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Thomas Harris Wilkin was probably born about 1813 in the vicinity of St Agnes in Cornwall. Little is known about his parents apart from references on Thomas' marriage and death certificates. His father's name was William Wilkin and his mother's maiden name was likely Elizabeth Harris, although there is some discrepencies on the certificates. Interestingly, all certificates cited from England spell the surname without an 's' (Wilkin) and it seems the 's' was added upon arrival in Australia. Thomas' early life is a mystery. A tantalising reference on his death certificate probably indicates that he (and not his father) had a career in the military through the 1830's but as yet this hasn’t been confirmed. On the certificate, his son describes him as a 'military man'. Combined with the fact that no trace of Thomas can be found in Cornwall at the time of the 1841 census and that he did not marry until the relatively late age of 30 all suggest a stint in the army somewhere.

Thomas returned to Cornwall sometime after 1841 and married a girl from Camborne on the 9th August 1843. At the time of his marriage Thomas was living at a little village called Roscroggan between Illogan and Camborne. He was working as a labourer (probably on a local farm) at the time. Thomas' wife was named Mary Williams. Her family were well established in Camborne where Mary grew up. Mary's parents, Robert and Anne, were possibly married at Gwinear in Cornwall in 1812. They had a big family of seven children. Mary was the second oldest born in 1815. Robert worked as a copper miner and the family was poor. They lived in Camborne town at Trelowarren St. At the time of the 1841 census, Mary and three of her younger siblings all worked in the mines, including William jnr who was just 10 years old. Like Thomas, Mary married relatively late aged 28.

After their marriage Thomas and Mary settled in Camborne and also lived in Trelowarren St. It is not clear as yet whether they were saving money living with Mary's parents, possibly in preparation for emigrating, or they lived in rented accommodation down the road. Both of their first two children were born in Camborne. First came a daughter, Elizabeth Ann Wilkin, born in 1844. It is likely that she was named after both of her grandmother's. A son arrived on the 15th March 1846, George Leyton Wilkin. The shipping record from their 1848 emigration lists Thomas' occupation as labourer during this period but interestingly, their residence in England is listed as St Columb, Cornwall. This is a mystery as to why the family moved to St Columb at some stage between 1846 and 1848. It is possible that Thomas had a brother William Harris Wilkin (Wilking on the marriage record) who lived at St Columb Minor after marrying Mary Anne Warmington in the town in 1834.

Thomas and Mary made the decision to leave Cornwall and emigrate to Australia in 1848 as assisted migrants. That is, in return for having their passage paid for by a prospective employer in the colony they become bonded labour to their new employer for one or two years upon arrival. It seems little Elizabeth had died prior to emigration as she didn’t travel with her parents and younger brother George on the ship. At this stage a death certificate has not been sourced. The family left England on 21st December 1848 on board the ship 'General Palmer'. They sailed from Plymouth and 5 months later arrived at Port Phillip on the 10th April 1849. Thomas was aged 36 and Mary 34 on the shipping records. Mary was pregnant and during the voyage gave birth to a second son, William Palmer Wilkin, at sea. The shipping record indicates that travelling with Thomas and Mary were their two year old son George and William was listed as an 'infant born on voyage'. The records would indicate that Thomas was literate.

On arrival in Port Phillip (Williamstown) they were admitted into the Immigration Depot on the 27th April 1849 and left on the 14th May to join their employer, Mr. Derines (?) of Melbourne for 12 months at £25 p.a. (without rations!). Little is known about these early years in the new colony other than that the Wilkins family likely struggled to make ends meet and lived in the squalor of the shanty town that was to become the suburb of Collingwood. It is likely that Thomas worked as a 'stone breaker' in Melbourne during these early years. Another son, Thomas jnr, was born in 1851 in Collingwood and all three boys were christened at the local St Marks Church of England parish in Collingwood in 1852.

Just 15 years after arriving in the colony, Thomas passed away on the 16th December 1865. The family was living at 9 St David St. Fitzroy at the time of Thomas' death. He was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, in the Wesleyan section for reasons unknown. George was 19 at the time of his father's death. Some time later the family moved to 98 Kerr St, Fitzroy and are listed as living there at the time of George's marriage in 1871. Tragedy struck the Wilkins again in 1872 when youngest son Thomas died at the age of 21 for reasons unknown. (Death certificate is available but not yet cited). In 1873 the family again moved, this time to Perry St in Collingwood. The Sands and McDougall directory would indicate that old Mrs Wilkins continued to live in a number of rented houses in Perry Street up to the time of her death in 1891. The Melbourne General Cemetery records indicate that she was buried with her husband on the 9th October 1891 aged about 76 (her son George lists her age as 81 on the burial record but this is likely inaccurate). It is likely that she died in Brighton (again, a Victorian certificate is available but has not been cited as yet)

