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Blog postWhen I wrote about Ellen Whybrew in November last year, my information was all based on official records. But now I've received new information, direct from descendants of the Whybrew family, which sheds new light on some of the things that seemed uncertain or odd.Just to recap, "Aunt Nell" as she was known to the family, was the daughter of David and Susan Whybrew. She was born in Colchester in
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Blog postThis may sound silly, but the first time I saw The Edward Street Baby Farm classified as ‘true crime’, it took me by surprise. Of course, a non-fictional story centred around a murder trial must involve a crime. But as I was writing the book I’d mostly thought of it as biography. I wanted to tell the stories of the three people whose lives intersected in the trial and the events leading up to it. I’d also thought of it as a social history of Perth in the early 1900s.
These days I’m mo -
Blog postLast week I had fun recording a podcast with Jessie Stephens from MamaMia, the online magazine. We covered the story behind the Alice Mitchell trial, which is at the heart of The Edward Street Baby Farm.
Listen to it now on True Crime Conversations. Or look for it in your favourite podcast directory.
The post New podcast – True Crime Conversations appeared first on Stella Budrikis.
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Blog postJohn Street, ColchesterI'd like to share some of the fascinating information that was sent to me recently with the photo of Susan Mason. It was recorded from a conversation with Susan's granddaughter, Violet, late in life. Violet had never met her grandparents, Susan and David. Her memories were based on recollections of what her mother, Ada, had told her, many years earlier. So the source is
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Blog postOne of the most frequent comments I hear about The Edward Street Baby Farm is ‘How come I’ve never heard about this before?’ That was my own reaction when I first came across the ‘baby farming case’ and the 1907 Alice Mitchell trial. It caused a sensation at the time, and had such a significant impact on Western Australia’s legal system. How could it have been forgotten?
The Old Courthouse Law Museum.
Image from Heritage Perth There is at least one place in Perth where the Alic -
Blog post(Click to enlarge)This stunning image was sent to me by a lady who had just read my book 'Susan'. The original belonged to her grandmother, Ada. When it arrived by email it felt like Christmas all over again. Have you guessed who it is?Yes, it's Susan Whybrew (nee Mason) the subject of the book. I understand the photo was taken in 1914, when Susan would have been in her sixties and living in
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Blog postThe fate of Rose Whybrew after 1918 has been one of those brick walls that has been a long time in coming down. But I think I've finally cracked it. And I had the evidence I needed all along, without realising it.To summarise what I already knew, Rose (born 1877) was the fifth daughter of David and Susan Whybrew (nee Mason). She and her husband, George Henry Anthony, migrated to Chicago in the
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Blog postKathleen O’Connor of Paris, by West Australian author Amanda Curtin, introduced me to a woman and an artist I’d heard about only vaguely before.
Kathleen, or ‘Kate’ as she preferred to be called, was born in New Zealand and grew up in Fremantle. Her father, C.Y. O’Connor, is well known in Western Australia for his role in building major infrastructure projects, such as Fremantle harbour and the Coolgardie pipeline. But Kate spent most of her adult life working among the artists in Par -
Blog postI was looking again recently at the records I have for the children of David and Susan Whybrew (nee Mason). Of the fourteen offspring born to Susan, I've found the date of death for all but two - Rose, who disappears without trace in America after 1918, and Ellen (known in childhood as Nellie). I've written about Rose several times. Here's what I know about Ellen, the Whybrew's eleventh child.
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Blog postIf you enjoy reading about the less well-known aspects of Western Australia’s social history, here are three great sites that I recommend. They are all carefully researched, well written and full of fascinating details.
Hay St looking east, c 1880s The Dusty Box I’ve mentioned this site before. Jessica Barratt takes unusual and quirky newspaper articles from the past, then digs out the details using Trove, the State Records Office and other sources. The stories she tells offer intrigu -
Blog postOn 16 March, 1907, the Western Mail newspaper published this full page cartoon, portraying Perth woman Alice Mitchell as Mrs Gamp.
