Maria Moore

Born 22 December 1839 • Gundaroo, Gunning, NSW. Died 4 July 1908 Birchip

Six of Maria’s eight children- Mary Jane (Telford) B4-383, Edwin B4-264, Clara B4-293, George B4-349, Joseph B3-66 and Lucy Elizabeth (Kerr) B2-174 are buried near her in the Birchip cemetery.  Her brother Henry B2-49 and her niece Eliza Moore (Opie) B4-224, daughter of Richard Moore and Mary Jane Barber are also there.

Maria Moore is the granddaughter of two convicts- Richard Palmer (1767-1819) and Elizabeth Titley (1781-1820). As access to records become more available, it is fascinating to find some of the family DNA goes back to the earliest days of European settlement at Sydney Cove and the connections to so many aspects of early European settlement. So Maria Moore’s history is also a history lesson about the early days of colonization of Australia by the British Empire.

 Richard Palmer, born in 1767 at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire and Elizabeth Titley, born in 1781 at Clun Shropshire were the first generation of her ancestors who came to Australia. Both were convicted of crimes and transported to New South Wales, Richard in 1791 and Elizabeth in 1801. Richard was regarded as a good prisoner as he could read and write and was assigned a wife Elizabeth Titley in 1801. He became the owner of his own pub, the ‘Black Swan’ at 42 George Street Sydney.

We know that Elizabeth Titley and Richard Palmer’s first child George Thomas (1802-1857) was born in 1802, followed by Edwin (1804-1886) in 1803, Harriet (1806-1860) in 1806, and Henry (1809-1833) in 1809. Elizabeth and Richard formally married at St Philip’s Church Sydney on 23 October 1810. Elizabeth (1811–1846) was born in 1811 and Jane, Maria’s mother was born in 1813 and christened at St Philip’s. Her brother William McClure (1815–1903) was born in 1815 in Sydney.

The last child Thomas was born in 1818 in Sydney, but died a month later. When Richard died in November 1819 he was buried at the first Sydney cemetery known as the Old Sydney Burial Ground with his infant son Thomas. This cemetery is now the site of the Sydney Town Hall. In September 2007, evidence of grave sites were still uncovered beneath the Lower Town Hall.

Richard’s wife Elizabeth died a few months after her husband, on 5 March 1820. Following the death of Elizabeth, the  younger children went to the Female Orphan School and the boys to the Male Orphan School. The Female Orphanage, the oldest three-storey structure in Australia, built in 1813 to shelter the colony's young girls is now the home for the Whitlam Institute. Edwin in 1819 (aged 16) and George both went to Hobart, Edwin and later William became sealers and whalers on the far south edge of New Zealand and there is still a large diaspora of descendants tn the south of New Zealand. Edwin kept in touch with the other children and mostly they continued to be connected for the rest of their lives. Maria’s parents Jane and Robert Moore spent some time in New Zealand in the 1860s.

In 1828 Jane, Maria’s mother, was listed in the muster records as housemaid to Captain Robert Lethbridge on an estate called “Flushcombe”. The estate covered a large area of the suburb of Blacktown Sydney. Jane appears again on 16 December 1828 in the New South Wales Gaol Description and Entrance Book  for Breach of the Peace and is bailed the following day to Robert Lethbridge. Three years later she married Robert Moore, born in Merrifield Devon England in 1810, at St Matthew’s Church, Windsor on 15 January 1831. Robert Moore was a very early free settler arriving at Port Jackson on 22 January 1829 on the ‘Surry’, which carried Unassisted Immigrants from London - English workers coming to Australia. Robert went to work for his cousin, Captain Richard Brooks, a retired ship captain, at Maineroo (Monaro) Plains.

Maria (1839-1908) was born at Gundaroo, Gunning. Now only half an hour from the centre of Canberra, in 1839 in the year of her birth the first substantial building was built - the “Harrow Inn”.

By 1821 noted colonial explorer Hamilton Hume had established a sheep property between Lake George and Gunning, then the farthest out station. A monument  near Gunning commemorates the spot where Hume set off from his property with Hovell on 17 October 1824. In the next sixteen weeks the party made many findings including the Murray River, and the valuable agricultural and grazing lands between Gunning and Corio Bay in Victoria. They arrived back at Gunning on 18 January 1825. As a result of this expedition, the European settlement of Port Phillip occurred in 1835. Between 1839 and 1840  at Gunderoo, Jane and Robert packed up their first six children Mary Anne Elizabeth (1831-1903), Jane Eliza (1832–1914), John (1834–1913), Robert (1836–1912), Henry (1837–1907) who was probably blind by this time, and Maria (1839-1908) and travelled by bullock wagon to Melbourne.  It is hard to imagine setting off. But they may have had good advice.

In 1840s the Moores settled in Melbourne in the vicinity of the present GPO, where they had a pork shop.  

Bilham to Birchip states that:

“It is reputed when Edwin Lee received money from England on the deaths of his father and mother, his wife induced him to lend money, for which he received no return, to her father, Robert Moore. It was to assist Robert Moore to engage in a lawsuit to recover a valuable building block in the heart of Melbourne opposite the GPO, which he had bought in the second land sale in 1840. On a plan showing purchases at the first land sale on June 1st, 1837, Lot 17 in Bourke Street was purchased by a Jos. Moore for 20 pounds. But the Moore’s obviously lost the case.

Their next child Martha Elizabeth (1842-1906) was born in 1842 in Melbourne, Elizabeth was born in 1845 in Geelong, as was her brother Richard (1848-1905) in 1848. In 1856 her brother Charles Merrifield (1856-1923) was born and when Maria was 17 years old, the last of the Moore children Ellen Luxmore Victoria (1859–1946) was born in1859 in Learmonth.

