On 30 March 1873, the immigrant ship LIGHT BRIGADE - pictured below at Gravesend in England - docked at Keppel Bay at the mouth of the Fitzroy River southeast of Rockhampton in Queensland. On board were two children and a grandchild of Charles Hickmott (1813-95) and Mary Ann Maynard (1819-72) who were married at West Farleigh near Maidstone in Kent on 9 August 1835 and had twelve children between then and 1860: Mary (born at East Farleigh in 1837), Matilda (East Farleigh, 1839), Eliza (East Farleigh, 1841), James (West Farleigh, 1843), Charles (West Farleigh, 1846), William (West Farleigh, 1847), Ann (West Farleigh, 1848), Louisa (East Farleigh, 1850), George (East Farleigh, 1853), William Page (East Farleigh, 1855), Eliza Matilda (Yalding, 1857) and Kate Maynard Hickmott (Yalding, 1860). Charles, who worked as an agricultural labourer, was born at West Farleigh on 2 May 1813, the son of James Hickmott (1781-1843) and Mary Dove (1784-1867) whose wedding took place in the Maidstone RD on 17 October 1802. Mary Ann Hickmott nee Maynard died in Kent in 1872. The 1881 UK census shows Charles living in Yalding with Elizabeth Hughes, his house keeper. Three years later he sailed to Queensland probably on the ROMA which arrived there on 13 February 1884. The South Rockhampton Burials Index tell us Charles Hickmott died at Rockhampton as a result of senile gangrene on 16 March 1895 and is buried in the cemetery at Allenstown (CE plot 47). The two children of Charles and Mary Ann who arrived in Queensland on the LIGHT BRIGADE in 1873 were James Hickmott (1843-1905) - together with his wife and son - and William Page Hickmott (1855-1913). In 1912, their youngest sister, Kate Maynard Hickmott (1860-1936), also emigrated to Australia and settled in Melbourne.

1) James Hickmott (1843-1905) was born at West Farleigh in Kent on 8 October 1843 and married Martha King (1847-76), daughter of Thomas King and Mary Latter, at Yalding near Maidstone on 23 October 1869. The 1871 census shows James, a 27 year-old agricultural labourer, and Martha Hickmott (24 and born at nearby Teston) residing in East Farleigh with their son Charles (10 months old and born at East Farleigh). Two years later they sailed to Australia where they settled at Rockhampton in Queensland. Martha died at Rockhampton on 4 August 1876 and is buried in the South Rockhampton cemetery (CE plot 10) along with two of her and James' infant daughters: Margret (who died in 1873) and Matilda (1876). Their only son, Charles Hickmott (1870-98), who commited suicide on 7 August 1898 following sustained 'chaffing' over alleged work thefts, is also buried there. Their remaining daughter, Kate Hickmott (1874-1942) married William Boniface (1875-1948) at Rockhampton on 23 December 1905. They lived and worked all their married lives at Rockhampton where Kate died on 23 July 1942 and William on 10 July 1948 and are buried together in the North Rockhampton Cemetery (CE Section 4, Row 4 Grave 21). Kate and William had one child, James William Henry Boniface (1907-76), who married Vivienne Annie Felvin Smith on 9 July 1927 and had two children we are aware of: 1) James Vivian Boniface (1927-2011) who, together with an Edna Winifred Boniface, was living at 47 Haynes Street in Rockhampton at the time of the 1980 election; and 2) Jeanne Rosa Boniface who married Stanley James Fredricksen at the Campbell Street Methodist Church in Rockhampton in August 1950 (Morning Bulletin, 1 September 1950).

