Ruth Jeffries & Frederick Hunt

1823–1857

The middle of the three Jeffries daughters to reach Australia. She married a compositor in the Sydney printing trade, followed his work north to the Hunter, and died of a long illness at the Maitland hospital at thirty-three — having already buried both her small daughters.

Born: Bristol, England · 21 December 1823
Died: 20 September 1857 · West Maitland (the Maitland Hospital)
Married: Frederick Hunt, compositor — married at St Philip’s Church, Sydney, 18 September 1843
Lived: 33 years

Ruth Jeffries was the fourth of the nine children, and the second of the three daughters to reach Australia. She was born on the Bristol side of the family’s life — not at Polperro, but in the parish of Westbury-on-Trym — on 21 December 1823, and carried to the font of the Wesleyan Portland Chapel there a week later, on the 28th, her father entered as “Samuel Jefferies, of the parish of Westbury, carpenter.”¹ She was baptised a second time, aged three, with her four elder brothers and sisters, on the one morning in the spring of 1827 when Samuel and Anne put the family record in order at the parish church of St Andrew, Clifton.¹ She was fourteen when the Layton came up the coast in January 1838.²

On 18 September 1843, at St Philip’s Church, Sydney, the Rev. Dr Cowper married her to Frederick Hunt, a compositor — a hand-setter of type, the trade then clustered in the printing houses around Lower George Street.³ She was the second of the nine to marry in the colony: her sister Ann Douglas had married three years before, and only their eldest brother Samuel had married earlier still, in England before the family sailed. Frederick’s trade would carry the household away from Sydney before the marriage was old.

Two daughters were born. Sarah Ann came in Gloucester Street about August 1844, and died at O’Connell Street on 9 January 1850, “the only child of Mr. Frederick Hunt … aged five years and six months.”⁴ A second daughter, born about 1849 and given her mother’s name, Ruth, died of scarlet fever on 4 July 1855 — and the place is telling: “at the residence of Mr. John Mills, North Richmond.”⁵ Ruth’s brother Archibald had married Mary Jane Mills; for a Jeffries grandchild to die in a Mills house on the Hawkesbury points to a tie between the families, and is part of why the Hunts can be fixed as this Ruth’s.

By 1855 Frederick was “late of Sydney,” and by 1857 the couple were at West Maitland, where the Mercury — the paper founded there in 1843 — was the natural draw for a compositor leaving town.⁵ Ruth died on the morning of Sunday, 20 September 1857, at the hospital in West Maitland, “after a protracted and severe illness … aged 34, the beloved wife of Mr. Frederick Hunt”; four papers carried the notice.⁶ She was in fact thirty-three, a few months short of thirty-four. She left no descendants — both of her daughters had gone before her — and her widower then disappears from the record.⁸

The next generation

Children

Sarah Ann Hunt (1844–1850) — born in Gloucester Street, Sydney; died at O’Connell Street, aged five, “the only child of Mr. Frederick Hunt”
Ruth Hunt (c. 1849–1855) — named for her mother; died of scarlet fever at the house of John Mills, North Richmond, aged about five

On Sunday morning, the 20th instant, at the Hospital, West Maitland, after a protracted and severe illness, Ruth, aged 34, the beloved wife of Mr. Frederick Hunt.

Death notice, The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 24 September 1857

The Evidence

Is the Maitland death hers?

The death was registered at Maitland as 3427/1857, and the register indexes Ruth’s parents as father “Thomas” and mother “Ann.” The mother is right — Anne, born Anne Rayment. The father is wrong: Ruth’s father was Samuel, the carpenter and joiner named in every one of her baptism records and on the Layton papers. That single discrepancy is the reason the identification has been doubted.

It holds, all the same. It is the only adult Ruth Hunt death in the whole New South Wales index between 1840 and 1900; the place, the year, the husband, his trade and the age (34 — a December 1823 birth) all line up; and the Mills house at North Richmond ties the family to Ruth’s brother’s marriage.⁷ By 1857 Ruth’s father Samuel had dropped out of the New South Wales record — his death, wherever it fell, has never been traced — and her mother Anne would end her life in South Australia; the informant at Maitland was reaching for the name of a father-in-law he seems not to have known. The father’s name is the field on a colonial death entry that goes wrong most often, and this is exactly the case that produces the error.⁹

The New South Wales death certificate itself — which names the father’s occupation, the burial place, the years in the colony and the deceased’s children living and dead — would settle it beyond argument. It has not yet been ordered.

Still Open

Questions not yet resolved

The father’s name on the 1857 registration — “Thomas” for “Samuel.” The certificate resolves it.

Frederick Hunt after 1857. No remarriage and no death notice has been found, and his origin and birth year are unknown. He is not the “Captain Frederick Hunt” buried at Balmain in 1874 — that man was a retired sea captain of Lemington, near Southampton, aged 75. A Frederick Hunt was badly beaten in a West Maitland “house of ill-fame,” his assailant before the police court there in January 1864; it may be Ruth’s widower, still in the town, but nothing confirms it.⁸

The two 1855 “Ruth Hunt” entries in the church-register burial series. One is the daughter who died at North Richmond; whether the other is a duplicate or a third, genuinely infant child is not clear.⁷

The exact birth date. The 1823 Wesleyan register (21 December) is preferred over the 1827 Clifton re-baptism (“1 December”); Ancestry’s “21 July 1823” is a misreading of “21st inst.” and should not be carried forward.¹

Other children, and Ruth’s grave. Only the two daughters are documented; the burial is presumably at West Maitland but has not been confirmed.

