Saddlery, Gold & Civic Life
Archibald Joseph Jeffries & Mary Jane Mills
1831–1903
The blind master saddler of George Street, Bathurst — crack rifle shot, Provincial Grand Master of the Oddfellows, and Mary Rebecca Jane’s father.
- Born
- Clifton, Bristol · 1831 (baptised at St Andrew’s, Clifton, 22 January 1832)
- Died
- 19 May 1903 · 196 Keppel Street, Bathurst
- Married
- Mary Jane Mills (1823–1894) — married at Portland Head, Hawkesbury, 1852
- Trade
- Saddler & harness-maker, George Street, Bathurst
- Lived
- 71 years
Archibald Joseph Jeffries was born at Clifton, on the Bristol edge, in 1831 — a son of Samuel Jeffries, a house carpenter and joiner whose own father farmed at Polperro in Cornwall, and his wife Anne, née Rayment, a tailoress from the north Devon coast.1 He was christened at St Andrew’s, Clifton, on 22 January 1832, from an address in Gibbins Court.1 A lifelong Methodist in Bathurst, he came of a Wesleyan family that took the parish rite for the record — and for the emigration papers that were about to matter. The full story of his parents, and of the eight brothers and sisters he sailed with, is told in the companion chapter, The Jeffries Emigrants.12
He was six years old when the whole household came out on the barque Layton, which sailed from Bristol on 8 September 1837 and reached Sydney in January 1838 after measles killed some seventy of the emigrant children on the passage — among them Archibald’s baby sister Elizabeth and an infant niece, both buried at sea.2 The family settled in Surry Hills, where Samuel worked at his trade; by 1842 the Sydney directory has “Jeffries S.” in Crown Street — the same close quarter of the town in which Stephen Robens kept house, thirty years before the two families would marry.3
Archibald married Mary Jane Mills at Portland Head, on the Hawkesbury, in 1852, and their first child, Mary Rebecca Jane, was born at Pitt Town that December.4 Mary Jane’s own parents — John Mills, a transported Londoner who became a ferryman on the Nepean and, in the end, a Hawkesbury schoolmaster, and Mary Manning, born in the colony — are the subject of the companion chapter, The Mills Family.5 Early in 1853 an uncollected-letters list catches the household mid-move — a letter waiting for “Mrs. Archibald Jeffries” at Windsor, and another for “Mr. A. Jeffreys” at Sofala, up on the northern goldfields.4 He reached Bathurst about that year and stayed for the rest of his life, some fifty years, working as a saddler and harness-maker in George Street for about thirty-six of them.6 Seven more children were born at Bathurst between 1856 and 1866, the 1860 arrival announced from the family’s house in Mitre Street.78 The trade was not always steady: in 1878 he assigned everything he owned to a Sydney trustee for the benefit of his creditors, and then built it back.13
He was, an obituary said, “a foremost figure in military circles in Bathurst” — a volunteer from 1868, a bandsman, and for years one of the best rifle shots in the colony, until his sight began to fail.15 He was an Oddfellow at Bathurst for forty-seven years, held every office in the Loyal Kincora Lodge, and once sat as Provincial Grand Master of the order.15 Mary Jane died in 1894; by then Archibald was nearly blind, and for his last years his unmarried daughter Alice kept the Keppel Street house while his eldest daughter, Mary Rebecca Jane, came up from Sydney to nurse him through the “inward growth” that killed him.1615 He died on the evening of 19 May 1903, aged seventy-one, and was buried from 196 Keppel Street in the Methodist cemetery, his lodge brothers walking behind.17 The will he had made that December — read aloud to him because he could no longer see it — left his clock and writing desk to Mrs Robens, his “crest oil painting” to one daughter and his rifle-club silver cups to another, his watch and chain to his son, and the house to Alice.19
The Saddler’s Family
His Children
Eight children in all, born at Bathurst between 1856 and 1866 after the eldest, Mary Rebecca Jane, was born at Pitt Town in 1852 — hers is the line this chapter follows. Two did not reach adulthood: Letitia, in the asylum at Parramatta from the age of twenty-one and dead there in 1890; and John H. K., who died in infancy the year he was born. The other five all have their own pages below.
