Mary Luxon married Thomas (Richard) Haynes in Gundagai, NSW in 1877.
As adults the Luxon family lived in the area around Yass, Young and Gundagai. Hannah, Mary’s mother, had run away in 1864 to the area around Stockinbingal and created a new life for herself within the Alchin family, initially acting as a housekeeper and eventually partnering with Ambrose Alchin Junior and having two children with him. Mary’s sister Margaret married in 1871 in Yass and Hannah married in Gundagai 1878. The sisters may not have had much to do with their mother or their brothers. The eldest son, Edward was not on the scene in 1864 and married in South Australia in 1880 and the youngest, Charles was with his mother when she ran away when he was two. He died in a railway accident when he was only 21. William was the middle brother and I don’t know anything about his life.
Thomas Richard was born in Bringelly and baptised in Mulgoa. He was one of ten children – six females and four males. His father, John was a convict and his mother Margaret Alchin was the eldest daughter of Ambrose Alchin who brought his family to Australia from Kent, England in 1838 along with her five brothers and a sister.
This section covers the little that I know about the life of Richard and Mary and then a further section on Mary and her daughter Martha.
Nymagee
Winton
Ravenswood
Cairns
Martha said she was born in Nymagee New South Wales but I have yet to find her birth registration, however there is a record of a Martha Hynes being born to a Thomas Hynes and Mary in 1881 in Hillston which is north of Nymagee, and this could possibly be her. I know nothing of her childhood.
Thomas was a carrier. The following is an excerpt from a website on the history of Barcaldine written by Dr Sharon Broughton that highlights the life of the carriers.
‘Teamsters or carriers as they were sometimes known, provided an essential service of carrying goods and stock across trackless country to the new stations of western Queensland. The first teamsters into a new country were limited to the use of drays, which were more manoeuvrable than wagons. Among the essential equipment of these first teamsters were axes to clear tracks of land, picks and shovels to make creek crossings and a piece of brightly coloured rag. The rag was tied to a wheel so that its revolutions could be easily counted. These rough measurements of distance gave carriers a guide for cartage charges and provided a bush standard which remained in use until the introduction of surveyors and roadmakers. ….Usually their wives and families travelled along with their husbands in a covered wagonette. This was done, one of the carrier’s wives told me, so that the wife could look after the money, as there was a shanty about every twenty miles along the road to entice the thirsty carriers to part with their cheques. The wives who lived in one of the towns would often find to their sorrow that there was little of the cheque left when the teams came through.’
Images above show teamsters with a bullock dray and another with a team of horses. The family would travel with the carriers in a wagonett.
I do not know when Richard Thomas Haynes died, but there was a Thomas Haynes who died in Newcastle in 1892.
How Mary and her daughter managed to get to Winton I don’t know but they did and in 1898 Mary found another husband and on that marriage certificate it states that she was a widow. She was 35 years old and Martha 16. I imagine they worked with the carriers and made their way north along the stock routes. The map above shows one of the major stock routes used by carriers and teamsters in the 1890s.
Winton QLD
From NSW Martha made her way north to Queensland. Martha’s mother, Mary Haynes, married an Englishman, David Llewellyn, a contractor, in Winton in 1898.
Martha Haynes/Tully/Smith (1882-1974)
Martha Haynes, Tully, Smith was my great grandmother. To me, she was known as Grandma Smith as she had married her second husband, Walter George Smith in 1927, the same year her only child, Jim married my Grandmother, Gladys. Her ninety-two years were filled with wonder. From telegraph to television, she saw two World Wars, the Great Depression, the coming of the car, the aeroplane and humans walking on the moon. A truly remarkable lifetime!
Marriage, Family and Career
Martha married Henry William (Harry) Tully, a stockman 28 years old in Winton Queensland on the 17th January 1899 when she was just 17. On her marriage certificate she lists her parents as Thomas Haynes, a carrier and Mary Luxon. They were married in the private residence of George and Martha Lacey in Winton according to the rites of the Church of England.Itt seems George was a cook and his wife Martha was listed as working at Vindex which was a pretty big sheep station. I wonder if Harry worked there too. Henry’s parents were John Tully, a contractor and Ellen Honlon. He had been born in Wellington South Australia.
Her first and only child James Henry Tully was born 9th April 1900 in Winton. Harry Tully registered the birth of his son and it is noted that here too Marth’s birthplace is stated as Nymagee NSW.
6 April 1895 Sir Herbert Ramsay gave “Waltzing Matilda its first public recital at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton. I wonder if either Harry or Martha was there to hear that.
In 1899, the North Gregory Hotel, a fixture in town since 1879, burnt down for the first time, but a new North Gregory Hotel was up and running by the following January. At this time Winton had a population of just over 1000 people.
In 1899 and 1900, the town was suffering under a devastating drought. This had to impact on Harry as a stockman. I gather there were sheep but was it a cattle area as well?
Move to Ravenswood
According to the electoral rolls in 1908 William Henry a timber getter and Martha a photographer lived at Macrossan Street Ravenswood.
According to Electoral rolls, in 1908 she lived in Ravenswood with Harry who was a timber getter. The marriage didn’t last. By 1911 she had sued Harry for desertion and according to The Northern Miner of 25 Feb that year, she was awarded five shillings per week support- which I believe she never received. The story in the family is that Harry won money in the lottery and ran off.
In January 1916 a newspaper article appears in The Northern Miner Wed 5 Jan Page 5 under the heading ‘The European War’. It mentions 12 men who have volunteered to enlist. Henry William Tully was listed among them, his occupation was that of a teamster. He was rejected because he was over age. He would have been 49. Henry (Harry) died in Charters Towers of pancreatic cancer in January of 1921.
She supported herself working for a photographer. She lived at Macrossan Street Ravenswood, a booming gold town until 1919 when she moved to Townsville Clontarf the Strand and was possibly supported by her son as she listed home-duties as her occupation. Her son, Jim lived with her and when he was listed in the electoral roll of 1922, he was a loco cleaner. I wonder if he first joined the railway in Ravenswood.
Townsville to Cairns
Martha met Walter George Smith who I believe worked in the railway as a blacksmith’s striker – a back breaking job usually taken on by very strong men. They married in Townsville on 24 January 1927and moved to Cairns. Martha’s son, Jim married in Townsville the same year in May, to Gladys Glover.
In 1930 Martha and Walter are living at 229 Draper Street. In 1931 Mary Llewellyn, Martha’s mother, was in Mary Street West End Townsville but by 1937 Mary L is living at 229 Draper Street with her daughter and son in law.
Mary outlived two husbands, Richard Haynes, Martha’s father, and David Llewellyn. There was an Alfred Speechley whom she may have lived with, but I could not find a marriage certificate. She was transferred to the Eventide Home in Charters Towers where she died aged 85 in 1945. This was a government aged care home first opened in 1929. According to her death certificate, she had dementia, had a fall, contracted pneumonia, and died.
At this time two of Martha’s grandchildren, Bette and Pat were living with her and Walter while they finished their schooling to Junior at the Cairns school. Their parents Jim and Gladys were living in Hughenden which did not have a High School. Jim and Gladys moved to Cairns with their family in 1945. Martha continued to have close ties to Jim and his family.
Walter was an employee of the Queensland Railway Department for many years. He died in May 1950 and was buried in Cairns. He was 63 years old.
Martha continued living at 229 Draper Street and was joined by her son and daughter-in-law, Jim and Gladys around 1965. She developed dementia and was eventually moved to a home at Wacol where she died aged 91.
The Tagney Hood 