This document is primarily an account of the backstory to the lives of the author’s parents, Lionel Jones and Patricia Reilly. It is not primarily focused on the lives of Lionel and Patricia but is rather an investigation into the lives of their forebears. Much of the discussion focusses on the colonial period prior to Federation in 1901. The document is as much a story of the Western District as it is a genealogical study of a family.
The first to arrive in Australia were predominantly poor people who worked for those who were wealthier and better educated. These men and women largely came from the “lower orders,” having moved from their homelands often without exercising any great agency in the matter. They were not part of the decision-making class.
Significant responsibility for the events that occurred in the Western District during the colonial period, including the genocide, lies with the British Crown. To explain what happened in the Western District we need to delve back to the nineteenth century.
The squatters are an important group in Western Victorian history. In the nineteenth century they held substantial power and wielded their authority in ways that were formative to our society. Their legacy endures to this day. Many of our forebears were the servants and labourers who worked for the gentleman of the colony. Considering that our forebears lived their lives in the shadows of the squatters and their ilk, it is important to understand these gentlemen. Squatters were generally regarded as free settlers, in contradistinction to many in the colony who were not.
This document presents the argument that genocide occurred in the Southwest, emphasizing the pivotal role played by the Crown’s agents. The state was involved throughout the process. Tracing how and why the genocide unfolded and identifying those responsible is not particularly challenging. The names of the key figures are in the archive and the key decisions are known. The complex networks of family, business, and landownership among the squatters, and other free settlers of Western Victoria, along with their relationships with the state, can be readily traced.
There is a direct link between the genocide in Tasmania to what subsequently occurred in the Western District. The key to understanding the events in the Western District lies in pastoralism. Squatter pastoralism and the state were intrinsically linked throughout much of the nineteenth century. The distinctive features of squatter pastoralism in the Western District eventually spread across much of the continent, profoundly influencing Australia’s national history. From the 1820s, the British government’s granting of pastoral lands in Van Diemen’s Land to a select group of individuals, followed by the subsequent transfer of this group’s pastoral endeavors to mainland Australia eventually forged a continuous chain spanning the continent. Many of the same squatter families across generations extended the business throughout Australia. The gradual takeover of the continent for pastoral pursuits was methodical, occurring step by step and from one place to another.
The origins of the squatters can be traced back to Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The class system that developed during this period was closely tied to the rise of Empire and Britain’s position as a leading global power. Achieving the status of a gentleman typically involved engaging in pastoral, mercantile, or military pursuits. Professions such as the law, medicine and the clergy also played a significant role.
The British gentry who migrated to Australia formed an elite class at the center of power. They generally claimed a higher moral standing and were instrumental in shaping the nation’s ideology. This class profited immensely from their roles as agents of imperial expansion, especially from the 1820s, as more British free settlers arrived in Australia.
The standard histories of Victoria have often glossed over the contributions of the families of the servant classes and rural laborers, downplaying the significance and impact of social class. Discussion of social class in terms of one’s own family inevitably involves revealing a history of struggle and disadvantage, which can be divisive. People have differing views and often prefer to imagine that their forebears were notable citizens and respectable in society. Consequently, there is a reluctance to recognize one’s family as representative of the underclass, or as servants to an elite. Many of the forebears in this family history were servants and labourers working for the gentry class.
When examining historical accounts from the late nineteenth century, free settlers are typically those who arrived in this country through their own volition and resourcefulness. Squatters are often depicted as the quintessential free settlers. Many were leaders of the Protestant churches and thus laid claim to set the moral order for society. Free settlers administered British law in conjunction with the security and police forces of the colonial state. Invariably, they were loyal servants and agents of the Crown, often serving as honorary magistrates, for example.
The lives of our forebears can illustrate the story of migration to Australia. Migration was a large-scale, organized endeavor governed by policy decisions made at the highest levels of the state. The government’s bureaucracy held agency, deciding policy based on economic and ideological considerations. The assisted migration system was managed by designated agents, contracted to deliver services and motivated by profit.
