Lieutenant Charles Forrest 35th Royal Sussex Regiment

Charles Forrest was born in Cawnpore, India on the 19th April 1809 to Charles Ramus Forrest and Ellen St. Leger, daughter of General William St. Leger. Charles was the fourth generation of his family to serve in the army. Charles won his commission in 1827 at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was appointed to the 35th Royal Sussex Regiment. On the 1st October 1839 Lt. Forrest then stationed with his regiment in Mauritius, resigned his commission which he sold for 800 pounds with a view of settling in New South Wales. In 1839 he married Augusta Alexander at the English Church in Port Louis, Mauritius. Augusta was the sister of Eliza, the mother of Thomas Alexander Browne (Rolf Boldrewood). When Charles and Augusta arrived in Sydney aboard the “Westbrooke” they found the land too expensive so they decided to proceed to the Port Phillip District.

Charles purchased 17 acres, 3 roods for 29 pounds per acre in Prahran on the corner of Toorak Road (then Gardiner’s Creek Road) and Chapel Street where Melbourne High School now stands.

An entry in Charles’s diary for 21st July 1841 states “The foundation of my cottage laid on the River Yarra south side, 2 miles from Melbourne“. Charles called his cottage “Waterloo Cottage.” Charles notes in his diary for 20th March 1842 “My second son Alfred Turner was born at “Waterloo Cottage.” In August the same year he notes “Started to build ‘Hermitage Cottage‘.” This home was built of brick and stood at the Chapel Street corner of his block of land facing Toorak Road. The bricks were made from clay obtained on his ownland. Ned Eames was the brickmaker. He was paid one pound per one thousand bricks.

In 1849 Charles subdivided his land and sold one block to his brother-in-law John Arthur Skinner.

The Forrest family then lived in Mathoura Road, Toorak. Seven children had been born by 1850.

A terrible blow struck in 1851 when 5 of the children died in an epidemic believed to be scarlet fever. They were buried in the back yard of the Mathoura Road property, a burial in a cemetery was not then compulsory.

The Forrest family settled in Gippsland where Charles and his son William selected a 320 acre block in Hamilton’s Road, Larder. Here he built his home “Yarra War,” the first home in the district to be built of sawn timber obtained from a local mill.

Charles died on 28th February 1877 and was buried on his farm. Augusta died in 1887 aged 67 years.

Charles had two sisters in Port Phillip, Ann Lavinia who married the Rev. John Cheyne (my Port Phillip Pioneer) and Ellen, the wife of John Arthur Skinner.

Sources:

“City of Prahran. One hundred years. The Past, the Present and the Future.” Published by City of Prahran 1955. The sketch of Charles and the photo of Waterloo Cottage are in this publication.

“The History of Prahran” by John Butler Cooper 1924.

“Early Toorak and District” by E. M. Robb 1934.

“The Argus” 17th February 1945.

Victorian Pioneer Index.

“Lonely Graves of the Gippsland Goldfields and Greater Gippsland” by J. G. Rogers.

Contributed by Valerie Farley – PPPG Member No. 551