Charles Hazell was born in Bristol, England and baptised at the Temple Church on the 18th February 1821.
Human settlement of Bristol dates back to at least 300,000 years ago, when there is evidence that Neanderthal people were living near the location of modern Bristol. It is located on the Avon River, quite close to its flow into the River Severn and onward into the Bristol Channel. It is one of the most western locations in south-west England, with the river Severn representing the border with Wales.
Bristol was the location of one of the “Burghs” built by King Alfred the Great (or possibly by one of his descendant kings) as a defence against the Viking invaders, particularly those who were settled in Ireland at that time.
The English ancestors of our Hazell family are John and Sarah Hazell of Bristol, about whom we know very little beyond the very basic facts. Sarah’s maiden name was Hopkins. The couple married on the 16th December 1806 at St Paul’s Church in Portland Square Bristol. John’s occupation was “butcher.
The couple had at least two children: George who was born in 1813, and, our next direct ancestor Charles, who was born in 1821.
I have not been able to establish, with any certainty, their dates of birth or when they died.
There are two baptismal records for George. The first was a private baptism held at St John the Baptist Church. A second baptism was conducted on the 27th June in the Temple Church. The record of this baptism shows that the family were living at Christmas Street, Bristol.
Charles was baptised on Sunday 18th, 1821 and the church record showed that he had been born “7 weeks ago”. This would place his approximate date of birth at around the 1st January 1821.
Beyond these bare facts there is a shroud of mystery around the Hazell family of Bristol from which we are descended.
What is even a greater mystery is how it would come about that young Charles would, at the age of 13 migrate to Australia and found a new colonial family carrying the name of “Hazell”, or that I, their 3rd great grandson, would be writing about them and telling their story, some 200 years later.
Charles Hazell celebrated Christmas of 1833 with his family in Bristol, knowing that it would probably be the last they would share together. The young boy of just 12 years of age was about to set out on a huge adventure, alone, to a distant and “new” land (apologies to the first nations people for whom this land was indeed an ancient one).
On the 8th January the following year (1834), the 374 ton barque ship “Vestal” set sail from Liverpool for Sydney via Hobart, under the command of Thomas Taylor, with 34 passengers comprising men, women, and children
There were no other passengers with the same surname as Charles, so it appears he was the only member of his immediate family to set out. His age was listed on the ship’s log as “14 years of age” although he was actually only 13 at the time. I can only speculate that, due to his young age, perhaps one of the other adults on the ship was a member of Charles’ extended family, or a family friend or perhaps a member of his church community. Perhaps he was travelling alone to join a family member or friend who had emigrated earlier to Australia.
His occupation is not given on the ship’s log, and one can only assume that he was unskilled and would be expecting to gain work as a labourer. Indeed, labouring and other farm-related work was the only kind of work that he ever undertook during his long life.
The colony of New South Wales had been established only fifty years earlier, and immigration agents in England were very active in recruiting young and strong people who were keen to try for a good future in the new land. Charles was about to join one of the many youngsters who saw the possibility of a better future, as well as one of excitement and challenge.
Charles first set foot on Australian soil at Sydney Harbour (Port Philip) on 24th August 1834. He would have started some kind of employment straight away, but where and in what capacity I am not sure.
Indeed, I have no record of what Charles did in the period between his arrival in Australia and his marriage to Anne (Nancy) Laheen, which took place at St Luke’s Anglican Church in Scone on the 7th May 1845.
This leaves eleven years of his life yet to be accounted for. However, given that he obviously met his wife in the Scone area, and that he and his family lived the remainder of their lives in the Upper Hunter Valley, it is reasonable to assume that at some stage he must have travelled to that area, and that he was living there before 1845.
The Upper Hunter Valley Settlement
Around the time that Charles was born, the first white explorers, assisted by Aboriginal guides, found their way across the Great Dividing Range (chain of mountains along the eastern coast of Australia) to the Hunter Valley at Wollombi. The path they travelled was one long used by Aboriginal people as they visited and traded with other tribes on the Hawkesbury and Sydney areas.
