22_GRANT_HOLT

Part B.

Summary - Thomas Peters & Mary Ann Peters (nee Hews) to Bernadine Monica Grant

Thomas Peters married Mary Ann Hews in England abt. 1800. On 31 July 1802 he was convicted at York Assizes of stealing silver pints. He was given a term of life and transported on the Calcutta in February 1803. He and his wife Mary Ann Peters, and his child Elizabeth Peters (1801 - 1874), are listed as being present at the 1804 settlement at Hobart Town, Sullivans Cove.

Records indicate that Thomas and Ann Peters had a further 7 children. The mother’s name is entered variously as Ann nee Hews, and (in the cases of Mary Ann and Richard Giles) Mary Ann nee Warrick. Their Australian born children were:

Martha Peters 1804–1808

Charlotte Peters 1806–1869

Louisa Henrietta Peters 1808–1863

Mary Ann Peters 1810– ?

Richard Giles Peters 1811–1889

Sophia Maria Peters 1814–1892

Ann Peters 1816–1830

The family lived 40 to 50 km north of Hobart in the Bagdad and Green Ponds (now Kempton) areas of Van Diemen’s Land.

On June 19, 1832 their daughter Mary Ann Peters married William Holt who was a widower. Marriage witnesses were George Armytage (husband of her sister Elizabeth Peters), and Sophia Peters (her sister). When her sister Charlotte Peters had married Francis Flexmore Jnr in 1829 Mary Ann had been recorded as a witness.

William Holt was born abt. 1790 in London. He arrived (as a free man) in Hobart on 4th April 1832 aboard the ship 'Royal Admiral'. It departed London, Portsmouth 27 Nov 1831 with general cargo and only 15 passengers. Holt is mentioned several times in "Diary of Philip Thomas Smith on board the Royal Admiral en route for Tasmania. 12 Dec 1831 – 8 April 1832 ". Holt was employed to care for Smith’s valuable horses on the voyage. These horses were all lost in stormy weather. Diary Entry of Friday 16^th December 1831: …I must look after him too for his ups & downs in life have been very singular. Diary Entry of Xmas Eve 1831: …just as I was going to bed Holt & the Sailmaker got fighting, both drunk. I sent the fool to bed to repent on aches and pains for he can’t stand liquor.

William Holt rented land in the Bagdad area from George Armytage. He and Mary Ann had three children: a son Frederick Adolphus, born on December 28, 1837; a daughter Sophia Matilda, born on March 5, 1840 (she died the following year); and a son Randolph Henry, born on November 26, 1841.

Alcohol remained a problem for William Holt. On April 4, 1858 at 68 years of age, he died by suicide in his cell in Castlemaine Goal, Victoria. The Mount Alexander Mail reported: ..."hanged himself while recovering from a fit of drunkeness."…”Witness had known deceased for about four years. He was very eccentric, and very much given to drink. He has been often sentenced for drunkenness, and got once six months under the Vagrant Act.”

On June 28, 1861, (three years after his father’s death), Frederick Adolphus Holt, using the surname Grant, married Australian born Ellen Bridget Gorman in Yass, New South Wales. (Ellen was the daughter of Irish immigrants, Patrick Gorman and Elizabeth Gorman nee Saunders.) On September 24, 1909 at age 72 Frederick Adolphus Grant was admitted to Liverpool Asylum for the Infirm and Destitute, New South Wales. The admission record gives his birth date, and it names some of his children. It also records his parents as Fred Grant and Mary Peters of Tasmania. The birth details closely match the records for Frederick Adolphus Holt in all but the father’s name. Frederick Adolphus died some years later (aged 85) on 27 Apr 1923 in Newtown, Sydney. His brother Randolph Henry Holt died in an accident on the Palmer Goldfields on January 16, 1882.

Frederick Adolphus Holt, known as Frederick Adolphus Grant, and his wife Ellen had 15 children. (They named one of their sons Randolph Henry). Many of their grown family remained in the Murrumburrah/Harden region. However from 1903 the two eldest surviving sons, Frederick John Grant and Thomas Henry Grant are both recorded as living in the Western Queensland town of Cunnamulla. (Thomas was first placed on the census record on 25 June 1897.)

On 25 Apr 1897 Thomas Henry Grant married Margaret Jane Doyle.

Margaret Jane was the Australian born daughter of Patrick Joseph Doyle and Maria Bridget Doyle (nee Hand). The Doyles had emigrated from Ireland with six children and settled in the Ipswich QLD. area about 1866. Thomas Henry Grant and Margaret Jane Grant (nee Doyle) had seven children. One of these was named Florence Gorman Grant, and another was Bernadine Monica Grant.

Bernadine married Alexander William ‘Sonny’ Frazer on March 21, 1921, in Wyandra, QLD. ‘Sonny’ Frazer was the great grandson of Scottish immigrants, Alexander and Margaret Fraser. The Frasers had arrived in Australia in 1838 and settled in Binda NSW. In 1877 they joined their son and one of their daughters, when they moved their families to Charleville, QLD.

Bernadine Monica Frazer (nee Grant) was the mother of Thomas Bernard Frazer and the grandmother of Jane, Peter, Grant, Juliet & Annabel Frazer.

Grant