The Saga of Annie Peelman

Leigh gave me this...... not sure who actually wrote it ? references to "my great grandfather", "my grandmother" and "my mother and her five elder siblings" - maybe Daisy's family (was she the youngest of six) - no doubt Leigh will know.......
I discovered on reading the story again that a younger sister (Lizzie, Mary & Eliza) Eliza is noted to have ALSO born an illigitimate child - the also referring to Annie - 1st daughter of "our" Lizzie?
Anyway - here is the story......

The Saga of Annie Peelman and Eliza Seekay

Annie was born Elizabeth Ann Norris in Ballarat on 6^th July 1873 to Elizabeth Norris, daughter of Leonard and Bridget Norris. It is not known exactly when Elizabeth and her daughter made the move to Echuca/Moama, however her younger sister Mary married John Fasham in 1876 and settled in the area, so it is possible that Elizabeth was sent to live with her sister as a “young widow” – a fresh start. As you know, she married Benoit there the following year.

Their younger sister, Eliza Norris, followed her sisters to E/M sometime before 1879, when she also bore an illegitimate child - William Ernest Norris, who died in infancy. Again, it is possible that Eliza was sent to her married sisters before her condition was noticed at home, this time in order to have the child in secret. Whatever the cause, Eliza decided to stay – possibly for love, or just the offer of security, as she married a Singaporean Chinese shopkeeper by the name of Peter See Kay in 1880, and settled in Moama. This was an incredibly brave move at the time, as 1880 is considered by most historians to be the height of tensions in the colony between Anglo and Asian settlers. [An example; an Englishwoman who had married a Chinese miner had her testimony at a trial stricken from the record; the court argued that her marriage was a sign that she was so low in character that her testimony could not possibly be taken as credible evidence in the case.] Eliza had three children with Peter – Emily, Charles and Alice. Then, in March 1887, she bore a son, William, and everything changed. Suddenly, in 1888, Eliza disappeared with a local Cooper’s son, George William Burgess, taking her infant son William with her. They re-surfaced across the border in Albury in 1889, at the birth of a son, George, and eventually settled in Wagga, where they raised a large, happy family. William See Kay was thereafter known as William Burgess, and was to become my great-grandfather. A combination of photographic evidence and basic common sense makes it fairly apparent that William See Kay had no actual Chinese heritage.

Meanwhile, as you know, Elizabeth and Benoit had moved their family to Footscray. In September 1889 a young man by the name of Frederick Austerberry arrived in the Port of Melbourne. We don’t know how he and Annie met, or exactly what transpired, but a few months later Annie was on her way by ship to join him in WA (with or without her stepfather’s approval). Fred had originally arrived in Fremantle in 1887, and been on the move ever since. Leaving his wife of three years, Emily Lewis, back in Manchester, Fred travelled from port to port in Australia seeking work. He eventually settled down as a stableman at the Augusta Sawmills, but had also worked as a carter, and may have met Annie in Melbourne through Benoit’s later work as a sawyer. Whether Fred had originally intended to return to his first wife we’ll never know, but he and Annie do not appear to have ever married – they claim to have done so at Hamelin Harbour, WA (near the sawmills), but no record has ever been found. They had three daughters - Dolly (Augusta), Millie (Launceston?) and Nellie (Echuca). At some time between 1895 and 1900 Fred disappeared – it was believed that he had died, as Annie remarried to a John Anderson in 1900 in Victoria, however if she had never actually married Fred she would have been free to do so at any time – Mr Austerberry may have simply gotten bored and taken off again. No record has ever been found of his death, although his name is often grossly misspelled, and it may simply be a case of digging further into the records. Annie and John Anderson moved to Wagga, where they had three children of their own. The three Austerberry girls were also raised there, alongside the children of Eliza See Kay and George Burgess. (Can you see where this is going?).

On the 16^th March 1910, Dolly Austerberry, granddaughter of Elizabeth Norris, married William Burgess, son of Eliza Norris. They had 12 children, the eldest of whom was my grandmother, Dorothy May. Dorothy (Dot) was actually older than her youngest uncle, Thomas Herbert Anderson. The Andersons, along with Dolly and William and their growing family, eventually settled in Junee, where “Grandma Anderson” is still remembered with a mixture of awe and respect.

Elizabeth Ann Norris, AKA Annie Peelman, Annie Austerberry, later Ann Anderson, passed away on the 2^nd September 1953 in Junee, having lived long enough to meet many of her great-grandchildren, including my mother and her five elder siblings. She is remembered by all of them as a truly formidable woman.