(Click on the image to see it in more detail in it’s original setting). The cartoon, penned by Ben Strange, created some controversy. At the time, Mrs Mitchell was sitting in prison, awaiting trial for the murder of baby Ethel Booth. John Norton, the editor of the rival newspaper Truth, claimed that it amounted to contempt of court. Or as he put it:
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Blog postAnyone who has delved into their own family history would be aware that, in the past, few families escaped the pain of losing at least one child before their first birthday. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the infant
The post Why so many babies died – infant mortality in Western Australia in the 1900s appeared first on Stella Budrikis.
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Blog postA friend who is related to the Whybrews has sent me this photo of a family from Colchester. It was found among family photos, but neither of us know who they are. Does anyone recognise them? Here's another photo, also from Colchester. The reverse has the name of a photographic studio, Bradley and Blowers. If you can tell us anything about these photos, please leave a comment, or message me via
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Blog postYes, it has finally arrived – the release date for The Edward Street Baby Farm. When Fremantle Press accepted my manuscript early last year, I was so excited. When they said it wouldn’t be ready for publication until October 2020, my heart sank. It seemed such a long time to wait. But with all that has happened in the meantime, it doesn’t seem that long now.
The book centres on the story of a murder trial that took place in Perth in 1907 and follows the fascinating, intertwined lives -
Blog postMy husband once described an early draft of The Edward Street Baby Farm as “your biography of Harriet Lenihan”. It’s not quite that, but Harriet Patricia Lenihan certainly had a central role in the 1907 murder trial at the heart of the book. In fact, I was so intrigued by Harriet that she was one reason I decided to write it.
Harriet was born in Limerick in 1855. She came from a family steeped in literature, music and politics. Her father, Maurice, was the owner and editor of the Lime -
Blog postWalter Lindrum, the champion billiards player, was born in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia in 1898. He was the son of Frederick Lindrum, another billiards great, and Harriet Mary Atkin, both from Adelaide. His grandmother, Mary Ann Atkin (nee Mason) was the sister of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason. I recently came across this video about him. It looks as if it was made in the 1970s and
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Blog postIt’s only a month now before Fremantle Press release The Edward Street Baby Farm. So I’ve had fun on canva.com, putting together words, images and music to give a taste of what the book is about. Thanks to Amy Budrikis and Katie Stewart for their helpful comments and suggestions.
The post ‘The Edward Street Baby Farm’ book trailer appeared first on Stella Budrikis.
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Blog postIn my post about Henry Hartland, I mentioned that I'd received an email from a descendant of Jane Mason. (Jane was a younger sister of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason). She has very kindly provided me with an outline of the story of Jane's daughter, Lizette. Here it is, with some additional information that I've found online.The Shamrock Hotel (since renamed several times) in 1927Lizette
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Blog postHere's a small milestone for this blog. According to Statcounter, posts on this site have been viewed 10,000 times. That's probably not an exact count, since all sorts of variables come into how visits are counted. And it has taken since April 2012 to get there. But it's good to know that what I'm writing is of continued interest to people. Thanks for your support, especially those of you who
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Blog postTwo years ago I wrote a post about Jane and Bridget Mason, the two youngest sisters of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason. I mentioned that I'd come across a child named Naomi, reportedly born in 1881 to a Jane Mason in the Adelaide Railway station. I wasn't sure if this was the same Jane Mason or not. A couple of weeks ago I was excited to receive an email from someone who is a descendant
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Blog postI've just discovered that the contact form on this blog isn't working, and may not have been working for some time. Apparently this is a problem affecting many blogs and Blogger is working on it. I don't know how many messages haven't been forwarded to me. If you've tried to contact me in the recent past and haven't received a reply, my apologies. Until the problem is fixed, please send messages
