During 2018-19 a man with the surname Forrester emerged as sharing DNA markers with descendants of the First Fleeter Robert Forrester and his partner Isabella Ramsay. He shared DNA with three of Robert’s children, the siblings Ann Forrester, Isabella Forrester and Robert Forrester Jnr, and had traced his forebears back to a Charles Forrester, said to have been born at Windsor, NSW around 1850.
Follow-up DNA tests revealed that his Y-DNA markers matched up to three male descendants of Robert Forrester Jnr and the McGaw line in America, making Charles Forrester born c 1850 a hitherto unknown grandson of the First Fleeter. Unfortunately there is no record of this birth but his connection to the First Fleeter is taken, for now, to be through son William.
William was living in Windsor around 1850 but was estranged from his wife Maria Carroll. Evidence from a Windsor court case in 1846 refers:
_ Forrester was summoned to appear for abandoning his wife and family and refusing to maintain them. The case was dismissed, their Worship’s ascertaining that Mrs Forrester refused to live with her husband, although she had taken him “for better for worse,” as the Magistrate facetiously informed her; but as “a separate maintenance” appeared to be the object sought by the complainant, the Bench refused to interfere further in the matter.[1]
In 1846 four Forrester brothers resided in or near the town of Windsor but two of the brothers were currently in stable marriages and the third was a widower. The unnamed Forrester who appeared in court is therefore assumed to be William. There were two Maria Forresters alive in Windsor at the time but, since Henry’s wife Maria was childless, it must have been William Forrester’s wife Maria who was the complainant. She was the mother of William ‘Black Bill’ Forrester, born at Windsor in 1842.
Maria was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1814 and, as the 21-year-old widow Maria Carroll, she was tried there on 24 April 1835 for stealing books. She was a housemaid, able to read but not write.[2] She arrived in Sydney on 25 Feb 1836 aboard the Roslin Castle and married William Forrester on 9 March 1837 at Windsor. Neither party could sign their name on the register. It was a mixed Catholic/Protestant marriage and did not fare well.
By November 1849, if not sooner, Maria was supporting herself as a dealer (shopkeeper) in George St, Windsor. In that month she appeared in the Parramatta Quarter sessions charged with larceny (for stealing a salt cellar from the innkeeper S H Carter at Windsor on 6 September) but was acquitted.[3]
Six months later Maria had a second interaction with the law. On 15 May 1850 she was accused of sly grog selling at Windsor, specifically for illegally selling three glasses of rum to Jane Gribble.[4] She was brought before the Windsor Police Court on summons. She was not represented in court but asked for the case to be deferred until she could locate her witness for the defence.[5]
At the resumed hearing at the Court of Magistrates, Windsor, before John Panton and James Ascough, barristers represented both the prosecution and the defence. After much court room discussion, which included mention of a little girl coming into Maria’s bedroom to fetch a book:
the bench found her guilty. She was fined in the sum of thirty pounds, and one pound eleven shillings costs, or in default of payment, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in Her Majesty's gaol at Parramatta. Mr. Gould applied for fourteen days to pay the fine, but Mr. Lambton having stated that he was credibly informed that Mrs. Forrester had been engaged until as late as two o'clock that morning in removing her goods for the purpose of evading payment of the fine, the bench only allowed her three clear days. The Court was unusually crowded, and the case appeared to excite considerable interest, from a variety of circumstances.[6]
Someone had paid for Maria’s barrister. Was it her estranged husband William? If so, their brief reconciliation didn't last. It seems Maria didn’t pay the fine and she was sent to Parramatta Gaol for 3 months. In her appeal from gaol on 27 June 1850, she described herself as a poor woman supporting herself and a child aged five by keeping a small shop for the sale of groceries etc in the town of Windsor. No mention was made of her being heavily pregnant at this time, so was she the mother of Charles? The Bench did not recommend mitigation of her sentence, describing Maria as:
a woman of but indifferent character’, who had ‘for some time past borne the reputation of being a sly grog seller – witnesses for prosecution stated it was not the first time they had bought spirits of the petitioner.[7]
Maria’s ‘child aged five’ must have been the unnamed little girl mentioned in court evidence, whose birth appears to be unregistered and whose father has not been identified. Maria did not claim to be supporting another child, her seven-year-old son William Forrester Jnr. He must have lived with his father after his parents separated, or certainly after the 1846 court case. According to the author Patrick McCarthy, young William attended the Episcopal Church primary school at Agnes Banks, near Richmond, along with the son of his much older cousin George Forrester, the red-haired William James Forrester. The two boys were distinguished by the nicknames ‘Black Bill’ and ‘Red Bill’, after their differing hair colour. Where McCarthy obtained this information about schooling is unknown, as the NSW State Archives do not hold the records of this school.[8] The story does suggest, though, that the two 'Bills', a year apart in age, were in close contact during their childhood.
