Mary Ballentine Mitchell

1819–1895

Married a Kate shipmate two years after landing, raised six children in the brickfields of St Peters, and saw her mother’s and grandmother’s names carried down four generations.

Born: 24 September 1819, Glasgow
Died: 15 July 1895, Redfern
Married: John Loudoun (1827–1882)
Trade: House servant
Lived: 75 years

Mary Ballentine Mitchell was born on 24 September 1819 and baptised in the Barony parish on 10 October, the first child of John Mitchell and Mary Kellar.¹ She came out on the Kate in 1849 as a house servant, giving her age as twenty-eight.

On the same ship, among the single men, was John Loudoun, twenty-two, a farm labourer from Busby, south of Glasgow — born on 21 April 1827, the son of David Loudon and Janet McFarlane.² They married at the Scots Church, Sydney, on 19 August 1851 in the presence of her father and of Robert Shields, another young Kate passenger.³ John signed himself Loudon; the clerks wrote Loudoun, Loudon and Lowden more or less at random for the rest of the family’s life.

Their six children were named with great care. The first daughter was Mary Kellar, for Mary’s mother; the second Janet McFarlane, for John’s; the first son David, for John’s father; the second John Alexander, for Mary’s father and her youngest brother. Isabella Christina, born in 1861 at Braidwood — probably while the family tried the Araluen goldfields — carried the names of two of Mary’s sisters.⁴

By the 1870s John was a brickmaker in the clay-pits of Marrickville and St Peters. His estate was sequestered in June 1876, with assets under £100.⁵ He died on 22 July 1882 at King Street, St Peters, of haemoptysis, aged fifty-five, leaving three sons and two daughters living and one daughter — Mary Kellar — dead.⁶ Mary lived on another thirteen years, dying at 84 Castlereagh Street, Redfern, on 15 July 1895, aged seventy-six. Both are buried in the old churchyard of St Peter’s, Cooks River.⁷

The next generation

Children

Mary Kellar (1852–before 1882)
Janet McFarlane (1854–1928), m. Richard Cotter
David (1855–1910), m. Sarah Ann Favell née Chappelow
John Alexander (b. 1857)
Robert B. (b. 1858)
Isabella Christina (b. 1861), m. Robert Major

The Loudouns

Mary’s children

Four of the six can be followed into the twentieth century. Mary Kellar Loudoun, born in 1852, had died by 1882.

Janet McFarlane Loudoun

1854–1928

Mrs Richard Cotter, of Waterloo

Married: Richard Cotter, 23 January 1879, St Philip’s, Sydney
Died: 12 June 1928, Randwick; buried Rookwood (Catholic)

Born in Sydney and married at St Philip’s Church to Richard Cotter, a labourer and later potter and brickmaker, son of John Cotter and Charlotte Murray. They lived at 40 Raglan Street, Waterloo, where Richard died in 1899. Their six children were Richard, John, David George, William, Robert James — a glass blower — and Mary Ballantyne Mitchell Cotter, born in 1893 and named for her grandmother.⁸ Janet died at the Little Sisters of the Poor, Randwick, aged seventy-four.

David Loudoun

1855–1910

Brickmaker, St Peters

Married: Sarah Ann Favell, née Chappelow, 1877
Died: 14 October 1910; buried Woronora

A brickmaker like his father, on Cook’s River Road and later Hutchinson Street, St Peters. In 1877 he married a widow, Sarah Ann Favell, born Chappelow. Their sons included John David, born in 1878, and Percy Ralph, born in 1882 — a bootmaker who married Alice Bourne at Erskineville in 1906 and died at Springwood in 1956.⁹

John Alexander Loudoun

1857–

Named for his grandfather and uncle. Alive in 1928, when ‘Mr and Mrs J. Loudoun and family’ mourned his sister Janet; a photograph of him with, presumably, his wife survives in the family’s papers.

Robert B. Loudoun

1858–

Alive in 1899, when he and his brothers mourned their brother-in-law; dead by 1928.

Isabella Christina Loudoun

1861–

Mrs Robert Major, of Waterloo

Born at Braidwood. She married Robert Major, a butcher, of 82 Botany Street, Waterloo; their daughter Margaret Stella was baptised at St Paul’s alongside her cousin Mary Cotter in November 1909.⁸ She was still living in 1928.

Sepia photograph of a young man with a moustache, in a tweed suit and flat cap, seated on a safety bicycle in front of a verandah covered with climbing roses. — Mary’s grandson Percy Ralph Loudoun on his bicycle, c. 1900–1910.

An elderly white-haired man in glasses and a three-piece suit, seated, with a grey-haired woman in a long dark dress standing beside him in a garden. — Mary’s son John Alexander Loudoun, with (probably) his wife, c. 1920s.

