Christopher Rudge, with the research, writing, photographs and recollections of Rob Gay and other family contributors acknowledged throughout.

This history follows George Henry Rudge’s arrival in New South Wales and the families that grew around him. Contemporary records, later family accounts and personal recollections do not always agree. Where a date or identification remains uncertain, the difference is stated rather than concealed.

1. First generation (1800–1850)

George Henry Rudge

Born

1814 · Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England

Baptised

20 November 1814 · Tewkesbury

Died

October 1902 · Burrawang, NSW; exact day disputed

Marriage

Mary Ann Keetch (17 December 1837, St Luke’s, Liverpool, family account); Mary Pauline Stych (10 August 1859, Christ Church, Bong Bong)

Occupation

Labourer (convict record); later landholder in the Berrima district

Sources

20 November 1814 is George’s baptism date. Family sources differ on the day of his death in October 1902, giving 23 or 25 October. His biological father is not identified in the baptism entry.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Photograph: Rob Gay identifies George Henry as the man seated at the right of the family photograph, c.1900.

Transported to New South Wales after his 1832 conviction, George later established the family in the Berrima district. His baptism names his mother as Charlotte Rudge; the record of her later marriage does not by itself establish his father.

• Most of the research and much of the writing on the first generation are the work of Rob Gay.

George Henry Rudge was born in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, in 1814 and baptised there on 20 November as ‘Henry George Rudge’. The entry describes him as the ‘illegitimate’ son of Charlotte Rudge of High Street, Tewkesbury. Her age of about 25 is inferred from the 1789 baptism attributed to her; it is not an age supplied in her son’s baptism entry.¹

Behind George’s Australian story lies a family pedigree running through the villages around Tewkesbury. Rob Gay’s compiled history begins with George Rudge of Eckington, born about 1695, who married Susance Dance on 2 February 1720. It traces their son George’s marriage to Sarah Bennet at Longdon on 25 October 1744, and then Richard Rudge’s marriage to Elizabeth Purton at Chaceley on 25 September 1775. These earlier links are preserved here as the family’s compiled pedigree; they are not all independently established by original registers examined for this edition.

Richard and Elizabeth are named as the parents of Charlotte Rudge in the baptism index for Forthampton, 1 November 1789. The year corrects the impossible ‘1879’ in an older typescript. The family account makes Charlotte their fifth child and says that she had three children before marrying the stocking maker Benjamin Parker in 1823, followed by three Parker children. June notes identify her earlier children as George Henry, Ann and William, and the later boys as Henry, John and Charles. Susannah, also called Sukey, appears as Charlotte’s sister in the compiled research.

George’s own baptism provides a firmer starting point: Charlotte was living in High Street, Tewkesbury, in November 1814, and no father was named. Benjamin Parker was her later husband. The marriage in 1823 does not establish whether he was or was not George’s biological father. The identity of George’s father remains unknown. Research notes also describe an 1820 Tewkesbury gaol entry concerning Charlotte and a child born outside marriage; the underlying poor-law and maintenance proceedings have not been located. They may explain more about her circumstances, but her movements and relationships cannot safely be reconstructed from the baptism entries alone. ⁶⁴

At 17, George was arrested with Frederick Jones, a 14-year-old from Forthampton, for stealing three rabbits from a fowl house there. He entered Gloucester County Gaol on 13 January 1832. At the Gloucester Lent Assizes on 28 March, he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to New South Wales.

The trial records detail the following:

• Name: George Henry Rudge
• Age: 17 years
• Abode: Tewkesbury
• Crime: Charged on the oaths of Richard Benwell Messenger of Forthampton and John Scott of Tewkesbury Whitesmith with having on Sunday night last the 8th day of January feloniously stolen three rabbits of the value of 1/6 the property of the said Richard Benwell Messenger from a fowl house in Forthampton in the occupation of the said Richard Benwell Messenger.
• Marks, stature, etc.: Brown hair, grey eyes, fresh complexion, small scar on the forehead, two moles on his right cheek, two moles near his left eye, mole left cheek, mole right side chin, mole on left shoulder, five moles right arm and two moles left arm, scar right shin, two moles left side neck, mole right shoulder, read not write. Labourer. Height. 5’3 ¾.
• Sentence: Transported 7 years

George was transferred to a floating prison hulk called Justitia on 19 April 1832, which was moored at Woolwich on the Thames where he spent some six months on board from the time of his trial to his departure date.

Justitia was originally launched as an East Indiaman named Admiral Rainier. The Admiralty purchased her in 1804 to use as a 50-gun Fourth-rate, and named her HMS Hindostan. She was converted into a 20-gun storeship in 1811. She was renamed again in 1819 as Dolphin, and once more in 1830 as Justitia, when she became a prison hulk. She was finally sold in 1855.