Alice Emmaline Jeffries & Charles William Green 1856–1952
The second of the saddler’s daughters. She kept his house through ten years of his blindness and settled his estate as executrix — then married at fifty-four, was widowed at fifty-six, and lived on as Mrs Green for another forty years.
Read their storyMartha Ann Jeffries & James Schoe 1857–1937
The saddler’s third daughter, and the one who left. She married the Congregational printer James Schoe, followed his trade clear across the continent to Perth, and came home with him at the last to a Katoomba cottage — where her widowed sister Alice kept house beside her.
Read their storyWilliam Archibald Jeffries & Mary Long 1860–1940
The only son of the blind saddler, and the child to whom he left his watch and chain. William kept shop in Bathurst, married into a family the whole colony had once argued about in print, came twice before a country bench over drink in his early fifties, and settled at last at Manly as a land agent.
Read their storyAda Australia Jeffries 1864–1956
The saddler’s seventh child, and the one who stayed single. She carried an ambulance certificate into a railway smash on the northern line in 1898 and had her photograph in the Sydney Mail for it; then she followed the Schoes to Perth, came home with them, and kept house beside her widowed sisters at Katoomba — and, at the last, near her brother William at the sea.
Read their storyBlanche Anderson Jeffries & Owen James Howard 1866–1937
The saddler’s youngest child. She married Owen James Howard — of the Parkes storekeeping family, and three times the town’s mayor — raised her children there among the counters of R. S. Howard and Sons, and came with him at last to Manly, where she died in 1937, the year he married again.
Read their storyThe family he came out with
Samuel and Anne Jeffries brought nine children out of Bristol on the barque Layton in 1837 — a household the emigration board rated on Samuel’s trade, at six shillings and eightpence a day.2 Samuel was a carpenter and joiner; his father farmed at Polperro, in Cornwall, where the five eldest children were born, and by 1827 the family had moved to Clifton, on the Bristol edge, where Archibald and the youngest three followed.12
Their story — the 1815 marriage at Northam, Anne’s Rayment people, the Clifton years, and what became of each of the nine children — is told in full in the companion chapter, The Jeffries Emigrants.
Measles in the Channel
The barque Layton, Captain John Austin, cleared Bristol on 8 September 1837 with something over a hundred emigrants and a hundred and ten children under the naval surgeon William Rogers. Measles took hold among the children almost as soon as the ship left the British Channel, and by the time she came up the coast it had killed about seventy of them. She lay off Pinchgut Island in the third week of January 1838, and was only let up to the Cove when six weeks had passed without a fresh case.2
Among the dead were the two youngest Jeffries children — Elizabeth, eighteen months old, Archibald’s sister; and Jane, the same age, the daughter of his married brother Samuel and Samuel’s Clifton-born wife Mary. Both were buried at sea. Archibald, six years old, came ashore into Sydney with the rest. The rest of the family — and the eight other children — are followed in the companion chapter, The Jeffries Emigrants.2
By way of the diggings
The Jeffries settled in Surry Hills, and it is there — “Jeffries S., house, Crown-street” — that the 1842 directory finds them, a few doors from the world the Robens family were building in the same streets.3 Archibald married Mary Jane Mills at Portland Head in 1852; Mary Rebecca Jane was born at Pitt Town that December, and by early 1853 the family was on the road west, a letter chasing Mary Jane to Windsor while Archibald was already up at Sofala on the goldfields.4 He came to rest at Bathurst about 1853 and opened a saddlery in George Street.