On 4 June 1877 James Hickmott re-married, to a native of Watford in Hertfordshire, Elizabeth Jane Hunt (1856-1926). James, who worked as a drayman, and Elizabeth Jane Hickmott lived all their married lives at Rockhampton, James dying there on 8 October 1905 and Elizabeth in January 1926. Her funeral notice, published in the Rockhampton Evening News on 20 January 1926, read in part: 'The Friends of Mr and Mrs W BONIFACE, Mr and Mrs C. WELSH, Mr and Mrs W. NASH (Daughters and Sons-in-law). Mr and Mrs A. C. BARR, Mr JAMES BONIFACE, Miss MAY WELSH, Mr. CLAUDE NASH (Grandchildren), are respectfully invited to attend the Funeral of their deceased beloved MOTHER and RELATIVE, (the late Mrs. Elizabeth Jane Hickmott)'. The South Rockhampton Burials Index shows James and Elizabeth Jane are buried in the Allenstown Cemetery (CE 10) along with three of their five children: Charles aged (28), (Elizabeth (who died in 1888 aged 15 days), James William (1887, 21 days) and James William (1890, 7 months). Their other two children were: 1) Florence Amelia Hickmott (1879-1940) who was twice married, first to Charles Newstead (who died in 1926) with whom she had two girls both of whom died young, and second to Charles James Welsh (1964-1947) with whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth May Welsh later Roberts (1913-82) who had three children. Florence also had a daughter out of wedlock: Dorothy Gertrude Hickmott (1903-85) who married Archibald Campbell Barr (1895-1980) and had a son of the same name who died in 1962; 2) Ada Louise Hickmott (1886-1971) who was twice married, first in 1906 to William John Nash who died in 1933, and then in 1934 to Patrick Brady.

2) William Page Hickmott (1855-1913). Born at East Farleigh in Kent on 7 January 1855 William was living with his family at nearby Yalding and working as an agricultural labourer at the time of the 1871 UK census. He emigrated to Australia in 1873, and was working in the gold mining town of Croydon in the Queensland Gulf country when he married an English woman, Jessie Laws (1876-1956), on 23 July 1902. Born at Hackney in London on 31 August 1875, Jessie was the youngest daughter of a Cambridgeshire-born coal merchant, Robert Laws (1821-1910) and his second wife, Charlotte Atkinson (1839-97). who were married at St Peters Church in Stepney in London on 2 July 1862. Ancestry's 'Queensland Immigration Indexes, 1848-92' show that the then eight year-old Jessie, along with her parents and a number of her siblings, sailed to Queensland on the SS AMORA in 1884. The 'Cameron Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us Robert Laws worked as a clerk on Mackenzie Island in Keppel Bay near Rockhampton where his wife died on 30 October 1897 and was buried in the local cemetery. It adds that Robert Laws died on 1 July 1910 in Brisbane, where he was living with Jessie on Sackville Street in the suburb of Greenslopes. He is buried in the South Brisbane Cemetery at Dutton Park (Plot 7). The Australian electoral rolls show that after their marriage in 1902, William Page and Jessie Hickmott lived for a time at Croydon before moving to Brisbane where William died on 19 February 1913 and was buried with his father-in-law in the South Brisbane Cemetery. Jessie continued living in Brisbane until her death there on 2 May 1956. She is buried with a Thomas Elliott and her daughter Mavis Alma Charlotte Hickmott (1908-39) in Brisbane's Toowong Cemetery (Plot 18-22-09). Jessie and William Page had two children: 1) the aforementioned Mavis Alma Charlotte Hickmott; and 2) Keith Page Hickmott (1903-77) who, at the time of the 1925 and 1926 elections, was living with his mother in Coorporoo in South Brisbane and working as a fisherman. On 6 January 1929 he married Maisie Beryl Bennett at the All Saints Church at Woolahra in Sydney. Their wedding certificate shows the then 26 year-old Keith had been born at Croydon in Queensland and was working as a seaman. Maisie, 21 and born at Bridgewater in Tasmania, was working as a domestic servant and living at the City Hotel on Kent Street in Sydney. The wedding was witnessed by an Albert J. Stevens and a D. G. Bennett. The 'Bennett Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us Maisie was born on 7 December 1907, the second daughter of two Tasmanians, William Edwin Bennett (1881-1970) and Elsie Maud Harrex (1884-1965) who were married at Parattah in Tasmania on 11 January 1905 and had nine children between then and 1930 (including a Dorothy Georgina Bennett). The Australian electoral rolls show Keith and Maisie lived at Darlinghurst and then Woollahra in Sydney during the 1930s and early 1940s. A report in the Sydney Morning Herald on 11 January 1947 reveals they were divorced in 1947. According to the Ryerson Index, a Keith Page (Bill) Hickmott, aged 74 years and 'formerly of Millers Point' died on 14 June 1977 at the St John of God Hospital in Burwood (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 June 1977). He and Maisie had at least one child we are aware of, Rita Beryl Hickmott (1929-2013), who was born in Sydney on 12 December 1929 and, the Ryerson Index tells us, died at Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales on 23 October 2013.

