Mary Williams Campbell left Scotland in the spring of 1888. As she left
Scotland, she was saying goodbye forever to winter and the bitterly cold
Scottish weather.
Mary was born in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to
Alexander Campbell and Elizabeth Garrett on the 24th of February, 1871. Mary, a
domestic servant, came to Australia aged 17 as a free settler from Scotland,
leaving on 1 August 1888 on the Merkara,
which arrived on 24 September 1888 in Brisbane.
Back in the Scottish 1881 census, she was shown as living with her parents in
Dalziel, aged 10, the eldest of five children. Her mother had died and she may
have come out to Australia to take pressure off her father and earn some money
for the family.
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| Merkera arrived 1888 |
The shipping document above shows some of Mary's travelling companions. The
newspaper report 24/8/1888 stated that
the ship brought cargo and immigrants for Rockhampton. There were 8 single
girls, 18 single men, 1 married couple and a child. They would have taken
positions as labourers, domestic servants, a nurse, or possibly even governess
on northern Australian farms. Filling a chronic labour shortage was one thing
but the single girls were of marriageable age too.
After her arrival in Queensland about 900 kilometres NW of Brisbane, Mary
presumably went to work as a domestic servant in a cattle station or farm where
she presumably met William Begg, who was 14 years her senior.
They married in Albert Park, Melbourne, on the 19th of November 1891. Mary was
still a minor, and a JP gave written consent for the marriage to occur.
At this stage, Mary's address was listed as Albert Park, and Williams was in
Wanaring, in New South Wales, where he was a station manager.
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| Mary and William c 1890 |
After she married William Begg they journeyed to Queensland,
where they took up residence at “Coreena” near Barcaldine which was a large
sheep station, the site of a large shearer's strike.
Coreena is near the town of Barcaldine, classified as 1240
square miles of absolutely first-class merino country, dotted with Downs and
first class timber. This is the Aboriginal name for Big Water. Begg came to the
station as manager.
They welcomed a son, Hector Campbell Begg, on the 16th of September,
1893. Their second son was born on the station - Percy Campbell Begg was
born on 5 November 1895.
And after that, things went terribly wrong.
This part of the story is largely unknown. Mary disappeared from William Begg's
life. You see, Mary left William Begg's life for whatever reason. Perhaps it
was vice versa.
Who knows the hardship this young lady had to bear in remote Australian outback
with no parental support, moving from Queensland to New South Wales to Victoria
and back again. Two young boys, possibly postnatal problems, a marriage to an
older man, and any other number of situations.
What is known is that the family left Coreena Station in 1897, as it seems
William Begg was again working in New South Wales and possibly travelling back
and forwards to Queensland.
Whether Mary and the children were accompanying him is unknown, but something
was seriously wrong as the children were placed in an orphanage around 1901. (Later,
Begg's relatives, who were living in Mount Carmel Station in Heathcote,
Victoria, took the children in to live with them.)
I was researching this lady from a totally different angle.
What I was looking for at this stage was the mother of my cousin's grandmother.
I was researching this lady from a totally other angle, and we can thank
Ancestry's algorithm for making the connection to Mary Williams Campbell.
What was Mary up to during this time apart from William?
My clues were that his grandmother’s name was Mary Thelma Wheelhouse and that she
had a sister called Lillian Olga Wheelhouse.
Notations from various marriage certificates suggested that her name may have
been Daly, Western or West. Others had
called her Thelma Beck. Unbeknownst to us, the girls had a pretty sad life, and
it was no wonder they were unsure of the details of their birth.
So Mary Campbell Begg probably had an affair with a man called Harry
Hugh Wheelhouse met in either Queensland or South Australia.
Two little girls were born but never registered in Queensland or South
Australia. Mary Thelma was insistent she was born in Mannum, South Australia
but there’s no record.
The dates we have for the girls are Lily Olga Wheelhouse 24-8-1905, Murray
Bridge, South Australia, and Mary Thelma Wheelhouse, 24-6-1909, Mannan, South
Australia.
During my research, I was distracted by a piece in the South Australian Police
Gazette that two little girls, Lily Wheelhouse, aged five, and Mary (Thelma )Wheelhouse, aged 14 months, were charged
with being neglected children at Mitcham and were sent to an industrial school.
These dates fit.
Life in an institution, no wonder they didn't know their details.
What I also noticed was that Maria Wheelhouse, in the item above, was charged
as a lunatic at Mitcham and sent to an asylum.
As I mentioned before, Ancestry's algorithm was responsible for solving the
mystery.
Maria Wheelhouse in my tree was generating Mary Campbell Williams hints and
photos for me to investigate!
Luckily, the owner of a tree had put a message on her tree that her DNA
investigations had linked Mary to the little girls.
I contacted Lorraine, and we compared findings, collaborated further and pretty
much confirmed the details.
We are hampered by the 100-year privacy rules and undigitized South Australian
records and also the fact that she's in Western Australia and I'm in New South
Wales. Some information though was
available, such as papers from the South Australian State Archives. Despite
this we make a good team researching in our own ways where we could.
Although we have never found a marriage certificate or birth certificates, it
appears the children's father is Harry Hugh Wheelhouse of Kalgoorlie,
previously South Australia. The paperwork confirms her relationship with the
girls and a connection with the Wheelhouses.
In addition, a newspaper article years before confirms a
relationship with Francis Wheelhouse when he and his granddaughter Lily present
the visiting Governor’s wife with a bunch of snowdrops and violets.
At the time of her admission to the Parkside Asylum she's a
pauper and obviously mentally ill. Her
house in Cromwell St Adelaide was quite poorly equipped with a table , three
chairs, some bedding, kitchen utensils and a pram. Interestingly she had a
piano. Records we have accessed stated that she was a music teacher and the
wife of Harry Wheelhouse, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
Investigations into Maria's circumstances and her partner,
and previous acquaintances at her place of residence suggested that Mr. Harry
Wheelhouse should contribute to her costs in the asylum. The investigations also
link Wheelhouse’s father to the lady in question. Papers discovered claim Harry
Hugh Wheelhouse is her husband and currently residing in Western Australia.
When the Institution
writes to him asking for support for Maria of 3/- per diem he won’t admit responsibility
and claims she is the responsibility of William Begg of Coreena as she is
married to him.
The final report, though, from the Commissioner of Police, Adelaide, states
that Harry Hugh refused to contribute towards maintenance because they had not
been living together for four years due to domestic troubles. He also said that
as they had never married, she was legally the wife of Mr William Begg, the
former station manager of Coreena.
Mary never left the asylum until she died on the 14th of August, 1943, aged 71
years. Her death certificate does not mention any of her children or a spouse,
but alludes to Harry. She died of cerebral thrombosis anterio sclerosis. It
seems a pity that such an accomplished woman has languished in an asylum for
many, many years. If, for example, she suffered from postnatal depression, in
different times she may have been treatable and even well enough to live a
normal life.
There were probably many things that ailed Mary/Maria- Mental illness,
postnatal depression, unhappy marriage, domestic violence, loneliness. Neglect.
The saddest thing is she ended up having a lonely life deprived of her
children. Mary Thelma never thought to
search for her because she believed she died at birth.
Today her grandchildren are reunited
with her story through Ancestry Records and DNA Connections and some serious
digging by Lorraine and me. Did they have a better life? That’s to be continued…
DNA
DNA tests for other people looking for parents show links to
both Lily and Mary via associated DNA tests. These in turn match with DNA
testing from Mary Campbell Williams' offspring's Percy and Hector plus Lily and Mary Thelma’s children's offspring. Details
are deliberately vague here to protect the privacy of others involved in this
case.
Meanwhile, Harry Hugh Wheelhouse had moved on.
No sooner had Lily been born in August 1905 Harry married
Lucie Hay, in Redfern, Sydney, in September 1905. When they met or how quickly
he left SA for Sydney after Lily was
conceived is unknown. We know he was back in SA giving Maria money and he’s
quite possibly Mary Thelma’s father too. His father is with the children in a
newspaper report.
However when Lucie died in 1914 Harry was quick in collecting her
inheritance. Harry, who was native to Kapunda, South Australia, had a number of
jobs, one of which was as a bookkeeper when he married Lucie Hay. However, he
also was quite well known for running an skating rink in Kalgoorlie and
performing with Jessie Dodsworth. Harry, it seems, is a bit of a slippery
character. Despite a search we cannot find his death.
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| Harry Hall Wheelhouse and Jessie Dodsworth - Kalgoorli Argus |
The Wheelhouses had come to South Australia in 1876 and father
Francis was employed by the South Australian Railways at Kapunda where he
eventually became an inspector. He resigned in 1902 and then he established
himself on the Murray in Blanchetown as publican. There must have been a falling out because
they didn’t take the little girls in. After retirement, he and his wife lived
at Watson's Bay in Sydney. His wife Ellen died in 1920 and he died about one
month later at sea.
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