Samuel Gilbert's Life in Parramatta with his Children.
And so it was a very sad family in the Gilbert home in Parramatta when they had buried their wife and mother. After her twelve months of suffering, she had left John 19, who was then in the bakery business with his father, Charlotte 12, who was expected to be the little mother to the remaining children, Maria 11, Sarah 9, Hannah 7, Thomas 5, Susannah 4, little Martha 2, in an orphanage, and baby William aged 8 months. Samuel Gilbert must have had some assistance in the home for some considerable time before, but we have no details now.
I had hoped that little Mary Anne in England would have grown into a young woman who might have married in about 1832 under the name of Gilbert or Lea, and that we might have found her marriage in the Middlesex records. She and her brother, Sam, might have just been written off as dead when all attempts to send a letter to them had failed. There was no postal delivery of letters at that time.
Mary Gilbert had been in the Colony for only ten years when she died, and had no relations here. As a transported convict, Sam's friends and acquaintances were mostly convicts as well for a start, and he might have had great difficulty in making friendships with free settlers. But of course, his wife, Mary, came free, and maybe her friends stepped in to help little Charlotte with the children, for there were six others younger than she. She did not marry until 1833, so, for the next six years, she was tied to the housework after she finished her education.
The 1828 census of New South Wales shows that Samuel Gilbert had another convict servant - William Masters, aged 32, a Ticket of Leave man, who had arrived in the "Malabar" in 1818 to serve 14 years transportation.
The first thing which we notice was the large number of properties which Samuel Gilbert was able to purchase in Parramatta after the death of his wife. In the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society in 1926, there is a list of ten properties which he owned at one time. He was an important citizen, and his signature appeared regularly on testimonials to other important people, such as John Harris, the Police Magistrate, in 1827, Edmund Lockyer, Principal Superintendent of Police, in 1828, Dr. William Sherwin in 1829, Major Innes, Principal Superintendent of Police at Parramatta in 1830, Governor Darling in 1830, and S. Wright, Resident Magistrate in 1836.
In 1831, he erected a small building on his land on the corner of George and Smith Streets in Parramatta. It was built of a beautiful sandstone, honey colour, probably from the sandstone quarry at North Parramatta. It was looking down to the Parramatta River, and it had been built there because flour could be brought up to it across the river, possibly from John Macarthur's flour mill. This building was restored in 1982-83 by a local businessman.
In 1833 there were three marriages in the family. Charlotte was the first, on 26th May, 1833, when aged 19, she married Timothy Brien who, at that time, was running the Plough Inn in George Street, for a few years. So she was still not too far away from her next sister, Maria. Maria was the next when she married Edwin Williams on 20th August, 1833, when she was only 18, and he was a carpenter, living in Pitt Street, Sydney. Then John Gilbert, the baker, married Bridget Lynch, who was only 16, on 16th December, 1833, so she would have moved in to help Charlotte in the house as well.
In 1837, a further convict, Thomas Hutchinson, who had been transported here in the "Waterloo" in 1831, was made his servant.
Then there is a letter from Samuel Gilbert to the Colonial Secretary, dated 10th December, 1839, in which he gives his place of residence as the Corner of Phillip and Smith Streets, Parramatta.
This is the first record of his actual place of residence, which I have noticed so far.
Samuel Gilbert was now free to leave the Colony of New South Wales and to make a visit to England in March, 1843 with his son, Thomas, in the barque "Alfred". The voyage took four months. They returned in the ship "Persian" on 27th December 1844, after a voyage of three months. We would dearly like to find a diary by one of them of these two voyages, and what they found when they reached London. Did they find what had happened to young Sam, or to little Mary Anne who had been left with Mr. Lea ?
While his father was away, John Gilbert continued in the business of the town baker. He was there as a baker right up until he died from heart disease on 26th July, 1866. At one stage his father owned each of the corners at the intersection of Phillip and Smith Streets, and No. 14 was on the south-east corner, and that may have been the place where his baker's shop stood. If John's obituary had been published in the Parramatta newspaper, it might tell us a lot more about the business.
Samuel Gilbert was the master baker who won the right to supply bread to the Government Depot in Parramatta in January, 1852.
We now know that, in 1865, Samuel Gilbert was living in a four-roomed brick house on the eastern side of Church Street in Parramatta North, between Pennant Hills Road and Factory Street. He also owned several rented cottages in the same area.
When he died on 20th June, 1875, the registration of his death by his son, Thomas, still gave his occupation as baker. His children then are stated to be Maria 60, Sarah 56, and Thomas 54, all living. Three males and four females had died, making a total of ten children. I feel that Thomas had forgotten to include his sister, Martha, in that summary.
By his Will, dated 17th July, 1871, Samuel Gilbert left all of his property to his son, Thomas, and his daughters, Maria and Sarah, his three living children. When he died, his goods were sworn to be worth only £500. I have no idea what happened to all of his properties before he died.
