Simple magnificence in Stone!
Last week's blog was formed from a glance at a beautifully carved monument. This week's blog is following on from that same idea.
The headstone is very close to last week's one and quite unique in its design. The families from which the people buried there came from were prominent ones from the earliest days of the colony.
DAVID HENRY DUNLOP
David, the eldest child of David Dunlop (Snr) and Eliza Hamilton was born in Londonderry Northern Ireland on 12 May 1794. He joined his parents, and 3 siblings onboard the 'Superb' arriving in Botany Bay on 26 February 1838.
David Snr, although a bookseller in Ireland, was appointed a Magistrate in Penrith for a short time before being appointed to the position of Police Magistrate and Protector of Aborigines in Wollombi NSW in 1839, a position he held for ten years. He was the youngest son of Captain William Dunlop who had lost his life in the Irish Rebellion of ’98. Eliza, his wife, was the daughter of Solomon Hamilton, Supreme Court Judge for India. After her first husband, an astronomer and poet died, she married David Dunlop in 1823. Eliza was a poet and one of her first poems "The Aboriginal Mother" was published soon after the Myall Creek Massacres which occurred just after the Dunlop's arrival in Wollombi and saw the deaths of 29 First Nations people. Eliza wrote more poems and anecdotes as well as a play. She helped preserve the language of the local people and was aided by her daughter Rachel in documenting this information. The family lived in “Mulla Villa” in Wollombi and she lived on there after David's sudden death in 1860, whilst on his way to the Court House, until her demise in 1880. Their home is now a guest house. They are buried at Wollombi Cemetery.
"Mulla Villa" - Wikipedia with thanks
David Henry, their son, was appointed a Clerk of Petty Sessions in Dubbo in the central west of NSW in 1847, a position he retained until 1852. He married Thalia Mary Raine on 18 October 1851 in nearby Wellington and together they went on to have ten children; one a niece being adopted upon the death of her mother. Later he is listed as being a grazier in the Gunnedah area where he died on 2nd June 1874.
Thalia, David Henry’s wife, came from an esteemed family. She was born in November 1832 at “Rainham” (sometimes referred to as “Raineville”) Bathurst. Her father, Thomas Raine was a merchant marine who sailed for Australia in 1814 as a junior officer on the convict ship “Surry” when an epidemic of typhus left him the only surviving officer. As the acting master of the ship, he sailed to China in order to collect cargo and return to England. On the way he examined part of the Great Barrier Reef with Raine Passage and Raine Island being named after him. Confirmed as Captain, Raine made five more voyages to Australia, some with convicts. After he escorted Governor Macquarie to England in 1822, he set up the firm of Raine & Ramsay, general merchants, shipowners and agents, maintaining an active hand as Captain of “Surry” until 1827. Raine did have difficulties in business and went bankrupt at one stage but salvaged his business: perhaps a little naïve in the ways of that world and lacking money for his big ventures.
He had much greater success at his Bathurst property where he engaged in wheat and dairy farming, built the first flourmill in the area and established the large Boree Station. Thomas Raine had three children with his first common law wife, Jane Wright and ten with his wife Fanny Ellina Woosley. Thalia’s youngest sister, Elizabeth Richardson, was mentioned in a previous blog which highlighted the simple beauty of the family stone in the name of George Sutherland Caird, her husband, under which they lie. Click onto his name in the tag below to view that blog for more information. Thomas’ grandson, Thomas Raine Raine, set up the firm of Raine and Horne, Real Estate Agents. Thomas died in 1860 and is buried at Camperdown Cemetery, Newtown.
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Thalia joined her husband in the family plot when she died in 1898, some 24 years after David Henry’s death. The plot also contains their children, Margaret Augusta Raine and Christopher Raine. It is located in old Anglican area section C.
Unfortunately, I have no information about the artist who created the masterpiece in stone that is the family headstone, which to my knowledge is unique to the Cemetery. The exquisite shawl-like carving looks like satiny velvet and is truly beautiful.
Once again, a headstone reveals so much more when you start to investigate the lives of those who lie beneath it. In this case, it was the family of the Dunlop's and the Raine’s who were respected citizens in the early days of the Colony that combined to make a rather grand family tree.
References today ancestry.com; Australian Royalty, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Find a Grave and Trove.
If you have any insights about the family etc., please feel free to add them below or at the group Facebook page to be found under
rookwoodcemeterydiscoveries
or send me a personal message at
lorainepunch@gmail.com
Until next time
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