OLD SYDNEY BURIAL GROUND

I'm trying to find where the first two children of George and Ann Mawbey, David and Alfred, were buried in 1848.
Alfred died first, on 29 August 1848, buried on 31 August.
David died on 10 October 1848 and was buried the same day.
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I could not find them in the list of burials in the old Sandhills Cemetery at the corner of Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets, Sydney, reclaimed to make way for Central Railway Station.
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Today I looked at the list of burials in Sydney's first cemetery (the one that preceded Sandhills), the Old Sydney Burial Ground at the corner of George and Druitt Streets, Sydney, reclaimed in 1869 to make way for the Sydney Town Hall.
They were not there either.
Then I discovered that this burial ground had only been in use from 1792-1820.
It was too early, closing well before the boys were born.
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The two Mawbey males died in the year after the birth of their sister, Ann Jane, and before that of their younger brother, John Thomas.
To view the list of many of the earliest burials in the colony of New South Wales, click on OLD SYDNEY BURIAL GROUND.
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I have concluded that the two Mawbey boys must have been buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery, and that their records have been lost.
If this is the case, they were buried in the same place as the mysterious Sarah Barckley Mawbey who was interred in April of the same year, 1848.

This wonderful old photograph is of Central Railway Station in Sydney, in the distance with clock tower, showing railway tracks in the foreground still in the process of construction.
The station was built over land that was previously Devonshire Street Cemetery, Sydney's second public burial ground.
It was opened on 26 September 1855.
This photograph comes from Wikipedia's Central Railway Station, Sydney website.
According to Wikipedia, there was a Gipps Street running behind the station which may have been where George Mawbey II was living in 1893.

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WHERE WIDOWED ANN MAWBEY LIVED

Ann Mawbey (nee Williams), wife of George Mawbey I, became a widow at age 43 at the end of November 1862.
She and her young family subsequently lived at several different addresses in Newtown, then a poor part of Sydney that is now trendy and gentrified:
1864 - Egan Street, Newtown (Sands Directory) see Google Maps Egan Street, Newtown
1871 - O'Connell Street, Newtown (funeral notice son James August 1871) see Google Maps O'Connell Street, Newtown
1880 - Albermarle Street, Kingstown (funeral notice daughter Grace January 1880) see Google Maps Albermarle Street, Kingston (now Newtown)
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Each of these streets was a couple of blocks away from Camperdown Cemetery, where George Mawbey was buried.
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Kingston was one of three wards created by the Municipality of Newtown in December 1862.
The other two were O'Connell and Enmore.

WHERE GEORGE MAWBEY(2) LIVED

George Mawbey(2) and Nellie Smith were both living at Marrickville, now an inner western suburb of Sydney, when they were married there in 1885.
Their first child, Ina, died and their second, Elizabeth, was born the following year, 1886, the latter at the central western country town of Orange.
Their next four children - George(3) b.1887, Violet Ethel, b.1889, Linda, b.1892 and Daphne Hilda, b.1897 - were born in Sydney, and their last, Norman, in 1901, at Adamstown in Newcastle, a large town north of Sydney.
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From 1887-1890, when George and Violet were born, George Mawbey(2), was living at 261 Palmer Street, East Sydney, near the corner of Burton Street.
It was a block away from Darlinghurst Gaol.
Being so close to the gaol was not a desirable place to live, particularly when public hangings were still taking place outside its main entrance, so rents were probably cheap.
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In January 1901, George Mawbey II attended the hanging of part-Aboriginal man, Jimmy Governor, at the gaol, representing the Mawbey family, four of whom who had been his murder victims. [See Google Maps Palmer Street, East Sydney.]

261 Palmer Street, East Sydney
2011
This photograph (C) Pamela Mawbey 2011
Please acknowledge my copyright if reproduce.

In late 1890, George Mawbey II moved to 35 Ann Street, Surry Hills, on the other side of the main road, Oxford Street.
This house is no longer standing, but the one beside it consists of two two-storey semi-detached terraces.
Houses on the other side of the road are attached single storey working men's houses.
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The house where George Mawbey II and his family lived in Ann Street was a block away from turn of the century Sydney's worst slum, Frog Hollow, on Riley Street, Surry Hills.
A good summary of what the area was like can be seen by clicking on Tour of Gangland Sydney
[See also Google Maps Ann Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
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In the 1893 Sands Directory, George Mawbey II is listed as a 'van proprietor' living at 93 Gipps Street.
This street no longer exits, but appears to have run behind Central Railway Station, near where Eddy Avenue is now.
It was named after a former Governor of New South Wales.
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In 1894, George is back at 35 Ann Street, Surry Hills where he stayed until 1912. Daphne was born while the family were living there.
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In 1913-14 he was living at Villiers Street, Kensington, in a street that is now about a block away from Randwick Racecourse, Sydney's most prestigious racetrack.
See Google Maps Villiers Street, Kensington, Sydney
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In 1919, George(2)'s youngest son, Norman, was an apprentice to a Rosehill horse trainer.
His interest in horse racing may have been whetted by growing up near Randwick racecourse, his family having moved there when he was around 12.

