Some members of the Port Phillip Pioneer Group have embarked on a Magical Mystery Tour and are trying to track those people who arrived on the ship Andromache on 26 June 1840 and to give some substance to their memory.
The majority of the Bounty passengers are listed as farm labourers, shepherds, dairy maids or servants and with surnames such as Fitzpatrick and Fitzgerald there is a tangle of histories because so many have a similar profile to cousins or more distant relatives born in the same Irish county about the same time. These people had little money and were mostly itinerant workers and illiterate and almost invisible unless they committed a crime.
Their families may have died in the Irish famine of the 1840s and 1850s or they may have taken the shorter passage to America. I am not confident we will ever be able to track some of these people who were fundamental to the success of European settlement in the state of Victoria. The graziers who employed them often had substantial homes, extravagant cemetery memorials and sometimes a listing in the Australian Dictionary of Biographies but their labourers have been lost to history unless some relative investigates their descendants perhaps using DNA. One hopes that more families learn about the work of the Port Phillip Pioneers and can assist this research.
Optimism is the friend of anyone interested in history and the unusual name of one passenger stood out like a beacon of hope amongst those Irish labourers in the cohort assigned to me to research. It was with a sense of excitement the search began. However, Kinune Halis, female aged 29 of Cambridge was not found on several runs through Family Tree, death and cemetery records or Trove but gradually a picture emerged of Kerenhappuch Hailes, aged 35 of Essex, by seeing a post on Family Tree and making a serendipitous contact .
The Old Testament name chosen by a Baptist family in Essex named Hailes created some hurdles. Officials recording her name found it difficult even after she married a widower, John Lush. It is worth listing the variations here as a warning to other researchers: Karen Lappuck (England & Wales Birth Index), Karenhappu Hailes (Australia Birth Index), Carrie Lush (passenger on a later voyage on the True Briton), Kerwe Happuck Hides (Australia Marriage Index), Keren Happuch Lush (Australian Death Index) and Kerenhappuel Lush (Probate Record). Time to add luck and perseverance to optimism. Through a variety of sources her story was uncovered and noted. Kerenhappuch and John Lush had three children. Mary (1843-1903) married John Montgomery Templeteon who started as a teacher, became an actuary and founded the National Mutual Life Association of Australia; Caroline (1844-1934) married a merchant, Samuel Luke, in 1867 and George (1845-1932) married Mary Elizabeth Nicoll Fullarton in 1877 and Martha Dalgliesh Finlay in 1886.
A few people who arrived on this voyage of the Andromache were not listed on the ship’s manifest and while checking facts for Kerenhappuch, it transpired her brother George Button Hailes arrived with her and his was a most interesting life. A great great grandson stated in a note on My Heritage that George was number 28 on the passenger list so it is likely there is more than one passenger list in circulation.
In anticipation of emigrating to the Port Phillip District, in 1839 George had sold his tenanted houses and land in Essex, his stock of building materials and household goods. He would be a wealthy man and a competent builder on arrival in his adopted land. While his sister appears to have been a Bounty passenger and listed as a dressmaker, we cannot know yet if George paid for his own fare and was perhaps an unassisted cabin passenger. It is possible.
In the 1841 census of New South Wales for the County of Bourke, George is listed as single and free along with (presumably) his sister also single and free. As a Bounty passenger Kerenhappuch would have been assigned to a future employer but the story behind her “Bounty” classification remains a mystery. It appears that she moved in with her brother who is listed as a builder living in Bourke Lane. Kerenhappuch married John Lush in 1841 and would move out of Bourke Lane and in 1847 George married Ann Iles and they have eleven or twelve children.
It is a good time for a builder to arrive in the Port Phillip District. The building business is expanding and by 1850 a company is formed with Thomas Hale, previously of Guernsey. “Hailes & Hale, Timber Merchants” at 70 Stephen Street (now known as Exhibition Street). The business is located near the corner of Bourke Street where the Southern Cross Hotel once hosted The Beatles. In 1850 George is listed as the ratepayer for a property consisting of a counting house, workshop, 2 sheds and a yard and valued at 40 pounds annually but by the following year rates are paid by Hailes and Hale and the property value has increased to 60 pounds and includes a Timber Yard and Sawpits. By 1853 the property is valued at 300 pounds annually and after being only one of two properties on the block initially, new buildings are filling the empty spaces around the timber store. George remains the ratepayer in 1854 but the property is leased to a Coachbuilder. In an Obituary for George it is noted that by 1852, success in business in the Colony enabled him to retire on a competency. A descendent believed George was involved with the building of a row of terrace houses opposite the Exhibition Building. It may have been the Royal Terrace in Nicholson Street as he lived for many years at number 60 Nicholson Street but no proof emerged to verify this fact Other builders and architects are credited on the internet with its construction and there were other terraces built in the area which may be attributed to George. In about 1852, George took his wife and young family on a visit to England and returned in 1854 on the Marlborough, with his sister Susannah and their family who settled in Hawthorn.
George had a busy life in retirement. A magistrate on the Fitzroy bench for 14 years and senior Magistrate for many years until his death; chairman of the Local Board of Advice (education) in Fitzroy; a foundation member of the Melbourne Philharmonic Society and a musician playing in other circles; a committee member of the Benevolent Society and supporter of the Melbourne Hospital and a Justice of the Peace.
And then there is the story of the evolving Collins Street Baptist Church and the role of the Hailes siblings.
George had been baptised at age 13 and his sister Kerenhappuch at age 15 in Essex. Although christened soon after birth in the Church of England they were both baptised later in the Baptist tradition.
The first Baptist Church service in Melbourne was held in a tent on the site of the current Regent Theatre in 1838. It is presumed that George and Kerenhappuch met with like-minded citizens late in 1840 as George became a foundation member of the newly constituted Collins Street Baptist Church in 1843 and was choirmaster there for twenty years. It is not recorded if George had a role in building the chapel built in 1845, later demolished and rebuilt to accommodate the increasing number of Baptists who worshipped there. It is possible that his sister was also one of the original 16 Baptists in 1843 but being female she may not have been counted.
Kerenhappuch’s granddaughter married Rev Hedley J Sutton who was an educator and a missionary, Vice Principal of Carey Grammar School and Chairman, Australian Board of Foreign Missions. The Hedley Sutton Aged Care facility in Camberwell may welcome some of us in the future.
To offer research assistance in the Andromache Project please contact Nick Wakeling nick.wakeling@gmail.com
Contributed by Elaine Race PPPG Member No. 1460