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Robert
Starritt left Liverpool on 23rd April and arrived in Melbourne on 26th
July, 1864 on the “Morning Light” which was a ship of 2377 tons under the
Captaincy of Master Gillies. The ship’s log says it took 140 days to reach
Melbourne however, this doesn’t correspond with the dates on the same log.
There were 450 passengers on board consisting of 101 from the U.K., 58 from
Scotland, 246 from Ireland and others not specifies. Robert was 20 and was
classed, either by himself or by the authorities, as a labourer.
It must have been a long and lonely trip for a young man of 20 not
knowing what lay ahead of him in a strange country. Knowing that
John, his brother, was already in Victoria, as was apparently the family
of William Sterritt who came out in 1884, (living at Bungaree 6 miles east
of Ballarat on Leigh Creek) at this time must have been a big help.
Robert’s
movements from his time of landing till 1870, when he was married in
Creswick, are very hard to trace. We know that William Sterritt’s sister,
Jane Amelia, who married Andrew Wade, lived at Bungaree and that there are
still descendants living there. John, Robert’s brother, was a carrier in
Ballarat in 1870 and was later to have farmed at “Glen Park”, Bungaree. In
the Victorian directory, dated 1870, there is also a Thomas Starritt listed
as a labourer at Ascot which is near Ballarat, so from this information it
is reasonable to assume that Robert headed for the Ballarat area where the
other Starritts and also the
Gregg
family were situated.
We do know that Robert worked for a time as a farm labourer for 15
shillings per week probably around the Bungaree area where the other
Starritts were situated. Labour was plentiful at the time and there was
obviously not much future for him in labouring so he somehow managed to buy
a team of horses and a dray and began carting timber for the mines. The days
of the small digger were disappearing on the Ballarat goldfields as the
alluvial gold had nearly all been found by the thousands who flocked there
when gold was first discovered and so the successful miner now had to go
well underground in search of the gold bearing leads. Robert, seeing the
need for timber for these mines went into the carrying business and this was
to give him his first real start in the new colony.
Robert was later to go carrying or teaming as they called it as far
afield as Horsham. His work with horse teams in this period must have
developed his interest in them as he was later to become known as an
excellent judge and breeder of Clydesdale horse. In June 1869 Robert was to
hear of the death of his younger brother,
George, who was aged 22. I do not know the reasons for this premature
death, which occurred in Ireland.
This article in its entirety was reproduced from the book
"A Starritt Family History" by John D. Starritt and placed on this site with
his permission. My thanks go to Mr. Starrit for the time and effort he has
put into researching the STARRITT and GREGG families.
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