GYNORMOUS JIGSAW PUZZLE

This family history, begun two years ago in January 2010, has become a 'gynormous' jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces.
I use the word 'gynormous', even though it is not in my 1997 edition of The Macquarie Dictionary, because it is bigger than 'enormous' which this word implies.
With the information I have already gathered, I could be quite easily making six posts a day on any or all of my eight Mawbey Family Australia family history blogs.
And I still feel that I've barely scratched the surface!
But I know I've gone beyond merely paddling in the shallows and am now swimming out into the deeper water of the open sea.
It has required both persistence and faith that I will find what I am looking for.
I've set myself a huge task, doing a family history for the whole of Australia, not just that of my own branch of the family.
It has broadened my horzions and made my life much more meaningful by contributing to world knowledge.
I wish all my readers throughout the world lots of encouragement with their family history research in the coming New Year, 2012.

WHERE WERE CHILDREN DAVID AND ALFRED MAWBEY BURIED?

George I and Ann Mawbey's first two children. David and Alfred, died in 1848 aged 5 and 6 respectively.
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Alfred died first on 29 August 1848 and was buried on 31 August.
David died on 10 October 1848 and was buried on the same day.
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David's death was registered at St James Church of England, Sydney, and Alfred's at St Lawrence Church of England, Sydney.
Where they were buried is unknown.
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I have been told by a St James archivist that the church did not have a burial ground at that time.
Also that a funeral service was not held in a church in those days, the minister going to the grieving family's house to pray over the deceased instead.
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The two boys were not buried in the Devonshire Street cemetery, according to a book that records all the burials there.
[Sydney Burial Ground 1819-1901 [Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets] and History of Sydney's Early Cemeteries from 1788 (2001) by Keith A Johnson and Malcolm R Sainty, published by the Library of Australian History, Sydney]
Nor are they buried at Balmain Cemetery with their older siblings, James and Grace.
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I have concluded that two Mawbey boys must have been buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery, and that their records have been lost.
They were buried in the same cemetery as the mysterious Sarah Barckley Mawbey who was buried in April 1848.

JOHN MAWBEY'S FRUIT SHOP AT MUDGEE

John Thomas Mawbey, eldest surviving son of George I, rented a store in Mudgee from 1878-1880.
In February 2011, I was given this information by the Mudgee Historical Society, gleaned from the Cudgegong rate books 1860-1905.
There the store was described as a 'wood shop', in other words, made of wood.
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But yesterday in the Mitchell Library I saw in an amazing book, Wright's Australian and American commercial directory and gazeteer (New York, 1881), that J. Mawbey was listed as a 'fruiterer' in Mudgee.
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This lent further support to an idea that was simmering in my brain after obtaining more information about Dural from Roughley family history books in the library.
When the Mawbey family lived there, from around 1849-58, based on baptisms that took place at St Jude's, possibly until 1860, it was an orchard area.
This means there would have been plenty of work available picking fruit.
Several of these orchardists are listed in Wright's 1881 directory as 'fruit growers' - William Williams, James Roughley and W Hunt.
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William Ephriam Williams was the youngest child of Thomas Williams II and Charlotte (nee Kentwell), born at Dural on 16 June 1846.
John Thomas Mawbey was born three years later in 1849.
I am wondering if the two boys were childhood friends, and that in adulthood, John Thomas was selling William's fruit in his store at Mudgee.
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Another possible connection is that a W. Williams was at the hanging of Jimmy Governor at Darlinghurst Gaol in January 1901.
Perhaps John Thomas's childhood friend was there on his behalf because it was too painful for him to attend himself.
John Thomas's younger brother, George Mawbey II, was there too.
He was nine years younger than his brother, and 12 years younger than William Williams who died in 1919.
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John Thomas was 9 or 10 when his family left Dural, a couple of years before his father, George I, died at Newtown on 30 November 1862 aged 53.
George I had been a witness at the wedding of William Williams's older sister, Mary, to Henry Black at Dural on 19 February 1856.