HISTORY
The life and times of Janet Titmarsh It is not often we find original recollections from an ordinary settler, so the short diary of Janet Titmarsh is a wonderful record, writes DIANA HACKER.
J
anet A. Titmarsh was an early settler who, fortunately for us, made a written record. This is her story. I was born at Thorney Bank, Scotland, the year before the great potato famine which affected people in Ireland and Scotland. One day the plants were green and healthy and the next they looked as if boiling water had been tipped over them. The tubers underground rotted with an offensive smell. Hundreds of people died and children were left orphans. My father worked in the Duke of Wellington coal mine. My sister Nellie and I collected wool caught in brambles and we then learnt to spin and dye and to knit our own stockings during the winter months. About September of 1852 we left for Australia, first crossing the Irish Sea in a ship called the Shark. Finally, we left Birkenhead on 17th March 1853 in a rotten wooden ship called the John Fielding. The captain was George Clark and he had previously sailed on American ships. There were about 140 passengers, mostly English, Irish and Scottish. Crossing the Bay of Biscay, it was very rough and most people were very sea sick. Throughout the voyage the rations were mostly salt pork, and potatoes; with barley and rice cooked in sea water. Other condiments were
severely rationed as was fresh water. Soap would not lather in sea water and occasionally fresh water was caught in a sail and rationed out for washing. As we sailed south it became very hot and the pitch bubbled in the cracks of the deck. I fell down the hold bumping my head on a link of cable chain. I was unconscious for hours, with the doctor saying that I had a fractured skull; and may not live. Soon after that we saw icebergs, whales, flying fish and porpoises. Near the end of the voyage a great storm flooded our quarters. We left the ship in the Brisbane River on 22nd June 1853 and went ashore at Hobb’s wharf near Petrie Bight. We walked to the depot (old soldier’s barracks in Queen Street) an old stone
store near the river. Our family and the Geddes family took a slab hut behind Duramboy’s blacksmith shop and later moved to William Street. Father made wheels for James McLean in Elizabeth Street and he bought his first land lot for £40 in Charlotte Street. I went to Mr John Scott’s school alongside Duramboy’s shop in George Street. Over the next few years I witnessed the hanging of several aboriginals who had murdered settlers. A lot of white men got drunk and suicided. In June 1856 the family moved to Bremer Mills aboard the steamer Hawk. In May 1857, there were traffic floods and men brought wood to my mother who baked all the flour into bread for the people. In 1858 my father went to the Talome diggings (gold). I saw Sir George and Lady Bowen when they visited Ipswich. When father came home from the diggings each Saturday he and I would walk to the grocery store for our supplies. Cribb and Foote’s store was a small shingle roofed house with verandahs. By 1861 father had bought land near Redbank on Goodna Creek. I went to work for a neighbour at North Ipswich and she gave me a heifer which was very difficult to get on to the punt until father came.
She was to be a good cow. For a time my father worked in Brisbane and my mother, brothers and sisters looked after our small farm. When he came home at last he worked at the Woogaroo Asylum. I met my future husband at a church tea on 1st January 1863. We were married on 2nd of October in Mr Titmarsh’s house and for the next few years lived in a house opposite on Goodna Creek. We then bought a small place at Redbank Plains. My husband was a carrier with a bullock team and wagon. Three of his brothers were also carriers and with their teams were marooned by flood water for weeks at Bonar’s Knob [Taroom]. With the railway line to Toowoomba finished we took to growing cotton during the American War. We left Redbank in 1870 and worked for Mr Weinholt on Fassisfern Station. We had nine children and my husband died at Fassifern on 10th August 1880 after fighting bush fires. I close my diary at the age of 55 in 1901. Janet died four years later on August 12, 1905, and is buried with her husband Isiah at Harrisville. Diana Hacker Queensland Women’s Historical Association archivist.
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