Mary Duncan Turnbull and George Phillips
Our Great Great Grandparents
Mary was born on October 22, 1838 at Parramatta NSW. She was the first member of the family born in Australia. Mary moved with her parents to the Bombala district in the early 1840s.
Our family has long believed that Mary was an acquaintance of Kate Kelly, a sister of the infamous bushranger Ned Kelly. According to "A Collateral of Blantyre - A History of the Turnbull Family" by Samuel J Turnbull, one of George and Mary's daughters was the originator of a story that one of her younger brothers had been delivered at birth by Kate Kelly. The youngest sons, William and Watkin, were born in Bombala in 1878 and 1880. Kate Kelly would have been about 16 then, and her uncle John Laurence Quinn was living in the Bombala district at the time, so it is possible that there is some substance to the story.
This photo has given us a certain amount of controversy. It was in the collection of our grandmother Thelma Rogers. Confusingly, the writing on the back of the photo says, "Harriet Kerrison mother of Harriet Kerrison, Thelma Rogers' grand mother and great grand mother". This cannot be correct because Harriet Kerrison was in fact Thelma's mother, not grandmother. Thelma Rogers' eldest son believes that inscription would have been written by Thelma or her older sister Bernice, but we don't know for certain. We believe it is most likely Thelma Rogers' grandmother Mary Duncan Turnbull, and her great grandmother Mary Kerrison (nee Goodings), which partly matches up with the inscription on the back of the photo. The younger woman has a very strong resemblance to Mary Duncan Turnbull, who was one of Thelma's grand mothers. See the other photos below, who we know to be of her. The resemblance is striking. Someone who claims to have written a book about dating old photos has told us that the photo is most likely from around the early 1880s - "The style of ruffle of the younger woman, plus her severe hairstyle, and the skirt unadorned by a crinoline cage indicates that the date is closer to the early 1880s."
However if the name in the inscription is correct then the younger woman is Harriet Kerrison and the elder one is Mary Goodings' daughter, Elizabeth Godfrey. The only people who know for certain are now deceased. To confuse matters even further we have also been contacted by a distant relation (by marriage) of Mary's grandmother Helen Anderson Turnbull, who claims this photo is in their family album and has been positively identified (in 1980) as Agnes Ann Murdoch and her daughter Mrs Annie Kirkwood. However these people are related to the Turnbulls only by marriage so the striking resemblance to Mary Duncan Turnbull seems highly unlikely. |
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L-R: Mary on the verandah of the house in Bombala, before it was demolished for the railway. The railway opened in 1921. |
She married George Phillips at Grenfell NSW (near Cowra) on July 24, 1869. Many of their children had already been born by the time they were married - George c.1858, James 1861, Charles 1863, Samuel 1866, Joel c.1868.
George predeceased Mary, on January 8, 1891, also at Bombala, and is buried with two of his sons in the Presbyterian section of the Bombala Cemetery next to the Turnbull family plot (see photo of the grave stone). Mary and George had 10 children.
Joan Dwyer (nee Rogers) remembers her Auntie Bern (Bernice Phillips) telling her that Mary was a shepherdess, who taught herself to crochet using sticks while watching the flock. Her masterpiece was a huge crochet blanket shown below, which was exhibited in a shopfront window at Anthony Hordern and sons, a big department store in Sydney. Bern always said that Mary started crocheting this at the bottom, doing the whole thing backwards. Bern spent many years trying to track it down, as it disappeared after Mary died. Joan believes it was shown in the big store in George Street, which opened in 1905.
Mary is shown above with her crochet of The Lord's Prayer.
Probably after 1905 (when the big new Anthony Hordern store
opened in George Street Sydney).
Mary died at Bombala on February 4, 1916 and is buried in grave 443, the Church of England section of the Bombala cemetery. Her obituary from the Bombala Times, 4 February 1916:
After a long and painful illness, Mrs. G. Phillips, senior, died this morning at her residence, Maharatta Street, Bombala. The trouble was an internal growth, and until this illness, Mrs. Phillips had been a remarkably healthy and vigorous woman. She was known far and wide for her kindness and good nature, and her help in times of sickness was frequently sought and readily given. “Granny” will be missed and regretted by many in this town and district. She was a rough-diamond of the old school with a generous nature that led her always to the front when a kindly womanly hand was needed. Born at Parramatta, she was 78 years of age at death. She came to Bukalong as a girl with her parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. S. Turnbull. After her marriage with Mr. George Phillips she spent some years with her husband on various gold-fields, including Kiandra. In 1874 she returned to Bombala and settled here for the remainder of her days. The family consists of three daughters – Mrs. W. Beileiter, Mrs. H. Littleproud and Mrs. Rochester; and three sons – Messrs. George, Charles, and William. The funeral will take place to-morrow afternoon.
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Children of Mary and GeorgeFrom here on the links go to the Phillips section of the web site. |