By the time Charles arrived in Australia the Great North Road (which followed this route) had almost been completed. The road commenced at Five Dock, west of Sydney, and passed via Dural to Wiseman’s Ferry. The road continues on the other side of the Hawkesbury along the ranges through Bucketty to Wollombi. At this point the road split to the north-east towards Newcastle and to the north-west towards Singleton, Denman and then from there to the Upper Hunter.
Prior to this time travel to the Hunter Valley was via ship to Newcastle and then up the Hunter River to Morpeth and thence by road. Sailing ships were used until steam-assisted sailing vessels were introduced in May 1831. The first such ship was the Sophia Jane. Shortly she was joined by the vessel William the Fourth, a wooden paddle steamer, which was the first oceangoing steamship built in Australia (at “Erringhi” which was later named Clarencetown on the Williams River).
Although settlement in the Upper Hunter Valley had commenced earlier, the opening of the Road meant that settlers and supplies for building and farming would now be much easier, as would the transport of produce to the markets in Sydney.
Muswellbrook (then called “Muscelbrook”) became a township in 1834. In 1837, the Segenhoe Inn (still standing) was built at Aberdeen to support travellers to nearby stations and further north-west to Scone and beyond.
Segenhoe Inn near Aberdeen. Built 1837
The village of Scone was so named in 1831 and was gazetted in 1837. The area was renowned for its large pastoral properties, in particular “Segenhoe” and “Belltrees”.
It was at “Belltrees” that Charles Hazell was working at the time of the birth of his first child, and may well have been where he met his future wife and her family (The Lahenes).
Allow me to Introduce Patrick Laheen and his family, who emigrated from Ireland on the “Charles Kerr”, arriving on the 8th January 1839. Daniel’s occupation was given as a “farmer” on one immigration record and “fencer and handicraftsman” on another. Although his passage was “assisted” I am not sure who it was that actually arranged and paid for the family’s passage.
With him onboard was his second wife, Mary Welsh and their two children Catherine and Margaret, as well as the three children from his first marriage: Thomas, Mary Anne, and Nancy Anne. Mary’s occupation was given on the immigration record as “farm servant”
By May 1840, the Laheens were living near scone as it was there and then that Patrick and Mary’s fourth child, “Patrick” was born, and two years later, “Bridget” was born.
The Bride: Nancy Anne Laheen
The full story of the Laheen family will be told in separate posts. For this story, we need to focus only on the young lady, “Nancy Anne”, who was commonly called “Annie”.
Annie was born at Mountshannon in County Limerick, Ireland, on 7th January 1829, the third child of Daniel and Mary Maher. Unfortunately, Mary died sometime after Annie’s birth, as by 1835 Daniel had remarried.
She was 10 years old when the family arrived in Australia, and I have come to speculate that the family moved to the Scone area soon after they landed and that Daniel and Mary were indentured to the White family who established their station, named “Belltrees”.
I also think that it was probable that Charles Hazell and Daniel Laheen and family were working and living here at Belltrees at the same time, and that this is how Charles met the young woman who was to become his wife.
Why have I reached these conclusions? Firstly, there were only three large stations in the Scone area in the 1830s and 1840s and these were a fair distance apart, making it likely that Charles and Annie would not have met if they were living on separate properties. I have assumed that they were living and working at “Belltrees” as this is where Charles and Annie were living after their marriage when their first three children were born.
The following photo of the original homestead was taken when Juliana and I visited Belltrees in 2012.
The Wedding
Charles and Annie were married at St Lukes Anglican Church in Scone on 7th May 1845. She was just 16 years old (and a few months) and Charles was 24.
We know that Charles was not a Catholic (described as a “Protestant” but he was probably Anglican, although we’ve no idea whether he was religious) but it’s a fair assumption that Annie was at least baptised as a Catholic, having come from rural Ireland. So, why were they married in an Anglican Church?