The Bathurst record is a working life with its ordinary troubles in it: an indentured apprentice, Henry Patterson, who absconded to Molong in 1872; the executorship of a neighbouring farmer’s will in 1876; and, in 1878, a deed of assignment handing his whole estate to a Sydney trustee for his creditors.101213 The family’s Bathurst addresses walk across the town over fifty years — Howick Street in 1857, Mitre Street in 1860, the George Street shop, Russell Street by the 1891 census, and finally the Keppel Street house he bought in 1895.718
Alderman Worstass
In August 1864 the Bathurst Municipal Council fell out over a barrel drain to be laid in front of the School of Arts, and a travelling comedian, Frederick Younge, put the row on the stage of the Prince of Wales Theatre as a two-act burlesque, “The Barrel Drain.” One alderman was played throughout as “Alderman Worstass,” a braying donkey with outsized ears.9
The alderman took offence and swore an information for criminal libel, and among the two witnesses who deposed with him that they had sat through the performance on 1 August was “Archibald Jeffries, also of Bathurst, saddler.”9 The paper reporting it thought the whole thing a capital joke — most of the aldermen had been in the audience, laughing — but Jeffries’ name is on the sworn complaint.
A foremost figure in the town
Before the volunteers he had been “the mainstay of the Oddfellows’ Band”; he joined the Bathurst Volunteers under Major Hales in 1868 and, a few weeks later, the Volunteer Band under bandmaster Michael McCarthy.15 Then came the rifle: the Volunteer Rifle Club, the Reserves, the Western Rifle Association, and a reputation as “one of the best marksmen in the State,” kept up until his eyesight failed.15 His volunteer service earned him a land order in 1874 — fifty acres selected near Moama on the Murray, which, like most volunteers, he sold on.11 The failing is there in a range report of October 1890: “A. J. Jeffries” put on 32 at 500 yards, all but the top score of the day, and then fell to 17 at 600 as “the light got very indifferent.”22 Yet as late as 1892, sitting on the Reserve Rifle Company’s committee, he undertook to make a leather rifle-case as a club prize — the saddler’s hands still in it at past sixty.14
The Manchester Unity Oddfellows were the constant thread. He was a member at Bathurst for forty-seven years, from about 1856; he held every office in the Loyal Kincora Lodge, and once sat as Provincial Grand Master of the province. He was also an adherent of the Methodist Church, and it was the lodge and the chapel that carried him out at the end.15
Letitia
Two of the eight children did not grow up alongside the rest. John H. K., born in 1862, died the same year, an infant.7 Letitia, born in 1859, survives only in the government’s paperwork: the Colonial Secretary’s in-letters place her at the asylum at Parramatta in 1880, aged twenty-one, and record her death there ten years later, in 1890.23 Her civil death registration is under Parramatta, not Bathurst — she died where she had been kept.7
The records do not say what took her there, and this history will not guess. She was about thirty-one.
Read aloud to a blind man
He lost his sight about 1893. Mary Jane died on 6 February 1894, taken ill on a visit to their daughter Mrs James Schoe and buried from the Schoe house in Keppel Street; the notice of her death remarked on her husband’s near-total blindness.16 For his last years the unmarried Alice kept house for him, and when the “inward growth” took hold his eldest daughter came up from Sydney to nurse him — the “praiseworthy devotion and attention” his obituary singled out.15 He died on the evening of 19 May 1903, and the funeral moved from 196 Keppel Street to the Methodist cemetery the next afternoon, the Loyal Kincora Lodge meeting first to walk behind; the undertaker, W. S. Hodge, had been on the rifle committee with him.17
The will was a blind man’s will — made that December, and witnessed with a certificate that its contents had been “read over and explained to him.”19 It parcelled out a household: the clock, chest of drawers and writing desk to Mrs Robens; “my crest oil painting,” a wardrobe and a chest of drawers to Ada Australia; two silver cups — rifle trophies — to Blanche Anderson Howard; the watch and chain to William Archibald; and the Keppel Street house, with the residue, to Alice Emmaline, who was named executrix and proved it in 1910. The estate came to £179 5s.19
The Record
Sources & References
- 1
Baptism, St Andrew’s, Clifton, 1832
Parish register of St Andrew, Clifton, Gloucestershire, baptisms 1832, entry no. 1628 — Archibald Joseph, son of Samuel and Ann Jefferies, abode Gibbins Court, father’s trade “carpenter,” christened 22 January 1832, one of many children from unrelated families entered that day. Polperro, Cornwall, is Samuel’s and his father’s native place, not Archibald’s: the 1827 Clifton baptisms of the five elder children (companion chapter, The Jeffries Emigrants, reference 3) show the family already settled at Clifton by 1827, so Archibald, born 1831, was a Clifton child. He was a Methodist throughout his Bathurst life; the parish baptism is most simply read as a Dissenting family regularising the record before emigrating. His parents and siblings are the subject of the companion chapter.
