The Grocer’s Wife
Mary Jane Jeffries & John Henry Duke
1828–1877
The youngest of the three Jeffries daughters to reach Australia — and for a lifetime the one child of the nine the record had lost. She married a Sydney grocer; his bankruptcy in 1858 opened a decade that took three of her four children in a single year and ended with her own death in the asylum at Gladesville.
- Born
- Clifton, Bristol · 3 November 1828
- Died
- 25 March 1877 · Hospital for the Insane, Gladesville (buried in the asylum cemetery)
- Married
- John Henry Duke, grocer — married at Sydney about 1849
- Lived
- 48 years
Mary Jane Jeffries was the sixth of the nine children and the third of the four daughters. She was born at Hotwell Road, Clifton, on 3 November 1828, and christened at the parish church of St Andrew there on 28 December, her father entered — as in every Clifton record — as “Samuel Jeffries, carpenter.”1 She had been the one gap in the account of the family, for a plain reason: the five eldest children were christened together in the spring of 1827, more than a year before she was born, and it was assumed she had simply been “born too late” for that record and was untraceable in any other. In fact her own christening sits in the Clifton register in the ordinary way, four weeks after her birth.1 She was nine when the Layton sailed and ten when it landed — “Mary Jane, 10” on the bounty list — and she grew up in the family’s house in Surry Hills.2
She married John Henry Duke, a grocer, at Sydney about 1849; the marriage is indexed but the entry has not been seen.3 Four children were registered over the next seven years — Mary Ann in 1850, Elizabeth in 1851, Phoebe in 1854, and Samuel in 1856 — all in the city.4 For most of a decade that is the whole of the record: a grocer’s household in the streets on the town’s eastern edge.
It broke in 1858. On 3 August the Chief Justice, Sir Alfred Stephen, put John Henry Duke’s estate under sequestration; the Government Gazette advertised him as “of Campbell-street, Surry Hills, late grocer,” his goods and effects worth less than £100, and called his creditors to a single meeting at the Supreme Court in September.5 Somewhere in the same year Mary Jane wrote to the Colonial Secretary — the letter is kept in the index only as “Duke, Mary Jane, wife of John,” its subject not recorded — the kind of appeal a woman in her position made when there was nothing else to try.6 In the autumn of 1859 Duke stood trial for the manslaughter of one of his own children, “through neglect.” He was found not guilty and discharged.7 Which child had died, and when, the report does not say; none of the four registered children has a death that matches, and it may have been Phoebe, who is on no record after her birth.47
The three children who can be followed all died in 1860 — Samuel on 13 June, Elizabeth on 4 July, and Mary Ann at some point the same year.8 Elizabeth’s burial entry at Camperdown gives her age as eight and her abode, bleakly, as the Benevolent Asylum — the colony’s refuge of last resort.8 Within about a month Mary Jane had buried three of her four children.
Of Mary Jane herself after 1860 the record keeps only the end. She died on 25 March 1877 at the Hospital for the Insane at Gladesville — the asylum on the Parramatta River that had opened forty years earlier as the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum — and was buried in its own cemetery, among the patients no one came to claim.9 She was forty-eight; her death was registered in the Ryde district as “Mary J. Duke.” How long she had been an inmate, what became of John Henry Duke, and whether Phoebe outlived any of them are all still open.9
The next generation
Children
- Mary Ann Duke (1850–1860) — died at Sydney, about ten years old
- Elizabeth Duke (1851–1860) — died 4 July 1860, her abode entered as the Benevolent Asylum; buried at Camperdown
- Phoebe Duke (born 1854) — registered at Sydney; no later record of any kind has been found
- Samuel Duke (1856–1860) — died 13 June 1860; buried at Camperdown
In the Insolvent Estate of John Henry Duke, of Campbell-street, Surry Hills, late grocer … unless it be shewn that the goods and effects of the said Insolvent exceed £100, the Chief Commissioner will summarily proceed to rank the debts then proved.
Questions not yet resolved
John Henry Duke. His origin, his birth year and his fate are all unknown; no death, remarriage or later record has been found for him after the 1859 trial. The insolvency file itself may carry more.
The 1849 marriage. Only the index entry survives — no date, church or minister — and the registration would give both fathers and fix the year.
Phoebe Duke, born 1854. There is no trace of her after the birth registration — no death, marriage or burial under Duke. She may be the child in the 1859 manslaughter case, or she may have outlived the rest of the family; the record does not say.
The 1858 letter to the Colonial Secretary. Its subject was not indexed — only that Mary Jane Duke, “wife of John,” wrote in. The archived file, citation [4/3390], letter 58/4923, may hold the letter itself.
