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police who set out in pursuit.361

Occasionally problems were experienced with Aborigines and in January 1851 a party of
them from the Lachlan River appeared at Oak Park and demanded provisions of one of the hut
keepers on the property. They were on an expedition of retaliation on the Crookwell Aborigines
who had, they said, murdered some of their people.362

In 1851, inspired by the great goldrush, Francis Oakes left Goulburn with a small party to
look for gold in the Abercrombie Mountians. He was spurred on by the report of a Californian
miner whom he had met while he visited the Ophir diggings near Bathurst. Several months later
it was reported that he, together with Mr Lord, had been successful at the Turon. They had sunk
a twenty foot deep shaft and had reaped rich reward and had refused an offer of £600 for their
hole.363

Like his brother, George, Francis also became a member of parliament, and with George
owned several portions of land in the Westmead area. He had close connections with his mother's
family and was involved in the succession of land transactions among the family as the original
grant to John Small at Kissing Point was conveyed from one member of the family to another. He
was one of the mortgages on the property in the 1860.364

Elizabeth Oakes died on 26 April 1857 at the home of her uncle, William Small, at Ryde.
An account of her death appeared in the Goulburn Herald of 4 November 1857
''...Mr Oakes went out for a short walk, and had no proceeded far when the person that
attended upon her came running back for water, saying that Mrs Oakes had fainted. Having
hastened to the spot, he [William Small] found her slowly recovering from a fit; with the
assistance of Miss Melville, he conveyed her to the house, and having laid her on a sofa, she
breathed heavily for a few minutes and expired''.

Francis and Elizabeth Oakes had seven children:

4.3.1 MARY LAWRY OAKES (1846-1932)

Mary Lawry Oakes was born on 1 February 1846 at Glebe and married John Kerr
Manton on 30 January 1868 at Parramatta. They lived at 35 Campbell Street, Parramatta. John
Manton was a clerk and an active member of the Methodist Church. She died on 26 November
1932 in Parramatta. They had eight children: John Allen Manton who was born in 1872 at
Parramatta and married in 1905 at Parramatta, Sophia Barry; Walter Lawry Manton who was born
in 1873 at Parramatta and married in 1898 at Liverpool, Rose C. Wilson; Emily Gertrude Manton
who was born in 1875 at Parramatta and was unmarried; Annie Mabel Manton who did not marry;

361 Empire, 10 July 1851.
362 Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 1851.
863 Ibid., 7 June and 11 October 1851.
864 Pollock, William John ed., The Small Family in Australia, p.14.

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