Farnham, New South Wales, Australia

There will be two parts to the Farnham Story.  The first (this one) is pretty simple and outlines my Family Connections to Farnham / Stoney Creek. The next blog, which hasn’t been written yet, is about Farnham itself. I have some material, I just need to organise and clarify and desperately try and fill some gaps. There is very little information written about Farnham, which in its heyday probably had a few thousand people living there. Today, in 2015, there are around 10 abandoned buildings left with two or three farms operating in the area. Evidence of the many mines is also evident in the area, and there are two headstones remaining in Farnham Cemetery. 

On 8 December 1873 Agnes CROWE married Edmund William FREESTONE at Stoney Creek. This is the first time the family are connected to the area. From that time onwards there are a number of mentions of Edmund in Stoney Creek, which was renamed Farnham after the Surrey village of the same name in England.

I think that a number of Agnes and Edmuns's children were born in the region:

1.     Henry Frederick FREESTONE in 1874

2.     Alice Ann FREESTONE in 1877

3.     Alfred William FREESTONE in 1879

Their fourth child was definitely born at Stoney Creek: Ellen Elizabeth FREESTONE born on 10 October 1880. (See her blog entry)

The family moved from Stoney Creek shortly after this, but returned before 1894 as the following two children were probably born in the area:

1.     Myrtle Agnes FREESTONE in 1894

2.     Ethel Gladys Victoria May FREESTONE in 1897

Other important events that occurred in Farnham:

On 18 May 1898, Ellen Elizabeth FREESTONE married Francis Edward HOCKING.

In 1903, Alfred William FREESTONE married Mary Theresa May THOMPSON, daughter of Eliza Ann (nee ATTRILL) and John THOMPSON. I don’t know definitively that this occurred in Farnham, as I haven’t sighted the certificate.

On 28 April 1906, Stanley Melville HILTON died in Farnham and was buried on 30 April at Omigal Cemetery. He was one year and four months old and was visiting his grandparents with his mother and brother.

In April 1907 Albert FREESTONE married Ines Mary May DUNSMORE in Orange, but both of them had strong ties to Farnham.

Alfred W Freestone was still mining in Farnham in 1908, but his family also resided in Sydney, but he was probably the last of the Freestone children to have a connection to Farnham.

Aubrey LANDERS and Frederick HILTON recalled visiting Farnham to see their grandparents. Edmund FREESTONE was a miner and he would take his grandchildren to show them the mine shafts. We have a photo of Edmund carrying his gun, with his dog sitting beside him.  At this stage I believe that Edmund and Agnes stayed in Farnham longer than any of their children, but probably had left by 1910 – although I need to try and confirm this.

Ellen Elizabeth Freestone / Hocking / Hilton (1880 - 1919)

Some relatives’ lives are defined by particular events. Generally this occurred when they did things that were unexpected – especially for the time.  Ellen was one such woman. 

Ellen was born on 10 October 1880 at Stoney Creek, about 40 kilometres south of Wellington, New South Wales.  She was the fourth child of Agnes (nee Crowe) and Edmund William Freestone.  After her birth, the family relocated to Windsor near Sydney for a number of years before moving to Orange and then returning to Stoney Creek, which was then known as Farnham. Stoney Creek / Farnham no longer exist. They serviced the gold mines that still dot the area, but are almost completely exhausted.

On 18 May 1898 seventeen year old Ellen married Francis Edward Hocking at Farnham.  Seventeen is too young to get married! The marriage was not successful. Ellen appears to have NOT been a person that just puts up with a bad situation. I’ll never discover what Francis thought of her!  Fortunately the couple had no children together. 

By mid 1902 Ellen was pregnant – just not with Francis Hocking’s child. 

In early September 1902, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Francis was seeking a “dissolution of his marriage” to Ellen on the grounds of her misconduct with William Couldwell and Frederick Hilton, who were both joined as co-respondents in the suit. It was noted that Ellen, and the co-respondents did not appear at the hearing. Presumably because of Ellen’s pregnancy, the final decree for the divorce was set for 3 months, instead of the normal 12 months. This meant that the divorce was granted on 10 December 1902. Divorce was not common at that time, and was not easy to obtain or looked upon favourably. Nor was it considered good form to be married to one man and having a child to another. Presumably the judge decided to allow a quick divorce in order to ‘right the wrong’! On the same day her divorce was granted, Ellen married Frederick Warner Hilton, who was eighteen years old and one of the co-respondents at her divorce hearing, at the Presbyterian Church at 31 Bent Street in Sydney. I wonder what her relationship was with William Couldwell…

Ellen and Frederick’s first child, Frederick Kenneth, was born three weeks after their wedding, on 31 December 1902. A second son, Stanley Melville was born in January 1905 in Hurstville, Sydney. In April 1906 Ellen visited her parents, who still lived at Farnham. Young Stanley contracted pneumonia and, despite seeing the local doctor, died on 28 April 1906. Stanley was buried on 30 April in Omigal Cemetery (this has now been renamed the Stuart Town Cemetery). A third son Mervyn Leslie was born in Hurstville on 6 August 1907.

Sadly Ellen Elizabeth Hilton died on 17 June 1919 at her home at Oxford Street, Mortdale.  She was 38 and the death certificate indicates that she died from toxaemia, which could have been from pregnancy. 

Fred and Merv had very fond memories of their mother.  She was obviously quite a lively woman and very likeable!

She was buried on 19 June at Woronora Cemetery, Sydney.  She was the first of her ten siblings to die. She also left behind 17 year old Frederick and 12 year old Mervyn – both of whom missed her and perhaps never quite recovered.

[Relationship to SNR = Great-great grandmother]

John and Mary Freestone, born about 1750

John and Mary Freestone were born about the year 1750, in locations unknown. Nothing is known of:

·      parents, their names and activities

·      their socio-economic, employment and religious backgrounds

·      any siblings, and so on.

John and Mary married at some point and they ended up in Leicester. This is a large industrial city, south of Nottingham in the East Midlands of England. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest.

John and Mary Freestone have been identified (through British IGI records) as having baptised six children in the parish of St Mary's Leicester. So it is most likely the couple were resident in Leicester from 1775 to 1795 at the very least. The names of their children and the years of births were:

• Ann, 23 April 1775;
• Sarah, 15 July 1777, died 12 March 1780;
• Mary, 30 May 1779, died 6 June 1779;
• Sarah, 8 October 1780;
• James, 6 November 1782;
• Elizabeth, 27 October 1784; and
• Thomas Illif, 30 January 1792, died 17 May 1795.

Other details are not yet known, including

·      the dates and locations of the deaths of John and Mary

·      the life experiences of Ann, Sarah and Elizabeth, such as marriage and progeny; and

·      the dates and locations of the deaths of these daughters.

[Relationship to SNR = Great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents]