RootsChat.Com

Carna: The woman whose picture you use as your message icon is apparently my mother's great grandmother. Some 34 years ago my mother and I visited Ruswarp Old Hall nr Whitby where her research indicated that her great grandfather had lived. I understand that this person was Barker Joseph BENSON. My mother's research records him as a "doctor" and that (as I recall)  he married the daughter of a Dutch sea (fishing boat?) captain.

One of his sons was Thomas Barker Chapman BENSON (1844-1916) who was for many years the manager of Brenda Station nr Goodooga in north western NSW. He is my maternal great grandfather and I understand that my grandmother grew up on Brenda Station with her 5 sisters and her 4 brothers. She had the most extraordinary handwriting, very difficult to decipher, and this was excused by the explanation that she and her sisters had been educated by governesses rather than being exposed to the rigours of the NSW education system as it was then.

I was surprised that earlier replies to your enquiry say that baptismal records show that Joseph Barker's eldest son, Thomas Barker Chapman BENSON, was born in Carcoar. This is contradicted by his obituaries that all say that he was born in England! An example is at http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/benson-thomas-barker-c-101. However a search of the NSW Register of Deaths, Marriages and Births (BMDs) confirms that Thomas B C BENSON was born at Carcoar, NSW, on Mar 16 1844 to Barker J BENSON and Hannah E BENSON. 

The obituaries also say that Thomas B C BENSON was a first cousin of E.W.BENSON (Edward White) who was Archbishop of Canterbury.

That suggests that his father was a bother of Edward White BENSON but I have seen no evidence for that. I now wonder why he would wish to claim that he was born in England and was a first cousin of an Archbishop of Canterbury. Did he want to distance himself from his father and brothers for some reason and appear to be more "respectable"?

According to the online NSW Register of Deaths, Marriages and Births, the children of Barker Joseph BENSON and Hannah E BENSON were:

1844 BENSON, THOMAS B C
1845 BENSON, WILLIAM R
1847 BENSON, EDWARD V
1849 BENSON, JOHN H
1852 BENSON, JAMES J
1854 BENSON, EMILY L
1860 BENSON, WILLIS A (at Gosford)

It was interesting to read in earlier replies about the life of some of my great grandfather's siblings listed above.  However this list is not very detailed and reference should be made to more in-depth research on this family carried out by 'blynch2' and cited in reply #7 to this thread. I would be grateful to have any further information that adds to or confirms (or otherwise) any of the above.

The obituary cited earlier for Thomas B C BENSON also said that he "is survived by a widow and eight children, one of whom is Mr. Thomas J. Benson, of Braeside, Dalveen". Again, a search of the online NSW Register of BMDs shows that he and his wife Amy (nee Single) had 10 children between 1879 and 1894, among them my maternal grandmother. I always thought the daughters were known as Edith, Ella, May, Maude, Gert and Ivy but the records from the NSW online BMD Register caused some initial doubt about this. However there is much more detailed information on the family at http://www.myheritage.com/family-2_2000072_63276681_63276681/benson-thomas-barker-chapman-benson-amy-adams-single-benson and this provided all the given names of each child which I have set out below. Obviously some of the girls chose to be known by other than their first given name! The 10 children were, in order of birth:

08/01/1879 BENSON, GERTRUDE DOROTHY   (b. GLEBE, d. 09/05/1965)
01/03/1880 BENSON, SARAH MAY                  (b. WARIALDA, d. 06/07/1965)
25/10/1881 BENSON, THOMAS BARKER JOSEPH  (b. WARIALDA, d. 22/02/1936)
03/05/1883 BENSON, AMY MAUDE                 (b. MOREE, d. 03/06/1960)
03/05/1885 BENSON, FRANK CHAPMAN         (b. MOREE, d. 1912)
14/02/1887 BENSON, ELLA R (LILLIAN)         (b. MOREE, d. 26/11/1987)
10/08/1888 BENSON, EDITH SUSANNA          (b. MOREE, d. 16/05/1975)
27/01/1890 BENSON, MURIEL IVY                  (b. MOREE, d. ?)
04/09/1891 BENSON, RAY OSWALD               (b. GOODOOGA, d. 27/05/1921 at BREWARRINA)
07/02/1894 BENSON, FREDERICK ERIC          (b. GOODOOGA, d. ?)

Frank pre-deceased his fathe who died in 1916. On the other hand, Ella, who I remember well, died 3 months short of her 101st birthday in 1987! One of the more curious coincidences is that Thomas died in Chatswood age 54 on 22 Feb 1936 just 4 days after his mother (Amy Adams BENSON) who died nearby in Roseville on Feb 18, 1936 at the age of 80.  I grew up in Chatswood and we often passed the house in Roseville where my mother's grandmother had lived as a widow until her death.

This is my first posting to RootsChat so apologies in advance if I have got the etiquette wrong.