Put simply, there was only one Church in the Upper Hunter in 1845 and that was St. Luke’s, and, in those days, it was common for Catholics to accept the Anglican sacraments if the Catholic Church could not provide them. Perhaps, also, neither were religious people and the issue of which denomination did not matter to either of them.
The following information about St Luke’s is taken from the “Australia’s Christian Heritage” website: https://www.churchesaustralia.org/ which I accessed in 1/3/2024.
“The St Luke’s Anglican Church, Scone is part of the Parish of Scone and the Diocese of Newcastle. The current St Luke’s church was built in 1884, replacing earlier church buildings erected in 1841 and 1853. The first church building was consecrated by the Bishop of Australia, The Rev W Broughton in 1843. The adjoining cemetery was also consecrated in 1884. The bell was provided by William Dangar for the first building.”
The young married couple lived and worked for the first twelve years of their married lives at Belltrees, during which time the family grew by four.
But before their first child was born, Charles had a little stay at a “special place” at Maitland.
Charles’s brush with the law
On the 10th July 1846, Charles was admitted to Maitland gaol having been charged with stealing and slaughtering a cow, along with another fellow, James Lake.
Appearing in court on the 16th, Charles and James were given bail and, it appears that no further action was taken as, Charles didn’t appear in court again. Perhaps the actual culprits were caught, and the charges were dropped. He did spend a week in gaol though and, undoubtedly, this would have been a very anxious time, especially for Annie, who was around six months pregnant with her first child.
Children born at “Belltrees” (near Scone)
Four children were born to Annie and Charles while they were at Belltrees Station. The following shows brief details for each:
JOHN HAZELL was born on the 30th October 1846.
CHARLES HAZELL was born on the 25th September 1849
THOMAS GEORGE HAZELL was born on the 25th March 1852
SARAH ANN HAZELL was born on the 5th May 1854
MARY HAZELL was born on the 18th April 1856
Supporting king and country
On Monday 21 May 1855, the Maitland Mercury published on page 2 a list of contributions from donors living at Belltrees towards the “Patriotic Fund”:. Charles appears among this list as having contributed £1 (that’s one pound: a considerable amount). This amount was the largest contribution apart from that made by the owners of the Station, Francis and George White, who each contributed £5.
The Patriotic Fund was set up in Australia to support the British efforts in the Crimean War. It was feared that should Britain and its allies lose the war, the colonies would be vulnerable to becoming a dominion of Russia.
Living at “Plashett” Station
The Plashett property was first established at Jerry’s Plains in1827 by James Robertson and was purchased by the Pearce family in 1856.
Charles, Annie and the five children moved to work at Plashett sometime between April 1856, and 1858 when their sixth baby was born.
The Plashett homestead was built in 1865. The following photo of the historic homestead was copied from the Anglo American website on 1/3/2024.
Children born at Plashett
The family resided at Plashett for somewhere between seven and ten years and, while there, three more children were born.
JANE HAZELL was born on the 6th October 1858
ISABELLA HAZELL was born on the 27th September 1860
WILLIAM PLASHETT HAZELL was born on the 17th December 1862
I wonder why Annie and Charles added “Plashett” as the second name for their baby. Does it reflect that they had a particularly fond attachment for this place?
I have a theory that the Hazell family may have met the German immigrants with the family name of Nebauer (pronounced as “neighbour”). Joseph Nebauer and his sister, Anna Rosina, along with their mother Elizabeth, had migrated to Australia in 1855 and had lived for some time in the lower Hunter area.
My theory relies on three possibly related facts. Firstly, it appears that the Nebauer family may also have been living near Jerry’s Plains (and possibly at Plashett) at around the same time as the Hazells. The matriarch of their family, Elizabeth Nebauer (née Plaz), died in this district and was buried in the old Catholic cemetery there.