Returning to Charles, when the birth of his daughter Gladys Lucy Maud Forrester was registered on 12 August 1896 his age was given as 46 and he died on 8 December 1923 aged 73 at Dalby Hospital, both dates consistent with his birth in 1850, before 12 August. When the birth of his daughter Doris Elma was registered on 9 August 1902, he gave his age as 51 years and his birthplace as Windsor. Assuming he was speaking the literal truth when he gave his age on both occasions, this narrows his date of birth further, to after 9 August and before 12 August 1850. Nine months earlier, in late 1849, Maria had faced her troubles with the local law. Had she turned to her legal husband William for 'help' at this time?
After her stint in gaol Maria moved to Sydney, one assumes with the little girl. Forty-year-old Maria, of Pitt St, Sydney, was buried by Rev John F Sheridan on 26 May 1854 at St James Roman Catholic Church.[9]
William Forrester Snr remarried in 1863 and had two daughters, Isabella Jane born in 1864 and Edith Mary born in 1869, before he died of ‘disease of the chest’ at Cornwallis, Windsor just before Christmas in 1869. His second wife Sarah was the informant on the death certificate. She said he was a farmer aged 66 and recorded his children only as the two daughters she had borne, one living and one dead. She did not mention his first marriage or any other children and William did not leave a Will saying otherwise.
It’s after William’s death, when Charles was nineteen, that Charles emerges from the shadows. Charles had worked at ‘Tilbuster’ near Armidale, the property of George Cross from the Hawkesbury, since mid-1873 according to a statement by a Patrick Elliott in March 1875. [10] ‘Tilbuster’ adjoined ‘Terry Hie Hie’, which was owned by another Hawkesbury identity, George Bowman of Richmond, and managed by Bowman’s son.
This means that Charles had been in the New England region for at least two years. He was probably the Charles Forrester kicked by a horse on 22 May 1871 and having his arm and ribs fractured while urging his team up the Liverpool Range. He was conveyed to Dr. Gordon at West Maitland for surgical treatment.[11] There must have been a further accident or illness because the Armidale and New England Hospital. Treasurer's accounts to 19th January, 1874 included an amount of 2s 6p collected from Charles Forrester.[12]
In April 1875 the NSW Police Gazette carried the item:
Stolen, on the 20th ultimo, from a stable at Tilbuster, near Armidale, the property of George Cross, - A plain saddle, with a rough seat newly stuffed, branded “R. Drew”, on flap, oval stirrups.[13]
This saddle belonged to George Cross Jnr, born around 1854 at ‘Derri Derri’ Station and baptised back at Windsor in October 1855. A long-winded description of the adventures of this saddle followed in evidence given at the Armidale Police Court and reported in great detail in the local paper.[14] The outcome was summarised in the Police Gazette:
John Elliott, charged with stealing a saddle (recovered), the property of George Cross, has been arrested by Senior-constable Rafferty, Armidale Police. Discharged, he having proved he got the saddle from a man named Charles Forrester, for whose arrest a warrant has been issued by the Armidale Bench. Forrester is 25 or 26 years of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, red face, freckled, light hair, large sandy whiskers and moustache, shaved chin, good looking, a native of Windsor, supposed to have gone in the direction of Murrurundi, making for Windsor.[15]
This description largely agrees with the physical description later given by his wife Minnie in 1908. (So the Charles Forrester sentenced at Gunnedah and gaoled for 12 months in May 1880 for ‘stealing from the person’ seems to be a different man, aged 29, born in Sydney, fully-bearded, 5 ft 8½ ins tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a scar on his forehead, with another conviction for ‘refusing to pay a steamer fare’ listed on his gaol record.)
