Guide to the Papers of the Brown Family, 2001

Summary

Collection number:

MS 9645

Creator:

Weir, Alison

Extent:

0.003 Gigabytes and [33 digital files + 5 x 3.5 inch floppy disk(s)]

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of the Brown Family, National Library of Australia, MS 9645, [series/file/item number(s)]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

Transcripts (digital) created by Alison Weir of various members of the Brown, Hamilton and Hoey families in Australia and Scotland.

Correspondence between James Hoey (husband of Maggie Brown) and the Brown family in Scotland (1829-1899). The correspondence describes life in Melbourne and conditions and daily life on the goldfields at Bendigo and Eaglehawk.

Journal of Andrew Hamilton (husband of Jane), 1852 describing his voyage to Australia on barod the SS Birmingham and his subsequent travel to the gold diggings in Ballarat, Victoria.

Correspondence between Jane Hay Brown who arrived in Australia in 1859 and family and friends.

Hamilton correspondence, discussing church, family and business affairs.

Letters of Robert Hoey.

All correspondence refers to fellow Scots in Australia.

The transcripts were created by Alison Weir in 2001 according to their last modified date. Further information on the original file format is available upon request.

Biographical Note:

Robert Brown (1795-1847) was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, and trained as a Calvinist minister. He was ordained in 1823 and in the same year became a minister at Crumnock, Ayrshire, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1826 he married Margaret Anderson.

They had four children: Jane Brown (b. 1827), Margaret (Maggie) Brown (b. 1830), Jessie Brown (b. 1833) and James Brown (b. 1835).

After her husband's death in 1847, Margaret Brown moved to a house in Hill Street, Glasgow, where she took in lodgers. Among the first were James Hoey (b. 1832) and his brother, Thomas Hoey.

Maggie Brown became engaged to James Hoey in 1852. News of the Victorian gold rushes led James and Thomas Hoey, their sister Catherine Buckie, and their brothers-in-law John Buckie and Andrew Hamilton, to leave Scotland.

The Hoeys and Buckies sailed on the SS Birmingham, which reached Melbourne in October 1852, and Hamilton, who was a widower, followed two months later on the SS Cleopatra. James and Thomas Hoey went to Ballarat, while the Buckies and Hamilton stayed in Melbourne.

In September 1854, Maggie Brown arrived on the SS Great Britain and in the same month, she married James Hoey. Their son Robert was born in 1855 and in the same year, they moved to Eagle Hawk near Bendigo. Maggie had been in poor health even before she left home and her condition worsened in Australia.

In 1859 Jane Brown decided to join her in Victoria and she sailed to Melbourne on the SS Royal Charter. She arrived in time to see her sister, but three months later Maggie Brown died.

Jane Brown settled in Melbourne and married Andrew Hamilton in 1860. In 1863 they moved to Eagle Hawk, where Jane later opened a school.

James Hoey subsequently married Mary Mortley and they moved to New Zealand, but she died in childbirth. James himself died at Bendigo in 1865, followed by Tom Hoey in 1867 and Andrew Hamilton in 1869.

Jane Hamilton and her two children returned to Scotland in 1870. Her mother Margaret Brown, the recipient of many of the family letters, died in the same year. Jane's son, John Hamilton, eventually became a schoolteacher. Jane Hamilton died in 1895.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The digital files were created by and donated to the Library by Alison Weir in August 2002 on five 3.5 inch floppy disk(s). The contents were extracted from the disks to create master preservation and delivery copies. The original transfer disk(s) have been removed from the collection and stored separately. They are not available for access.

Arrangement:

Digital files are arranged in five folders, which correspond to the five 3.5 inch floppy disk(s) containing the original files. Files have been maintained in order according the index for each disk.

The Titles of the files correspond to the title on each of the five 3.5 inch floppy disk(s).

The titles of each individual item (from first line of the document itself) have been retained where possible. Where the original title contained too little information, the archivist has applied a title (indicated by the use of square brackets).

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Society and culture
Born Digital

Names:

Weir, Alison

Conditions Governing Access:

Available for Research.

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s)

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of the Brown Family, National Library of Australia, MS 9645, [series/file/item number(s)]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

Contact us