The Record

Sources & References

1
Baptism, 1819

Barony parish, Lanark, OPR 622/5: Mary Ballentine Mitchell, born 24 September 1819, baptised 10 October 1819, father John Mitchell, mother Mary Kellar (index).
2
John Loudoun

Mearns OPR 571/20/25: John, son of David Loudon and Janet McFarlane in Busby, born 21 April 1827. List of Immigrants per Kate, 1849, p. 454, single males: no. 16, John Loudoun, 22, farm labourer, Busby, Lanarkshire.
3
Marriage, 1851

NSW Presbyterian marriage register, Scots Church, Sydney, no. 1314 (NSW BDM vol. 80, no. 407): John Loudon, bachelor, and Mary Mitchell, spinster, both of Sydney, 19 August 1851, by Barzillai Quaife, acting minister; witnesses John Mitchell, father of the bride, and Robert Shields.
4
The children

NSW BDM birth indexes, father John, mother Mary: Mary K. Loudoun 1123/1852; Janet McF. Loudon 1164/1854; David Loudon 1358/1855; John A. Loudoun 1412/1857; Robert B. Loudon 1492/1858; Isabella C. Loudoun 5978/1861 (Braidwood).
5
Brickmaker and insolvency

NSW Government Gazette, June 1876, p. 2346: insolvent estate no. 12,927, John Loudoun, of Edinburgh Road, Marrickville, brickmaker, sequestered 8 June 1876; assets under £100. Sydney directory (undated): Loudoun, John, Silver st., St. Peter’s.
6
John Loudoun’s death, 1882

NSW death registration, Petersham, 1882: John Loudoun, labourer, 55, died 22 July 1882 at King Street, St Peters, of haemoptysis; informant D. Loudoun, son; married Mary Mitchell at Sydney; 3 sons and 2 daughters living, 1 daughter dead. St Peter’s, Cooks River, burial register no. 542, 24 July 1882 (‘Old Church Yard’).
7
Mary’s death, 1895

NSW BDM death index 10003/1895, Redfern: Mary M. Loudoun, father John, mother Mary. St Peter’s, Cooks River, burial register no. 2476: Mary Mitchell Loudoun, 84 Castlereagh St, Redfern, died 15 July, buried 16 July, aged 76, widow.
8
The Cotters and the Majors

Sources for Janet and Isabella’s families:
- NSW marriage 96/1879: Richard Cotter, labourer, born NSW, son of John Cotter and Charlotte Murray, and Janet McFarlane Loudoun, born Sydney, daughter of John Loudoun and Mary Mitchell; St Philip’s, Sydney, 23 January 1879, by Thomas O’Reilly.
- NSW birth indexes, father Richard, mother Janet: Richard M. 2800/1879; John L. 546/1882; David G. 10058/1884; William E. 11257/1886; Robert J. 8193/1889; Mary B. M. 29167/1894. St Peter’s baptisms, 9 March 1884: David George, son of Richard and Janet Cotter, Redfern, potter.
- St Paul’s, Sydney, baptisms, 5 November 1909: Mary Ballantyne Mitchell, born 26 July 1893, daughter of Richard and Janet Macfarlane Cotter, Waterloo; Margaret Stella, born 28 November 1893, daughter of Robert and Isabella Christina Major, 82 Botany St, Waterloo, butcher.
- Funeral notices, 1899 (Richard Cotter, 40 Raglan Street, Waterloo — including notices from Robert, John and David Loudoun and Mr and Mrs Major, brothers- and sister-in-law). NSW death index 15530/1899, Waterloo.
- Death notice and funeral notices, Janet McFarlane Cotter, 12 June 1928, Little Sisters of the Poor, Randwick, aged 74; mother of Richard, John, David, William, Bob and Mary; sister of Mr and Mrs J. Loudoun and Mr and Mrs R. Major. Marriage register, St Silas, Waterloo, 1911, no. 135: Robert James Cotter, glass blower, 23, son of Richard Cotter, brickmaker (deceased), and Jennet Louden.
9
David Loudoun’s family

NSW marriage index 176/1877: David Loudoun and Sarah Ann Favell. St Peter’s baptisms, 3 March 1878: John David, son of David and Sarah Ann Lowden, St Peters, brickmaker. NSW birth index 5233/1882: Percy R. Loudoun. Sands directories: Loudoun, David, Cook’s River rd, St Peters; later Hutchinson St, with P. R. Loudun, bootmaker. Newtown marriages 1906, no. 19: Percy Ralph Loudoun, bootmaker, 24, son of David Loudoun, brickmaker, and Sarah Anne Chappelow. NSW death index 14552/1910: David Loudoun, father John, mother Mary; Woronora burial, 19 October 1910. Death report: Percy Ralph Loudoun, 5 Holland Street, Springwood, aged 74, survived by his wife Alice.