- 2
Emigration — the barque Layton, 1837–38
Index to Bounty Immigrants arriving in NSW — the household of Samuel Jefferies (42, house carpenter & joiner, Polperro) and Anne (36, tailoress, Bideford, Devon), with children David 18, Ann Douglas 16, Ruth 14, Ebenezer 12, Mary Jane 10, Archibald 6, Jabez 4, and Elizabeth 1½ “died at sea”; and, entered separately, married son Samuel jr (21, ship’s carpenter) with wife Mary (21, of Clifton) and infant Jane 1½, also “died at sea.” Ship News, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 20 January 1838: the Layton, Captain John Austin, sailed from Bristol 8 September, surgeon-superintendent William Rogers R.N., measles breaking out after leaving the British Channel and carrying off about 70 children, the ship held off Pinchgut Island. Agent’s list of immigrants per Layton — Samuel Jeffries, carpenter, engaged at 6s 8d a day. The family’s English records, the voyage, and the fate of each of the nine children are set out in full in the companion chapter, The Jeffries Emigrants.
- 3
The family in Surry Hills, 1842
The Australian (Sydney), 21 September 1842, alphabetical list — “Jeffries S. house, Crown-st Surry hills,” a few entries from “Jesson John, house, Surry hills.” The same district in which Stephen and Sarah Robens kept house; see Chapter One.
- 4
Marriage, 1852, and the move west, 1852–53
NSW BDM marriage index 1852, Portland Head — Archibald J. Jeffries and Mary J. Mills, vol. V. Sydney Morning Herald, Births, 28 December 1852 — a daughter to Mrs Archibald Jeffries, Pitt Town (Mary Rebecca Jane, born 20 December 1852). NSW Government Gazette, list of unclaimed letters, No. 24, 25 February 1853 — “Jeffries Mrs. Archibald, Windsor” and “Jeffreys Mr. A., Sofala.”
- 5
Mary Jane Mills
Compiled family record — born 11 July 1823; married Archibald Joseph Jeffries 1852; died 6 February 1894 at Bathurst, buried Bathurst cemetery. NSW BDM death index 2692/1894, Bathurst — father John W., mother Mary. Her parents and her father’s convict origins, colonial career and family are the subject of the companion chapter, The Mills Family.
- 6
The Bathurst saddlery
Obituaries of 20 May 1903 (reference 15): National Advocate — “about 1853 he arrived in Bathurst,” “for 36 years he carried on the business of a saddler in George-street”; The Week (Brisbane), 29 May 1903 — “resided in Bathurst 50 years.”
- 7
The eight children — NSW BDM birth index, Bathurst
Bathurst district registrations, father Archibald J., mother Mary J.: Alice E. 3021/1856, Martha A. 4731/1857, Letitia M. 4739/1859, William A. 5036/1860, John H. K. 4959/1862, Ada A. 5050/1864, Blanche A. 5584/1866 — with Mary Rebecca Jane, born Pitt Town 1852 (reference 4). The given names and spellings of the six children who survived him — Mary Rebecca Jane (Robins), Alice Emmaline, Martha Ann (Schoe), Ada Australia, Blanche Anderson (Howard) and William Archibald — are from the 1902 will (reference 19). The other two died before him and appear in neither the will nor the 1903 obituary: John H. K. in infancy the same year he was born (NSW BDM death 2655/1862, Bathurst — parents Archibald J. and Mary J.), and Letitia M. at Parramatta in 1890 (NSW BDM death 10360/1890), aged about thirty-one.