3) Kate Maynard Hickmott (1860-1936). Born at Yalding in Kent in October 1860, the eleven yearold Kate was living there with her parents and older siblings at the time of the 1871 UK census. Six years later she married a local boy, Edwin Brotherwood (1856-1911) who, at the time of the 1871 census was living with his older brother George Brotherwood and his family and working as an agricultural labourer. Subsequent UK censuses show Edwin working as a bricklayer and he and Kate residing at Maidstone in 1881, Dulwich Hill in London in 1891 and, with their by then seven children, in London's Camberwell precinct in 1901. Edwin Brotherwood died at Lambeth in London in January 1911, a few weeks before their son Leonard married Emily Edith Purt at the St James Parish Church in Croydon. Leonard was killed in action in France on 5 October 1917 while serving as a private soldier in the 2nd Battalion Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex) Regiment. On the 7th of November 1912, Kate, then a 52 year-old housekeeper, and three of her and Edwin's daughters - Gertrude Alice (aged 27), Kate May (19) and Amy Laura Brotherwood (16) - sailed from London on the emigrant ship DEMOSTHENES bound for Brisbane in Queensland. Their eventual destination was Victoria where Kate lived and worked for a time as a waitress in the inner Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy, Carlton and Northcote. She died in 1936 and is buried in the Springvale Botanical Cemetery (Cof E Compartment B, Section 10 Grave 20). Her daughter, Kate May Brotherwood, who was living at McKinnon, died in the Royal Melbourne Hospital the following year. Kate's other two daughters married, Gertrude to Joseph Jordan Thornhill (1882-1942) in 1913 and Amy to Charles Davis in 1920 and later on to William McMillan (1896-1952). At the time of their mother's death in 1936, Gertrude was living in the Melbourne beachside suburb of Brighton and Amy in Newcastle in New South Wales.

Both from the 'Mary O'Rourke Family Tree' on Ancestry, the photo on the left is of Joseph Jordan and Gertrude Alice Thornhill nee Brotherwood and
their two eldest children, Robert and Marjorie in 1918. The one on the right is of Marjorie Thornhill and Francis Merrick on their wedding day.

3.1) Born in London on 21 March 1881, Joseph Jordan Thornhill, son of Robert William and Amelia Thornhill nee Tutill, sailed to Australia on the same ship as Kate Maynard Hickmott and her daughters. After their marriage in 1913, Joseph and Gertrude lived in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy where Joseph worked as a storeman and their first three children were born: Robert William (on 28 September 1914), Charles Edward (1915-15) and Marjorie Lorraine Thornhill (26 November 1916). On 24 July 1917, Joseph enlisted in the First AIF at nearby Northcote. On 21 November he embarked from Melbourne on the A71 HMAT NESTOR which arrived at Southampton in England on 9 January 1918. On 1 April of that year Joseph joined the 14th Infantry Battalion in France where, a month later, he was wounded in action (a GSW to the right finger). After spending time in hospital in France and England he was repatriated back to Australia on 9 December 1918 and discharged from the Army on 7 March 1919. The Australian electoral rolls show Joseph and Gertrude spent most of their post-war married lives at Brighton where Joseph worked as a clerk and he and Gert's fourth child, Cyril Leonard Arthur Thornhill (1919-2013) was born on 17 May 1919. Joseph Jordan Thornhill died on 21 January 1940 and is buried in the Cheltenham Memorial Cemetery (Plot 26*82*N). Gertrude Alice Thornhill nee Brotherwood died at Highett in Melbourne on 5 June 1968 and is buried with Joseph. As noted, Joseph and Gertrude Thornhill had four children one of whom, Charles Edward Thornhill, died at birth. As detailed below, their other three children all reached adulthood, married and provided their beloved parents with 14 grandchildren we are aware of:

3.1.1) Born at Brighton on 28 September 1914, their eldest son, Robert William Thornhill (1914-2002) - pictured on the left - was working as a carpenter when he enlisted in the Australian Army on 12 March 1941. Robert served as a Sapper in various Citizen Military Force works and engineering units in Australia until his discharge on 4 June 1945. During this time he married a dressmaker, Alma Winifred Johnson (1911-68), in Melbourne in 1942. The Australian electoral rolls show Robert, a carpenter, and Alma living at 13 Hall Street Cheltenham in 1949, 215 Nepean Hwy Elsternwick in 1954 and next door to Robert's mother Gertrude at 6 Oaklands Circuit Highett during the 1960s (along with a Robyn Margaret Thornhill, hairdresser). The 'James Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us Alma Winifred Thornhill died at Highett on 5 June 1968 and is buried in the Cheltenham Memorial Cemetery (Plot 7*UB*N). It adds that Robert later married/partnered with Noni Buchanan (1914-97) and was living and working on the Mornington Peninsular during the 1980s. He died at Monash Hospital in the outer Melbourne suburb of Clayton on 30 September 2002 and is buried with Alma in the Cheltenham Memorial Cemetery.

