using a mother’s maiden surname as a child’s given name feels more deliberate. James did not simply choose another John, Jonathan, James, or William for this son. He chose Crittenden — his mother’s family name.

Perhaps it was a way of honouring his mother, Elizabeth Hukins nee Crittenden. Perhaps it reflected pride in the Crittenden line. Perhaps the name carried meaning within the family that has not survived in the written record.

We cannot know the exact reason. But we can notice the choice.

A surname had become a first name and in that change, the name seems to have become a small act of remembrance.

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Crittenden as a Middle Name

The name appears again in later generations, this time as a middle name.

Adolphus Crittenden Hukins

1849–1897
My paternal great-granduncle
Lived in New South Wales, Australia

James Crittenden Wright

1858–1952
My paternal 1st cousin 3x removed
Lived in New South Wales, Australia and New Zealand

Adolphus Crittenden Hukins

1878–1957
My paternal 1st cousin 2x removed
Lived in New South Wales, Australia

By then, the name had travelled a long way from Kent.

It had moved from Crittenden branch to the Hukins branch of the family, and then crossed into other branches. It had also crossed the world, appearing among descendants in Australia and New Zealand.

That journey gives the name another kind of meaning. Crittenden was no longer only a Kentish surname. In my family, it had become a small inherited marker — a way of carrying an older family connection into new places and new generations.

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What the Name Preserved

There are likely more examples of Crittenden elsewhere in the wider family tree. I have not researched every branch, so for now I can only speak about the Crittendens I have found and followed.

Even so, the pattern is clear enough to notice.

The name began as a surname in Kent.
It passed through several generations of my direct ancestors.
It entered the Hukins family through Elisabeth Crittenden.
Then it was preserved as a first name, and later as a middle name.

For a family historian, this kind of naming pattern is worth pausing over. A middle name can sometimes be more than decoration. It can point backwards to a maternal line, a remembered surname, or a family connection that mattered enough to be carried forward.

That is how Crittenden feels in my family tree.

Spotlight On ... Working For A Living

The Bonny Cravat Inn: where generations of my family worked for a living.

When I think about the different ways generations of my family worked for a living, some stories gather around a farm, a trade, an occupation or a small piece of land. This story however gathers around an inn.

The Bonny Cravat Inn at Woodchurch, Kent, in England became, for generation after generation on the paternal side of my family, a place of work, endurance, and family continuity.  It was not simply somewhere my ancestors appeared briefly in the record.  It was a workplace woven through the lives of the Ramsden, Fullagar, Hukins, and later Bourne families for well over a century.

  The Bonny Cravat Inn, Woodchurch, Kent
— a place where generations of the Ramsden, Fullagar, and Hukins families worked for a living.

Source: “The Bonny Cravat, Woodchurch” by Oast House Archive, via Geograph, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.

This was no ordinary inn.  By the time members of my family began keeping it, the Bonny Cravat was already old.

Edward Hasted, writing in his History of Kent and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Volume 7 of the 1798 second edition), noted that Phebe Goble of Woodchurch, by will in 1692, left a charitable bequest of £2 per year to the poor to be paid by her heirs forever, from a farm called the Bonny Cravat, “now an ale-house”. 

I love that passing reference because it gives such an early glimpse of the place.  Long before it became part of my family story, it was already there in village life in the 17th century.

The building that stands today belongs mainly to the later part of the inn's story. The National Heritage List for England lists the present Bonny Cravat as a Grade II building dating from about 1800, and the Woodchurch conservation material notes it as a prominent inn in the village, opposite the church.  So, the business itself is much older than the surviving structure. 

That feels fitting somehow.  The place of work endured, even as the people and the building changed around it.

The list of Bonny Cravat Innkeepers and Publicans sourced from the Woodchurch Local and Family History site using records compiled by the Woodchurch Ancestry Group.

When I first came across this list of innkeepers and publicans associated with The Bonny Cravat, I did not just see names in sequence. I saw husbands and wives working side by side, widows carrying on after loss, sons following fathers, brothers taking their turn, and one village inn becoming part of my family’s working life across generations.

