Charles Mapperson 

1830-1918

The gold rush in Australia during the 19th century attracted many people from England who were dazzled by thoughts of easy money and among them was a young agricultural labourer from Castle Bytham, near Bourne. 

Charles Mapperson was working as a farm hand in 1853 when he read newspaper reports of immigrants striking it rich down under. His brother Henry, who was fourteen years his senior, had already been seduced by dreams of making his fortune and had emigrated only three months before. He decided to join him but first he married his sweetheart Mary Ann Hales, daughter of a veterinary doctor from Baston, at the Bourne Baptist Chapel in West Street on May 1st that year and a week after their wedding they were on the high seas heading for Australia. They were both 23 years old. 

Charles  Mapperson pictured with his  wife Mary Ann circa 1854

The couple left Southampton aboard the sailing vessel Lady Kennaway which reached Sandridge (Port Melbourne) 12,000 miles away on 20th August 1853 after 98 days at sea and soon they were on their way to meet Henry at Creswick, near Ballarat in Victoria, where gold digging was the main preoccupation. Henry was a family man with a wife, Jane, and five daughters, but was still prepared to face the hardships of life in a new country provided there was a chance of becoming rich in the process. Nevertheless, it was a rough and primitive existence living in the goldfields where tents or wooden huts were the main accommodation and in November 1855, Henry and Jane's 16-year-old daughter Elizabeth was married to Joseph Cowling in a no frills wedding because the ceremony is recorded as taking place "in the tent of Joseph" at Creswick. The future looked bleak except for the prospective gleam of gold. 

Victoria had become a separate colony in 1850 and the gold rush gained momentum from 1851 onwards, creating a boom for the local economy. Immigrants with dreams of getting rich flooded in from all parts of the world and the population of Victoria rocketed from 77,000 in 1850 to 540,000 in 1860 and they included miners from Cornwall and Wales and even 42,000 from China. The Ballarat district however, was quite unprepared for such an influx and in 1857, there were 33,556 people still living in tents. 

But many were making their fortunes with major gold strikes, one of 132lb. and other large nuggets of 10lb. and 11lb. while there were many smaller ones, all found in a very short space of time. The good fortune however, eluded Charles Mapperson. He and Mary Ann lived on in Creswick for 11 years and in 1864 they moved to start a new life in the Riverina district of New South Wales, just over the Murray River from Echuca to an area known as Tataila, near Moama, where they began farming. By this time, they had four children, two boys and two girls born between 1854 and 1861, while two more sons were born at Tataila in 1866 and 1868, and so money was needed for their upkeep. But Charles appears to have been a versatile chap because as well as farming, his occupation on his youngest son's birth certificate was shoemaker. 

The family were extremely religious and regularly attended the Bible Christian Church at Tataila. Their youngest son, Charles junior, who used to teach at Sunday school and preach on the wharves and at the sawmills at Echuca, later became a Methodist home missionary. Charles himself was both resourceful and positive, two characteristics that were to stand him in good stead in a strange land. His farming became productive at Tataila where he soon had 170 acres, establishing a large orchard by planting 200 trees a year, kept poultry, cattle and horses, harvested hay and made silage and also survived a plague of locusts that stripped his trees. 

Charles had a strong sense of community and was soon making his mark in the locality, becoming a Moama councillor in 1895, a member of the local Landowners' Association, founded the Botanical Gardens in Moama and hosted a series of annual picnics for local children on his land. In 1869, he built a church for Tataila and assisted with the construction of Tataila Public School in 1874 that continued to operate until 1942. 

But he never forgot his family. When his son Ted was married, he made furniture for them while his wife Mary Ann sewed them pillows and bed linen and shirts for their grandson Ernie. Mary Ann however, died on 27th September 1902 at the age of 73 and is buried in Moama cemetery. Soon afterwards, Charles sold up and went to live at Castlemaine, presumably to be near his brother Henry's family who had moved there in 1857, but even though old age was catching up with him, he continued with his work for the community, becoming a member of the Progress Association and the Pioneers and Old Residents' Association that was instrumental in establishing a museum and art gallery for the town. Around 1915, Charles moved to stay with his son Ted who was then living at Bogan Gate, a small farming area west of Parkes in central New South Wales, and he died there on 21st March 1918 at the age of 89 and was buried in Bogan Gate cemetery. The Riverine Herald, the local newspaper at Echuca, described his life as "a colonist of 65 years". 

Today, Tataila is just a name, unknown to all but long time local residents. There are some farms and a few buildings as properties were absorbed into larger holdings but little else other than a commemorative plaque to mark the spot where the school he built once stood. 

His brother Henry, who had been working as a stonemason, was killed on 17th April 1879 when he was thrown from his cart while carrying goods to a coffee roasting plant, falling heavily on the back of his head. He was 63 and a widower, his wife Jane having died at Castlemaine on 25th October 1873 at the age of 52. She had borne 11 children, although four sons died in infancy but there are no family in Australia from Henry and Jane with the name Mapperson today because they are all descended through the female line. 

The Mapperson name however survives from Charles and Mary Ann's line as a family dynasty that originated when he emigrated from Castle Bytham in 1853 and where a link remains in the village churchyard which contains the grave of the parents of Charles and Henry, marked by a headstone with the inscription: 

These are the earliest ancestors of the Mappersons for whom records have been documented. But the subsequent family, now living in England, New Zealand and mainly in five Australian states, is vast and extends through several generations, many making their mark in life in a breathtaking variety of professions and pursuits including teaching, engineering, banking, farming, nursing, security management, computing, pottery, scouting, golf and motor cross and the list even includes a couple of Olympic athletes. 

Their lives and achievements have been diligently recorded by Charles' grandson, Norman Mapperson, who lives at Melbourne. Thirty-five years of painstaking research has involved travelling 5,000 miles around Australia and visiting England in 1995 to take a look at Castle Bytham, the village where it all started, together with the accumulation of a mass of documentary material including birth, marriage and death certificates, extracts from census returns, army records, photographs, correspondence, diaries and newspaper cuttings. It has also resulted in a 170-page book entitled My Mapperson Family that gives their history stretching back to 18th century Lincolnshire and is a joy to read for it not only details dates and names from the early pioneers to the present day, but also provides an insight into the times in which they lived and is therefore a social document of some importance. 

Norman is now 85 and he has enjoyed every moment of his research but has recently handed over to another member of the family to act as historian. "Mine has been the privilege and pleasure of finding a wide family connection and of entering in the spirit of Australia's heritage and history through the varied lives of our family", he said. "May this record give to all who browse through it, a sense of privilege in belonging to history and inheriting so much that is great and good." 

A copy of this fascinating book has been deposited with the Family History Society in Bourne for future research and another with the public library in South Street and so anyone who wishes to read it may do so on request. 

Go to:     Main Index     Villages Index