Series 17: 'The Hassall Family: Descendants of Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall', unpublished manuscript by Jean Stewart (1999); and 'James Samuel Hassall (1823-1904)', paper by Jean Stewart (1998), 1998-1999

8 ANN HASSALL (1808-1891)

Ann Hassall was born in Parramatta on 14 October 1808 and was educated with her sisters, Eliza and Susannah, at Mr Bradley's school in the morning and at Mrs Mason's in the evenings481 and later privately under her brother-in-law, Reverend Walter Lawry. With her sisters she was a close friend of the Marsden daughters, spent several month's visit to the Marsden family and in 1818 was in Elizabeth Marsden's Sunday School Class.482

On 6 January 1830 in St. John's Church, Parramatta, she was married by her brother, Reverend Thomas Hassall, to Robert Mackay Campbell. It was a small wedding to which the bride invited only her two bridesmaids, Jane and Augustine, and the groom was accompanied by his mother.

Robert Campbell had been born in Edinburgh on 16 August 1806. He was probably the nephew of Captain William Campbell, a buccaneering seaman who skippered the ship Harrington on many voyages round the world. In 1804 he even captured three Spanish ships of the coast of South America and brought them to Australia, claiming that England was at war with Spain. But Governor King confined the captain to his ship and began an investigation into the situation. The lengthy communication process mean it took almost three years to settle the case. It is possible that he even returned home while the case was being investigated. Finally it was resolved that there was a state of war but the Spanish had taken some British ships, so it was agreed that ''they had better cry quits''. The ships were sold to the government and one was then commanded by Lt. Oxley whose son later married Harriet Hassall, the daughter of Reverend Thomas and Mrs Ann Hassall.

Captain Campbell went back to sea, but when the Indian company which owned the Harrington went broke, he ''connected himself to Mr John Macarthur as sole owner of the brig'', procured a valuable cargo and them waited Macarthur engineered the deposition of Governor Bligh before bringing the cargo into Sydney for the profit of himself and Macarthur. With the profit from that enterprise, Captain Campbell was able to officially but his ship for £2251, but just 11 days later it was pirated by 50 escaped convicts who sailed from Sydney Cove to the Philippines, where it was driven ashore and burnt to the ground.

With the insurance money Campbell invested in other ships, but in 1812 applied for land grant and was granted 2000 acres near Camden. Governor Macquarie said he ''bears and excellent character in this country and I have every reason to believe that he will be an acquisition to the colony as a settler''. He named his property Harrington Park, now a suburb, and built in stone a ''pretentious two-storied residence'' in 1827.

Captain William Campbell died in 1827. His wife suddenly sold the property in 1833 without the knowledge of Robert Campbell, and returned to Enlgand. She was probably shocked by the murder on the property of her nephew, Murdoch Campbell (probably Robert's brother), earlier that year by an escaping convict, who was later hanged. Mrs Campbell died a year later and her last letter to Robert Campbell, ''breathes such a spirit of resignation''. There was probably a

481 Hassall Correspondence !1677-3, pp.803-4. 482 Ibid., A1677-2, pp.1425-6.

226

third brother, William Campbell, and possibly a fourth, John.483

Records indicate that Robert Mackay Campbell, came to Australia in the Skelton arriving on 11 February 1823, when he was 17 years of age, probably with his mother, who became Thomas Hassall's organist at the Heber Chapel in Cobbitty. He was employed by the Hassalls at Denbigh in 1829.484 By the late 1820s and during the early years of the thirties he had convicts assigned to him and he lived at Aberfoil, near Campbelltown. In 1827 property was stolen from his house which was reported in the Australian. By 1828 he was selling 50 or 60 prime young cows and a few fat oxen from his farm in Argyleshire and applications for these animals were directed to his farm Aberfoil in the District of Cook.485 In February 1842 he received a grant for a farm known as Wingello. He had acquired other grants in the Parish of Uringalla in the 1830s.

When Robert Campbell and Ann Hassall married in 1830 she received Anns Vale at Boorowa as a marriage portion given to those born to clergy in the colony. It was 960 acres and part of the Congrea Estate. However they lived at Wingello near Marulan in the parish of Uringalla. It was a changing station for coaches on the old main road to Goulburn. They built Wingello up into a property totalling some 7040 acres when it was put on the market in 1850 when they became bankrupt. The homestead was an 11 room ''Cottage ornee'' which was surrounded by 14 acres of garden and orchard, stables, coach-house, cool room, carpenter's shop, servant's cottages, fowlhouse, piggery other sheds and a huge barn. There were 580 acres fully fenced including ten paddocks.