The 1875 description of Charles' 'Celtic' colouring uncannily resembles that of 'Red Bill' Forrester, who had auburn hair.[15a] Was it Charles and 'Red Bill' ... not Charles and 'Black Bill' ... who were brothers or half-brothers? Was Charles another son of George Forrester, Black Bill's cousin? This might explain why Charles' birth was not registered back in 1850, when George was living well beyond the settled districts. Yet the name Charles is carried down in the next few generations of Black Bill's family. and not Red Bill's. Hopefully DNA results will eventually emerge to help solve the puzzle.
George had moved to his property at ‘Yarraman’ near Murrurundi by 1875 when another clue to Charles’ family emerges:
A warrant has been issued by the Armidale Bench for the arrest of Charles Forrester, charged with stealing a saddle, the property of George Cross. This offender may have gone to Mudgee, where his sister, a Mrs Druit, resides.[16]
This Mrs Druit must have been named Margaret, the mother of Albert Druit, born at Mudgee in 1878 to a James H and Margaret E Druit, and was not Charles' half-sister Isabella Jane, born in 1864. Nothing more is known of Margaret but if DNA links to these Druits could be found they might reveal more.
As for the charge against Charles, in 1878:
The Armidale Police report that the charge against Charles Forrester for stealing a saddle, the property of George Cross, cannot now be sustained as the evidence is not forthcoming.[16a]
Perhaps the two young men, both with strong Hawkesbury connections, had been in dispute over something and all was forgiven.
Charles makes his next appearance in 1884, at Coonamble, and subsequently at regular intervals when his eleven children were born in various places, indicating that he was a station hand. It would be helpful if descendants could provide copies of all their birth certificates so that his occupational history could be revealed. When his daughter Phyllis married many years later she said her father was a shearer.
The following timeline tracks the rest of Charles’ life:
The following timeline tracks the rest of Charles’ life:
- 21 Feb 1884 – son Henry Edgar (alternatively Lawrence Edgar) born at Coonamble
- 14 Sep 1885 - Charles married Mary Ann Kezia Pearce (known as Minnie) at Coonamble.
- 10 Sep 1886 – daughter Minnie Lucy Maria Forrester born at Coonamble
- 31 Oct 1887 – daughter Minnie Lucy dies at Dunumbral, a sheep station on the Narran or Barwon Rivers, near the old properties one owned by George Forrester and his extended family.
- 17 Apr 1888 – daughter Hilda Maud born at Collarindebri [sic], on the Barwon River
- 11 Dec 1888 – daughter Hilda Maud dies in Walgett
- 1 Mar 1890 – daughter Eunice May born at Dubbo
- 21 May 1891 – at Toowoomba Police Court, a Charles Forrester was discharged with a caution for ‘the prevailing offence’, which at the time was drunkenness.[17] This may have been Minnie’s husband, if he was tramping the countryside along with thousands of other men looking for work during the great Shearer’s Strike of January-May 1891.
- 31 Dec 1891 – son William Charles born at Orange
- 26 Feb 1894 – son Sydney Roland born at Pallamallawa near Moree
- 3 Jun 1896 – daughter Gladys Lucy Maud born at Mungindi near Moree. Charles said to be a labourer.