If you find this piece of interest and it links to your own family history feel free to copy the file or connect it to your tree on Ancestry.com. I just ask that you make a brief comment below as I always find it interesting to know who I am connected with. If you have information or photographs that shed more light on the story above please let me know!
freemannick

freemannick originally shared this on Ancestry Family Trees

The story of two brothers from Cornwall

William Wileken Harris

Thomas Harris Wilkins

While there is no concrete record of these two boys living under the same roof, the strong circumstantial evidence indicates that they were clearly brothers. William Harris Williton was the base born son of Elizabeth Williton christened in Ladock, a small village a couple of miles to the south-east of St Columb Minor, on the 23 Dec 1810. William Harris Williton’s surname is recorded a variety of ways over the next 30 years. His marriage certificate in 1834 spells his surname Wileken while his children’s christening records have the surname Wilking. Being illiterate meant that spellings really depended on the hearing of a parish priest who would write down whatever he thought he heard when recording names. There was no way of checking spelling for accuracy as those being married or baptizing a child couldn’t read anyway.

Two years later at the parish church in St Columb Major, Thomas Harris Wilkins was christened on the 21 May 1812. Again, he was the base born son of Elizabeth Wilkins. There are a number of interesting facts about these births. Firstly, both boys were base born indicating that Elizabeth was not married at the time of their births. The consistent use of Harris as a middle name is a strong indication that the surname of the boys’ father was Harris as it was traditional in the C19th for the father’s surname to be given as a middle name in cases of children born out of wedlock if the mother was in an ongoing relationship. The fact that the births are two years apart, with the same mother’s name (Elizabeth) and a consistent middle name (Harris) in neighbouring towns all point to these boys being brothers.

The birth records are interesting to compare with later records that provide clues as to the boys’ parents. Thomas Harris Wilkins’ marriage certificate in 1843 records his father as William Wilkins. However, it is plausible that using the surname Wilkins on this record was an attempt to cover up the fact that his parents were never married and that he was born out of wedlock. Thomas’ death certificate from 1865 filled in by Thomas’ son records Thomas’ parents’ names as Thomas Harris Wilkins and Elizabeth Harris. The accurate recording of Elizabeth as the mother would indicate that the family in Australia had some knowledge of Thomas’ family but there is obviously some confusion (Thomas Harris Wilkins is clearly the name of the deceased rather than the father of the deceased – maybe entered because the family didn’t have any knowledge of Thomas’ father.) Due to circumstances that will become clear, Thomas’ wife and children would very likely have never met grandparents or Wilkins relatives in Cornwall so any information about Thomas’ family would have relied on the reliability of Thomas’ own recollections.

The other really interesting piece of information from Thomas’ death certificate is a vague reference to Thomas’ father’s occupation - ‘Military man’. I suspect this is probably accurate. That the reference is vague indicates that the family story may have been that Thomas’ father was in the military but particulars about rank and regiment were not known. While the evidence is currently fairly flimsy, there is good reason to suspect that Thomas’ father may well have been a soldier serving in a local militia regiment. Between 1790 and 1815, England was engaged in the Napoleonic wars which required the formation of hundreds of militia regiments from across the counties of England. It was a period when it was very common for young men to join a militia regiment that provided employment and some stable income as work as an agricultural labourer was increasingly marginal. Accounts in local Cornish newspapers at the time record that Cornish militia regiments were regularly billeted around Bodmin (not far from St Columb Major) and there was some outcry about the social issue of young Cornish girls falling pregnant to ‘militia-men’ and the burden this was creating for local parishes caring for unwed mothers and their children. A cursory survey of the recently published Regimental records unearthed a number of possible candidates that fit the limited information we have for a father for William and Thomas. A corporal William Harris born in 1787 who enlisted at St Neots (down the road from Bodmin) in Cornwall in 1805 and served in the 51st Regiment of Foot is one possibility. A sergeant William Harris who enlisted in Blistland (again just to the west of Bodmin) in Cornwall in 1793 and served in the Royal Cornwall Regiment of Militia until 1819 is another possibility. While these records are interesting it is unlikely that we will ever know for certain the identity of the father of William and Thomas unless a court record involving Elizabeth applying for parish support is unearthed. These ‘bastardry bonds’ were the only official documents that required a mother to name the father of illegitimate children.

