Jane Heard - 1824 to 1882

Some of her story...

On 15 August 1824, Catherine and John Heard baptised their new baby daughter in the Parish Church at Dolton, Devon, England.   She was their eighth child (although one daughter had already died as a child) and was their last - Catherine was 42.   Jane grew up in Dolton, which is a small village, in the south west of England. A very normal, little Devon village!

On 7 March 1846 she married John Spicer, a bootmaker, in the Parish Church.  John had been living in Dolton with his parents for a number of years.  He had just turned 22 and she was 21.  Over the next 15 years she gave birth to at least nine children, including one set of twins.  Six of these children survived childhood.   The two eldest children were baptised in Dolton; then more children were baptised in Devonport, 70 kilometres south, on the coast, and finally some children were baptised in Winkleigh, 10 kilometres from Dolton.   So Jane and John appear to have been zipping up and down Devon!  But ultimately spending more time on the south coast.  John Spicer died in 1870, when he was 46, at Stoke Damerel, a few kilometres from Devonport.  1870 was also significant because Jane became a grandmother – her eldest son and his wife had a daughter named Elizabeth Jane.    

This period was also interesting - decisions were made to leave England for the sunny shores of Australia. George, Jane’s second child, was the first to leave – on the True Briton, which sailed in January 1871.  William (the eldest son) and Henry (the surviving twin) were next to leave – along with William’s wife (also Jane) and baby Elizabeth - in October 1871 on the Colonial Empire.   Finally, in September 1873, Jane left England for Australia on the Somersetshire with her three remaining children:  John (the 3^rd son), age 22; Edwin, age 15 and Emily, age 12.  They all arrived as unassisted passengers.  This means that the government did not pay for their fares.

It’s hard to imagine what Jane was thinking when she arrived in her new country.  She was a 50 year old widow and still had dependent children.  It is possible that her sons supported her.  It doesn’t appear that any of her siblings were in Australia – although at least one cousin had also come to Australia. 

Maria Ashplant, Jane’s cousin, had arrived in 1859 with her husband and son.  They also went to Victoria.  However, before Jane had even left England, Maria died.  She was struck by lightning while working in the paddock near her home.  In any case, Jane must have met Maria’s husband, John Milton, who was farming.  On 26 October 1875 Jane and John married at Runnymede, a little village north east of Bendigo.  It’s impossible to know what happened to Jane from this time until her death in Melbourne on 16 September 1882, when she was 58.   John Milton appears to have remained in rural Victoria.  Potentially they were not living together as Jane died in Melbourne and didn’t have a gravestone on her death – she’s a mention on her son’s gravestone but he didn’t die until 1915.  

I called this some of her story, because I believe that the information unknown could be a lot more interesting that the known.  What was Jane’s childhood like?  What happened to Jane's parents?  Why did Jane and John Spicer keep moving?  How well did Jane know Maria Ashplant?  Did Jane and John Milton stay together?  Was Jane happy? 

[Relationship to SNR =  great, great, grandmother]