- 8
Birth of William Archibald, Mitre Street, 1860
Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 21 November 1860 — “On the 20th November, at her residence Mitre-street, Mrs. Archibald Jeffries of a son.”
- 9
The “Barrel Drain” libel case, 1864
Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong), 12 August 1864, reprinting the information sworn before W. Hall Palmer, P.M., on 6 August 1864 by J. W. Ashworth, alderman, G. M. Robinson, coachmaker, and “Archibald Jeffries, also of Bathurst, aforesaid saddler,” against Frederick Younge, comedian, over the burlesque “The Barrel Drain” at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Bathurst — Ashworth caricatured on stage as “Alderman Worstass.”
- 10
Absconding apprentice, 1872
New South Wales Police Gazette, 7 February 1872, p. 38 — warrant issued by the Bathurst Bench for Henry Patterson, 16, a saddler, “charged with absconding from his indented apprenticeship with Archibald Joseph Jeffries … supposed to have gone to Molong.”
- 11
Volunteer Land Order, 1874
Register of Volunteer Land Order Selections, 1874, entry 137 (cat. no. 6319) — “Jeffries, Archibald … Private, Bathurst … Vol. Rifles,” 50 acres, portion 128, parish of Mathoura, county of Cadell, selected 25 February 1874, transferred to Walter R. Johnston, deed prepared 1876.
- 12
Executor of James Harradine’s will, 1876
NSW Government Gazette, 1876, p. 4389, Supreme Court (Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction) — probate of the will of James Harradine, late of Esrom near Bathurst, farmer, to be granted to “Archibald Joseph Jeffries, the sole executor named”; dated at Bathurst 27 October 1876.
- 13
Deed of assignment for creditors, 1878
NSW Government Gazette, No. 73, 8 March 1878, p. 988 — notice of an indenture of assignment between Archibald Joseph Jeffries, saddler of Bathurst, and Charles William Lukey of Sydney, “saddlers’ ironmonger and importer,” as trustee, of “all the estate, property, assets, and effects” of Jeffries for the benefit of his creditors; executed at Bathurst 28 February 1878.
- 14
Bathurst Reserve Rifle Company, 1892
Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 12 July 1892 — committee meeting, F. B. Kenny in the chair, “A. J. Jeffries” present and appointed to the handicapping sub-committee; “a leather rifle case to be made by Mr. Jeffries for second prize.”
- 15
Obituaries, 1903
Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal and National Advocate, both 20 May 1903, and The Week (Brisbane), 29 May 1903 — the George Street saddlery of 36 years; the Bathurst Volunteers under Major Hales, 1868, the Volunteer Band under bandmaster Michael McCarthy, and “the mainstay of the Oddfellows’ Band” before that; “one of the best marksmen in the State,” with the Volunteer Rifle Club, the Reserves and the Western Rifle Association; 47 years an Oddfellow (Loyal Kincora Lodge), every office held, “at one time … Provincial Grand Master”; an adherent of the Methodist Church; blindness of about ten years; the “inward growth”; his eldest daughter’s “praiseworthy devotion and attention”; and the surviving daughters, among them “Mrs. Schoe (of Perth W.A.), Mrs. T. Robins (Sydney), and Mrs. Howard (Parkes).”
- 16
Death of Mary Jane Jeffries, 1894
National Advocate (Bathurst), 8 February 1894, “Death of Mrs. Jeffries” — wife of Mr A. J. Jeffries of George Street; he had for some months been “laid aside with a serious affection of the eyes, which has resulted almost in total blindness”; she was “taken ill when on a visit to her daughter, Mrs. James Schoe, of Keppel-street.” Funeral notice, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 7 February 1894 — the funeral to move from the residence of Mr Jas. Schoe, Keppel Street.
