Sad News Indeed….
It with great sadness that we have been advised of the death of Robin Gee of Canberra, ACT, Australia on Wednesday 7 August, 2013. Rob was one of the first supporters of the heritage society and I enjoyed meeting him, and his wife, whenever they visited Oakington and Longstanton. Rob was very interested in our work, not only supplying information that appears on the website, but he remained a member of LDHS until his death. Along with other supporters and friends who have passed away – Rob’s passing makes the work of the heritage society more important. Rob, and others, gave both time and effort so that future generations of Longstanton, Oakington and Northstowe can live in a community whose identity, and sense of place, is deeply rooted in an understanding of a shared past. Our thanks go to Rob’s cousin Neville who told us the sad news and our thoughts are with Rob’s family at this sad time.
Hilary Stroude, August 2013
FROM LONG STANTON (VIA OAKINGTON) TO THE COLONY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA . By Rob Gee.
George Gee and Elizabeth Morling were married at All Saints Church Long Stanton on 11 Oct. 1765, only three of their six children survived to adulthood, one of whom was their youngest son James baptised on 28Feb 1779 at All Saints. James Gee married Susannah Malling at her village church in Knapwell in 1799 and they settled in Long Stanton where they had nine children. Their first daughter was baptised at All Saints Church and their next seven daughters at St.Michael’s Church, most were also married there through the mid and late 1820s. Their ninth and last child was a son, they named him George and he was baptised at St Michael’s on the 20July 1823, though probably born 1821. It seems James and Susannah were never in a hurry to baptise any of their children.
James’s only son George was my Great Great Grand father. He married Mary Ann Wright in the Parish Church of Great Shelford in 1839 and they lived in Long Stanton where all three of their infant children died and were buried at St. Michael’s. In the late 1840s George and Mary Ann shifted to Oakington, where according to the 1851 census they, together with at least four of George’s married sisters and his parents James and Susannah were already living. The families are recorded on the census as living separately in Coles Lane, Cambridge Lane, and Collins Street.
In 1852 George and Mary Ann and three of George’s older married sisters, Maria Golding, Frances Golding and Eliza Thulborne together with all their families, numbering 27 persons emigrated to the colony of South Australia. The times in Cambridgeshire were not good for farm labourers, the earlier land acts, and the start of agricultural mechanisation had displaced many an agricultural labourer.
An extract from the Cambridge Chronicle, 10 April 1852 Oakington reads “ eleven families left this village to go to Port Adelaide South Australia, about ninety persons left this village last year and many others say they will go after them before they will stay here to be starved to death”. The article goes on, “ if they should live to get over safe, and settle in some place and form a village, they would not call it Oakington”.
Another member of the Golding family (William) had emigrated eariler to South Australia in 1851 and would no doubt have reported back to his family in Oakington of the opportunities in the new colony.
The colony of South Australia had been started in 1836, it was a “free colony” with no convicts unlike earlier colonies and it needed workers and trades men. By 1852 there was about 50,000 residents in South Australia mainly based around agriculture . Immigrants to South Australia could travel free to the colony and a family was entitled to bring one ton of luggage on condition they agreed to stay in the colony for 7 years.
George and Mary Ann’s voyage to South Australia ended in tragedy as Mary Ann died on the way and was buried at sea, Maria Golding also lost an infant daughter during her journey. After arrival the families moved out of Adelaide and up into the small agricultural settlements in the “Hills” region south east of Adelaide, near villages called Strathalbyn, Nairne and Belvidere.
In December 1854 at Stathalbyn the widower George Gee married the widow Mrs. Ann Bell (nee Wylie) late of Canonbie near Gretna Scotland . Ann Bell had lost her husband and an infant child on the voyage from Liverpool in 1853. Ann already had 4 children aged 8 to 14. In June 1856 George and Ann had a son and named him George, he was to be their only child together. There are very few records left by George and Ann ‘the immigrants’ as they were illiterate, but I know they lived on in Strathalbyn, they owned a home and land and their son was literate. George is described in the Archival Records of the First South Australians as a Carrier, which at the time meant he owned and operated horses and waggons, none of this would have come about had they stayed in Oakington. They lived on into their late 50s and are both buried together in the old section of the Strathalbyn cemetery.
George’s sisters whom both married two Golding brothers each left adult children behind in Oakington when they emigrated to South Australia. (At that time if you were 14 years old you were an adult.) Between 1853 and 1855 four more of the adult Golding children also left Oakington to join their extended families in the Colony of South Australia, no doubt after hearing good reports from their parents.
George and Ann’s son George (Jnr) went on to train and work as a stone mason, a house he built in the 1880s and lived in for many years is still in use in Main Street Nairne in the Adelaide Hills. George (Jnr) married Catherine Halliday (born at Queensferry near Edinburgh) in 1877at Srathalbyn, they had ten children, six sons and four daughters, and both lived into the 1920s. Several of their sons also became stone masons, the oldest son George (yes another one) was my grandfather and he went on to apprentice his only son Harold as a stone mason.
Many of George’s (the immigrant from Long Stanton) descendants still live in the Adelaide Hills and would be totally unaware of him, his story and humble origin. For many years I searched for where my fore fathers had come from not realising that they were illiterate and unable to leave much in the way of records. Handed down oral family history told of a George Gee who lost his wife coming to South Australia and who married a widow who lost her husband on the same journey. So my enquiries started by wading through many hundreds of names in the Ships List of passengers to Port Adelaide, where I found only one George Gee – agricultural labourer – aged 30 from Cambridgeshire who arrived in 15Nov 1852 and who’s wife died at sea. It was common for extended families to emigrate together, so I searched earlier ship lists for more Gee family members, there were so many ship passenger lists on the internet that I scrolled through each list just looking at those names commencing with the letter G. By luck I blundered onto the Goldings and it gave the maiden names of their three married Gee sisters in the remarks column of the ships passenger list and recorded the families were from Cambridgeshire and arrived in August 1852. A study of the 1851 census placed George his father James and all his three married sisters in Oakington. However it was not until I visited Long Stanton and spent some hours in the Cambridge Record Office that I confirmed all the relationships and discovered all the other family members and their earlier generations who lived and died in Longstanton and Oakington. One last line, I didn’t continue the stone mason line and thankfully my mother resisted calling me George.
Rob Gee
Canberra Australia July 2010
The above information has been sent in by Rob Gee and we are most grateful to him. I have enjoyed meeting him when he comes to visit Longstanton and Oakington as part of “his tour” of the UK.
Rob Gee and his wife visiting The Manor, 2007.
