Wilson Family by Rae Hussey
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| Title: | Wilson Family by Rae Hussey |
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| Identifier: | archives.org.au/Wilson_Family_by_Rae_Hussey |
| Parent item: | |
| Storage location: | |
| Date: | |
| Authors: | Lilian Jessie Rae Hussey (née Wilson) |
| Source: | |
| Format and extent: | |
| License: | © Copyright. The authors of this item reserve all rights. It will enter the public domain in Australia on 1 January 2082. |
| Related people: | |
| Related places: | Scotland • Ayrshire |
| Keywords: | H.M. Wilson Archives |
| Description: |
Transcription
WILSON FAMILY
They came from Ayrshire in Scotland, their cousins the McHargs also came from Ayrshire (hence the McHarg name later used) and the Garrick name came from the French Garique, a family who like many others escaped during the time when Protestants were being pe:secuted in France. David Garrick (the actor) was also from the Gariques, some kind of cousin. David Garrick had no family. My uncle Andrew was in Scotland some time during the 1914-1918 war, presumably on leave, and looked up some old records and found the record of Janet Garique marrying into the Wilson family. I think it may have been spelt Gerique. My name Rae comes from McRae which was the maiden name of my paternal grandmother's stepmother, my grandmother gave the name Rae to her daughter Margaret.
Margaret Wilson of Congdon Street at present has some papers written by my uncle giving what details he knew of the family. From my recollection they had a woollen mill which failed when the water supply failed (in those days water-wheels supplied power) and although the older boys had finished their education there were other younger ones and it was decided that the boys Robert about 20, and my grandfather William (18) would go out to the colonies, make money to send home and finance the education of the younger son James Mitchell (I think that was his name). He went to Edinburgh University and became a doctor, I gave Alan a letter he had written to his brother William while he was still a student. I gathered that collecting and naming a large number of botanical specimens was an important part of medicine at that time (about 1870).
Robert went first to America, then William went to Melbourne and later Robert joined him in Melbourne.
Robert was skilled in trading and became quite wealthy. He started a grocer's shop right in Melbourne, it was what would now be called a gourmet type, dealing only with the best quality foodstuffs, supplying what was called the "carriage trade" meaning the wealthy homes. The shop was still there under his name when I first went to Melbourne and it was still the place to go to for the best tea, coffee etc. William was not successful like his brother (or his McHarg cousin either, he also made a lot of money from what I gathered from my aunts). Robert had a son Rob and two daughters Kitty and Nancy. The girls did not marry, Kitty was a journalist with the Geelong paper and Nancy kept house for her, Rob was a charming man who gambled a lot and although their father had left them each quite wealthy it was not long before Rob had spent his own and a fair amount of his sisters. I think he settled down later. No-one held it against him and the girls always had plenty, my sister Adele stayed with them in Geelong (before she married) and was most impressed with the beautiful home and appointments as well as the two extremely nice elderly cousins. I did meet them once, probably at my uncle Charlie's funeral. Or it probably was only one of them.
There were other cousins in Melbourne, the Hay family. They had a big farming property out of Bendigo. Herb Hay used to go down to Selbourne quite frequently and take my aunts out for a drive or just visit with them, his wife Peggy would come down with him. After they all died (the Wilsons in Melbourne) I sent them a couple of things from the home, they were very nice people and had been very good to the
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Melbourne folk. There were also Jessie and Suzanne Hay who lived at Sassafras. We saw them occasionally, very nice women, Jessie had a beautiful large portrait of herself done by Sir William Longstaff (the noted artist). They also always had the finest of china, linen etc and afternoon tea with them was very pleasant.