Woodchurch 1902 - The Bonny Cravat Inn on the left
Source: Woodchurch Local and Family History site 

A family workplace in the heart of Woodchurch

One of the things that stands out most strongly in the record of innkeepers is the repeated evidence of partnership.

My paternal 7th great-grandparents George and Mary Ramsden née Eastland were both part of the inn’s story. 

So were my paternal 6th great-grandparents John and Elizabeth Fullagar née Potter. 

In a later generation came my paternal 4th great-grandparents John and Elizabeth Fullagar née Bourne. 

Then, decades later, my paternal 3rd great-grandparents James and Susannah Hukins née Fullagar took their place there too.

Again and again, the same pattern repeats. Not simply a publican, but a couple. Not only a man’s occupation, but a household economy.  An inn like this was never run by one person alone.  There were customers to serve, stock to buy, food and drink to prepare, rooms and fires to manage, accounts to keep, neighbours to receive, children to raise, and all the ordinary messiness of life going on in the background.

This record makes that shared labour unusually visible.  The women were clearly part of the story, often carrying on after a death because there was no real alternative.  That is one reason the widows stay with me so strongly in this story: 

Mary Ramsden née Eastland. 

Elizabeth Fullagar née Potter.  

Elizabeth Fullagar née Bourne. 

Mahala Bourne-Rolfe née Chacksfield.

Their names are not mere interruptions in a male line of innkeepers.  They are part of the real substance of the story.  Each represents a woman who kept both household and business together at a difficult moment, because the work still had to be done.  Family history so often lets a woman slip into the background, but here they stand plainly in view.

The long family connection - Ramsden, Fullagar, Hukins, Bourne.

The first recognisable names on the list of innkeepers are direct ancestors -

• George Ramsden, my 7th great-grandfather, kept The Bonny Cravat for thirteen years from 1706 to 1719. 

• After his death, Mary Ramsden née Eastland, his widow and my 7th great-grandmother, continued from 1719 to 1720. 

Later came direct ancestors and distant cousins from the Fullagar and the Hukins families. For close  to 90 years, from 1734 to 1820, the running of the Bonny Cravat passed largely between these two families.

Listed innkeepers from the Fullagar and Hukins families are highlighted with hearts

The Fullagars carried a long stretch of the inn’s history. 

• John Fullagar, my 6th great-grandfather, appears for twelve years from 1734 to 1746.

• After him came Elizabeth Fullagar née Potter, his widow and my 6th great-grandmother, who ran the inn for four years.

• The inn then passed to John Fullagar, son of John and Elizabeth and my 5th great-grandfather, from 1750 to 1758.   He would not have worked alone either.  His wife, Sarah Fullagar née Gilham, my 5th great-grandmother, would have been part of that working household.  Sarah was the granddaughter of George Ramsden and Mary Ramsden née Eastland, the first of my ancestors connected with the inn, so the knowledge and habits of innkeeping may well have run through the family as naturally as any inheritance.

• Later, the inn returned again to yet another John Fullagar, my 4th great-grandfather and son of John and Sarah Fullagar née Gilham.  He ran the inn for twenty-one years from 1782 to 1803.

• Elizabeth Fullagar née Bourne, his wife and my 4th great-grandmother, continued running the inn for thirteen years after the death of her husband, from 1803 to 1816. Once again, no doubt she had been working alongside her husband during his years at the inn.

• The son of John Fullagar and Elizabeth Fullagar née Bourne, Thomas Fullagar, then took over from his mother in 1816 and ran the inn for four years.  Thomas, whilst not a direct ancestor, was my 3rd great-granduncle.

• Samuel Fullagar appears from 1856 to 1865.  Again, whilst not a direct ancestor, he was my 3rd cousin 4x removed, great great-grandson of the first of my Fullagar ancestors who ran the inn - John Fullagar and Elizabeth Fullagar née Potter. 

The Hukins family formed another thread. 

• John Hukins, my 5th great-grandfather, kept the inn for seventeen years from 1758 to 1775, and he too was almost certainly supported by his wife, my 5th great-grandmother, Elizabeth Hukins née Howe.

• John was followed by his brother James Hukins for seven years from 1775 to 1782.  Whilst James was not a direct ancestor of mine, he was my 5th great-granduncle. 