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Blog postSt Andrews Church, Wormingford, where most of James and Sarah Whybrew's family were baptised. After discovering that records for Sarah Baldwin's family are now available online, I decided to look again at the background for James Whybrew, Sarah's husband. Previously I'd come to a brick wall with his birth in about 1801 (a very rough date provided by the 1841 UK census). I didn't know where
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Blog postAre you afraid of letting God get a grip on you? Do you stand at a distance, too scared to let him get close? Do you fear what he might do with you, or ask you to do, if you handed over your life to him? In one sense, we should all be afraid of God. We should never underestimate his power and awesomeness. It is a dreadful thing to fall, unprepared, into the hands of the living God. But it's
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Blog postThis week I've been doing some digging into the history of Sarah Baldwin, my 3x great grandmother. Sarah was the mother of David Whybrew, who married Susan Mason in Adelaide in 1869. What I've found is a still a little speculative, but I thought I'd share it, along with an unusual story about dragons. (Scroll to the end of the post for the dragon story and a summary in tree form of the people
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Blog postAs I've mentioned before, one of the toughest brick walls in my family history research is the fate of Rose Whybrew. Rose, born in Kent, England, in 1877, married George Henry Anthony in Colchester in 1897. Their first child, Harriet, lived only a few months. Rose gave birth to a son, George William, in 1907, not long before the family migrated to the United States via Canada. They settled in
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Blog postI've recently put together some of the articles from this blog and my archives that seem relevant to the present times. They cover topics such as faith, trust, doubt, disasters and questions about God's goodness. The result is 'Faith in Crisis', a small eBook in PDF format that's free to download from my website. I hope and pray that it will be an encouragement to you. UPDATE I've now
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Blog postWhere do you go when life hurts? Who do you turn to when your health falters, when relationships sour, when things happen which leave you feeling sad, angry, weary or frightened? As Christians we know the answer: "Take it to the Lord in prayer." Unfortunately, despite the old song, many of us have learned that it's selfish to pray for ourselves. Ignoring the ache in our hearts, we methodically
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Blog postAs I mentioned at the end of my last post about Rose Davis, I came across a birth registration for Elizabeth Davis in New South Wales while I was looking for Rose, and wondered if she was also a child of George Davis and Catherine (nee Mason). Now that I've done a little research, I've confirmed that she was. Elizabeth's birth was registered in New South Wales in 1870. Her parents' names were
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Blog postIt's always exciting to receive a comment or a message from someone who has found a link to their own family history on my blog. This week I heard from a descendent of Susan Mason's sister Catherine, and discovered another Rose in the family that I hadn't come across before. Port Adelaide c 1870. Image from State Library of SA Catherine (sometimes spelled Katherine in records) was John and
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Blog postThere's a false understanding of the gospel which goes something like this: "Human beings are wretched, worthless creatures, quite useless and valueless to God. But because Jesus died for us, we have become precious to God." It's false because it begins the gospel in the middle of the story. Fallen human beings truly are wretched creatures. But that isn't how God created us. He made us in his
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Blog postI've mentioned before that one of my goals for this year is to bring this blog up to date. That means, amongst other things, updating the family trees (available in the top tabs) and making sure that the Index of Individuals has useful links to profiles and relevant posts. One difficulty with doing this is that often the most up-to-date information I have is stored online, on my family trees
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Blog postSometimes I wonder if God really is good. When I watch the news, or read a newspaper, I wonder how we can keep saying "God is in control". When I see the terrible pain and suffering that people inflict on each other, not just in the world, but even in the church, I sometimes begin to doubt that God is even real. Where is he? What is he doing? Are we just wasting our time in church on Sunday?
