Category Archives: Mallett

#52ancestors – Family photo

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So Week 8 of #52ancestors was ‘Family photo’. Well, I have decided to share one of my favourite family photos of my great grandmother Jean and some of her siblings.

Left to Right: Adeline, Jean, Eddie, Neville, Trevor (seated front)

I was lucky enough to have my great grandmother around when I was growing up, and she lived to the grand old age of 93. I was always interested to hear about her stories of growing up as her life was so different than the one I knew. She was born Jean Thompson on 20 March 1917 in Lismore, NSW to parents Thomas William Thompson and Hannah Maria Darch Mallett. Jean was the fourth child in the family and another five children were to join the family in the years to come.

I remember hearing when I was a child that Jean had grown up in a poor family where there wasn’t much of anything, which was something I could relate to as my own family wasn’t at all well off when I was growing up. But as a twelve year old, I felt sad at the fact that when Jean was twelve years old, she had the unimaginable loss of her mother and as the eldest girl at home was forced to grow up quickly and take care of the family.

Knowing that Jean and her siblings had grown up poor, I never thought anything of the fact that I didn’t see any photos of her as a child. When I started doing family history, however, I began to be more interested in her growing up and I began to search out photos. I plucked up my courage and got in contact with my great uncle, Jean’s son. Well, lo and behold he volunteered to scan and email me whatever he had as he had all of Jean’s collection of photos at his house.

At first it was candid photos of her as a young woman before she was married and as young mother. And don’t get me wrong, these photos were great and as a family historian I appreciate any and all photos of my ancestors. But then the most exciting photograph appeared in my inbox. Not only was it a photo of Jean as a young girl along with some of her siblings but it was a professional photo in which they all had their best clothes on and were posed so cutely. I was completely amazed. To this day it is one of my favourite photos, perhaps because I was fairly close to Jean and maybe also because I felt sorry for the children in the photo knowing that it was only a few years after the photo was taken that they would lose their mother.

#52ancestors – Where there’s a will

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Still playing catch up but here is my post for ‘Where’s there’s a will’.

I had to think hard about this one as not many of my ancestors left behind a will, as generally they didn’t have much worth passing on. However, the will I am writing about was one that was a surprise not only to me but to the family still remaining.

Mary Ann Webber was born in New South Wales in 1853 and is my 3x great grandmother. I don’t know a lot about her family, besides the fact that her parents arrived in Australia as Assisted Immigrants in 1851, just two years before Mary Ann’s birth, and that they originally hailed from Milverton, Somerset. Mary Ann was born in Berry Park, which is in the Newcastle district with the family staying in the Newcastle area for the next decade or so. However, they eventually moved to the Lismore area and it was here in 1872 that Mary Ann married John Mallett. The couple had a large family, who were all raised and married in the area with many descendants still living there today.

Now, to the will. Imagine my surprise when playing around on the State Records site one day, just typing in names into Archives Investigator to see if anyone in my tree had a probate file. Mary Ann’s husband John didn’t have a probate file but his name came up in the results list as Mary Ann had a probate file. Well, this was a momentous discovery. She is one of only two women I’ve come across in my tree who have had enough property for a probate to be deemed necessary. Enclosed in the probate packet is a will, dated 13 August 1910 which was acted upon on Mary Ann’s death in 1916.

What is interesting is that at the time of the will being written, and indeed at the time of her death, Mary Ann’s husband is still living and yet the property at which the couple reside in Show View Street, Lismore is owned by Mary Ann. In the early 1900s it was still very unusual for a married woman to own property in her own right, yet here was a woman with just that. I don’t know where the property came from yet, perhaps her parents? But, I do know where the property went after her death. Out of all her children, male and female, Mary Ann left her property to her youngest daughter Hannah Maria Darch Mallett.

The house that the Thompsons lived in. Show View Street/Parade Street, Lismore.

Why did she leave the property to Hannah? Well, the will doesn’t give a reason but perhaps it was due to the fact that at the time the will was written all her other children were well established with spouses and children and Hannah was not. It could also have to do with the fact that at the time the will was written, Hannah was not married but she did have a newborn daughter. So perhaps it was her mother’s way of ensuring she was looked after even if she didn’t find a husband? Interestingly, the will specifies that the property should remain in Hannah’s name even if she should marry which she did in 1911. So Hannah then became a woman of property as her mother had done. This perhaps was a blessing as it gave Hannah and her husband, along with their young family, a stable home which they might not have had otherwise. Hannah’s youngest child  recalls that there was never very much money around when she was growing up, and expressed great surprise at the fact that the property had been owned by her mother. On Hannah’s death, the property passed into the ownership of her husband Thomas Thompson where he remained until old age.