• Decades later the inn returned to both the Hukins and Fullagar families through James Hukins and Susannah Hukins née Fullagar, my 3rd great-grandparents, who were there for thirteen years from 1824 to 1837.  

Susannah was the sister of Thomas Fullagar, and the daughter of John Fullagar and Elizabeth Fullagar née Bourne. James was the grandson of John Hukins and Elizabeth Hukins née Howe.  By then the family connections around the inn had become dense and interwoven.

Another view of the Bonny Cravat Inn at Woodchurch,
the village inn that remained part of my family's working life for generations.

Source: “Bonny Cravat – Front Road, Woodchurch” by Brian Chadwick, via Geograph, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.

Another branch of that wider story - Bourne - appears in the 1850s. 

• Edmund Bourne, my 2nd cousin 4x removed, ran the inn for four years from 1852 to 1856.  He entered the Bonny Cravat story through marriage to Mahala Rolfe née Chacksfield, the widow of Henry Rolfe. 

What makes this part of the story especially striking is that Mahala had already been keeping the inn on her own for three years after her first husband Henry’s death. (Henry Rolfe had been the innkeeper from 1845 to 1849, undoubtedly supported by Mahala). Again, Mahala was not simply a name bridging one male innkeeper to another. For those years after the death of her first husband, she held the business together in her own right, before Edmund married her and joined the next phase of the inn's working life. 

Although Mahala was not a blood relative of mine, she belongs with the other widows in this story who kept the Bonny Cravat going when life could easily have pushed everything off course.

The work behind the names

What I love most in stories like this are the small details that remind us what the work may actually have looked like. 

• A Kent Archives publication, drawing on Woodchurch parish records for 1765, notes that John Hukins, innkeeper at the Bonny Cravat, was paid “beer for buryings” at local wakes. That tiny detail is one of my favourites because it brings the inn to life. It reminds us that this was not simply somewhere people came to drink. It was part of the village’s social fabric — present even at moments of mourning.

That wider role matters. 

• In villages like Woodchurch, an inn was rarely only a drinking house. It was a meeting place, a landmark, somewhere people heard news, settled arrangements, and crossed paths with neighbours. Standing opposite the church, the Bonny Cravat sat right at the centre of village life.

There is another layer to that history too — one that gives the Bonny Cravat a darker edge.

• Local tradition links the inn with smuggling in the eighteenth century, and that its strange and memorable name may have come from a French vessel remembered as La Bonne Crevette or La Bonne Corvette, in contradiction to the information in Hasted's text. 

Inns such as the Bonny Cravat sat where so many worlds met: respectable village life, hard-earned daily labour, travel, gossip, business, and sometimes things less lawful. 

• Smuggling was rife in Kent in the eighteenth century and continued into the nineteenth, and by the 1820s the district around Woodchurch was associated with men from the gang led by George Ransley, better known through the history of the Aldington Gang. In October 1826 Ransley and others were captured, and the gang’s members were later tried on capital charges.

During the years when James and Susannah were running the Bonny Cravat, they would almost certainly have known of the local smuggling world, even if only through village talk. 

• Stories remembered later say that the Bonny Cravat itself was sometimes used as a courtroom, and that proceedings connected with captured smugglers were held there. Perhaps that is a village memory rather than hard fact, but even as memory it is vivid and revealing. It suggests how closely public life, danger, and daily work could intersect in one place.

There are other old tales attached to the inn as well.

• One says the cellar, still used for beer, once connected by tunnel to the nearby church, perhaps with origins reaching back to the Reformation. Another recalls condemned smugglers being hanged outside the inn after trial. Whether every detail survives exactly as it happened or not, these stories cling to the Bonny Cravat because it was clearly one of those places where village life was lived at close quarters — not neatly or gently, but vividly.

An honest reminder about risk

One detail in particular stops this story from drifting into nostalgia. The Bonny Cravat was not just some picturesque old public house or quaint place where my family members lived and worked.  It was also the place where debts had to be met, and where the rougher edges of local life came right up to the door.

• In 1837, James Hukins appeared in connection with relief for insolvent debtors, a reminder that keeping an inn was never a guaranteed road to security. Family history can sometimes make an old inn sound comfortably picturesque, but for the people living it, it was work tied to risk, debt, and uncertainty.

