Featured Resident
By Rhonda Burton, FOSBC member.
My great grandfather Herbert Ernest Vaughan is buried in
South Brisbane Cemetery.
Herbert was born in Redfern, Sydney in 1868 to George Arthur
Vaughan from Appledore, Devon, England and Jane Ann Morris from St Clement,
Cornwall, England. They both emigrated to Australia when they were very young.
George and Jane married in St Pauls Church Sydney on 2 Feb
1861 and had 6 sons, William, Arthur, Alfred, George, Herbert (my great
grandfather) and Moreton and 1 daughter Ada. George was a compositor/printer in
1864, was appointed as tipstaff (bailiff) to His Honour Mr Justice Alfred James
Lutwyche in 1876 and was Government Printer in Brisbane in 1905 when he and Jane
were living in Kedron Park.
Jane’s mother Mary Anne Simpson married Judge Alfred James
Lutwyche after whom Lutwyche was named. She
married him in 1855 after her first husband passed away in 1854.
Herbert was a railway guard and later a train driver. He moved to Brisbane and married Mary
Johnston in 1888 and they had 5 children, 4 sons Sydney, Alfred, Francis and
Kenneth and one daughter Lillian all born between 1889 and 1894. They moved to Spring
Creek, Clifton on the Darling Downs in the late 1890s but Mary died soon after
in 1895 at 27 years of age leaving Herbert with 5 children between 6 years and
8 months old to care for.
Herbert married my great grandmother Isabella Mary Caskey in
1896 when he was 28 and she was 21 years old.
The Caskeys are a well-known pioneering family in Clifton. Isabella was the daughter of Thomas Caskey
who migrated from Islay Scotland in1856 and was one of the first farmers to be
given an allotment of land.
After living in Clifton for a while Herbert and Isabella
moved to Brisbane. They had 6 children, 2
sons Herbert (Bert) and Donald and 4 daughters, Marjorie and Beryl (who both
died in infancy), Adelle (Dell) and my grandmother Mena (Nanna). Herbert left the family home in 1917 when my Nanna
was only 2. She told me she never saw
him after that and never wanted to.
Dell and Mena spent most of their childhood living in
Clifton being cared for by their aunt Margaret (Isabella’s sister) and her
husband Charles. Sadly, on 15th Feb 1930,
Isabella was knocked down by a motor-bike and side car when she alighted from a
tram in Stanley St outside the Mater Hospital. She received fractures to her
arm and severe head injuries but never regained consciousness and died from her
injuries. She was 55 years of age.
Herbert then married Annie Maria O’Sullivan on 3rd
March 1930. They had one daughter Theresa Maria Vaughan born on 20 Nov 1928.
She passed away in 1964 at 36 years of age. Herbert passed away in 1942 at 73 years of age
and Annie passed away in 1951 at 64 years of age.
Mary and Isabella are both buried in Toowong Cemetery
Herbert and Annie are buried together in section T in South
Brisbane Cemetery.
Marjorie and Beryl Vaughan (Herbert and Isabella Vaughan’s
infant daughters) are buried at Toowong Cemetery with their half-brother
Sydney, his mother Mary Vaughan (Herbert’s first wife), their uncle Arthur
Vaughan and his daughter Violet.
Interestingly, until I joined FOSBC I wasn’t aware that my
great grandfather was buried at South Brisbane Cemetery, which is rather ironic
as the cemetery is only a 5 minute drive from my home, nor did I know that he had
another 2 wives apart from my great grandmother. Nanna spent much of her young life in Clifton
and mixed freely with her half sisters and brothers from her father’s first
marriage some of who also lived with her aunt and uncle and attended Clifton
State School at the same time, sometimes even appearing in the same school
photos.
We were quite close and I used to visit the family farm
where she lived as a child with her during school holidays yet I had no clue
that she had 5 step brothers and step sisters, she never referred to them as
such. Maybe she never knew as she was
only 2 when she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle and her half siblings
were so much older than her. I only
discovered this during a recent trip to Clifton when I was shown the original
Clifton State School register from the early 1900s and her name appeared in the
register as a 5 year old. I always
assumed she went to live with her aunt and uncle as a 14 year old after her mum
died. I guess I’ll never know the truth.
One thing that she did know though was that she hated
cleaning silver! She always used to tell
me she had to clean and polish the silver when she stayed on the farm with aunt
and uncle, and that she hated it. She
refused to have a piece of silver in her home.