- 17
Death and funeral, May 1903
Funeral notice, National Advocate, 20 May 1903 — the friends of “the late Mr. A. J. Jeffries” invited to the funeral, to move from “his late Residence, 196 Keppel-street … for the Methodist Cemetery,” undertaker W. S. Hodge; the Manchester Unity Order (Loyal Kincora Lodge) to meet at the Lodge Room at 2.15 to attend. The Bathurst Free Press obituary gives the house as 169 Keppel Street; the funeral notice, the 1901 census and the 1902 will all give 196.
- 18
Census and Bathurst addresses
1891 NSW census, Bathurst, West Ward (Russell Street area) — household of “Arch. J. Jeffries.” 1901 NSW census, Bathurst, West Ward, Keppel Street — “Archibald Jeffries,” two persons in the schedule. The Keppel Street property was bought from Patrick McCabe by indenture of 21 January 1895 (recited in the will, reference 19).
- 19
Will (1902) and probate (1910)
Will of Archibald Joseph Jeffries, “late of Bathurst … Saddler,” dated 2 December 1902; NSW Supreme Court probate no. 49723, granted 5 July 1910 to Alice Emmaline Jeffries of 307 Russell Street, Bathurst, executrix. The attestation clause certifies that “the testator being blind the contents of his Will were previously read over and explained to him.” Bequests: clock, chest of drawers, writing desk, bedstead and sideboard to Rebecca Jane Robins; round table, bedstead and portmanteau to Martha Ann Schoe; “my Crest oil painting,” wardrobe and chest of drawers to Ada Australia; two silver cups to Blanche Anderson Howard; watch and chain to William Archibald; and the Keppel Street property (bought from Patrick McCabe, 1895) with the residue to Alice Emmaline, executrix. Estate sworn at £179 5s. 0d. net. Witnesses J. B. Kenny and F. Kenny.
- 20
Photographs
Private family collection, identified by JK — a Boyd studio cabinet card (Upper George Street, Bathurst) of Archibald Joseph Jeffries in old age, seated with a cane, a cross-shaped medal on his watch-chain; and a Bathurst cabinet card of him seated with his two eldest great-grandchildren, Ethel Ida Violet Robens (born 1898) and Alfred Archibald Thomas Robens (born 1899), taken about 1902. The second photograph is also described in Chapter Three.
- 21
E. Webb & Co’s building, Bathurst
Albumen photograph, private family collection — the three-storey brick emporium of E. Webb & Co, with an iron-lace verandah over arcaded shopfronts and a bullock team resting in the unpaved street. The signage reads, left to right, “J. Jeffries — Saddle & Harness Maker,” “John Hurst — Western Boot Mart” across the central archway, and “E. Webb & Co — Importers.” The left-hand tenancy is Archibald Joseph Jeffries’ saddlery; the obituaries place his shop in George Street (reference 6). Undated; the building and dress suggest the 1870s.
- 22
Rifle range report, 1890
National Advocate (Bathurst), 20 October 1890, “The Trigger — Bathurst Reserve Rifle Corps” — Saturday practice scores printed shot by shot: “A. J. Jeffries” 32 at 500 yards (second only to Dr Spencer’s 33) and 17 at 600 yards as the light failed, total 49. On the same card are W. S. Hodge, F. B. Kenny, H. A. Stokes and A. J. Dowse.
- 23
Letitia Jeffries — Colonial Secretary’s in-letters, 1880 and 1890
NSW State Archives, Index to Colonial Secretary Letters Received — INX-106-159368, “Jeffries Letitia … Asylum Parramatta; age 21,” 1880, letter no. 80/4326 [1/2485]; and INX-106-178732, “Jeffries Letitia … Died Asylum Parramatta,” 1890, letter no. 90/3436 [5/5975]. With her civil death registration under Parramatta, NSW BDM 10360/1890 (reference 7). The letters name the institution only as “Asylum Parramatta”; they do not record a cause.