I think that is central to the story. The Bonny Cravat was a place of continuity and family labour, yes — but it was also part of a precarious economy in which fortunes could shift quickly.  Bills still had to be paid.  Stock still had to be bought.  Losses could mount.  A bad run could undo years of effort.

By the end of 1837, my 3rd great-grandparents, James and Susannah, found themselves in dire circumstances and were in severe financial trouble. They could no longer continue at the inn and a mere two years later they were preparing to emigrate.  

From Woodchurch to Australia

One part of this story did not end in Woodchurch.

When my 3rd great-grandparents James Hukins and Susannah Hukins née Fullagar left the village and emigrated to Australia in 1839 with their family, the Bonny Cravat story took on a longer reach. In one sense, the inn itself was left behind.  But in another, the habits and knowledge shaped there travelled with them.

I find that continuity especially moving, because the family's connection to public-house life did not disappear in Australia. Two of their sons — my 2nd great-grandfather Adolphus Hukins and my 2nd great grand-uncle John Hukins — were both running pubs in Australia in the 1850s.

There is something remarkable in that. A family shaped for generations by the life of one village inn in Kent carried that working knowledge across the world. What had been learned at Woodchurch was not lost.  It became part of the family's Australian story as well.

Seen that way, the Bonny Cravat was more than a village inn attached to one side of my family tree. It was a workplace woven deeply into my family's life, part of a tradition of labour that crossed generations and, eventually, continents.

Sources and notes

With thanks to the local historians and record keepers whose work helps bring places like the Bonny Cravat back into view:

This post draws on a family document, Innkeepers and Publicans of The Bonny Cravat, based on material from the Woodchurch Local and Family History site and records compiled by the Woodchurch Ancestry Group.

This post also uses Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd edition, volume 7 (Canterbury: W. Bristow, 1798), in the Woodchurch section under “Charities,” which preserves an early reference to the Bonny Cravat as an ale-house.

Additional context comes from Kent Archives, Issue 15 (Autumn 2019), which quotes a 1765 Woodchurch parish record noting John Hukins, innkeeper at the Bonny Cravat, being paid for supplying “beer for buryings.”

The Story Of Thomas Farrell

This is the story of my maternal great grand-uncle, Thomas Farrell  (1868 - 1927).  

Our common ancestors are: Michael Farrell and Susan Muldowney — sometimes recorded as Downey or Downie — my 2x great-grandparents.

I have written about Thomas before, but it was really only an outline: born in England to Irish immigrant parents, emigrated to Australia with his family, spent most of his adult life at one address in Charters Towers, and then passed away comparatively young.

I felt the need to return to his story and approach it a little differently. He was not a man who left behind a large paper trail, nor does he seem to have lived the kind of life that draws much notice in the records. There are no dramatic headlines around him, no rich archive of letters, and sadly, no photograph of Thomas himself in my collection.

And yet, I have increasingly felt that his life is worth pausing over precisely because it was so quiet.

Family history is not only about the ancestors who made a stir or left behind plentiful records. It is also about those who lived more modestly — people whose lives were shaped by work, endurance, sorrow, loyalty, and family care. Thomas seems to have been one of those people. The records for him are thin, but they still reveal something strong and lasting: a man who worked steadily, remained close to home, endured much, and at the end of his life was held within the care of family.

That is really the intention of this piece: to try to honour the shape of a quiet life. Not an empty one, and not an unimportant one, but a life lived without fuss, and still deserving to be remembered with tenderness.

Sadly, I do not have a photograph of Thomas himself, but the few family photographs I do have help place him more closely within the family group he belonged to — his parents and the Farrell brothers and sisters whose lives were so intertwined with his own.

The  Farrell  Family

(with the few photos of the Farrell siblings that are in my collection)

A Quiet Life

When I sat down to write this post about Thomas Farrell, I was immediately aware of the gaps.  I could trace him through the official breadcrumbs left in records — a birth record, census records, electoral rolls, a passenger list, and a death record - but these are thin facts. They do not tell me what kind of company he was, what made him laugh, what his voice sounded like, or what private burdens he may have carried. 

Family history can so often be like that. Sometimes it gives us the frame of a life, but leaves the person inside it only partly seen.