Secondly, the Hazell and Nebauer family later moved to the same district of Giants Creek (between Sandy Hollow and Gungal), suggesting that an earlier friendship may have led to the two families following similar life paths; thirdly, young Charles Hazell later married Rose Ann Stair, the daughter of Anna Rosina Nebauer.
The reader can please themselves if they think three facts lead to a reasonable conclusion.
To read the full story of the German Connections to the Hazell family, select “The German Ancestors of the Hazell Family” from the menu at the left.
Next Stop is “Piercefield”
The next child in the Hazell family was born in 1866 at “Piercefield”, a property located near on what is now the Denman Road, between Denman and Muswellbrook. The family must have moved here sometime after William Plashett was born in 1862.
FREDERIC GEORGE HAZELL (known as ‘George’) was born on 25th January 1866.
At this point, the Hazell tribe had grown to nine children, all having survived childbirth and the rigours of what must have been a rather sparse lifestyle in the relatively small style of housing (or huts) that station owners provided for their labourers. Nevertheless, it was probably a very healthy one, with the family being able to grow its own vegetables and fruits and to have access to milk and occasionally meat as well.
On Wednesday the 6th June 1866, the following article appeared on page 204 of the New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime (Sydney : 1860 – 1930):
The Gazette goes on to report that the theft took place on the 25th May at Merriwa. The horse was described as a “strawberry skewbald pony”, that it had a “white spot on off flank, DX on near shoulder, B on neck, short tail”. The owner is given as “Charles Hazell, Peacefield (sic), near Denman” and a reward of “£5 upon conviction” was offered.
The loss of the horse would have been a real concern for Charles as, almost certainly, he would have needed it in the work he undertook on the property. Fortunately, the pony was later found at Spring Creek near Merriwa, as reported again in the Gazette on the 11th July of that year.
What is a little intriguing is why Charles’s horse (and presumably Charles) was in Merriwa when it was stolen. It reminds me that horseback riding was practically the only way people got around in those days, so, if any business or shopping needed to be done, you had to be able to ride a horse or get on the back of someone who can. I am told that, at a walking pace, a horse can travel about 50kms in around 8 hours, which is about how long it would take to ride from Piercefield to Merriwa.
Living at Giant’s Creek
The family of now nine children upped and moved one more time sometime between 1866 and November 1868, the family had moved to Giants Creek.
Giants Creek rises near Bunnan (which is east of Merriwa) and flows south and then east to meet Halls Creek at Sandy Hollow. Halls Creek itself then flows into the Goulburn River just a few miles south-east of there. The area that our ancestors lived and farmed was on the lower reaches of Giants Creek, roughly that area between Gungal and Sandy Hollow.
Giants Creek flows into Halls Creek and passes below the land-form shown in the picture below, which is referred to as “Giants Leap”. I have read in the Maitland Mercury that the local Aboriginal people believed that an “Evil One” had made a giant leap and this caused the land to take this shape.
I am fairly sure that the locality which was named “Giants Creek” was near the south-eastern end of the rivulet where it joined the larger waterway of Hall’s Creek, and that the upper reaches of the Creek fell within the locality of Gungal. I am also fairly sure that the Hazell family were living along the north-western section of the Creek, as were the Stair and Nebauer families mentioned earlier. This assumption is born out by the fact that the Hazells banded together with other families near to Gungal to lobby for a school for their children, as they were unable to attend the school at Giants Creek.
The Giants Creek Children
While living at Giants Creek, yet three more children were born to Charles and Annie Hazell.
RACHEL KATE HAZELL was born on the 9th November 1868
MARGARET ROSE HAZELL was born on the 27th February 1871
ELIZA ELLEN HAZELL was born on 23rd July 1873
So, in by this time, Annie had given birth to twelve children, and she was just 44 years old.
Weddings at Giants Creek
The first of Charles and Annie’s children to marry into one of the other local families was their eldest daughter, Sarah Ann. Sarah married John Ham at the Anglican Church at Mount Dangar on 27th June 1873. John and Sarah Ham went on to have a large family.
