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George was born in the village of Bishopstone,Wiltshire,the third child in a family of 12 children,the other 9 children being born in New South
Wales.George was 3 months old when his parents and two sisters
left England as bounty migrants and travelled to Australia on the ship
‘WOODBRIDGE”arriving at Sydney Cove 4 months later on the 15
September 1838. George must have been a strong and robust baby with a very caring mother to survive the voyage as eight young children died
on the voyage. Being the oldest son it is doubful if he had the
benefit of a formal education due to the remote area where his parents
first resided at Chilcott’s Plain via Singleton. He was no doubt
required to share the workload of the family from an early age. At
the age of twenty years he married Anne Carroll an Irish lass from
Shinrose,Kings County Ireland,who arrived in 1855,at the age of 22
years. The wedding held at All Saints Anglican Church,Singleton took
place on the 15th January 1859 when Anne was in her 26th year. There
were 8 children of the marriage,but the two youngest did not survive
infancy. George was a farmer and carrier and no doubt drove bullock
teams in and around the Singleton District,particularly as land
was being opened up north west of Singleton. In the appendix of the
Journal of the Legislative Council of NSW in 1885,he is shown as
owning 75 acres of land called “Cross Creek” Goorangoola,via Singleton upon which he had 3 horses 11 cattle and three pigs. The six surviving children of the family,according to my research had an extremely hard and difficult upbringing,but all survived and had families of their own. Mary the eldest married and spent most of her life at Yetman in north west NSW and also the youngest surviving son John lived and worked in the north west and on the border of NSW and Queensland. The other four children,William,George Abraham,James and Sarah Jane all settled in the Hunter Valley,many of their descendants still living in the area.After a very active life George passed away in 1903 at the age of 65 years from Epithelioma (Tumor) of the jaw on the 13 January1903 at his home at Bridgman. He is buried in the Anglican Cemetery at St Andrews Church Bridgman (Mt. Pleasant).
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