Yet, every now and then, one small detail says more than a whole page of records ever could. In Thomas’s case, that detail kept drawing me back.

When Thomas — unmarried and living alone by that stage of his life — became seriously ill, he did not die alone, and he did not die in a hospital surrounded by strangers. He died at Molongle Creek near Gumlu, in the home of his married sister, Margaret McCane, née Farrell, my great-grandmother.

That single fact does not tell me everything about Thomas, but it tells me something that matters very much. He was with family. He was cared for. He was loved.

That feels like the truest starting point for telling his story. Thomas may be one of those relatives who left only a light paper trail, but his life does not feel empty because of that. Instead, it feels quiet in the truest sense: modest, steady, and deeply human. 

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The family Thomas belonged to

1868 Birth Record - Thomas Farrell

Thomas was born on 15 January 1868 at East Field House, Holmside, County Durham, England, the second child of Michael Farrell (1834–1917) and Susan Muldowney, whose surname appeared in records as Downey or Downie at times (1842–1919).

Thomas's siblings were:

·         Margaret (1865–1955) - my great grandmother

·         Michael (1869–1873) - who sadly died in infancy

·         Helen Ann “Annie” (1871–1937)

·         Elizabeth (1873–1934)

·         Michael (1875–1918)

·         Patrick Joseph (1877–1917), WWI soldier

·         James “Jim” (1880–1946), WWI soldier

·         Matthew Felix (1887–1922), WWI soldier

Even set out simply as a list, there is something moving about it. It speaks of a large family life — full at first, and then gradually marked by sorrow, distance, war, and loss.

Thomas belonged to that family story in the deepest sense. His life cannot really be separated from the people around him — the parents, brothers, and sisters whose names appear alongside his in the records, and whose own lives shaped the course of his. 

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A boy already in the mines: Tanfield, 1881

The Farrell family lived in the Durham coalfield region of north-east England.  They moved around the region regularly, looking for lodging as the family grew, and likely experienced impoverished living conditions, periods of hunger, and poor health.

  

1881 England Census - Civil Parish of Tanfield, County Durham, Registration District of Lanchester

One of the records that brings Thomas closest for me is the 1881 England Census, because it shows him before emigration to Queensland, before adulthood, before all the later losses in his life. In the civil parish of Tanfield, County Durham in England, Thomas appears aged 13, living at home with his parents and younger siblings. Unlike many boys of that age, whose occupation might still be given as “scholar,” Thomas already has a job recorded beside his name:

Thomas Farrell — “Screener Collier”

That single line says so much. At thirteen, Thomas was not just growing up in a mining district — he was already part of that working world. He was a child, really, but also a worker who had likely been toiling for a number of years.

The primary duty of a screener collier was to inspect coal as it passed over screens, picking out stones, slate and other impurities by hand. Screeners worked above ground, usually on the brow of a pit or in a screening shed.  The work was physically demanding, carried out in high-dust environments, with the working day often lasting twelve hours.  It is sobering to think that this was his childhood.

Thomas's father, Michael Farrell, is also recorded with a mining-related occupation in the 1881 census:

Michael Farrell — “Coke Drawer (Burner)”

So here we have father and son, both working within the industrial life of County Durham long before the family ever came to Queensland, Australia. It also helps explain why, years later in Charters Towers, Thomas appears again and again in local census records as a miner. Mining was not some new path he stepped into in Australia. It had already shaped him from boyhood.

I always find details like this especially affecting, because they bring a person down from the branch of the family tree and place them back into real life. Thomas was not only a name in a lineage. He was a thirteen-year-old boy who already knew the reality of hard work.

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Two sisters go first: January 1886

Before the rest of the Farrell family left England, two of the sisters — Margaret and Helen Ann, known as Annie — emigrated ahead of them in January 1886.

This is one of those family details I particularly love. Margaret, my great grandmother, is the one who was credited by family members with working diligently and saving her money to sponsor the family’s emigration. That gives such a strong little glimpse of her character. She was not simply hoping life might improve — she was actively helping to change its course. 

For Thomas, as for the rest of the family, her determination mattered enormously. It is another reminder that quiet lives are often shaped by the quiet strength of others around them.

