| A genealogical presentation of the life and times of the ancestors and descendants of William Henry Mathews (1880 – 1964) and his wife Sarah Louisa Florence Mitchell (1889 – 1972). |
| THE MATHEWS FAMILY LINEAGE |
| James Henry Alexander MATHEWS (1854 – 1896) James was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to an English father William (1811 – 1890) and a Scottish mother Margaret (nee NICHOL; 1831 – 1859). James was William and Margaret’s second child, their first being a girl Alice Lily Margaret (1853 – 1901) born in Hamilton a year earlier. Both births were at the height of a serious Cholera epidemic [1] which accounted for more than 600 deaths. James and his sister barely knew their mother as she tragically died of coronary failure when they were five years old. Their father was a pianoforte maker operating a boutique business tuning upright pianos and harpsichords. At the time of their mother's death the family had moved to Toronto, and it was here [2] that James and his sister began their primary education, albeit at a boarding school as their father was abroad in England for most of the time. In 1867, thirteen-year-old James, who now preferred to call himself Henry, began the adventure of a lifetime, when his father decided to close the Toronto business and return to England. Little did he know that what started as a paddle steamer cruise across Lake Ontario, up the Erie Canal, and onto New York would end in an ocean voyage across the Atlantic to London. For Henry and his sister, meeting aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time was both exciting and overwhelming. There was little time to acclimatise to this new environment however as another voyage was proposed barely a year after their arrival, this time across the Pacific Ocean to Melbourne, Australia. The exact date [3] of the family's arrival is unknown, but they had established a foothold in Emerald Hill by 1870, his father setting up his shingle at No. 32 Clarendon Street. |
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The next two years saw Henry finish his education at the South Melbourne High School whilst sister Alice attended Mrs Rose and Miss Anderson’s Educational Establishment for Young Ladies (see advertisements above). At the beginning of 1872, Henry joined his father in the pianoforte manufacturing business at bigger premises at 150 Clarendon Street. These were exciting times as his father had embarked on a project to build a pianoforte constructed purely of Australian native timber. Henry could not have wished for a more challenging start to his career. |
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During his youth Henry also found notoriety in his leisure pursuits (see article above), and it may well have been at the Emerald Hill sea baths that he met Emma Rising GODDEN (1858 – 1946), his future wife. The couple married on the 8th of August 1877 at 33 Clarendon Street Emerald Hill, the home of the groom's parents. Henry was twenty three and Emma nineteen. Emma had been born in Great Yarmouth, the eldest child of Daniel GODDEN (1811 – 1895), a master mariner from London, England and Susannah Chaplain RISING (1827–1896), a straw-hat maker from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. She had arrived in Melbourne as a babe in arms aboard HMS Kent on the 13th of August 1858. Her childhood had been spent helping in her mother's millinery shop at their Montague Street, Emerald Hill residence. |
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The young couple took up residence at 108 Nelson Road Emerald Hill and within a year had also acquired the building next door (No. 110) on the Lyell Street corner, which Henry proposed as his workshop. 108 Nelson Road, named Toronto Villa, was the first property owned by any member of the Mathews family to date, and it was here that Henry and Emma’s two children were born: Emma Grace in 1878 and William Henry in 1880. In 1880 when his father decided to close his Clarendon Street business, Henry became the beneficiary of his father's tools, equipment and the medal winning pianoforte; the latter becoming a showroom piece at 110 Nelson Road. Fortunately for the prized piano, and the adjoining family residence, an incident involving fire in early 1883 saw a disaster averted by some quick action by Emma. |
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Fortunately for the family both children escaped harm and the damaged floorboards were quickly rectified by the skilled woodworking owner. It may well have been that the piano showroom / workshop at 110 was the intended target. |
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By 1889 Henry had successfully stepped out of his father’s shadow. |
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Like his father, Henry became a freemason, initially as a member of the Australia Felix Lodge of Hiram No. 4 [4], then following his father's death, the South Yarra Royal Arch Chapter No. 38 [5] of which he served as its Worshipful Master. Life changed significantly for Henry when his father died in 1890. Now with an unexpected inheritance he invested the windfall in a renovation of their six-room weatherboard cottage at 108 Nelson Road. What was promised to be a two-year project turned out to be five years with the family moving to a (then) rural residence called Mont Albert at 7 Mont Albert Road, Kew. The change of address only brought sadness as their fifteen-year-old daughter Emma Grace died in 1893. |