In 1876, the eldest of the Hazell children, John, had turned 30 years of age when he married a girl, Harriet Alice Cribb, on 22nd May of that year. While their first child, William Hazell, was born in February 1877 at Giants Creek, it’s not certain whether the newly married couple remained living in the district.
In the same year, a second daughter, Mary, married to James Sullivan, and again, the couple were married over at the church at Mount Dangar.
On 5th December 1877, my great-grandfather, Charles Hazell, second son of Charles and Annie, married Rose Anne Stair at the Catholic Church in Denman. Rose, like her mother-in-law, was informally called “Annie”. So we have Charles and Annie Hazell (the older couple) and Charles and Annie Hazell (the younger). It is evident from the birth records of the children either Charles Hazell Jnr had become a Catholic upon his marriage or that he had agreed with his wife that the children would be baptised in that denomination. Thus, the subsequent offspring of this branch of the family tree was of the Catholic faith, while the rest of the Hazell tree remained Anglican.
Rose Anne Stair was the daughter of Anna Rosanna Nebauer and Charles Stair, both of whom had emigrated from Germany in the 1850s. The surname “Stair” was an anglicised spelling of the German “Stoehr”.
The younger Charles Hazell family grew to three when their first child (Elizabeth Esther) was born on the 21st December 1878. At sometime during the next three years, Charles and Annie, with baby Elizabeth, had moved to a thriving property near Merriwa known as “Brindley Park”, where five more children were to be born, including my grandfather, Albert John Hazell. Brindley park Station was a large property located north-west of Merriwa on the road to Cassilis.
On 21st November 1881, Isabella Hazell married George James Delforce in Merriwa
Failed Ambition
At some point in the 1860s, Charles began working as a carrier. Having worked for rich landowners for all of his working life, this move was his chance to work for his own benefit and that of his family. Perhaps he saw the difficulty his neighbours experienced in getting their produce to the larger centres at Muswellbrook or Merriwa and Scone, and to bringing into their relatively isolated community the building materials, furniture and clothing and other supplies that they needed.
It seems however that the venture was not a success. He would have need to borrow the money needed to set himself up with the horses and cart to be able to carry goods to and from his local community at Giant’s Creek. He may have misjudged the demand for the services he proposed to offer, or the financial capacity of his neighbours to afford to pay a carrier to meet their needs. Perhaps times were tough, the weather poor, and just that his timing was wrong.
On Friday 11 March 1870, a notice was posted in the New South Wales Government Gazette, ((Sydney, NSW : 1832–1900), (No.57), page 609), announcing that Charles’s estate had become insolvent, and announcing a meeting of creditors to decide how his remaining funds should be distributed to those whom he owed money.
The need for a school at Giants Creek
As the number of people living and working in the district around Gungal grew, lobbying began for the Education Department to fund the establishment of a school. The story is told ably by Geoffrey Mayer in his book “In the Shadow of Mount Dangar”.
“At this part of the district education did not run as smoothly as it had done at Giants Creek.” and
“During the 1870s, James Peberdy of Gungal employed a governess to teach his four sons, but by the second half of the 1870’s a need for a school was voiced by the local residents. An application for a provisional school was sent to the Department dated 10.4.1877 and signed by James Peberdy, Michael Murphy and Edwin Horne.”
“The application listed 28 names of proposed pupils to attend. Isedore Danglade had four children, Joseph Daniel two, Patrick Houlahan had five, Edwin Horne had four, John Hornery Snr had his son Andrew, William Ham’s step daughter Amelia Dehn, Charles Hazell had four children, Eugene Nebauer’s youngest daughter Elizabeth, Charles Stair had three and James Peberdy still had three sons.”
“In the Shadow of Mount Dangar”; Geoffrey i Meyer. Published by the author (date unknown).
