John Muston – a Forgotten Pioneer

Whilst Robert Wuchatsch and his late wife Gaye were researching Gaye’s great-great-great-grandfather John Muston they found in the Birmingham Library in England revealing letters written in England and Australia between 1829 and 1841 by Muston to his sisters,...

Edmund Steel of Point Henry and Jan Juc

Location of Edmund Steel’s 2,000 acre South Beach Station at Present Day Jan Juc Edmund Steel, who sometimes appears in records as Edward Steele, was born about 1789 in England, the son of James Steel and Jane, nee Bulpit. He married Maria Thatcher on 30...

Moses Rintel – Melbourne’s First Tab bi

Rabbi Moses Rintel The parents of Moses Rintel came from Eastern Europe and settled in England in the early 1800s. After spending some time in London they moved up to Edinburgh in Scotland where Moses was born about 1823. His father was Myer Moses Rintel, a...

John Pascoe Fawkner

John Pascoe Fawkner Joy Braybrook author of “John Batman: An Inside Story of the Birth of Melbourne” has made a study of John Pascoe Fawkner, a man she feared was ‘hard to make nice.’ She describes him as being like water – he could find...

The Mantons of Port Phillip

Of the nine children born to Joseph Manton and Mary Ann Aitkens, four of their sons, Henry, Frederick, Charles and John Augustus spent time in the Port Phillip District as did their cousin Gildon Manton . Joseph Manton  Joseph Manton, born 1776 in England, was a...

Richard & Rachel Hadditch of Lal Lal

The Hedditch family came from Dorset in England. Richard Charlton Hedditch was born on 3 July 1808 in Gillingham, Dorset, the son of Samuel Hedditch and his wife Sarah, nee Charlton who had been married on 16 April 1807. Sarah Charlton came from the nearby village of...