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Some background information is needed at this point because things get a bit complicated.
The Rev. Ridgeway William Newland married a lady called Jane Benning and they had four children. Simpson and Sophia died but two other sons, Ridgeway and Watts survived to adulthood although Ridgeway died young and Watts was the only child from that marriage who married and had children.
Jane died in 1826 and her husband Ridgeway married again almost immediately, if the records are correct, to Martha Keeling who had six children (Martha, Sophia, William, Catherine, Simpson and Sarah).
Ridgeway and Martha emigrated to South Australia in 1838 on the “Sir Charles Forbes”, along with the eight surviving children, Martha’s mother Sarah Keeling, née Dimock and Martha’s two sisters Catherine and Isabella.
They founded a settlement at what is now Victor Harbour which until then had been a whaling station.
Sophia Newland married a man called Henry Field and he and Simpson Newland acquired an interest in a station, Marra, literally “back of Bourke” on the Darling River. Sophia and Henry lived at Marra and Simpson appears to have commuted between Encounter Bay in South Australia and Marra. He married Jane Layton from Sydney at Marra Station.
Watts Newland married twice, had twelve children and lived to the ripe old age of 92. Mary, born on 28th May 1854 was the oldest child of his first wife, Fanny Hester Taylor. According to the records I turned up she lived at Goolwa and died on 6th July 1878, aged 25. No next of kin is recorded but probably she had an aunt and uncle living in Goolwa so that was plausible.
Now we come to the next person involved in this story. Martha’s Newland sister, Catherine Keeling married a man named David Wark on 28th April 1842 and on 16th September 1845 she gave birth to her second child, a son named James Keeling Wark.
Getting back into the here and now - I recently made contact with a second cousin, Clive Thomas Newland and he lent me a couple of pamphlets about Marra Station which appears to be something of a tourist attraction now. One of these pamphlets lists all the births, deaths and marriages in the Tilpa area - Tilpa being the nearest town to Marra.
Looking through the book I came across the birth of two children to James Keeling Wark, Marra Station manager, and Mary Newland. The first child, Catherine Wark was born on 8th August 1879 and the second child, Francis Newland Wark was born on 14th June 1882. Mary Wark was 23 when her first child was born which give her a birth year of 1856/1857. Watts’ daughter Mary was born in 1857.
Checking the marriage records for New South Wales I found that James Keeling Wark had married Mary Newland in the Menindie district (where Marra Station was) in 1876.
Now there are two explanations for the paradox of the two Marys. Either there was, by some very odd coincidence, a stray Mary Newland who just happened to find herself at Marra and married the Station manager and who had no connection with the Newland family who ran Marra.
Or the Mary Newland who lived in Goolwa in South Australia (and who died in 1878 in Adelaide), only a short distance from Victor Harbour where Watts’ daughter Mary was born was no relation to my family, even though her birth date would suggest that she was indeed Watts’ daughter Mary.
I posted a request on a genealogy forum in the hope that somebody can give me the name of the father of the Mary who married at Marra and hopefully it will prove to be Watts Newland.
Could somebody check the marriage of James Keeling Wark and Mary Newland, probably in the Menindie district. There was a child born to the couple on 14th June 1882 (Francis Newland Wark).
I'm trying to get confirmation of Mary's parents (hopefully Watts Newland and Fanny Hester Taylor)and the date of the marriage.
Watts' father's second wife was a Keeling but it all gets a bit complicated there and I need to confirm that Watts was the father of that particular Mary.
And a second one -
Watts' daughter Mary died in 1878.
Stranger and stranger !!!!!
Now I REALLY need to know who this Mary Newland was - James Keeling Wark was station manager at Marra Station which was owned by MY Newlands and Watts' daughter is the only Mary Newland of that generation.
The marriage record online:
3281/1876 WARK JAMES KEELING
NEWLAND MARY
MENINDIE District
The reply to my query:
Hi Liz,
All I could find was the marriage record:
SURNAME WARK
I could not find a death or birth for Mary in NSW with the parent names you provided.
