Fanny Stillwell, born 1836 Emigrated to Australia

[ElizabethHerts]

Fanny was my 2x-great-grandmother's cousin.
She was baptised on 31 Jan 1836 at Linchmere, Sussex.
Her father was John Stilwell, a blacksmith, and her mother Susannah.

She emigrated to Australia:

Name: Fanny Stelwell
Age: 26
Birth Year: abt 1836
Place of Origin: Sussex, England
Ship Name: Conway
Arrival Date: 1 Dec 1862

These are the Queensland Passenger Lists.

Can anyone trace her after her arrival, please?

[Mary from Italy]

Fanny married Gottlieb Matthews in Queensland in 1864:

https://www.bdm.qld.gov.au/IndexSearch

[Mary from Italy]

It looks as though there was one child born in 1874, and Gottlieb died in 1877. Haven't found a death or remarriage for Fanny yet.

[ElizabethHerts]

Mary, many thanks. I had a contact from this line and she knew of the emigration, but that there had been no further trace of Fanny.

[Mary from Italy]

You'll find Fanny's death (named as Fannie) and her son Theodore's marriage (surname given as Mattews) on the site I linked to above.

More information about Theodore in the electoral rolls:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=1207&offerid=0%3a7858%3a0

[Mary from Italy]

Bit more information here:

http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=2367&p=localities.oceania.australia.qld.general

I haven't found anything in the newspapers apart from Gottlieb's death:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=

[ElizabethHerts]

That's great, Mary.
It's always satisfying to discover what happened to the children of a generation.

Fanny's emigration is on Ancestry, but I can't see any other family member with her. She would have been brave to venture off by herself.

[ElizabethHerts]

Many thanks for the links, Mary.
It seems that progress has been made by the Stillwells who couldn't trace her originally.

My 3x-great-grandfather, William Stillwell, was the younger brother of John Stillwell, Fanny's father.

Stillwell can be spelt as I have put it or as Stilwell.

[tenterfieldjulie]

Liza, My great grandfather's sister Lucy Smith married Robert McMaster and they went to live on a property at Clermont in Far North Qld, it was a very rugged existence. They wouldn't have had an easy time of it. Lucy's brother, William Smith, died from injuries from a fall from a horse, then Lucy died too, her children came back to Robert's sister and they never saw their father again. It was where a large mountain of coal was found and there was a big coal mine there. Like most mining places, it was boom and bust. Julie

[ElizabethHerts]

Julie, it certainly sounds tough. She must have been a brave woman to go off like that. Her family life at home wasn't great, I believe. Her father, despite having the trade of a blacksmith and having been supported by his father, died in the workhouse, as did her mother. She had many siblings who didn't survive infancy.

She was widowed quite early on, so it must have been very hard for her after that.

[Mary from Italy]

Young women, often orphans, servants or factory workers, were actively recruited with low priced 'bounty' tickets to Australia in an effort to balance the male-female ratio in the new colonies.

http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/women-in-colonial-times

[ElizabethHerts]

That's very interesting. In 1861 Fanny was 25 and working as a needle woman on a farm in Hampshire. Perhaps she could see no future for herself where she was.

[tenterfieldjulie]

I wonder if she came out with other young women from the same area?
Sometimes clergy encouraged young women of "sound moral principles" to go to Australia, in response to appeals from clergy in Australia who thought that the convict class were of poor stock!! I know Lang did and there were others. Julie