History Notes-Mary Ann Steel and Alfred Murray
History Notes
Enquiries re family and town history continue as we rapidly approach Christmas – don’t’ forget the Christmas markets in the evening a week before Christmas Eve and please let Carol know if you will be attending the members get together for lunch on 20th – we need numbers now as we are being catered for – no charge for members and their partners/friends.
Anyone who has researched the early generations of their ancestors will know just how confusing that can be. I found this with the Murray family after I found my great grandmother’s marriage certificate which said she married John Capel in Tamworth in 1866. The ensuring research covered a year or two and further pieces of information have come to light in the last couple of years. The earliest information dates back to the 1820’s when Mary Ann Steel, a daughter of John Steel and his wife, Ann nee Mongea, gave birth to a daughter, Emma, by John Wilson of Highgate, London. The modern-day cemetery records in Bingara list Emma’s date of death as 4th January, 1905 aged 75, so she was probably born in 1829.
The next reference to Mary Ann Steel is her marriage to Alfred Murray in 1834 at Southwark, London, when they were both 27 years of age. The young couple next appear in NSW records when their daughter was baptised at St Lawrence’s, Sydney on 26th March, 1843. She was born on 27th February, 1843, probably in Sydney but the Murray family seem to have travelled steerage from England with no record of their arrival.
Martha was the next daughter to be baptised at St. Lawrence’s on 29th December, 1844. Her date of birth was 12th November, 1844 and her death certificate says she was born at sea which is rather unlikely. Alfred and May Ann were living in Sydney during these early years where Alfred was a seaman and later a carpenter. It is strange that Emma Wilson is not mentioned at all although we know she was more than likely with them because she appears again when the family arrived in this area.
Alfred and Mary Ann left Sydney, probably in 1845, and their next appearance is at Scone, in the Hunter Valley, where the next daughter, Maria, was born on 6th March, 1846. Their stay at Scone was during a very severe drought and families were struggling to find enough to eat so they moved further north to Copes Creek in the Bingara/Bundarra area.
It was at Copes Creek that the two sons were born – George in 1848 and Walter in 1853. Eldest daughter, Emma, married Charles Bull on 27th July, 1848 and they later settled on ‘Cooringoora’, east of Bingara. It seems that the Murray family also moved to ‘Cooringoora’ or nearby as Alfred Murray died there on 10th October, 1859, aged 55 years. He is buried over on the riverbank near an old building and as far as I know the grave is unmarked.
His widow’s movements are unknown but it is likely she lived in the Bingara district for a while as son George died in December, 1867, aged 18 years, and is buried at Upper Bingara. Maria married John Capel in Tamworth in 1866 and all their children were born at Peidmont Woolsheds (about halfway between Bingara and Barraba) Martha married a widower, William Lockrey, and had a number of children while Caroline married twice and lived her life in Bingara. Young Walter Murray married and lived in Bingara with his family until he died at the age of 35 years. Mary Ann Murray died at Little Fields, near Scone, on 2nd January, 1867, at the age of 58 years. Her brother, Jacob Steel lived at Little Fields and filled in the death certificate giving her parents as John Steel and Ann Mongea. She is buried at Scone.