3.1.2) Marjorie Lorraine Thornhill (1916-2010) married a local silversmith, Francis John Llewellyn Merrick (1919-81), in Melbourne in 1941 and lived in the Melbourne suburbs of Sandringham and Glen Iris where, the 'Mary O'Rourke Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us, they had seven children: John Reginald Merrick (1944-2008), Peter Francis Merrick (1951-2024) and five others (four girls and a boy). Francis, by then a factory super-intendant, died at Ashburton in Melbourne on 7 December 1981 and was buried in the Cheltenham Memorial Cemetery (Plot 26*422*N). Marjorie died on 14 October 2010. Her death notice, published in the Melbourne Herald Sun on 20 October, tells us she was the 'Beloved wife of Frank (dec.) Loved mother of Bev, John (dec), Marg, Peter, Doug, Liz and Lee and mother-in-law of John, Chris, Mike, Cheryl (dec), Carol, Irene and Cameron. Loved Nanna of Michelle, Anthony, Shannon, Matthew, Kate, Jason, Kylie, Craig, Karinda, Ryan, Hordan, Camilla, Stephanie, Francis, Andrew, Michael and Great Grandma of Molly, Jasmine and Emily'.

3.1.3) Cyril Leonard Arthur Thornhill (1919-97) - pictured on the right - was born on 17 May 1919 at Brighton where he was living with his parents and working as a dry cleaner when he enlisted in the Australian Army at Caulfield on 4 June 1940. He served in Australia and on active service in the Middle East and in PNG with the 2/12 Field Regiment and had reached the rank of Sergeant by the time of his discharge on 24 December 1945. Cyril was twice married, first to Norma Jean Esse in 1942 and then to Patricia Dawn Barnes in 1951. The Australian electoral rolls show Cyril working as a cabinet maker and he and Patricia living at Noble Park from the time of their marriage until at least 1980. Cyril died on 13 August 1997 and is memorialised in The Victorian Garden of Remembrance (Plot Wall 124 Row F) at Springvale. The 'Megan Carter Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us he and Patricia had six children - 4 boys and two girls - and at least ten grandchildren.

3.2) Amy Laura Brotherwood (1895-1972). Born at Camberwell in London, Amy married Charles Davis in Victoria in 1920. The Victorian index of bdms shows she and Charles had a daughter, Gweneth Joan Davis, who was born in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern in 1923 and died at Prahran the same year. Sometime after this, Amy either married or partnered with a native of Glasgow in Scotland, William McMillan (1896-1953). Throughout the 1930s, the Australian electoral rolls show them living at Carrington in Newcastle, where William worked as a car painter. The 1949 roll has Amy Laura residing at 44 Kings Road in New Lambton in Newcastle (along with a Jack McMillan, ironworker). Sometime after this they moved back to Victoria where they were living at Moe in East Gippsland at the time of William's death. The Ryerson Index tells us a William McMillan, formerly of New Lambton Newcastle, died at Moe West in Victoria on 31 March 1953. The 10 April 1953 edition of Moe's Narracan Shire Advocate reported: 'there died in the Yallourn Hospital, Mr William McMillan, on Wednesday, April 1, following a brief illness. Deceased, who leaves a wife and three sons, and resided at 6 Queen Street Moe, was in the employ of the S.E.C. as a fitter'. The Australian electoral rolls show Amy was still living on Queen Sreet in Moe at the time of the 1963, 1967 and 1968 elections. Sometime after this she either returned to or was visiting Newcastle where she died at Adamstown on 18 April 1972. She was cremated and is memorialised in Newcastle Memorial Park at Beresford (E G W 12/1 H/127). The 'Rachel Gallagher' and a number of other family trees on Ancestry inform us that Amy and William had at least five children: 1) June McMillan (1925-2010) who married Kenneth Russell Pegg (1925-98); 2) Brenda McMillan (1927-88) who married Robert Duncan Gallagher (1828-78); 3) Keith McMillan; 4) Jack McMillan and one other boy (possibly William McMillan who died in Newcastle in 1940).

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