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The Chyebassa voyage: Thomas follows with the rest

Queensland, Australia, Passenger List - Cheybassa 1887

In September 1887, the remaining Farrell family emigrated aboard the Chyebassa: Thomas, aged 19, his parents Michael and Susan, and siblings Elizabeth, Michael, Patrick, James, and baby Matthew. They arrived in Townsville on 28 September 1887 and then travelled on to Charters Towers to reunite with Margaret and Annie, who were already there.

The records do not tell us what that reunion looked like, of course, but it is hard not to pause there and imagine it. After the long voyage, after all the uncertainty and upheaval, there must have been great relief in seeing familiar faces in a new land.

For Thomas, still a young man, this was the beginning of the life he would go on to live in North Queensland — a life that, on paper at least, would remain remarkably steady for many years afterwards.

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Charters Towers: the steady years on Bridge Street

By the early 1890s, Thomas and his family were firmly settled in Charters Towers.  His parents had moved into a house on Bridge Street that would remain the family home for nearly thirty-five years.   

From 1903 through to 1925, Thomas appears in electoral roll records living at that address for that entire time.  He was the family member who remained in the family home the longest.

·        The 1903, 1905, 1906, 1908, 1913 electoral roll records show him living on Bridge Street with his parents and his occupation was listed as miner.  During the years spanning 1903 to 1908, Thomas's younger brother Patrick was also living in Charters Towers and worked alongside his brother as a miner.

·        The 1919 electoral roll record still shows Thomas, aged 51, living on Bridge Street, but only with his youngest brother Matthew at this time.  Occupation: miner

·        The 1925 electoral roll record shows Thomas, aged 57, living on Bridge Street, but by this time he is living on his own.  Occupation: miner

On paper, it looks like a steady working life: one town, one street, one occupation, repeated across the years. 

There is something about that repeated pattern that feels quietly revealing. Thomas does not come across in the records as restless or showy. Instead, he seems to have been one of those people who remained — living on, working on, and holding to the familiar centre of home as the household around him gradually changed.

That too feels like part of the meaning of his life. It was, in many ways, a quiet life — not empty, but steady.

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Loss, war, and what Thomas carried

Thomas’s later years in Charters Towers were marked by a great deal of family grief.

His brother Patrick Joseph Farrell was killed in Belgium on 20 September 1917 at Polygon Wood, West Flanders. Years later, Patrick’s Victory Medal was sent to Thomas in May 1923.

I always stop over details like that. A medal arriving years after a brother’s death — an official token of service and sacrifice — and it is Thomas who signs the receipt and receives the engraved medal.

Whether that happened because he was the next-of-kin contact, or because he was the one still at the family address, it feels meaningful. Thomas became the one who received that tangible reminder of Patrick’s absence.  He seems to have been the family member who remained at the centre of things when others were gone.

By 1917, Thomas’s sisters - Margaret, Elizabeth and Helen (Annie) had long since married and left Charters Towers.  Thomas's brother James had also married years before, moving out of the family home but still remaining in Charters Towers.  The family home on Bridge Street had become a much quieter place.  Then, after Patrick's death, other losses followed in quick succession:

·       18 November 1917 — his father Michael died in Charters Towers, a mere two months after the loss of Patrick in WW1.  

·         7 July 1918 — his brother Michael died in Charters Towers

·         14 January 1919 — his mother Susan died in Charters Towers

·         23 July 1922 — his brother Matthew Felix died at Charters Towers District Hospital, four years after returning from WWI

Undoubtedly, after his father's death, Thomas, aged 49, would have stepped more fully into the role of head of the household and carer of his ageing mother.

The death of mother Susan left just Thomas and his younger brother Matthew still living together on Bridge Street. Then, by mid 1922, Matthew too was gone. After that, Thomas, aged 54, was left on his own.

There is something especially poignant in that. The earlier Farrell years must once have been full and busy, with parents, brothers, sisters, and all the ordinary life of a crowded household. Then, little by little, over a period of just six years, that household thinned significantly through marriage, war, illness, and death. Thomas’s story seems to carry much of that quiet aftermath.

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A shift in working life: miner to auctioneer

After the death of his younger brother Michael in 1918, it appears Thomas took over Michael’s auctioneer business, possibly in an effort to support Michael's widow and fatherless children.

Queensland, Australia, Government Gazettes, 1859-1918

The Queensland Government Gazette has Thomas's name recorded on a list of Auctioneers' Licenses issued at the end of September 1918.  

Newspapers published a few years later gives one of those wonderful little glimpses into the practical everyday world of his later life.

On 12 March 1920, The Northern Miner published a full auction notice under the name “T. Farrell, Auctioneer.”

The notice advertises his “usual weekly auction sale” at “the old address,” given as Carg’s Buildings next to Carr Bros., Saddlers, with the sale to begin “tomorrow at 11 o’clock.” 

What I love here is how practical and ordinary it all is. Poultry in the yard — prime ducks, hens, and good turkeys — and then, in the mart, produce, fruit, vegetables, and useful items such as fly veils for horses, an ice chest, and confectioner’s scales. The tone is brisk and businesslike: “No reserve. Terms cash.”

Then, on 4 April 1925, Thomas appears again in The Northern Miner, this time in the paper’s “To-Day” auction listings:

“T. Farrell, mart sale, 11 a.m.”

It is only a very brief notice, but it says a lot. By then, a T. Farrell sale was familiar enough to be part of the town’s ordinary weekly rhythm.

Taken together, these newspaper mentions help explain why Thomas’s death certificate lists him as an auctioneer, even though earlier records over many years call him a miner. Lives do not always fit neatly into a single label. Sometimes the paperwork preserves one part of a life while another part is already unfolding.

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The closing chapter: illness, and a sister’s home

Thomas died on 7 February 1927 at Molongle Creek near Gumlu, Queensland.

Death Certificate 1927

He had celebrated his 58th birthday less than a month before this.  His cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis.

Now here comes the detail that moves me most in his story.

Death Notice - published in a prominent northern Queensland newspaper

Death Notice - published in a Charters Towers newspaper 
(his home town in Australia)

Thomas died at the house of his older sister, Margaret McCane, née Farrell.

In the years before effective antibiotic treatment, pulmonary tuberculosis could mean a long and difficult decline. It was a feared illness, and often a lonely one. So, the fact that Thomas was taken in and cared for at home by family feels deeply important. He was not left to face that closing chapter alone.

At this point, it is hard not to notice the quiet echo of Margaret’s place in this story. She is remembered as the sister who worked and saved to help bring the family out from England and at the end of Thomas’s life, she is there again — the sister whose home became his refuge. 

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Burial: the two unmarried brothers, side by side

One more detail adds a quiet tenderness to the ending.

Thomas never married, and neither did his younger brother Matthew Felix. Younger brother Matthew had served in the First World War, returned home, and then died four years later in 1922.

When Thomas died in 1927, he was buried beside Matthew in the Charters Towers Cemetery — the two unmarried brothers laid to rest, side by side.

Burial plot for the Farrell brothers at the Charters Towers Cemetery
(its present day condition looks rather sad)

It is such a simple fact, but it feels like a deeply human one too. After all the movement in this family story — from Durham to Queensland, from the mines to the auction mart, from a full household to the losses of later years — the brothers were together again. 

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What I am left with

Thomas Farrell’s story is still mostly outline, but it is not empty.

He was a Durham boy already working in the mines at thirteen. A young man who crossed the world to Queensland as part of a family migration made possible by his sister Margaret’s determination. A man who spent years in Charters Towers, first recorded working steadily as a miner, and later appearing in the newspaper as “T. Farrell, Auctioneer.” A brother trusted to receive his younger brother Patrick’s Victory Medal. A man who, at the end of his life, was cared for in his sister’s home. Then finally, a brother buried beside his brother.

There is still much I would love to know about Thomas that the records cannot tell me. But I do not think of him as a faint figure at the edge of the tree. He feels to me like someone who lived quietly, worked steadily, endured much, and remained close to the heart of his family.

Perhaps that is the true shape of Thomas Farrell’s life: not a loud one, not a highly documented one, but a quiet life lived within the shelter of family, and remembered with love.

Note:  For those who are interested, my previous post is all about the Farrell home on Bridge Street in Charters Towers.  Here is the link - The Story Of The Farrell Family & Bridge Street