Ann and Robert Campbell then moved to Anns Vale, which was a Crown grant to her and she lived there for more that forty years. Robert Campbell died on 6 December 1885 at his daughter's property, Jarvisfield, Picton. Ann Campbell died in November 1891 at the home of her daughter, Ellerslie, Boorowa. She was buried at the Beverley homestead where two of her grandchildren are also buried.486

Ann and Robert had the following children: Elizabeth Ann Campbell (18301871), Susannah Sinclair Campbell (1832-1893), Jessie Hassall Campbell (1834-1917), Robert James Campbell (1836-1877), Mary Campbell (1838-1927), Alexander Mackay Campbell (18401926), William Shelley Campbell (b.1844), Catherine Alexa Campbell (1849-1932), Ann Broughton Campbell (1849-1940) and Rowland T. Campbell (1851-1931)

483 There is doubt about the relationship between Robert Campbell and Captain William Campbell, some sources say that Robert Campbell was William Campbell's son, others that he was his nephew. Procter, Peter, Letter to author, 4 August 1998. 484 Reverend Thomas Hassall's Muster Roll, Mitchell Library b27, p. IIX. 485 Australian, 10 March 1827 and 25 January 1828. 486 Hassall, David J., ed., The Hassall Family, pp.157-8.

227

LAND GRANTS

[Picture - Map]

This map is a guide to the locations of land grants in the Boorowa are up to 1850. The shaded area were the early grants surveyed by Robert Hoddle in December 1832, with the exception of Anns Vale, which Hoddle was unable to survey.

Position of Anns Vale, Boorowa. From Lloyd, Helen, Boorowa Over 160 years of White Settlement.

228

[Picture]

This is a unique, well constructed slab cottage, as it appeared in 1986 and situated on what was once Anns Vale.

Possibly existed in the time of Ann Campbell. From Lloyd, Helen, Boorowa over 160 Years of White Settlement.

229

CHILDREN OF ANN AND ROBERT CAMPBELL

8.1 ELIZABETH ANN CAMPBELL (1830-1871) Elizabeth Ann Campbell was born on 14 October 1830 at Cobbitty and married her cousin William Douglas Campbell of Beverly, Boorowa on 27 September 1853. After she died on 1 February 1871 at the age of 40 her widower married her younger sister, Catherine Alexa Campbell. In 1858 he was coroner for the Boorowa and Binalong districts and was returning officer for the electoral district of the Lachlan, and a magistrate acting as chairman of the local bench. He died on 11 October 1881. They had four children.

8.1.1 ANNIE ALEXA CAMPBELL (1855-1859) Ann Alexa Campbell who was born on 23 October 1855 and died on 5 March 1859 in Queanbeyan.

8.1.2 WILLIAM DOUGLAS CAMPBELL (1857-1859) William Douglas Campbell was born on 26 October 1857 and died on 12 June 1859 there.

8.1.3 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1859-1927) Alexander Campbell was born on 28 July in Binalong and married Frances Broughton in 1900 in Sydney. He died in 1927 at Corowa. They had three children: Jean B. Campbell who was born in 1901 in Corowa; (Alexander W.) Donald Campbell who was born in 1903 in Corowa; and Colin B. Campbell who was born in 1906 in Corowa and married Mary Elizabeth Kilborn

8.1.4 JAMES SPINK CAMPBELL (1862-1932) James Spink Campbell was born on 16 December 1862 in Binalong and married twice. First he married Gertrude William s in 1882 in Yass. She died in 1883. Then he married Edith Deacon in 1894 in Ashfield. He died on 27 August 1932 in Penrith. He had one child from his first marrige: William Douglas Adye Campbell who was born on 14 April 1883 in Boorowa and married Maud Helena Hassall on 3 April 1907 in Burwood and died on 3 September 1966. He had two children from his second marriage: Harold Kenneth Campbell who was born in 1896 in Ashfield and was unmarried; and (edith) Annie Campbell who was born in 1899 in Ashfield and married John Back in 1921 in Sydney.