This is your life - Mary Ann Hole

Note: This post is, in some respects, a continuation from my Indigenous heritage Part 1 posted recently, so I have chosen to post it next for continuity.

Mary Ann’s early life in brief

A quick recap...

I have documented a lot of the details of how I came to know this information (you can read about it in my indigenous heritage posts), so this first part is an abridged version of her early life.

My gt-grandmother, Mary Ann Hole, was born sometime in the 1860’s in Walgett NSW, to parents Thomas Martin Grills Hole (Stockman) and Margaret (an Aboriginal woman).

In 1877 she appears to have had an illegitimate daughter, Emma, whose baptism is recorded in Scone church records in 1879. We don’t know what became of Emma, but at that time Mary Ann was working as a domestic servant at Wittegary Creek near Owens Gap.

She herself was baptised as an adult in 1887 and was still working as a domestic, still at Owen’s Gap, but for the same family? I am looking for who this might have been.

Mary Ann had her first son George in 1889, born in Maitland Benevolent Asylum, and baptised in Scone. There is no father listed on the birth registration but in the church records the father is listed as George Fogarty. I went through a long process to find Mary Ann's son George Hunter Hole Tiedemann and now have a list of his descendants.

The next time we hear of Mary Ann she is going to court fighting for child support, but that child is not George. Read about the court case below.

Note: Given that Mary Ann was illiterate, and that she was baptised as an adult, I believe that the church was likely to have had a hand in pushing her to file against the father of her child for support. Either way she had a lot of pluck and courage to deal with these white men in a position of power.

The court case - a tale of connections

I found a newspaper clipping about a court case involving our Mary Ann, pleading for support for her child. This child was not our previously found child, George. The clipping below sums the court case up nicely.

Maitland Mercury 12th April 1892

I applied for the court records, and got a wonderful full account of the circumstances. There were lots of small bits of information to be gathered. Below is the summons for Charles Nott to appear in court which says "Mary Ann Hole was delivered of an illegitimate female child of which you are the father and that you have neglected to contribute towards the support of the said child". A daughter!

Summons for the defendant in the court case

The court document is a 9 page pdf of the original documents and all handwritten as you can see. The signature of the Magistrate (below) appears as though he was barely able to write his own name.

The plea came back from the defendant...

The documents mention Mary Ann was from Devonshire Street and that she was living alone and she goes out working in the day. Mary Ann declares that the affidavit she has provided is the truth and that he, Charles Nott, has been "keeping company" with her on and off. The female child was recorded in the statement as born on 4th March (1892).

Her statement under oath:

She uses the euphemism "had a connection with" to refer to the intimate act, saying "he first had a connection with me in May last" and "he had a connection with me several times..." but that "he never came to my house ... He had connection with me in the paddocks". She went on to be more specific, "in the month of May in Holden's paddocks at the back of the Exchange Hotel" and that the defendant had a connection with her in someone's Lucerne Paddock too, though the name is difficult to decipher.

She says that she has a witness to call. The witness is William Hodges.

She says that she spoke to the father of the child before the child was born and that he said he "would be getting work soon and would find some money for the child. I don't know what he earns he is a carpenter". She requested 6 shillings per week to keep the child. She said that the defendant saw her two months before the child was born and said that he would “see her through her trouble”.

She swears she has not had a connection with any other man. 

She elaborates that she had a child before, and the father is not paying for it, but the defendant is not the father of her first child and that she hadn't seen the father of the first child for 2 years.  She states that George Bode is the father of her first child. George Fogarty is the name on the baptism record for George. Is this the same person? Has she misremembered his name? 

(This makes me wonder about Emma & George as she is only mentioning one previous child - does this mean Emma was not her child? Or is she just neglecting to mention that she has had two children before. Perhaps she doesn't mention Emma because she is dead or with another family?) . 

Witnesses are called, as Mary Ann says that Willaim Hodges saw them together in the paddock, but she doesn't know why. Hodges is a polisher in West Maitland. Daniel Taylor, a saddler, is also called. Both deny seeing anything or knowing anything. 

The judge not seeing any evidence to support her claim refused to grant any order.

Research shows that the baby girl was Beatrice Victoria Hole born 5th March 1892 - died 25th January 1893, 9 months after the court case, and denial of support. The cause of death? 5 days of convulsions and diarrhoea. In place of the father's name on both birth and death certificates is the word "illegitimate". She is buried somewhere in the Church of England Cemetery West Maitland but the council are unable to locate Border F section on their cemetery maps, so she is lost.

John and Mary Ann

A year later in 1894 my gt-grandparents were married. They had been living just around the corner from one another.

The 1901 census records Mary Ann as 1 Aboriginal female.

There were 6 children of the marriage including:

• Martin Hilton (1894 - 1957)
• John Claud (1896 - 1896)
• Etty Matilda (1897 - 1930)
• Otto Arthur (1898 - 1916)
• Dora May (1901 - 1974) 
• Alice Alma (1903 - 1904)

John Jnr and Alice died as babies.

Mary Ann died of heart failure in 1904, and is buried at Campbell’s Hill Cemetery with her two Tiedemann babies.

John was a miner. He had been involved in trying to recover some workers from a mine collapse, and received an award for his bravery. His hand was crushed and he lost two fingers, a few weeks after returning to work he was killed in a mine accident, 1905. John is buried in Campbells hill cemetery and is buried with son eldest son, Martin. He had remarried only 6 weeks prior, leaving new wife Nellie with 5 step-children, her own toddler and a baby on the way. 

The children

Nellie promptly deposited the 4 younger step-children in foster care in Sydney. 

George stayed in Maitland working at the newspaper office aged 16, he married Ivy Pearl Lambert and had 3 daughters. He worked most of his adult life as a fettler for the mines.

Presentation on leaving the newspaper job

Martin eventually returned to Maitland, worked as a farm labourer, but remained unmarried and childless. Sadly there appear to be no reports of him anywhere.

Etty married at age 15, she was 9 months pregnant to her foster brother who was 10 years her senior. She had 4 children and died very young of complications with the birth of her last child. After Etty died her sister Dora looked after at least one of her children. Dora had lived with Etty when they were fostered, and were very close.

Otto died in WWI, no wife or children. His memorial is at VC Corner.

Dora (my grandmother) married Percy Wicks and had 4 daughters, Shirley, Lorraine, Noeline (Mum) and Marie. None of these daughters is still alive.