Читать книгу Some Reminiscences of old Victoria - Maurice Thompson, Fawcett Edgar - Страница 2

All the Fawcetts I ever heard of from my father and mother came from Kidderminster. My father’s father was a maltster, and the sons, with the exception of my father, the youngest, were carpet weavers. The family were strict Nonconformists, and produced one or two noted divines of George the Third’s day, one of whom preached before that king. There was also a kinship with the Baxters of "Saint’s Rest" fame.

My mother was Jane Wignall, whose father was a Birmingham smallarms manufacturer in rather a large way of business, but who through the dishonesty of his partner was nearly ruined and brought to comparative poverty. The daughters, who were all well educated, had to take positions as governesses and ladies’ companions. My mother, in this capacity, lived and travelled in France and Spain, and spoke the languages of both countries. In a voyage to her home from Barcelona she was wrecked in the Gulf of Lyons, but through the timely assistance of a Spanish gentleman and his Newfoundland dog, who bore her up, she was brought to shore in little more than her nightdress. I have to-day a letter from the British consul at Marseilles which he gave to my mother, recommending her to the care of other British consuls on her way to England. The Spanish gentleman who saved her life made an offer of marriage, which my mother declined, I think, on account of his being a Roman Catholic. He would not take no for an answer, but later on followed her to England and offered himself a second time without effect. Shortly after this she and my father were married, and on the advice of Rowland Hill, his cousin (Sir Rowland Hill), he took his young bride to Australia. Rowland Hill, being his father’s trustee under his will, paid my father his share, with which he took a stock of goods and started business in Sydney.

In 1849 we left Sydney, where I was born, for San Francisco – father, mother, my brother Rowland and myself, in the ship Victoria. This vessel my father afterwards purchased and sent to Alberni, or Sooke, for a load of lumber for England, when we all were going with her. The vessel never came back, having been wrecked somewhere near where all the wrecks have since taken place, on the west coast of this island. My father was ruined, for there was no insurance, so he had to start life anew. He came north to Victoria in 1858, where he entered into business until appointed Government Agent at Nanaimo, where he served some years, dying at the advanced age of seventy-six. My mother died in 1863, and at the present writing, in addition to myself, there is one brother in Victoria – Rowland – and another brother, Arthur, in London, England.

The author has completed his fifty-three years in this fair city.

Dingley Dell,

December 20th, 1911.