In Search of a New Life in Victoria, Australia

 by Roberta McGee

James Neilson, a cartwright/joiner and his wife Jean McGuffie lived in Wigtownshire, Scotland and had a large family of at least nine children all born in Wigtownshire. Three of these children, John Gifford Neilson, Peter Neilson and Nicholas Neilson (who was female) all had close links with Old Cumnock and seemed to have adopted Cumnock as their home town. 

John Gifford Neilson was born in 1829 in Penninghame, Dumfries & Galloway, Wigtownshire. On the 1851 census we find him working as a farm labourer at Auchincross Farm, New Cumnock. We also find on the 1851 census for Whitehill Farm, New Cumnock, 17 years old house servant Margaret McMillan. Margaret was the daughter of an agricultural labourer John McMillan from Pathhead, New Cumnock. Auchincross and Whitehill were close to each other and this would be when John and Margaret would most likely meet each other. 

                                                          National Library of Scotland

They were both young and adventurous and 23rd December 1851 finds John and Margaret being married in South Shields, Durham, England, where John's brother Peter was living at that time. The following year, on 4th October 1852, they sailed into Geelong in Victoria, Australia on the emigrant ship 'Araminto' with the addition of their baby son James who had been born on board ship.

It was a nightmare journey for the passengers on the 'Araminto' . It had 365 emigrants on board, mostly Highlanders, when it left Liverpool for Geelong. Of these 365 passengers 27, including 2 babies, died of measles, dehydration or dysentry during the 103 day voyage. 

Gore’s Liverpool General Adviser 27/5/1852

Why would they choose to emigrate to Victoria, Australia? The date they sailed is significant. In July 1851 the Colony of Victoria was established with its own government within the British Empire. In that year too gold was discovered in Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Buninyong and this sparked off Victoria's famous gold rush with thousands of prospectors arriving each week from all over the world to seek their fortunes. In an attempt to discourage the huge influx of gold miners a thirty shilling per month licence fee was imposed which was quite a hefty sum. Over the space of one year Bendigo was transformed from a sheep station into a bustling town of 40,000 people.

 John was an agricultural worker while in New Cumnock and in 1852 Victoria was desperate for experienced farm hands. Many farmers, or squatters as they were known, and farmhands had left their stations (a station was a ranch or farm) for the diggings so farming jobs were plentiful. On arrival steamers took prospective employers out to the ship and they would negotiate a reasonable wage. John was hired at £85 per annum to work at Woady Yallock, Cressy.  This was well above the going rate for farm workers. (Source: Victoria & Australia, Assisted & Unassisted Passenger Lists , 1839-1923)

 

With so many people converging on the area more food and provisions were required and stations diversified by changing over from sheep to cattle to feed the growing population. Later John secured employment at the Yarima Sheep Station, Cressy, eventually becoming manager and worked there for 50 years.  He died at Yarima on 3rd November 1906 about six weeks after his brother Peter who also lived near Cressy.

Trove - also Cumnock Connections - 1904 - 'Came to Yarima from Cumnock, Scotland'

Eleven months after John's death, on the owner Thomas Russell's instructions, there was a subdivisional sale by public auction of 7800 acres of the richest portions of the Yarima Sheep and Cattle Station 'comprising rich fattening land, extra choice dairy farm, superior wool-growing country and most perfect wheat areas now surveyed and sub-divided into lots to suit buyers of all classes.'

Yarima Station, Cressy - Image Western Families

                 John and Margaret had six sons and three daughters and MANY descendants

John Gifford Neilson and his extended family at Yarima in 1902
Image - Trove 

On 30th December 1856 John's brother Peter Neilson, accompanied by his wife Isabella and daughter Jane Ann, arrived in Australia. On the 1851 census for Westhoe, South Shields, England, Peter, a widower, and his five years old daughter Jane were lodging with mariner's widow Isabella Smith and her two daughters. He seems to have married Isabella Richardson sometime between 1851 and 1856, the year they emigrated. The family settled near Cressy and, like his brother John, he worked chiefly in farming and grazing. Peter died at his home there on 20th August 1906. Although Peter was born in Wigtown, Scotland, his obituary, like his brother, records that he was a native of Old Cumnock, Ayrshire.

Image Cumnock Connections - no source

Thomas Nelson was the third brother to emigrate to Victoria. Born in Wigtown he became a sailor and decided to settle in Cressy in 1865 where he married Eliza Ann Perkins in 1869. He was a stone dyker in Cressy and district including at Yarima where his brother John was manager and where Thomas worked for four years. He then grew barley at Mia Mia near Poomeet which he carted to Ballarat. He moved to Donald, an agricultural region known for its wheat, barley and lamb production. Drought forced the family to move back to Cressy where Thomas began working on the roads. Thomas died in Colac, Victoria in 1918, leaving widow Eliza, five sons, four daughters and thirty three grandchildren. He is buried in Cressy Cemetery. ( Source: Western Distict Families, Victoria, Australia.)

Back in Cumnock John, Peter and Thomas had a sister, Nicholas Neilson, who was born in Wigtown in 1826. She married Nicholas Dorrance in 1845 in Wigtown and they moved to Old Cumnock. It must have been confusing when both had the Christian name of Nicholas. Husband Nicholas was a labourer at times but mostly a pedlar. In 1851 they lived at Little Dykes, Old Cumnock, then they moved to Benston Lime Kilns, Old Cumnock and finally settled in Townhead Street, Cumnock. 

Robert Dorrance was their oldest son. He was a ploughman at Barshare farm in Cumnock and married Jane Gilmour in 1872 in Ochiltree. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in April 1874 at Townhead, Cumnock but sadly, three weeks later in May 1874, died of smallpox. Robert's sister Jane's one year old child Jane Dorrance, who also lived in Townhead, had died of the same virus, described on her death certificate as 'variola', on 2nd April one month previously. Tragedy struck Robert again when his wife Jane died on 4th June 1874. She had had phthisis (TB) for six weeks and was only 22 years old. 

Understandably Robert decided to leave Cumnock behind him and emigrate to Victoria, Australia where his three uncles had made new lives for themselves. He soon found employment on farms in the Ballarat area. He returned to Cumnock in 1925 to visit his sister Mary Breckney who lived in Pottery Row, Cumnock. Robert returned to Australia and died in 1929 at Lismorl, Victoria. He doesn't appear to have married again.  

Cumnock Chronicle 1925

Image Victoria Maps & Facts - World Atlas