In the narratives of the colonial period, a distinction is made between those Europeans who arrived as free settlers and those who came as convicts or assisted immigrants. A number of the forebears in this account were assisted immigrants who arrived in Portland and then lived in the Western District. Thousands of impoverished immigrants arrived in Portland in the mid-1850s. Far from home, they were colonial “subjects” of the British Crown whether they like it or not.
A nation is not synonymous with a state. Nations existed long before the state emerged. Although the term “First Nations” is aptly used to refer to Aboriginal societies, the state, as we understand it today, arrived with the British in 1788. A logical series of steps was taken by the colonizing state to establish a new branch of itself in the “wilderness.” The new branch was planted and nurtured with care and foresight.
It is misleading to think of all those who were not convicts in colonial Australia as being free settlers. There were distinct differences between free settlers and various categories of non-convict arrivals. Convicts were obviously not free, at least during their initial years in the colony. Even though many assisted emigrants sought a better life in Australia, this does not make them entirely “free” people. The degree of volition people could exercise varied enormously. Functionally, many working-class subjects of the British Crown lived lives dependent on the demands and resources of those higher up in the social order. Serving the better off was often one of the few options available to them.
Australia was merely one destination among many within vast global networks of migration. It was not only Europeans who were being relocated. Many individuals from India, for instance, were moved to other British colonies throughout the nineteenth century. Millions of impoverished Chinese also left their homeland. Africans were forcibly transported in vast numbers to the Americas, while millions of penalized Russians were exiled to Siberia. The organized global migration during this period led to the displacement and death of countless people worldwide.
An underlying thesis of this genealogy is that Australia during the colonial period experienced dual aspects of colonization. Our forebears were both the colonized subjects of the Crown and the colonizing agents of that Crown. The colonization process was not random or unplanned, rather it was intentional, calculated, and systematic. It unfolded according to a specific logic and through decisions made by numerous powerful and privileged agents. The stories of our forebears illustrate the impact of dislocation on people in general. Their lives provide a perspective from the bottom up, revealing how working people lived in relation to others in society with more resources.
The history of our forebears is presented based upon the metaphor of a family tree. This metaphor illustrates the connections among various family members, allowing us to better understand a lineage. We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and sixteen great-great-grandparents. The family tree helps us visualize the links connecting various family members.
The narrative begins with Lionel’s lineage and then transitions to Patricia’s. This arrangement is intentional, as Lionel’s maternal ancestors were the first to arrive in Australia, dating back to the 1820s. In contrast, Patricia’s ancestors predominantly arrived in the mid-1850s. Her family typically hailed from Irish descent, and they lived predominantly in the Koroit district, having mostly arrived within just a few years of each other. Lionel’s family history is more complex, with ancestors arriving earlier, originating from various countries and living in different places in Victoria.
The family tree at the start of this document has Lionel and Patricia as its focus and branches to previous generations, labeled from A to D. The letter A corresponds to the great-great-grandparents of Lionel or Patricia, while B corresponds to their great-grandparents, and C to their grandparents. The narrative is focused solely on forebears who spent their lives in Australia or migrated here as children or adults.
It is quite remarkable that there is at least some information on just about every one of Lionel and Patricia’s forebears who arrived in Australia. There is at least some basic information about each of them. Even apparent scant information is interesting and remarkable to have. Thomas Jones, Duncan Campbell, Sarah Campbell, Johannes Weppner, Anna Fick, Killian Schefferle, Catherine Lang, Xavier Muhlebach, James Lowndes, Ann Higgins, Anastasia Donnelly, Hugh Reilly, Edmund McNamara, Mary Moloney, Brigid McNamara, James Bowman, Charles Binstead and Bridget Dwyer: all of these people were born overseas but came to colonial Victoria. They are Lionel and Patricia’s direct ancestors, as far as can be told from the record.
These individuals came to Australia over a period from the early 1820s to the late 1860s and were born in one of the following European countries: Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England, and Ireland. The document concludes by contrasting the genealogical information of several gentry families with this more proletarian family. Several conclusions are drawn, highlighting the disparities and offering insights into what can be learnt from this history.
The Shadows of the Gentlemen 