Connections, six degrees of separation and jigsaw puzzles!
Today's blog is all about
connections to other cemeteries and that six degrees of separation factor.
Jigsaws abound and who doesn't like a jigsaw to complete?
The central person in this
tale had his headstone liberated from an entanglement of weeds and overgrowth
by the hard-working small band of volunteer gardeners a few months ago. After
cleaning another grave nearby, it appears the central person was present at a
pivotal period of that person's life. Later it was discovered that this central
person was related by that "six degrees" to a man at the heart of one
of the greatest battles of the First World War that Australian troops ever
participated in.
Without further ado let me
introduce
REVEREND THOMAS HAYDEN
Thomas Hayden was born in
1820 in Country Cavan, Northern Ireland, the eldest son of the Reverend Robert
John Hayden, the Archdeacon of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. His life was
destined to be in the Church.
Thomas married Agnes Gray
Cory on 31 March 1852 in Templemere Derry, Cavan, Ireland. They went on to have
six children, three of each sex. The first three were born in Ireland with the remaining
trio calling Sydney their birthplace between 1860 and 1869.
The Reverend Thomas Hayden,
wife and first three children arrived in Australia @ 1855/56 and Thomas became the incumbent Minister at the recently built St John's Anglican Church
in Darlinghurst, inner Sydney.
Agnes died on 14th May 1870,
eleven months after the birth of her last child and was the first buried in the
plot located in the old Anglican section of Rookwood.
Five years later the
Reverend Hayden married Miriam Sally Emily Chauvel on 13th February 1875. They spent
over seven years together before Reverend Hayden died on 22nd December 1882.
Miriam, who passed away in
April 1907, was buried in the large family plot at St Jude's Churchyard Cemetery
in Randwick Sydney. She was the only daughter of Major Charles George Temple
Chauvel of the 35th Madras Native Infantry who was the son of
Colonel Chauvel of Middlesex England.
The Chauvels were descended
from a French Hughennot who fled France for England and soon set about making a
family tradition of serving in the British Army. Once he retired, Major Charles
Temple Chauvel came to NSW in 1834 and was a pioneer in the New England region.
Miriam’s younger brother,
Charles Henry, was a breeder of shorthorn cattle and during the Russian Scare
of 1885 raised two troops of light horse in the area. At that time there was a
fear that South Australia would come under attack from Russian warships should
hostilities between Russia and Britain over Afghanistan result in war.
Charles Henry’s son was
Henry George (Harry) Chauvel and was commissioned in his father’s light horse. In
1899 he commanded one of two companies of Queensland Mounted Infantry that were
Queensland’s initial contribution to the Boer War. After the war, he was
closely involved with the training of the Australian Light Horse.
Promoted to Colonel in 1913,
Chauvel became the Australian representative on the Imperial General Staff but
when WW1 broke out, he was still on route to England. Chauvel arranged for the
Australian Infantry Force to be diverted to Egypt where he joined his new
command, the 1st Light Horse Brigade in December. In March 1916,
Chauvel became commander of the Anzac Mounted Division, gaining victories in the
Battle of Romani in August and the Battle of Maghaba in December and almost
winning the First Battle of Gaza in March 1917. The following month he took
over the Deserted Mounted Corps and thereby becoming the first Australian to
command a Corps as well reach the rank of Lieutenant General. At Beersheba in
October 1917, his light horse captured the town and its vital water supply in
one of history’s last great cavalry charges. He was knighted after this
triumph.
In 1919, Chauvel was
appointed Inspector General, the Army’s most senior post. He was Chief of
General Staff from 1923 until his retirement in 1930. In November 1929 he
became the first Australian to be to be promoted to the rank of General. During
WW2, he was recalled to duty as Inspector in Chief of the Volunteer Defence
Corps.
He died in 1945, was given a
State funeral and cremated, his ashes placed in Springvale Cemetery
Melbourne.
His daughter, Sybyle Elyne
Mitchell, Miriam’s great niece, wrote the acclaimed children’s book “The Silver
Brumby”.
Miriam’s great nephew,
Charles Edward Chauvel was the film director who made the classic movie
“Forty Thousand Horsemen” with Chips Rafferty in 1940 and “Jedda” in 1955.
I wonder if the Reverend
Thomas Hayden knew he was marrying into such an illustrious family.
THE MILFORD VAULT
Nearby to Reverend Hayden’s
burial site is the vault for the Milford family.
The gardening group had a
great task releasing this vault from a great deal of overgrowth and found a
granite slab with three crosses, two of which were carved with burial details
and underneath the slab were the remains of two previously standing headstones.
The first burial was for a
child Lucy Sophia who died in May 1869 and the second was for her sister Adelaide
another daughter of Frederick and Adelaide Milford who died in October 1906.
Also in the combined plot is the grave of Adelaide Milford who died in 1923.
There are no other burials in the plots.
It seems that the two crosses under the slab were for Lucy Sophia and sister Adelaide but when their mother, Adelaide died in 1923, the headstones were rested against the earth and a slab placed over them, the third unmarked cross may have been readied for Frederick Milford.
Frederick Milford was born
in 1834 in England, the son of Justice Samuel Frederick Milford who was the
Chief Justice in the early jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and Eliza, his
wife. He was one of six children who sailed to Australia in 1843. Samuel was
appointed a Judge 24 hours upon arrival.
Frederick trained to be a
Doctor in Sydney and Heidelberg Germany, returned to Australia in 1860 and
started a practice almost immediately. His first wife Eliza died in 1864 with
no issue and in 1866 he married Adelaide Fitzgerald on the 2nd of January at St Johns
Darlinghurst which was officiated by the Reverend Thomas Hayden (there’s that six degree
of separation I mentioned before). They went on to have two daughters and five
sons. All the women are buried in Rookwood.
Frederick was a keen
yachtsman and owned many boats. He was the Commodore of the Prince Alfred Yacht
Club and honorary life member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Although he
had an attack of rheumatic fever in his youth leaving him somewhat impaired, he
was remarkably strong in constitution. However, he died of heart disease in
1902 and is buried in the Roman Catholic portion of the Waverley Cemetery in the family vault.
So, there it is, the
Reverend Thomas Hayden is linked to the Chauvel family via marriage who are
buried elsewhere, his second wife, Miriam in the family plot at St Jude's
Churchyard Cemetery in Randwick. He is linked to the Milford's who are buried
near him as he officiated at Frederick and Adelaide’s marriage with Frederick
being buried in a family vault in Waverley Cemetery.
It’s a tangled web we weave
– but oh, such an interesting one!
For this blog I referenced
ancestry.com, Wikipedia, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian War
Memorial records and various Trove newspaper searches.
If you have any comments
about today’s blog, please add them below or at the group Facebook page which
can be found under
rookwoodcemeterydiscoveries.blogspot.com
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Until next week!
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