RootsChat.Com

Anyone interested in the St Hill's still out there?

 I have recently come across Richard Augustus St Hill (the connection is through his wife, Mary Elizabeth Hope, daughter of the Rev. William Johnson Hope).  They married in Moreton Bay Brisbane in 1857, two years after the good reverend died.  I don't think he would have been too happy with his daughter's spouse - in July 1859 a warrant was issued for his arrest - he had embezzled 1000 pounds from his employers, the Bank of New South Wales in Brisbane.  The warrant described him as a native of the West Indies, one third removed from white, about 27 years of age, the son of a NZ J.P.  It seems he was apprehended, brought to trial and discharged on a technicality.  There was also another charge brought against him for an unpaid debt in May 1860 and he was declared bankrupt in July 1860.  And then I lose him until a RAStH appears in Tasmania in 1919.

Mary Elizabeth died in Victoria in 1902 but Richard eludes me.

From my reading through this old forum posting and other hunts, it would seem this Richard is the son of James Henry St Hill, though there is no mention of him in JH's application for passage to NZ.    Did he return to NZ after his brush with the law in Australia?  Is he the St Hill at school in the English 1841 census (haven't found that one yet, only a mention of it on a St Hill thread)?  Is he the Richard Augustus St Hill, gardener,  on the Tasmanian Electoral Roll of 1919?  That would see him weeding away aged 82.

For those of you out there who like to follow interesting connections and who may not have made this one - Mary Elizabeth Hope was the 1st cousin once removed of Mary Reiby - the plump little lady on the Australian $20 note.

Hi, I found your blog last night, read both your stories and was very touched by them.
 I am related to Alfred though his mother, Jane Bracher (not Breacher), the sister of my 3xgreat grandfather, Joseph Bracher.  They were 2 of a family of seven children, the youngest of whom died as an infant. All the others, with the exception of Jane, emigrated to Australia through the 1850s and went on to produce a huge clan of Brachers.

It would seem likely than Jane died sometime between 1851 and 1861, very probably before Seth Pickles.  Such an event would go a long way to explaining why Aunt Priscilla and Alfred were living together in 1861, the unmarried sister being a natural choice to fulfil the housekeeper role for her widowed brother and his son

Jane Bracher came from a Baptist family.  She was born in Kidderminster, Worcs, where her parents were married and all her siblings bar the youngest were registered at the Union Street Particular Baptist Chapel.  The family had moved to the Bradford area by the time of the 1941 census.  The father, John , and brother Joseph were wool combers -wool combing was then an apprenticed trade with seven year's apprenticeship being the norm.  Seth Pickles was a wool comb maker in 1841.  Priscilla was registered at the General Baptist Meeting House, Queenshead (now Queensbury) on June 30, 1837.  It's easy to see how their lives came together.