The Record

Sources & References

1
Baptisms, 1823 and 1827

Register of the Wesleyan Portland Chapel, in the Bristol parish of Westbury-on-Trym, baptisms 1823 — Ruth, daughter of Samuel and Ann Jefferies, of the parish of Westbury, father’s trade “carpenter,” “born 21st inst.,” baptised 28 December 1823 by W. Toase; also in the General Register Office non-parochial transcript, The National Archives RG4/1389. She was baptised again, with her four elder siblings, at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on 18 March 1827 (entries 604–608), that register giving her birth as “1 December 1823.” The contemporaneous 1823 entry — birth on the 21st, baptism on the 28th, the one month — is preferred; Ancestry’s christening index reads the birth as “21 July 1823,” a misreading of the abbreviated “21st inst.” The shared 1827 christening is described in the companion chapter above, “Five children christened in a morning.”
2
Emigration — the barque Layton, 1837–38

State Records NSW, bounty immigrants per Layton, 1838 — “Ruth, 14” among the family of Samuel Jefferies, house carpenter and joiner. The voyage, on which measles killed about seventy of the emigrant children, is set out in full in the companion chapter above, “Measles in the Channel.”
3
Marriage, Sydney, 1843

NSW BDM marriage register 1843, Sydney, vol. V C — Frederick Hunt and Ruth Jeffries. Notice, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1843, p. 3 — “At St. Philip’s Church, on Monday, 18th September, by the Reverend Dr. Cowper, Mr. Frederick Hunt, compositor, to Miss Ruth Jeffries, both of Sydney” (Trove nla.news-article12421544); also The Weekly Register, 23 September 1843, p. 135 (Trove nla.news-article228134356).
4
Sarah Ann Hunt, 1844–1850

Birth notice, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August 1844, p. 4 — “At Gloucester-street, on Thursday last, Mrs. Frederick Hunt, of a daughter” (Trove nla.news-article12422516), so a birth about 15 August 1844. Death notice, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 1850, p. 3 — “Sarah, only child of Mr. Frederick Hunt, O’Connell-street, aged five years and six months” (Trove nla.news-article12914962); also Bell’s Life in Sydney, 12 January 1850 (Trove nla.news-article59770024).
5
Ruth Hunt the daughter, and North Richmond, 1855

Death notices — Empire (Sydney), 11 July 1855, p. 4: “On the 4th July, of scarlet fever, at the residence of Mr. John Mills, North Richmond, the infant daughter of Mr. Frederick Hunt, late of Sydney” (Trove nla.news-article60168645); the Sydney Morning Herald, 17 July 1855, and The People’s Advocate, 21 July 1855, both name her — “Ruth, aged 5 [6] years, daughter of Mr. Frederick Hunt.” One of the two “Ruth Hunt” entries in the NSW church-register burial series for 1855 (reference 7) is very likely this child. Archibald Joseph Jeffries married Mary Jane Mills; the Mills of the Hawkesbury are proposed for a chapter of their own.
6
Death of Ruth Hunt, West Maitland, 1857

“On Sunday morning, the 20th instant, at the Hospital, West Maitland, after a protracted and severe illness, Ruth, aged 34, the beloved wife of Mr. Frederick Hunt.” The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 24 September 1857, p. 3; Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 1857, p. 1, repeated 10 October 1857, p. 6; Northern Times (Newcastle), 26 September 1857, p. 2. NSW BDM death registration 3427/1857, Maitland district — father indexed “Thomas,” mother “Ann.” Ruth, born December 1823, was thirty-three.
7
The NSW “Ruth Hunt” death index, 1840–1900

Four entries only: 1290/1855 and 1958/1855, both in the “CE” church-register series (which predates civil registration), each with the father field entered as “INFANT”; 3427/1857, Maitland, father Thomas, mother Ann (reference 6); and 5843/1899, “Ruth C Hunt,” Helensburgh, parents William and Sarah — unrelated. No adult Ruth Hunt death is indexed other than the 1857 Maitland one.
8
Frederick Hunt after 1857

No remarriage or death has been found for him. The “Captain Frederick Hunt” who died at Bowenfels on 28 February 1874, and whose funeral ran from Woollahra to Balmain Cemetery, was “of Lemington, near Southampton … father of the late Frederick Henry Hunt, aged 75” — a different man (Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 1874, and other papers). A Frederick Hunt beaten “in a house of ill-fame” at West Maitland, whose assailant appeared at the police court there in January 1864, may be Ruth’s widower still in the town (Maitland Mercury, 5 January 1864, Trove nla.news-article18712514), but the identification is unproved. The New South Wales Government Gazette of 31 December 1872 lists a “Mrs. Ruth Hunt” and a “Miss Ann Hunt” of Balmain among mining-company shareholders; with Ruth dead since 1857 and no other adult Ruth Hunt death on the index, this is a coincidental namesake.
9
Ruth’s parents after 1857

Anne Jeffries died at Bowden / Fullarton, Adelaide, on 22 September 1885, aged 89 (companion chapter above, “A widow in South Australia”); her youngest son, Jabez, and her daughter Ann Douglas were both in Adelaide from the 1860s. The “Samuel Jabez Jeffries” death registered at Adelaide in 1867, once taken for Samuel the father’s, is in fact Jabez’s infant son’s (companion chapter, reference 8). Samuel senior’s own death is untraced; he had in any case dropped out of the New South Wales record well before Ruth died in 1857, so the informant at her death was naming a father-in-law he may never have met — the likeliest explanation of the “Thomas” for “Samuel” on the registration (reference 6).