Guide to the Papers of the Brown Family (as filmed by the AJCP), 1829-1899

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Summary

Collection number:

M858-M863

Creator:

Brown Family

Extent:

945 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

Correspondence, initially between James Hoey, who migrated to Victoria in 1852 with his brother Thomas, and the Brown Family, describing life in Melbourne. Maggie Brown travelled to Australia in 1854 to marry James Hoey and their letters to the family in Scotland relate domestic news and tell of conditions on the goldfields at Bendigo and Eaglehawk, where Thomas and James Hoey began prospecting in 1856 with their brother-in-law John Buckie. Jane Hay Brown arrived in Australia in 1859 on the Royal Charter to care for her sister Maggie, who died later that year. All correspondents refer to activities of fellow Scots in Australia.

File 60 (M862) contains a journal kept by Andrew Hamilton in 1852, describing in detail his departure for Australia in July 1852 on the Birmingham, his arrival in Melbourne and journey to the diggings at Ballarat with Thomas Hoey. Jane married Andrew Hamilton in 1860, but continued to care for her sister Maggie's two children. James Hoey was principal of St Mungo Mining Co, Eaglehawk, and the Hamilton letters tell of their move to Eaglehawk to try their luck at prospecting following Andrew's lack of success in business. Church and family affairs, as well as business affairs and economic conditions, are discussed. The discovery of gold in New Zealand prompted James Hoey to travel to Dunedin in 1863 with his new wife. The letters tell of James and Maggie's children being left orphans in 1865, and of the son Robert being sent to Paisley, Scotland, to live with his uncle James W. Brown. The final letters were written by Jane's nephew Robert Hoey, who went to Fiji in 1883, but by 1895 was living in Sydney. Family and domestic news predominate, but employment prospects and financial conditions are referred to, as well as Jane Hamilton's death c.1898. Family photographs are included on reel M863.

Biographical / Historical:

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. The Brown Family began to disperse, with James Brown training as a Presbyterian minister and eventually settling in Paisley. Jane Brown was later to be a governess in Germany. 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.

Reference: Alison Weir. A family history for the Brown-Hamilton letters, n.d.

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:: Available for Access.
Conditions Governing Use:: Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.