The only members of the Harbroes family who came to
Australia were the younger son George, your great great grandfather and the
youngest daughter Anne, your great great Aunt. IndexPage FamilyOnly U_Comment
(Married Dr John Coverdale)
1818-1875
The only members of the Harbroes family who came to
Australia were the younger son George, your great great grandfather and the
youngest daughter Anne, your great great Aunt.
Why they came to Australia, actually to Hobart Town, which was probably as remote a place as it was possible to find on the Globe at the beginning of the nineteenth century, is not known. But it is reasonable to assume, that Anne came out for the purpose of being married to Dr. John Coverdale, and her brother George, her immediate senior, very nobly, and very graciously escorted her.
According to an announcement in the “True Colonist” of July 14th, 1837, one Dr. Coverdale had arrived in the colony by the “Perthshire” from Leith in Scotland on July 10, 1837. Shortly after arrival, he was appointed Superintendent of the Queens Orphans Schools at New Town, but later he was made Colonial Surgeon at Richmond. Another announcement if the “Hobart Town Courier” of December 28, 1838 told that Mr. George Harbroe, Miss Anne Harbroe, and Miss Coverdale were among the passengers who arrived in Hobart Town by the barque “Emu” of 380 tons, under command of Captain Howard, on December 21, 1838. The vessel had sailed from London on December 8 proceeding , imagine a voyage of 54 weeks on a ship of 380 tons.
The evidence in support of the opinion that Anne Harbroe came out to Hobart Town to be married appears in the “Hobart Town Courier” of January 4, 1839, in the form of an announcement which reads:-
Photo of painting c1848 by Knut Bull Museum Battery Point Tas
MARRIED on Thursday December 27, 1838, by Special licence, at St. Davids Church (now the Cathedral) by the Rev. W. Bedford, John Coverdale MD only son of the late John Coverdale Esq. of Kedgeree in Bengal, to Anne, youngest daughter of the late Edward Harbroe Esq. of Ripley, in the county of Surrey.
It would seem that shortly after the marriage, Dr. and Mrs Coverdale must have left Van Diemens Land for a period, because the Hobart Town Courier of February 14, 1840 lists Dr. and Mrs Coverdale, child, and servant among the passengers who had reached Hobart Town by the Schooner “Agenoria” from Port Adelaide on February 11th. The visit could have been, in fact it undoubtedly was, for the birth of the baby. The child was a daughter, Dora Forbes, and her marriage in later years to Mr. Hugh Percy Sorrell, a grandson of Lieutenant Governor Sorrell, brought the Harbroe family into Vice Regal circles. In more recent years, the Sorrell family home was “New Town Park”, and when I was in Hobart as a child in 1908, I can remember visiting the beautiful old stone residence, where several spinster Sorrell ladies still lived.
source Robert G Gregory 1967 letter to his nephew
John Coverdale, MD, arrived at Hobart Town on 10 JUL 1837 and on 27 DEC 1838 married Anne Harbroe at St. David's Church. Anne had arrived from England only six days before the wedding, so the couple must have been engaged before John left England. In an 1898 letter from England Jessie M. Sorell details some information that she was given by Edith, some kind of cousin-
"...Grandfather. Coverdale always got her mother to get grandmother, who was at school near there, over to the house when he was there, and so the courting went on ..."
The Coverdale's went to Adelaide in OCT 1839 on the Catherine Stewart Forbes and their oldest child was born
"On board the Katherine Steward Forbes (sic) on her passage from Hobart Town".
(South Australian, 9 OCT 1839)
and "Dora Forbes born OCT 3rd..." (RGD 275, 27 OCT 1839, Reg. of Baptisms, Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide.)
Dr. John was apparently "casing the joint" as he bought land in Adelaide which he had great trouble in selling when he decided to stay in Van Diemen's Land. The augmented family returned to Hobart Town on the Agenoria arriving on 10 FEB 1840. John Coverdale's career in Tasmania is well documented in various places and is summarised adequately in The Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Briefly;- ,
1840/64 General practitioner at Richmond; JP & magistrate; Registrar of B,D & Ms; first Warden of the Richmond Municipality in 1863.
1865/73 Superintendent of The Queen's Asylum for Children at New Town.
1874/77 The last Civil Commandant and Medical Superintendent at Port Arthur and responsible for closing down the establishment. He was known there as Black jack the name being a reference to his visage and not to his character .
1878/87 Superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane, Cascades, South Hobart.
He then retired at the age of 73. He was ineligible for a pension but on application was given a nominal £150 a year. Ann Harbroe Coverdale had died at Port Arthur in 1875 and in 1886 he married Edith Jones, a grand daughter of Anthony Fenn Kemp. Edith seems to have inherited a goodly part of her grandfather's penchant for troublemaking because after John's death she seemed to take delight in stirring up trouble between "The Frank and Harry Mob" Gessie M.Sorells's phrase - both Miles Coverdale's sons) and the "Thorneycroft" Sorells. She caused one particularly bitter row by inference that when Jessie M. Sorell, on her return from England, and immediately having an operation for "piles", it was for something much more intimate and embarrassing!
source Paul B Edwards ISBN 0 646 19028 8
Dr. John COVERDALE and pregnant wife, Anne, went to Adelaide on the ship to Adelaide on the ship 'Katherine Stewart Forbes' leaving Hobart Town on 27 SEP 1839 and reaching Port Adelaide on 6 OCT 1939 having picked up an extra passenger on the way: From the record of baptisms at Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide, Dora Forbes COVERDALE was born on 3 OCT 1939 and baptised on 27 OCT. Her 2nd forename commemorates the ship on which she was born. It is likely that the good doctor went to Adelaide to ascertain prospects of practising there because he bought some land there and had difficulty later in disposing of it. The COVERDALES returned to Hobart on the 'Agenoria' which left on 29 JAN 1840 and reached Hobart on 10 FEB 1840. The Doctor soon made another trip returning to Adelaide on the 'Agenoria' arriving on 21 MAR 1840.
I have evidence that John COVERDALE was courting Anne HARBROE when she was still a schoolgirl: It was probably when he was a medical student at Glasgow University and was home at his stepfather EATWELL'S place for vacations. So John and Anne were almost certainly affianced before John left for Van Diemen's Land and explains why they were married by special licence only 6 days after Anne arrived at Hobart Town.
Anne had cashed in her inherited share of 'Elm Tree House' before she left England. And there was no need for George to have made the trip just to escort young sister Anne as John Coverdale's sister, Julia Speak Coverdale, was also aboard the 'Emu' and she and Anne could have decently escorted ea ch other. It seems to me that George also cashed in his share of 'Elm Tree House' and came to V.D.L. to settle.
It should be noted that Dora Forbes Coverdale did NOT marry into vice-regal circles. She married a grandson of Lieut. Gov. William Sorell in 1860 36 years after Sorell left V.D.L. in 1824. Her husband was a surveyor whose father was the first Registrar of the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
Source Paul B Edwards letter 12th July 1993
|
|
|
||
