Alchin and Bayley Families: From Staplehurst, Kent to Jerrawa Creek, NSW

All Saints Church, Staplehurst, Kent.Photo by Julian P Guffogg [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Wikimedia.

By Garry Norman Smith

All Saints Church, Staplehurst was mainly built in the 12th and 13th centuries, although the south door dates to 1050. It was in this church on 7 July 1832 that Ann Alchin was baptised. Her parents, Ambrose and Ann Alchin took their family to the colony of New South Wales a little more than six years later in 1838.

After time spent in Sydney and the Camden district, Ann’s family settled in the County of King, where her father Ambrose took up land at Oolong Creek. Once a part of the district, twenty-three-year-old Ann Alchin married twenty-two-year-old Thomas Bayley, farmer, on 1 August 1855. They had at least ten children between 1855 and 1875.

Thomas Bayley (1833-1885) was born at Kangaroo Point (Bellerive) in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1833, the son of Robert Bayley (1801-1864) and Mary Hogan (1796-1862). Both Robert Bayley and Mary Hogan have backgrounds that demand a detailed examination at another time. Suffice it to say, Robert was a transported convict and Mary was the daughter of a female convict and the captain of the convict ship.

The Bayley children were born at Chain of Ponds, Jerrawa Creek. It is interesting to note what was happening near the Jerrawa Creek at the time each child was born. TROVE provides some answers.

John Bayley (1854-1922) was the first-born at a time when land sales near the Jerrawa Creek were proceeding apace. The Goulburn Herald and County of Argyle Advertiser (18/11/1854) reported that John Knight purchased 34 acres 2 roods at Jerrawa Creek for £1 per acre. The 35 sales of country lots were described in the press according to the closest creek or river.

Robert Bayley (1857-1933) shared the local history with the murder at Jerrawa Creek of John Davis, an elderly veterinary surgeon, by an equally elderly Samuel Murdieman, alias Old Sam and Sam the Soldier, who worked on the Davis Farm. Several newspapers as far afield as Sydney, Maitland and Bathurst carried the story of the inquest, the trial and sentencing of Murdieman. In 1858 The Sydney Morning Herald (25/3/1858) reported on the court case and sentencing.

Lucy Ann Bayley (1858-1917), the first female child, came into the world in the year that her grandmother, Ann Alchin (1799-1858) died at Oolong Creek. The foundation stone of the Wesleyan Chapel at Wesley Vale, Jerrawa Creek was laid. The Sydney newspaper, Empire (16/2/1858) reported that “At an early hour on the morning of that day [last Tuesday], gigs, phaetons, equestrians and pedestrians, might have been seen in large numbers wending their way to the beautiful district known as Wesley Vale, …”

Sarah Bayley (1862-1886) entered a local world that was described by Golden Age (7/8/1862) as “… a cesspool of drunkenness, theft, adultery, and almost every other abomination, whose noxious exhalations would have corrupted any locality less fortified by such impregnable bulwarks [of moral excellence]”. This Queanbeyan-based newspaper was the first in that town in 1860. On a brighter note, 1862 saw the site for the township of Dalton fixed but also the robbery of goods from a dray for which “… John and James Bush were each sentenced to three years’ hard labour on the roads … “. (Empire, 25/11/1862).

Rachel Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) (1871-1932)
(Image Courtesy of Kerrie Beers)
Thomas Ambrose Bayley (1864-1891) was born into a bushranger “epidemic” in the district. The Sydney Morning Herald (12/8/1864) reported that “Mrs. Best’s station, at Jerrawa, near Gunning, was stuck-up by three armed men in disguise, they took about £30 worth of property. Weather, very fine.” In the previous year bushrangers “bailed up” the inhabitants of “the new township of Jerrawa”. John Wheatley, storekeeper and postmaster, was one of the victims (Queanbeyan Age and General Advertiser, 19/11/1863). In 1865, Ben Hall and his gang were active in the district surrounding Gunning (The Sydney Morning Herald, 10/3/1865).

Maria Elizabeth Bayley (1866-1942) was born in a “golden age”. The Sydney Morning Herald (23 August 1866) reported “At a place called Homewood [the estate of Mrs John Best], on Jerrawa Creek, near Dalton, two men have prospected lately, with some success.” The district also saw religious services at the “English church” and Wesleyan chapel for the “Day of Humiliation” (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 17/1/1866).

George Bayley (1869-1878) died young and was born in the year when a house fire destroyed the house of J.C. Plumb; Mrs Plumb and her new-born were rescued just before the roof collapsed (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 9/1/1869). The distance between Goulburn and Jerrawa Creek, Chain of Ponds was officially declared to be 38½ miles (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 6/2/1869). Robert Bayley Senior selected 80 acres on Jerrawa Creek (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 12 June 1869).
Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) (1832-1914)
with daughter Emily c1877
(from collection of Garry Smith)
Rachel Eliza Bayley (1871-1932) was born in the year that The Department of Public Works announced the extension of the Southern and Western Railways; from Gunning the extension crossed several creeks, including Jerrawa Creek (Australian Town and Country, 8/7/1871).

Emily Bayley (1873-1957) was born at Jerrawa Creek. In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, the will of Thomas [Old Tom] Brown, farmer at Dalton was finally gazetted for probate (New South Wales Government Gazette, No.160, 24 June 1873). Jeremiah Bush and Arthur Poole advertised that no trespassing or shooting would be allowed in “cultivation paddocks on Bush Farm or Poole’s Vale, Jerrawa Creek” (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 26/2/1873).

Lillian Mary Bayley (1875-1898), the last child of Thomas Bayley and Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) was born at Jerrawa Creek in 1875. In this year, 8 gold mining leases had been taken out and 15 stampers installed to crush the ore at Jerrawa Creek (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 13/11/1875). The Reverend Penman gave two sermons for the Primitive Methodist Church at Jerrawa (Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 30/10/1875).

Ann Bayley (nee Alchin), daughter of Ambrose and Ann Alchin and wife of Thomas Bayley died at Leichhardt, Sydney. Her funeral was held on Monday 6 July 1914, travelling by train to the Necropolis station where she was interred at the Methodist Section of the Rookwood Necropolis. There is no coping or headstone; her daughter Rachel Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) (1871-1932) is buried beside her.

Thomas Bayley predeceased his wife; he died, intestate, in 1885.

The Unmarked Graves (foreground) of Ann Bayley (nee Alchin) and Rachel Eliza Foran (nee Bayley) Methodist Section, Rookwood Necropolis (Image by Garry Smith).


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