Jane Palmer and Robert Moore had 15 children, several of whom are intrinsically linked to the McMaster and Lee family histories. Three who died at young ages after their arrival in Geelong are buried together in the Geelong cemetery- William (1843–1850), Edward(1850-1868) who died in a shooting accident aged 18 at John McMaster’s farm at Geelong  and  Harriet (1852-1852)-born at Waurn Ponds in January  and died in August 1852.

 Jane and Robert’s first child, Mary Ann Elizabeth (1831- 1903), married Cornelius Hogan in 1846 in St Francis  Catholic Church Melbourne, still there in Lonsdale Street Melbourne in the first year it opened, the oldest Catholic church in Victoria. 

Not long after their arrival, second daughter Jane (1832-1914) married John McMaster (Snr) in 1850- uncle of John McMaster although he did make provision in his will for two illegitimate children, so his relationship with Jane is complicated but they are buried together in the Geelong cemetery. In 1858 their daughter Martha married Samual Walker of Barrabool Hills in Ballarat on New Year’s Day  and is described in the newspaper as ‘the fourth daughter of Robert Moore, Esq. of Lake Learmonth, late of the Barrabool Hills.”

Maria (1839-1908) married Edwin Lee on 14 February 1860 at the Wesleyan Parsonage, Ballarat, where they and her parents are listed as farmers at Windemere.

On 16 April 1866, the home of Maria and Edwin Lee at Windemere was the setting for the marriage of Maria’s sister Elizabeth (1845–1876) to John McMaster Jnr. After six children in ten years including Myrtle (who later married Edwin Lee, son of Maria and Edwin Lee) while living at Glengower, Elizabeth died as a consequence of childbirth when Henrietta (1876-1955) was twelve days old.

Henrietta went to live with Maria and Edwin Lee. Her father recognised this in a Testimonial  in 1881, to convey his warm appreciation to Maria “of one of the kindest actions that has at any time come under his notice” and stated that

This testimonial is presented to Maria Lee

of Coonooer West, District of St Arnaud in The Colony of Victoria

in recognition of her great kindness to her infant niece

Henrietta Maria McMaster

Under divine providence this very dear little girl owes to you her

life and health and the rich blessings that can only be conveyed

through the channel of a mother's love.

The undersigned hereby desires to coney to you his warm appreciation

of one of the kindest actions that has at any time come under his notice.

For your motherly love; your superior nursing; and your ever watchful

care from her infancy.

For the cultivation of that very amiable temper and sweet and loving

disposition which this very dearchild seems naturally to inherit.

I sincerely hope and pray that you may both be blessed with happiness

long life and every prosperity which shall only be a foretaste of the

more lasting joys and blessedness that shall await you in a brighter

and better world

Dated at Rose Vale

Geelong

October 10 1881

John McMaster

John McMaster later married Maria’s youngest sister Ellen and they had nine more children.  Maria had also always assumed responsibility for her brother Henry who was blind and is buried in the Birchip Cemetery near her.

Edwin and Maria’s first son John Thomas (1860-1940) was born at Barrabool. Their first daughter Mary Jane Dickenson (1862–1950), the second Edwin (1864–1940), and  Clara Norton (1866-1942) were born at Windemere near Ballarat. But by 1869, their daughter Maude Stanley  was born in Linton, as were their next two sons- George Edward (1871- 1947) and Joseph Whittington (1873–1926) which suggests they were living at Linton from 1869 to 1878 at least. Their youngest daughter Lucy Elizabeth Mabel (1878-1916) was born in Corindhap near Linton.

It is thought that Edwin Lee made a small selection of about 80 acres at Weatherboard Hill near Learmonth. In 1874 he selected 240 acres at Coonooer West (Originally known as Conover and Doobetic near Jeffcott), and the family left the Ballarat district to take up residence on this land. Maria’s parents- Robert and Jane also settled at Coonooer and two of her brothers farmed there. They are all buried in the Donald Cemetery.

In a statement made by Edwin Lee, to the Lands Department, in the first 6 years after selection the following improvements had been made : ₤84 spent on 210 chains of post and wire fencing, Cultivation to the value of £128, Water Storage £20, a weatherboard dwelling - 28ft x 25 ft., with an iron roof £100, and burnt brick dwelling 27ft x 11ft £30, Shed 30ft X 24ft £10., Stock yards £5, Grubbing, ringing and clearing £70, In addition £96. had been paid off the purchase price of the land." The Glenlee property was transferred from the name of Mary Jane Dickinson Lee to Edwin Lee in 1888, and in 1905 when final payment of the purchase price £320 had been made he was granted the title.

The first dwelling at "Glenlee" was a two room mud brick building and as fortunes improved a substantial wooden home was added. Some of the grandchildren could still visualize the home and have pleasant memories of the hospitality of their grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Thanks to the “Bilham to Birchip-Lee family” history we still have a plan  of that house. (See Edwin Lee entry).In many homes of present descendants there are articles of furniture, crockery and photos being carefully preserved because they came from the “Glenlee” home. Roy Lee, grandson of Maria and son of Edwin and Myrtle remembered carrying the clock from “Glenlee” to “Homelea” when they moved across the road to their new house in 1906.

“Glenlee" was later removed to Sherwood St Birchip to become the home of their daughter Clara who had not married and Annie, the wife of Joseph who had died of cancer in 1926, leaving her with two young sons Edwin, aged 12, and Bert aged 9.

Maria died on 4 July 1908 in Birchip, at the age of 68. Edwin and she had been married 48 years.