GIVEN NAME(S) JAMES KEELING
SEX MALE
INDEX YEAR 1876
SPOUSE SURNAME NEWLAND
SPOUSE GIVEN NAME(S) MARY
SPOUSE SEX FEMALE
PLACE OF REGISTRATION MENINDIE
REGISTRATION YEAR 1876
REGISTRATION NUMBER 3281
Good luck in your search
Regards
Gordon
So:
Thanks Gordon. I guess that I'd better get the certificate and hope that it gives me more details - and the death certificate of the one who died. They appear to have been born in the same year - I have birth details for one Mary Newland and the age when she gave birth to her first child for the other one so something odd happened back then.
I don't believe in co-incidences that great so I have to assume that somehow she didn't die.
James died about four years after the second child was born - in South Australia so presumably Mary ended up back there but I can not find any further trace of her.
I have found another trace of her - she had five children - three born at Marra and the last one just a few short months before James died. James died near Tarlee in the Barossa Valley but I can not find any other traces of Mary who must have lived past 1915 which is as far as I have records for.
10th March 2003
After some careful arithmetic I have ascertained that Watts’ daughter Mary would have just turned 24 when the Mary Newland from Goolwa died so I have merged the Marys and eliminated the Goolwa one although I’m still a bit concerned that there just MIGHT have been two of them as two Mary A. Newlands were born in New South Wales at about that time and perhaps she was a friend of Helena Kate Layton who was from Sydney. It would be a great coincidence if she travelled to Marra with Helena and met James Keeling Wark there and married him. Perhaps there really were two of them - there doesn’t seem to be any way of proving it one way or other. The Mary of the marriage certificate was plain Mary with no second name, as was Watts’ daughter (and the Goolwa Mary).
18th March 2003
23rd March 2003
Then your Mary IS buried in the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide South Australia.
There is no “detail” available and a message screen indicates, “Information regarding this burial can be obtained by contact with the cemetery office”.
The West Terrace Cemetery can be contacted by:
Mail to:-
The marriage certificate has arrived and doesn’t add very much to what I already knew. Witnesses at the wedding were Simpson Newland and his sister-in-law Helena Kate Layton.
I have unmerged the Marys and will send a letter to all the Warks in the white pages for South Australia in the hope of finding someone who knows if Mary Wark was Watts Newland’s daughter.
Hi liz,If your Mary Newland was aged 25 and died 6/7/1878 in Adelaide and was born in 1854 at Encounter Bay the first of three children to:
Watts Newland (1821 - 25-6-1913) and his first wife
Fanny Hester Taylor. (1834 - 10/10/1862).
The cemetery operates a “user enquiry computer” at its location and I accessed that on Sat March 22 2003 on your behalf armed with a little “background”.
Enfield General Cemetery Trust
PO Box 294 ENFIELD PLAZA
SA 5085
Telephone (08) 8262 1321
My reply:
This was a very well-to-do family with large land holdings and I can't believe that it can be the right one.
However - they are going to send somebody to have a look at the actual site and phone me back if there is anything there which would indicate who her parents were.
I've just phoned the Cemetery Office and the Mary Newland buried in the West Terrace Cemetery had a pauper's funeral and they have no details of parents or even of previous address - simply that she died in Adelaide and that she was buried at the government's expense.
24th March 2003
I’m beginning to think that she was someone who assumed the name to remain anonymous - perhaps a pregnancy - and died without her relatives knowing about her - or perhaps they turned her out when they found out that she was pregnant (without a character as the expression goes).
Back to Plan B - the letter to the Warks:
The Cemetery board has confirmed that the Mary Newland buried at West Terrace had no headstone - no identification at all.
20th March 2003
Re: MARY WARK (Née Newland)
I am researching my family tree and as a great-great granddaughter of Ridgeway William Newland and Martha Keeling that encompasses the Wark family.
Here I have struck something of a puzzle and I am hoping that you may be able to help me to resolve it.
