Robyn and the Genies : Part 2 Lucy Harris nee Strelley 1788-1886- the youngest daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Strelley

Saturday 3 July 2021

Part 2 Lucy Harris nee Strelley 1788-1886- the youngest daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Strelley

THE HARRIS FAMILY OF DERBYSHIRE – PIONEERS OF THE SWAN VALLEY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA FROM 1833. cont from Part 1.....

Lucy Strelley was born 1788 and was about 58 when her husband Joseph Harris MD died. She stayed in the colony of western Australia for a further 13 and half years after her husband’s death.

Living conditions in the Swan District and food shortages had improved through exploration and expansion of the colony into sheep. Some of this exploration and expansion was undertaken by her older boys William and Joseph Strelley Harris. It is likely she continued to live in the Swan Valley to assist in the bringing up of her only grandson John Strelley Carslake Yule whose birth on 26 June 1838 had resulted in her daughter Lucy who was 24 dying in childbirth. As schooling facilities were only developing some schooling may have fallen on the women in the homesteads. Her son, Herbert and grandson John must have been educated well as they both went on to study medicine.

Initially there were no churches in the new colony. Some services were conducted by lay people (one of whom swam across the river to conduct his service). Later the women would have supported the local missionary preachers and clergy who were drawn to the district to “convert” the indigenous people and minister to the colonists. The Harris and Yule families were active in the St Mary’s parish where the church was built as a memorial to daughter Lucy Yule nee Harris who was buried on the Mission Grant land at Middle Swan.

For many years the district was sand and scrub with no road or railway to Perth. All transport was done by water travel. Imagine a life where people lived along beautiful banks of the Swan awash with wild flowers. When a ship arrived, cannons were fired to let people know that a vessel had arrived with supplies and letters from home. Imagine the excitement as settlers travelled or rowed down the Swan River to Fremantle to get their letters, fresh fruit and supplies. Imagine running a household without the luxury of a supermarket, Imagine a life where your children went without shoes played in the scrub and where you had to take a sheet off the bed to make a tablecloth when the Minister arrived. Imagine being a mother of 6 in those early days and the excitement of every little achievement or improvement that came along. Even by 1849 after nearly twenty years of settlement, growth was very slow. The population of the area around Perth was still only about 1,400.

Perth in the early days

Lucy (Strelley) Harris now in her seventies returned to England with her two remaining daughters, Mary and Elizabeth on 26 January 1860 on the 'Lord Raglan'. The 1861 English census saw her living with her daughters and young John Yule at 12 Bridge Ave Hammersmith. Ten years later she was living with her son-in-law HC Gregory, daughter Mary Gregory and her second grandchild, Elizabeth. She was living comfortably off her own means at High St Buntingford. Later in 1881 she was living off income from land with Mary and her family at Keysham Cheltenham.

1861 census

Lucy Harris, the youngest daughter of Robert Strelley and Elizabeth Clayton died at Keynsham Bank Gloucestershire in her 98th year on 17 November 1886. Her death notice was circulated in the Daily News Perth 31/12/1886 and Inquirer and Commercial News Perth 5/1/1887 despite her return to England 27 years earlier. She left an estate of £1554.