Tucked away on the northern fringe of the Aurora development at Epping is Sweetingham Lane. I found it on Google Maps from my desk here in England whilst researching my family history. I was sure the lane was named after my ancestor but could I prove it?
William Sweetingham was born in Southampton in 1811 and apprenticed to his father. The Sweetinghams were cordwainers; makers of high quality shoes. William was a wild youth and in 1827 he received a month in prison with hard labour for stealing the branch of an oak tree on Southampton Common. Six years later, having married; he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death. This was commuted to transportation for life and in January 1834 aboard the “Arab” he sailed for Van Diemen’s Land. He left a pregnant wife and their two young children behind in Southampton.
The Tasmanian records show that William was far from a model prisoner. The penal authorities reduced their costs by assigning prisoners to local employers who would house and feed them but William was often in trouble for breaking the regulations. Twice he was flogged and several times he returned to cells and bread and water. In 1843 he seemed to settle down perhaps under the influence of a “good woman” who he sought permission to marry in 1844. Eliza Newton was also a transported prisoner and the application was approved subject to the priest being “satisfied they were free to marry”. Officialdom seems to have turned a blind eye to many obviously bigamous marriages of this sort. William and Eliza probably did marry at Newtown, Tasmania, on 20th May 1844, but there is no sign of her when William was released on licence on April 1847 and headed for Port Phillip (now Melbourne). Did she die?
What happened to William between 1847 and 1858 I do not know. Maybe he joined the gold rush! Somehow he did make a little money but I have to thank a famous murder for further news of his progress.
In 1864 rumours had surfaced at Epping that a lady called Mary Burke had disappeared and that her husband’s claim that she had run off to Melbourne or Sydney did not ring true. Everyone knew that she had a drinking problem and that her husband was a brute who beat her. In February a police inspector, a detective, and two constables from Melbourne came to Epping to make enquiries. Behind the Traveller’s Home Hotel they dug around and found the skeleton of a woman in a shallow grave. They were quickly satisfied that this was Mary Burke. Her husband Bartholomew, brother of the publican, was long gone.
The Melbourne Argus reported the inquest at length and two of the key witnesses were William Sweetingham and his new wife Julia (Tobin). From their accounts of the unfortunate Mary Burke we know that the Burkes lived in a tent behind the Travellers Home Hotel. In that tent Bartholomew clubbed his wife to death and then buried her under the floor of the tent. The grave was shallow because Epping suffers from bluestone rock near the surface. Even so Bartholomew was able to strike his tent some days later and make off undetected.
All sorts of details of life in Epping spring from the pages of The Argus. The two pubs, the Epping Hotel and the Travellers Home, seem to have been amongst the few solid buildings around. The roads would have been dirt tracks and the growing town of Melbourne was many hours ride away on horseback. Bush rangers were still to be found. Most people, including the Sweetinghams, were living in tents, albeit made a bit more solid by the provision of wooden doors. William told of coming to Epping in May 1858 when he bought three plots of government land there at auction. These plots were of half an acre each and lay side by side between Cooper Street and Wedge Street just off Epping High Street, in Section 13. He paid £7 per plot. William spoke of his daughter’s tent and I know that she emigrated from Southampton, England, with her husband, Henry Dixon and their young son; arriving in April that year. William’s son also emigrated from England (in 1863) and joined his father in Epping, so maybe William bought the three plots with that in mind. Maybe he also helped pay for their passages. What they all thought of their new step-mother one can only wonder! They had just left their own mother alive and well back in England. Of course there was an irony here. By now William’s English wife had herself re-married – TWICE!
I am indebted to John Waghorn of the Whittlesea Historical Society who found proof positive that the William Sweetingham at Epping was indeed my ancestor. From him I know that William continued living and making shoes at Epping from 1863 to 1887 when he sold up his land and business. Two tragedies changed his life and there were more to come. In 1884 William found his wife Julia floating in their well where she seemed to have accidently overbalanced. She was 84. Then in 1888 William’s son died at Williamstown aged 57. It seems that both of William’s children, with their families, having found their Australian feet in Epping, quickly moved to burgeoning Williamstown where the prospects were better. I can picture a rather lonely William back in Epping, beginning to think about his other family back in England.
Sometime in 1888/89 William Sweetingham bought a steamer ticket back to England. How different this sea crossing would have been from the sailing ship out in 1834. Southampton was now only seven weeks away via the Suez Canal and the weather would hardly affect the schedule. To start with the reunion with his first family seems to have been a happy one. He went to live with his married daughter in Portsmouth and he bought her a house. Perhaps he felt that he had given his other two children a leg up in life and now he wanted to do something for daughter Mary. He shows up there in the census for England in April 1891 but something then went terribly wrong.
I have a newspaper report for Southampton on the 9th December 1893 and the headline reads “An Old Man’s Attempted Suicide”. William was found by two police constables on Southampton Common (perhaps near that oak tree) bleeding from a failed attempt to cut his own throat. He told the police and the magistrates that “I am tired of life at the age of 83. I have no money and cannot beg.” Seemingly he had splashed his money about and when it was all gone the family did not want to know him anymore. A local vicar persuaded the magistrates to discharge the defendant and made an appeal for money with which to look after William. The appeal was short lived and William eventually ended up in the vast West End Workhouse on the edge of town where he died in 1898 aged 87.
Having turned his life around after transportation, and having changed the lives of his children and grandchildren so completely, what a sad end this was. If only he had stayed in Australia…
Chris Madden chrisandtru@virginmedia.com