Returning to some firmer ground, we do know that both boys were married in St Columb Minor in the 1830s. William Harris Wileken married Mary Anne Warmington in St Columb Minor in 1834 and Thomas Harris Wilking married Nancy Arthur on the 24 December 1835. William and Mary Anne have four children christened in the parish between 1834 and 1839 including a son Thomas James (likely named after William’s younger brother!). Thomas and Nancy don’t appear to have had any children. The next document further consolidates the view that these two families were related. The 1841 census for St Columb Minor shows William and Mary Anne living 5 doors down from Thomas and Nancy in the same street in Churchtown, an outlying area of St Columb Minor on the road to St Columb Major. What is fascinating about this record is that both brothers and their families have dropped the surname Wilkins (and its variations) and are going by the surname Harris. What caused this decision is, as yet, not really clear. Perhaps some stigma was attached to the surname Wilkins in the town? Perhaps their mother Elizabeth had died and they no longer felt compelled to maintain the surname? Perhaps there was some contact with their father or his family that encouraged them to adopt his surname? We don’t really know.

It is here that the story takes a sad turn. Again, circumstances are not clear but it appears that Thomas Harris Wilkins abandoned his wife Nancy at some point between 1841 and 1843 and moved 20 miles south to work as an agricultural labourer in the village of Roscroggan in the parish of Illogan. On the 9 August 1843 he married again at the Redruth registry office. His second wife, Mary Williams was from a mining family in Camborne. I had always wondered why Thomas married in a registry office rather than a church but it is highly likely that he couldn’t remarry in a Church as he was still officially married to his first wife Nancy who had moved back with her parents but continued to live in St Columb Minor as Nancy Harris until 1793. (In the C19th it was virtually impossible for commoners to get a divorce as it involved expensive legal proceedings and required the permission of a bishop). The next interesting fact about this second marriage is that Thomas picks up again his original surname of Wilkins and continued to be known as Thomas Harris Wilkins for the rest of his life. Thomas and his new wife Mary continued to live in Camborne where two children were born between 1843 and 1846. Interestingly, both children’s birth records were located in the civil registry but neither was christened in a church perhaps continuing Thomas’ avoidance of parish churches since his separation from Nancy a few years before.

Both brothers now made plans to leave Cornwall. William Harris, along with a number of Warmington relatives decided to emigrate to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, an area that had seen a wave of Cornish migrants since the early 1800s coming to mine the rich lead deposits in the region. By the 1840s, Mineral Point was no longer a wild, frontier town - the Indian wars had ended and the mining boom was over but Cornish emigrants continued to populate the county. William left Cornwall with his family at some point between 1848 and 1849 and the US Federal census of 1850 has William living at Mineral Point with his family.

It is interesting that both brothers left Cornwall at almost exactly the same time and to speculate as to why the two brothers did not emigrate together. Thomas Harris Wilkins moved back to St Columb Major at some point between 1846 and 1848 and emigrated to Port Phillip, Melbourne, Australia departing from Plymouth in late 1848 and arriving in Port Phillip on the 10 April 1849. On the journey to Australia, Thomas’ wife Mary gave birth to their second son and it is perhaps poignant that they named him William Palmer Wilkins, perhaps after the brother (or father) that was now on the other side of the world.

It is pure speculation but perhaps William disapproved of Thomas’ behavior in abandoning his first wife (he certainly was a deeply religious man as is evidenced by his involvement in establishing a Church at Laxey and records that indicate he participated as a lay preacher/minister of religion later in life.) William was certainly close with his Warmington inlaws as a number of his wife’s brothers and sisters went to America at the same time. Perhaps Thomas wanted to escape the scrutiny of disapproving relatives and sought a fresh start in Australia where his past could be forgotten.

Thomas Harris Wilkins life in the new colony seems to have been relatively prosperous. Rate books and the 1856 electoral records indicate he was a freehold property owner in Collingwood, an inner suburb of Melbourne, by this time and working as a hawker / labourer. His two boys, including George who was born in Cornwall, are christened at St Marks in Collingwood in 1852. He certainly lived in Melbourne through the phenomenal goldrush of the 1850s in Victoria and more work is needed to determine whether he actively mined at the goldfields during this time. His life in Melbourne has been documented elsewhere. Thomas Harris Wilkins died aged 57 at St Davids Street, Collingwood 1865. He wife Mary continued to live in Collingwood until her death in 1893. Sadly, his youngest son Thomas died in his 20s in the 1870s and his eldest son George, repeated his father’s behavior, abandoning his young wife and children in the 1890s but that story has been told elsewhere.

William Harris, bought a farm at Linden, Wisconsin, a rural area a few miles to the west of Mineral Point and established a prosperous farm where he lived for over 20 years until his death in 1878. Whether there was any contact with his brother in Australia is not known. Interestingly, a wave of Cornish miners left Wisconsin to find their fortune on the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s. William Harris stayed in America and raised a family that continued to live in Wisconsin for a number of generations, his youngest two children, Ellen and Henry, continued to farm around Linden until at least the First World War.

I would like to acknowledge the significant research of Flynn Warmington and Bill Harris in compiling this story. It has been interesting to compare notes with long lost ‘cousins’ in America and Cornwall!

If you are connected to Thomas or William leave a comment!
freemannick

freemannick originally shared this
23 Jan 2015 story
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