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Blog postThe Evil That Men Do, by Marcus K. Paul, (Sacristy Press, 2016) takes an unflinching look at some of the most shameful events in the history of the church, such as the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. It also examines periods in Christian history which are commonly held up to ridicule, such as 16th and 17th century Puritanism, and Victorian religiosity and "do-goodism".The book is well
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Blog postWhen I was a child, I went to church with my parents and attended Sunday school every week. By the time I turned fourteen, there were no other kids my age in the church. The Sunday school supervisor decided that, since he was short of teachers, I could take on a class. So I found myself teaching a class of ten and eleven-year-olds. It was daunting, but I enjoyed finding ways to bring the old
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Blog postOne of the main characters in my upcoming book, The Edward Street Baby Farm, was born in Limerick in 1855. Harriet Lenihan moved to Australia in the 1880s and eventually came to Perth. Her father, Maurice Lenihan, was owner and editor of the Limerick Reporter, and was Mayor of Limerick for several years. He had connections with many of the leading political figures in Ireland. Harriet was very
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Blog postWhen I was growing up, I associated the name 'Hebden Bridge' with romance. My parents had fond memories of taking long walks from Hebden Bridge to scenic Hardcastle Crags when they were courting. By the time I visited the town for the first time in the 1980s, it was an attractive and trendy tourist centre, full of craft shops, boutique food outlets and cafes. But back in the 1860s, when my
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Blog postHusbands Bosworth in Leicestershire is one of those places that I’ve never visited, though I would certainly like to see it one day. So what follows is what I can glean from the Internet. For several generations it was home to the Orton family, ancestors of my maternal grandfather, Albert Edwin Orton Farmland north west of Husbands Bosworth (1) It’s thought that the name was originally “
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Blog postBee mosaic in Manchester Town Hall Image from wikipedia. Everywhere you go in Manchester, you’ll find bees - carved into buildings, decorating bollards and fountains, printed on flags, bumper stickers and tee-shirts, even tattooed on people’s arms. Originally the worker bee symbolised the hard-working and productive labourers in the factories, those hives of activity during the industrial
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Blog postOn 2 March 1834, the Parmelia sailed through the sandstone heads of Port Jackson in New South Wales. Author Thomas Keneally describes the Parmelia's voyage and arrival in his book, The Great Shame: A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New. Hugh Larkin, one of Keneally's wife's ancestors, was one of the 200 or so Irish prisoners on board. John Mason, my great great great grandfather, was
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Blog postWe now leave the villages and towns of Essex so familiar to my great grandfather William Beales, and travel to Adelaide, the birthplace of his wife, Eliza Whybrew. Rundle Street, Adelaide in 1845, by S. T. Gill. (Image from the State Library of Victoria.) Eliza's grandparents, John and Catherine Mason, arrived in South Australia in December 1844, when the colony was less than a decade old.
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Blog post"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14) I once attended a church where the minister would bow his head and intone "The grace of our Lord..." when anyone walked in late, as if the service was about to end. His congregation soon learned to turn up on time! Sometimes the words do seem barely more
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Blog postThe strangely-named village of St Osyth lies about twelve miles (19 km) from Colchester, heading south-east towards the coast of Essex in southern Englad. It's named after a legendary seventh-century chieftan's daughter, Osyth or Osgyth (pictured here in an illuminated manuscript about her life). She apparently left her arranged marriage to become a nun and set up a convent in the village of
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Blog postIn this series of posts on places where my ancestors once lived, we now travel across many counties, from Lancashire in the north-west of England to Colchester, in the south-east. Colchester is one of the oldest towns in Britain. It has had a military presence since the Twentieth Victorious Valeria Legion established a garrison there in 43 AD, during the Roman conquest of Britain under Emperor
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Blog postTrust is important in any relationship. But there are two levels of trust. The first involves our expectation that the other person will do us good rather than harm and will carry out what they say they will do. Over time we learn whether or not to believe the things they promise. The second, deeper, level of trust involves our sense of safety when we are with them, and our willingness to
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Blog postShe was a young, childless widow, an immigrant with no property and no income. He was a respectable land owner in a small town. Their story has a touch of romance, but it's hardly the stuff of history. Why is it included in the Bible? What distinguished Ruth and Boaz from those around them, who lived and died, then rested forgotten within a couple of generations? Why does Ruth´s story appear
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Blog postImagine that a friend gives you a present, rather clumsily wrapped. You know that your friend has very different tastes to yours, in fact, if you were quite truthful, you'd say that they have poor taste. So you unwrap the parcel with some trepidation. Inside you find a plain white candle in some sort of glass candle holder. You try to look impressed, but the thing is unattractive, hideously
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Blog postHere's a paradox - the longer we've been a Christian, the more we come to realise how sinful we really are. We discover that our antagonism towards God runs very deep. Does this sound familiar? Before I turned to Christ, I sometimes felt guilty about specific things I'd done, but I didn't know what to do with the guilt. It was a joy to discover that because of Jesus' death on the cross, I'm
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