Mary Jane at Gladesville. When she was admitted, and why, is not on the burial record; the asylum’s admission registers, if they survive for the 1860s and 1870s, would carry it. The death certificate would give the years in care and the informant.
The Record
Sources & References
- 1
Baptism, Clifton, 1828
Parish register of St Andrew, Clifton, Gloucestershire, baptisms 1828, page 119, entry no. 948 — Mary Jane, daughter of Samuel and Ann Jeffries, abode Hotwell Road, father’s trade “carpenter,” born 3 November 1828, baptised 28 December 1828 by R. Allwood. The five eldest children had been christened together at the same church on 18 March 1827 (companion-chapter reference 3), before Mary Jane was born; the long-standing note that she was “born too late for the 1827 christening” and otherwise untraced is answered by this entry.
- 2
Emigration — the barque Layton, 1837–38
State Records NSW, Index to Bounty Immigrants per Layton, 1838 — among the family of Samuel Jefferies, house carpenter and joiner: “Mary Jane, 10.” The immigration board’s “Married Female Immigrant” card for her mother Anne lists the same daughters — Ann Douglass 16, Ruth 14, Mary Jane 10, and Elizabeth 1½ “died at sea.” The voyage is set out in full in the companion chapter above, “Measles in the Channel.”
- 3
Marriage to John Henry Duke, Sydney, about 1849
NSW BDM marriage index — Mary Jane Jeffries and John Henry Duke, Sydney, registered in volume V (the series that predates 1856 civil registration). No registration number is carried in the index and the entry has not been seen; the date is inferred from the first child’s birth in 1850. The children’s registrations (reference 4) name the parents as John Henry and Mary Jane Duke.
- 4
The Duke children, 1850–1856
NSW BDM birth index, Sydney — Mary A. Duke, reg. 2071/1850 (V1850 2071 / 55); Elizabeth Duke, reg. 580/1851 (V1851 580 / 56); Phoebe Duke, reg. 1970/1854 (V1854 1970 / 56); Samuel Duke, reg. 2547/1856 (V1856 2547 / 56) — each with father John H. and mother Mary J. No record of any kind has been found for Phoebe after this registration.
- 5
Insolvency of John Henry Duke, 1858
New South Wales Government Gazette, 10 August 1858 (No. 116), page 1280 — “In the Insolvent Estate of John Henry Duke, of Campbell-street, Surry Hills, late grocer.” The estate was placed under sequestration on 3 August 1858 by order of Sir Alfred Stephen, Chief Justice; a single meeting of creditors was called for 1 September 1858 at the Supreme Court House, King Street, before William Alexander Purefoy, Chief Commissioner of Insolvent Estates, with John Morris as official assignee (Trove nla.news-article229600499). The insolvency file is in State Records NSW.
- 6
Letter to the Colonial Secretary, 1858
State Records NSW, Colonial Secretary, Letters Received — index entry INX-106-83038: “Duke, Mary Jane — Ux[or] John,” 1858, citation [4/3390], letter no. 58/4923 (“Ux John” = wife of John). The subject of the letter is not given in the index; it falls in the same year as the insolvency.
- 7
The manslaughter trial, 1859
Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser, 16 April 1859, page 3, in a digest of Sydney news — “John Henry Duke, charged with the manslaughter of his child, through neglect, was pronounced not guilty, and discharged” (Trove nla.news-article189983799). The other cases in the same digest place the Sydney sittings in the first half of April 1859. The child is not named, and none of the four registered Duke children has a death registration before 1860.
- 8
The three children’s deaths, 1860
Burial register of the Church of England, parish of Camperdown, county of Cumberland, 1860, page 230 — no. 8700, Elizabeth Duke, abode “Benevolent Asylum,” died 4 July, buried 6 July 1860, aged 8. NSW BDM death index, Sydney — Samuel Duke, reg. 825/1860, died 13 June 1860 (born 1856); Mary A. Duke, reg. 50/1860. Samuel and Elizabeth are both recorded at the Camperdown (Newtown) cemetery, the burials transcribed when the ground was cleared.
- 9
Death at Gladesville, 1877
NSW BDM death index — Mary J. Duke, 1877, registered in the Ryde district, reg. 8630/1877. Cemetery transcription — Mary J. Duke, born about 1829, died 25 March 1877, buried Gladesville Asylum Cemetery, Gladesville, Municipality of Hunter’s Hill. The Hospital for the Insane at Gladesville had opened in 1838 as the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum; its burial ground held patients who died in care. The death registration, which would give the years in the asylum and the informant, has not been ordered.