- 24 Nov 1898 – daughter Phyllis Eileen (or Irene) Grace born at Mungindi
- 1901 – son Walter H born and dies at Moree
- 12 Jun 1902 – daughter Doris Alma born at Moree. Charles said to be a labourer and gave his birthplace as Windsor, NSW.
From around 1904 Charles was based in Queensland, at first in Warwick and Toowoomba on the Darling Downs and later at Dalby in the Maranoa District, where he died in 1923. His occupation was given as ‘labourer’ on all Commonwealth electoral rolls from 1903, except for several appearances as a cook during the Great War. Minnie was always engaged in domestic duties during her time with Charles.
- 6 Aug 1904 – grandson Leslie James, son of 14-yr-old Eunice, born at Warwick and raised by grandparents.
- 1905- Charles and Minnie both at Grafton St, Warwick.
- 1908 – Minnie at Mort St, Toowoomba with eldest son Lawrence Edgar, a railway employee, now of voting age but Charles was missing:
Charles Forrester, 58 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches high, medium build, dark complexion, brown hair whiskers and moustache turning grey, dressed when last seen in a dirty brown tweed suit and grey soft felt hat; untidy appearance; a labourer. Was discharged from Narrabri Hospital on the 13th August, 1908, where he had been an inmate suffering from sciatica. Inquiry at the instance of his wife Minnie Forrester, Russell-street, Toowoomba, Queensland.[18]
- 1909 - Charles a labourer at Dalby, Minnie at Condamine St, Dalby
- 19 Jul 1909 – daughter Eunice May dies in Dalby, aged nineteen. By now she's had a second child, Rita Iris May Forrester, born in Tamworth on 21 May 1907. Eunice May sometimes called herself Eunice Pearce.
In 1911 Minnie’s connection to her family of origin was in evidence, when a man named Charles Forrester (Black Bill’s son Charles Albert Forrester) controlled the horse events in the ring at the 1911 Liverpool Show. He was assisted in this task by S T Pearce, Minnie’s brother, and another relative M S Pearce was successful as an exhibitor of draught horses.[19]
Meanwhile the family of Minnie and her husband, living at Neil St, Toowoomba, were in trouble with the law in 1911. The case suggested that they were hard up:
At the police court yesterday before T. Mowbray, Esq. P.M., Charles Forrester and Sydney Forrester appeared in custody to answer the allegation of stealing from the premises of George Cochran, on October 6, a quantity of wearing apparel and five fowls. … Margaret Cochran gave evidence that on the evening of the 5th inst she hung out a line full of wearing apparel, and on the following morning found only the clothes-pegs strewn about the grass. She also missed five fowls from her yard.[20]
Further details incriminated one of Sydney’s sisters as Sydney’s accomplice and:
Charles Forrester was discharged. Mr. O'Sullivan pleaded guilty on behalf of Sydney Forrester, and the accused was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour.[21]
- 1912 – Charles, a labourer, and Minnie both at Herries St, East, Toowoomba
- 1913 - Charles a labourer at Dalby, Minnie living at Condamine St, Dalby
- 1913 & 1914 – Charles a labourer at Herries St, East, son Henry Edgar a labourer at Railway Boarding House, Minnie at home in Mort St, all being addresses in Toowoomba.
- In 1915 or 1916 Charles and Minnie parted company. Charles remained in the Dalby area for rest of his life, with none of his family around him, while Minnie moved to Brisbane.
- 1917 & 1919 – Charles was a cook at ‘Loudon Station’, Dalby, but by 1918 Minnie had moved to Sydney with her three surviving daughters: Gladys Miller and her husband and family, Phyllis and Doris. Their five sons remained in Queensland.
- In 1918 Phyllis married a Maltese man named Joseph Caruana in Sydney, the marriage witnessed by Minnie and Gladys.