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Henry, Emma, and son William moved back into their refurbished residence at Nelson Road in 1894 [6] to be joined by Emma’s ailing parents. For the family it was yet another move which brought sadness when Henry died suddenly on December 28th, 1896. A victim of a ruptured appendix, Henry was only 42. |
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| Emma Rising GODDEN (1858 – 1946) Wife of James Henry Alexander MATHEWS Whilst the England and Wales Register of Civil Births records her name as Emma Godden Rising she was baptised in the parish simply as Emma Rising. Her father’s name was not recorded. Her brother Daniel, born 3 years later, was similarly registered. |
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She would have no knowledge of her early English years or indeed of her journey with her mother and her baby brother across the world to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Emma was 19 when she married JHA “Henry” Mathews and was 38 when he died. She mothered two children, Emma Grace (1878 – 1893) and William Henry (1880 – 1964). When her husband died, Emma and her 16-year-old son William were left beneficiaries of a business in which neither of them had the slightest interest. Indeed William was still at secondary school and more inclined to an academic future, whilst Emma had her own millinery clientele. Eventually in 1898 the piano business at 108 Nelson Road was sold [7] leaving Emma financially secure. As if she had not gone through enough heartache with the loss of her mother, father and husband within the space of eighteen months, the death of her sister-in-law Alice BASKIN-RUTHERFORD in 1901 was devastating. Alice had one child, a daughter Ada, with her first husband Charles BASKIN (1855 - 1887) and now, apart from her son William, Ada was Emma's only living relative. Ada was just 19 years of age when her mother died and fell under the guardianship of her aunt Emma rather than her estranged step-father. Emma had been named executrix [8] of her sister-in-law Alice's estate with Ada and Emma being joint beneficiaries. This estate comprised of land lots in Coburg [9] and a residence [8] named Roma at 53 York Street South Melbourne. Emma, William and Ada remained at 110 Nelson Road until early 1905 [10] and it was only when Ada, now a qualified teacher, was posted to a rural school that the Nelson Road residence was sold; the family opting to move and renovate Roma in York Street South Melbourne [11]. Seemingly, Emma should have been used to tragedy in her life having lost her own fifteen-year-old daughter, but she was devastated when her 26-year-old niece Ada died unexpectedly of lung complications whilst teaching at Wallup. Since leaving Nelson Road Emma's life had become a whirlwind. The York Street residence (which she now fully owned since Ada's death), having been renovated, was now leased. Son William had left home and was leasing a residence at 39 Fawkner Street South Yarra, whilst Emma was leasing at 16 Service Crescent Albert Park. When William married in 1909, Emma’s life changed direction, yet again. The 1909 Australian Electoral Roll shows Emma, William and new daughter-in-law Florence living at 39 Fawkner Street South Yarra, a move for Emma that coincided with the birth of her first grandson William John. The family split again the following year when Emma purchased a residence at 49 Nimmo Street Middle Park [12] whilst William, Florence and their son moved back into York Street South Melbourne. |
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In 1915, at the age of 57, Emma remarried; the groom being a 49-year-old widower named Reuben Roberts. Reuben (1866 – 1922), a Yorkshireman and retired blacksmith was a Councillor for the city of Northcote's North Ward when he met and married Emma. This may well have been a union of convenience, with Reuben (needing to be married) running for Mayor the following year. Reuben was duly elected in 1919 and he and his lady mayoress wife Emma served the Northcote community for 2 years. |
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The Australian Electoral Rolls between the years 1915 – 1922 (the year of Reuben's death) do not register Emma and her husband living in the same dwelling. The year Reuben was elected mayor, Emma was a registered voter in Northcote at 71 Gooch Street, whilst Reuben was registered at 66 Jenkins Street. Civic duties complete, Reuben retreated to the Gippsland countryside where he purchased a dairy farm at Poowong with his two sons from his first marriage. Emma remained in the city moving to a property at 60 Shoobra Road Elsternwick. Reuben's farming pursuits were short lived as he became seriously ill on his Poowong farm during the late summer of 1922. Reuben's will, written in St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne just prior to his death on the 19th of February, bequeaths his estate to his two sons, whilst wife Emma is recognised with a payment of £50. Emma continued her nomadic existence over the next twenty-four years, living in Elwood (at 2 Broadway) and Windsor (at 119 Albert Street). Emma's last abode was at Keith House Convalescent Home (Cnr. Balaclava Road and Orrong Road St Kilda East) where she died on the 9th of May 1946, aged 88. |
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References
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