Edward Baynham Aston

  General Notes:

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Arrived at Kapunda, SA in 1855 on sailing ship "John Banks". From SA they travelled on the steamer "Burra Burra" to Sandridge and by bullockwagon from there to Carisbrook. (Extract from "They also Taught :Tilly Aston" by B.Bilton).

            Source : www.visionaustralia.org.au Extract from 'Tilly Aston's' book - "Memoirs of Tilly Aston". 

The house, now vanished, was a shop and dwelling, opposite the Wesleyan Chapel, quite a humble abode in its quarter-acre garden. Grapevines grew on a framework at the side, making a verandah-like shade over door and windows, and other buildings, far from elegant, presented a rather rugged face towards the road; but behind these!- Oh, here was my childhood's Eden. My parents loved a garden and everything grew for them. 

Come with me and behold the magic of it all, as memory paints it for me. First was the dairy, covered with a great sprawling cloth-of-gold rose, from which we gathered a perpetual supply of cream and butter-coloured buds, ever welcome as gifts for neighbours who loved beauty. Along the side fence were lilac, laburnum and banksia rose, each in turn making a glorious show of colour, both in house and garden. At the lower corner stood a spreading elder, and it provided its seasonal joys of snowy blooms, red ripening berries, and glossy black clusters of the late autumn fruit. These were always left for the bird-feasts, for we had too much fruit of a more desirable kind to tackle the acid berries, and our "No Alcohol" principles precluded the making of wine from them. 

Another part of the garden was mother's especial care. Here would be found crocus, daffodil and hyacinth, whose remote ancestors grew in her garden of girlhood in Gloucestershire, and with them all kinds of fragrant herbs, balm, thyme, mint, rosemary and verbena, supplied our potherbs and scent for the linen box. Ivy, jasmine and honeysuckle were there, too, a crowd of perfumed courtiers where my mother was queen. And these were not all. Springtime had its stocks and wallflowers, anemones and poppies; in a quiet corner honesty whispered to love-in-the-mist, and the bleeding-heart droop- sad and lonely. But perhaps the pride of place was held by a clump of primroses, reminders of the lanes and meadows of the Forest of Dean, and geraniums bent above them to shield them from our summer sun, glowing too fiercely for those tender plants of the old world. And what of mother's violets? They were of the small, dark-blue kind, all crumpled looking, but richer in perfume than any of the queens and duchesses of the present-day violet family. I love to recall the neat borders in which they grew, shimmering with purple bloom above the dark green foliage. 

Father also had his plot. He loved flowers, but was responsible for the welfare of his family, so his treasures were crisp cabbage and lettuce, rows of carrots and turnips, and pale marrows of a creamy texture that went well with our lamb or beef. Neither did we disdain the homely sprout or turnip-tops, especially when boiled with a chunk of home-cured bacon. A few trees provided the necessary fruit, but most of this kind of food came from another garden which we had planted near the junction of the creeks, and on which my father laboured incessantly during the later years of his life. 

This was the Eden I lived in, and my pastimes were those of the country child.

  Noted events in his life were:

• UK Census, 1841, Worcester Walk, Dean Forest, Gloucestershire, England, UK. ⁶⁰

• Census, 1851, Coleford, Gloucestershire, England, UK.

• Occupation. Shoemaker

• Registered Marriage, Oct-Dec 1854, Monmouth, Gloucestershire, England, UK. ⁶¹

• Emmigration, 16 Feb 1855, Adelaide, Sa, Australia. ⁶² Voyage from Plymouth to Adelaide. Assisted passage at a cost one pound sterling per person (children 10 shillings) paid by the South Australian Government.

• Registered Death, 28 Oct 1881, Carisbrook, Vic., Australia. ⁶³

Edward married Ann Howell, daughter of George Howell and Eliza Jones, on 25 Dec 1854 in Coleford, Forest Of Dean, Monmouth, Gloucestershire, England, UK. (Ann Howell was born on 29 Oct 1832 in Lane End, Gloucestershire, England, UK and died on 14 Dec 1913 in Essendon, Victoria, Australia.)