26/06/2026
THROUGH EARLY COLONIAL HERO, CAROLINE CHISHOLM (who was featured on our first decimal currency $5 note) THIS EXHIBITION IS LINKED TO THE HOWDEN DNA of OUR AREA.
This Friday’s Maryborough Advertiser includes Flossie Peitsch’s new exhibition in the very historical former Maryborough Fire Station in Neill St.
It references the work of Mrs Caroline Chisholm, who was featured on Australia’s first $5 note in recognition of her 1849 founding in England of the Family Colonisation Loan Society, improving conditions on emigrant ships, supporting migrating women, building migrant traveller shelters, (including one surviving on the Melbourne- Mount Alexander (Castlemaine) track), and family reunification processes. Many of our immigrant ancestors benefited from the effects of her work.
A quick online search will take you to much more detail of Caroline’s work and achievements, which are also explored in published biographies, e.g. “51 Pieces of Wedding-Cake,” and memorialised in the names of schools and community organisations.
So HOW DID CAROLINE CHISHOLM'S WORK ASSIST THE EMIGRATION of MARYBOROUGH DISTRICT's HOWDEN DNA, (including mine)?
Around 1850, John Howden, born 1803 at Breighton Bubwith, Yorkshire England, a blacksmith of Flat Gate, Howden (town), husband of Ruth, already parents of William, Martha, Thomas, Eliza, and Ellen Salome, became aware of Caroline Chisholm’s Family Colonisation Loan Society.
John signed up for a loan which took him and his family on a ship with reasonable conditions for long voyages, to blacksmithing employment at Chirnside Estate,Werribee, near Melbourne Town in the rural Port Phillip Colony.
The tiny (to us) barque that Caroline’s organisation had leased, the “Blundell,” left London on 4 May 1851, and, as it passed the Cape Verde islands, baby Richard Howden joined them.
It may not have been until 31 August, when the Blundell called in at Adelaide, that the family heard of the gold seeking rushes in Port Phillip.
On arriving at Melbourne, John still took up his blacksmithing contract at Chirnside, but at some time, John and family left Chirnside.
On 14 February 1854, John died in Ballarat of Tuberculosis, a condition which motivated many to leave the dampness of England for warmer colonies. Some think that the smoke and particles from blacksmith work contributed to it. John was buried in the Ballarat Old Cemetery, where the location of his grave was lost long ago.
Martha became Mrs Fergeus in 1856. Ruth was next recorded in 1859, as a resident of Back Creek (now Talbot) on her Certificate of Marriage (at Carisbrook) to Thomas Yorke, a miner of “The Alma," probably the Chinamans Flat area, where they lived for 22 years.
Ruth, in 1862, signed with her X, her intention to enrol Ellen Salome and Richard as pupils at the Chinamans Flat school when it eventually opened (in now Denyer’s Road), in 1863. So many emigrants on long voyages came to see the benefits of literacy and other formal education they themselves had never had.
Ruth and Thomas have rested in the Timor-Bowenvale Cemetery for 140+ years. They had no children, but Ruth eventually had 64 grandchildren, from William, Martha (Mrs Fergeus), Thomas, Eliza (Mrs Small), Eliza Salome (Mrs Gracie) and Richard.
Some stayed locally, while some followed the gold to Western Australia and South Africa. These days descendants can be found in many places. Descendants of John and Ruth’s siblings also live in many places, including, of course, the original Howden (Town) and district in Yorkshire. tom woolman. page ed.