Charles goes back to Court and gets off
For at least the second time in his life, Charles was arrested by the police for stealing; this time a pair of saddlebags. With the help of an experienced solicitor, the case was dismissed. The following notice appeared on page 4 of the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser on Saturday 30 May 1874.
Missing years – family events
I don’t have any clear evidence of where Charles and Anne were living between 1877, when Charles was lobbying for a school at Gungal, and 1888, when they were definitely living north-east of Merriwa. Nevertheless, there are a number of family events which took place during those years
The most tragic of these was the early death of Charles and Anne’s youngest child, Eliza Ellen, which occurred on the 19th February 1883. She was just 9 years old.
In May 1885, Jane, then 27 years old, married Frederick Solly. The marriage was registered at Wallsend in May, but I am not sure where the wedding took place or where Jane had been living beforehand.
On the 11th May 1887, Rachel married Uriah Harvey. She was 19 years old. I believe the wedding took place in Merriwa, but I am not exactly sure where Rachel was living before that date.
Gundibri Station
By 1888, Charles and Annie (and probably their youngest girl, Margaret) were living on Gundabri Station, which is located between Merriwa and Bunnan along the Scone Road east of Merriwa. Gundibri was one of the earliest merino sheep properties in New South Wales and remains a prosperous business to this day. In those days, it was necessary for station owners to provide accommodation for the families of those who worked on the station. All members of the family who could work did so, either for the station owner or in supporting the family through raising animals or growing vegetables etc for the family to eat.
In 2010, Juliana and I visited the Station with the kind permission of the owners at that time and were able to see the old homestead and some of the old buildings, including an old house which was once used by those who worked on the property. It isn’t unrealistic to think that the Hazell family lived here at the time they were working at Gundibri.
Annie’s terrible accident
It is remarkable that we have been able to learn about and relate the story of a terrible accident that happened to Annie. In the late nineteenth century there were no radio stations, let alone television, to inform people of what was happening in their districts. Instead, people relied heavily on newspapers and journals to keep up to date with what was happening in their local district, nationally and even internationally.
To ensure a wide subscription to a newspaper, correspondents were recruited in all parts of the country, whose job it was to record notable events that took place in their area. Typically, as is the case today, the stories that were published included both the happy and the sad news within the community, as well as events that might be peculiar or of interest or particular relevance.
Fortunately, for we who want to get to know our distant ancestors better, one such story was published in The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser on Saturday 8th September 1888. Unfortunately, the story is of a terrible workplace accident that happened to Annie Hazell while she was boiling tallow with water to remove impurities and to make it useable for a range of purposes from cooking (making pastry or deep-frying), making soap or candles, or even using as a lubricant for farm machinery. “What’s tallow” you ask? Basically, tallow is the name for the excess fat of cows, sheep and pigs. Tallow from the different animals was used for different purposes.
I think this provides a great insight into the types of activities that made up the daily working lives. Annie may have been rendering the tallow for the various other tasks she performed daily, such as washing clothes, bathing children, cooking, lighting the house at night etc. Alternatively, this may have been one of the tasks she undertook as a worker on the station.
How horrible this accident would have been, and one can only imagine the difficulty she experienced during the recovery period. After all, she 59 years old and worked really hard at physical work for her whole adult life. I’d like to imagine that her youngest daughter Margaret, who was then 17 years old, was able to provide her with comfort and care.
Charles’ Tragic End – April 1893
After living and working for almost sixty years since he arrived in Australia, Charles’ life was tragically ended when he fell from his horse and died from his injuries. It is horrible to think about his last hours. I can only hope that His injuries caused a rapid death. He was found some days later, possibly a week or more. No doubt a search party had been arranged after he failed to return to the station as anticipated. A magisterial inquiry was held on the 10th April 1893, when it was determined that he had died on or about the 1st April.
Charles’ death certificate appears below, and we can learn so much from it.
So much can be learned about Charles’ last days from his death certificate.
Firstly, we know that Charles was working as a boundary rider