Basically, Watts Newland seems to have been the only child of Ridgeway Newland’s first marriage to Jane Benning who lived to have children. He had a daughter Mary by his first wife Fanny Hester Taylor. Mary was born on 28th May 1854. A Mary Newland lived in Goolwa and died in Adelaide on 6th July 1878 at the age of 25 and I originally assumed that this was Watts‘ daughter.
Ridgeway Newland married twice and his second wife was Martha Keeling. When the Newland family emigrated to South Australia they were accompanied by Martha’s mother and two sisters, Catherine and Isabella. Catherine married David Wark and had a son, James Keeling Wark.
I have subsequently found that James Keeling Wark was station manager at Marra Station on the Darling River which was owned by my great grandfather, Simpson Newland (son of Ridgeway Newland and Martha Keeling) and his brother-in-law Henry Field. (Simpson Newland and James Keeling Wark were first cousins).
On 2nd November 1876, at Marra Station, James married a Mary Newland and they had five children before James died, aged 39 at Ryelands, near Tarlee in South Australia in 1886.
The Children were: - Norman Frederick Wark (1877), Catherine Wark (1879), Una Mary Wark (1881), Francis Newland Wark (1882) and David Colin Wark (1886).
Their daughter Catherine was born at Marra Station in 8th August 1879 when Mary was 25 years old which puts her age very close to that of the Mary who is supposed to have died in 1878.
My problem is that I am not sure which Mary was the daughter of Watts Newland. The marriage certificate of the one and the death certificate of the other gives no next of kin and although commonsense tells me that it was Watts’ daughter who married James Wark I can’t discount the fact that there COULD have been two Mary Newlands, although where the second one came from is a mystery because there wasn’t another one in the family at that time.
15th April 2003
I am trying to find out who was the father of Mary Newland {born about 1854}. She married James Keeling Wark on 2nd November 1876 at Marra Station in the Menindie District of NSW.
I have made a personal request to all the Wark family in South Australia with no satisfactory response. One of the daughters of the marriage married Ernest Frank Reuter in 1907.
I have Mary's marriage certificate but her father is not named.
If anybody is researching this family I'd be grateful for any information.
I have gone as far as I can go and need to find somebody who has knowledge handed down in the family as I have come to a dead end with the BMD records.
Hi Elizabeth
I found this in the book South Australians 1836 -1885. Third set.
Name; Newland Watts
Marriage; 1/2 12-5-1853 Willunga SA
Children;
Marriage; 2/2 17-4-1865 Tarpeena SA
Children;
If you're wondering where Poonindee Mission was it was just north of Port Lincoln. Now Poonindie
Parents;
Ridgway William and Jane Sophia née Benning
Birth; 23-12-1820 Hanley STS ENG
Death; 25-6-1913 Woodville SA
Burial; Cheltenham SA
Arr; SA 7-6-1839 from ENG . SIR CHARLES FORBES
Occup; miner, mission manager
Residence; Encounter Bay, Poonindie Mission, Woodville
Spouse; TAYLOR Fanny Hester
Parents; Richard
Born; 1834
death; 10-10-1862 Mt Gambier SA
Burial; Mt Gambier
Mary (Minnie) WARK (28.5.1854 -17.3.1942),
Ridgway William (22.11.1855),
Robert Frederick (15.9.1859-?),
Rose Ada KELLY (14.4.1861-?.5.1955).
Spouse; EGAN Margaret
Parents; Lawrence
Birth; 1846 Omagh TYR IRL
Death; 5-5-1908 Woodville SA
Burial; Cheltenham
Arr SA; 27 10 1849 from ENG . ISABELA HERCUS
Finetta (Fanny) HOPKINS (23 .7 .1867- 20 .5 .1920)
Simpson (3.9.1868 - 27.7.1968 WA),
Watts (c1870 - 13 .11 .1945 WA),
Margaret Cate (unm)(16.6.1873 - 8.10.1953),
William Benning (4.11.1875 - 7.9.1971),
Martha Violet MARTENS (22.4.1878 - 30.9.1965)
Matthew Totham (5.1.1881 - 30.1.1917,)
Madeline Isabel DELAND (6.6. 1883 - 18 .8 .1958).