- In 1921 Doris married Henry William Sheppard in Paddington, Sydney.
- 1922 – Charles a labourer of Moreton St, Dalby
- Charles died in Dalby Hospital on 8 December 1923, aged 73 years. A descendant has been to his grave in Dalby and says it is only marked with a number on a stone in the ground. No headstone.
- By January 1925 the widow Minnie called herself Mrs Minnie Madden, although there is no evidence of a marriage. Minnie was living with John Madden and her divorced daughter Phyllis in Brisbane St, Sydney when she chased out intruders in her shop with a broom after they’d attacked her husband, who she described as ‘an old man’. The press of the day contains many colourful stories of this episode.
- December 1925 - Phyllis Caruana, apparently suffering from a guilty conscience over her treatment of her former husband, committed suicide.
- 17 Nov 1929 – Minnie’sad life continued when her daughter Gladys Lucy Maud Miller died of breast cancer at The Moorings, Condamine St, Balgowlah.
- Minnie died in 1935, aged 69, when she was living at 192 Hargrave St, Paddington. Only one of Minnie’s six daughters survived her, Doris Sheppard, who died in 1974.
I hope the descendants of Minnie’s son William Charles and of her daughter Gladys, who have asked me for help with information about their forebear Charles Forrester, will find this story useful. A third descendant, of Minnie's daughter Doris, has done so and has provided helpful feedback allowing me to correct several dates and further refine the story. In September 2021 another descendant of William Charles Forrester supplied further helpful information about Eunice May.
To conclude, Charles Forrester’s movements around outback NSW and QLD as an adult fit ‘generally’ with the known activities and abodes of George, Black Bill and Red Bill Forrester. Charles is proven by Y-DNA results to have belonged to the Forrester family, but his father's identity will likely emerge only with the help of further DNA testing of descendants.
©Louise Wilson, 16 September 2021
Read all about the first generation of Forresters in Australia in 'Sentenced to Debt: Robert Forrester, First Fleeter' which is available for purchase through BookPOD.
[1] Hawkesbury Courier and Agricultural and General Advertiser, Thu 12 Mar 1846, p 2
[2] Convict Arrivals, (1836) SRNSW Fiche 720/724, or p 221 SRNSW Reel 908
[3] Parramatta Quarter Sessions, Sydney Morning Herald, Thu 22 Nov 1849, p 2
[4] Colonial Secretary’s Index, Post 1825, SRNSW Ref 50/6070, Shelf 4/2905
[7] Colonial Secretary’s Index, Post 1825, SRNSW Ref 50/6655, Shelf 4/2907, 20 Jul 1850
[9] Maria Forrester, Burial Record, 26 May 1854, "St James Roman Catholic Church, Sydney," [NSW Register of Baptisms, Burials & Marriages Pre 1856], V18541804 119/1854, State Library of Victoria
[10] ‘Local Intelligence’, Armidale Express & New England General Advertiser, Fri 23 Apr 1875, p 6
[11] ‘Murrurundi’, Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, Thu 25 May 1871, p 3 and Armidale Express & New England General Advertiser, Sat 3 Jun 1871, p 4
[12] ‘Advertising’, Armidale Express & New England General Advertiser, Sat 7 Feb 1874, p 8
[13] Police Gazette, 28 April 1875, p 108
[14] ‘Local Intelligence’, Armidale Express & New England General Advertiser, Fri 23 Apr 1875, p 6
[17] ‘General News’, Darling Downs Gazette, Sat 23 May 1891, p 4
[18] NSW Police Gazette, 23 Dec 1908, p 463
[19] ‘Liverpool Show’, Cumberland Argus & Fruitgrowers Advocate, Sat 1 Apr 1911, p 5
[20] ‘Alleged Stealing’, Darling Downs Gazette, Tue 10 Oct 1911, p 5
[21] ‘Police Court’, Darling Downs Gazette, Wed 11 Oct 1911, p 4
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