George was transported to Sydney among 200 male convicts on a 450 ton barque named the Camden. The ship’s Master was George Thomas Clayton and the ship’s Surgeon Superintendent was Joseph Steret, who joined the Camden on 11 September, 1832 at Deptford and kept a medical journal from 11 September, 1832 to 8 March, 1833. On 15 September 1832 the vessel moved down to Woolwich where Steret examined 100 convicts on the various prison hulks — 60 men on the Justitia; 20 men on the Discovery; and 20 on the Ganymede. The prisoners were sent on board the Camden that same day. The Camden then moved down to Sheerness and on 17 September 1832 received on board another 100 prisoners from the Retribution at Sheerness; 30 from the Cumberland; 40 from the Euryalus and 30 boy prisoners from the hulks at Chatham. They departed Sheerness on 22 September 1832 but did not reach Plymouth until the 5 October, having been in considerable danger from a severe gale on the night of 2 October. They departed Plymouth on 13 October 1832. The voyage took 149 days and 2 of the convicts died during the voyage. This was the second voyage for the Camden to New South Wales with a consignment of convicts.

Also on board the Camden in cabin accommodation were Dr Davidson, Major Fairweather and Lieutenant Duff of the 21st Regiment of Fusiliers and John Wilson, his wife and 2 children who were attached to the Church Missionary Society and on their way to New Zealand. In steerage (the lowest class of the ship) were 29 rank and file members of the 21st Regiment of Fusiliers, 5 women and 10 children. Joseph Steret’s report states that there were several cases of scurvy, but no cholera or other highly infectious diseases, several pulmonic complaints and some with dysentery. He also reported that only two men out of 200 expressed any reluctance to go to New South Wales and all ‘were happy at the prospect of quitting England.’

The Camden arrived in Sydney late at night on 17 February 1833 and anchored just off the Sow and Pigs reef at the entrance to Port Jackson, where it remained under quarantine until morning. The convicts were handed over to the Master of a ship at the beginning of the voyage and then formally transferred into the custody of the Governor of the colony who was receiving them. Indents, or Indentures, were the documents used to record the transaction on arrival.

George Henry Rudge’s indent entry reads as follows:

• Sending No. of Convict: 33/416
• Indent No.: 44
• Age: 18
• Education (R=Read, W=Write): R
• Religion: Protestant
• Single, Married or Widowed: Single
• Children: –
• Native Place: Gloucestershire
• Trade or Calling: Farmer’s boy
• Offence: Stealing rabbits
• Tried (Where/When): Glocester / 28 March 1832
• Sentence: 7 years
• Height: 5’ 4½”
• Complexion: Ruddy
• Colour of Hair: Brown
• Colour of Eyes: Dark Grey
• Particular Marks or Scars: Small mole right jaw; R inside lower right arm; blue rings on middle and fourth fingers of right hand; blue ring middle finger of left hand.

Convicts were put to work on arrival in New South Wales, either providing labour for public works such as road making, or through “assignment” to an individual for whom they would work. Both free settlers and emancipists were commonly assigned convicts as servants, farm labourers, etc. Few records of such assignments have survived.

George was assigned to Captain Eber Bunker to work on his Collingwood estate at Liverpool, described in the family account as 900 acres. Bunker (1761–1836) was a sea captain and farmer born on 7 March 1761 at Plymouth, Massachusetts. As master of William and Ann, a transport in the Third Fleet, he arrived at Sydney in 1791. His whaling voyages and later farming connected him with two of the colony’s growing industries. Heritage NSW dates his 400-acre Liverpool grant to 18 August 1804 and a further 500-acre grant to 1810. Collingwood was the family name of his first wife Margrett Thompson’s mother, Isabella, née Collingwood. The house was built around 1810, although its earliest construction date is uncertain. The family account places the Bunkers’ move there in 1811; the heritage history documents their residence by 1814. Some later accounts expand his name to Ebenezer, but the Australian Dictionary of Biography calls him Eber. ⁴⁹

Bunker contributed significantly to the development of the pastoral industry in NSW. After he was granted permission to send stock and shepherds to the south (to Bargo) and west (to Keepit on the Namoi River), Bunker established a regular supply of fresh meat to the Government Stores. He died at Collingwood on 27 September 1836, aged 75 on the published birth and death dates (although the ADB narrative gives 74), and was buried in the old Church of England cemetery at Liverpool. Once described by Governor Macquarie as ‘a very able and expert Seaman … and of a Most respectable Character,’ he had been a leading member of the community in New South Wales.² He has been called the ‘father of Australian whaling.’³

Working at Collingwood under the direction and leadership of Eber Bunker may have given George experience of farming and the handling of cattle and horses. His later work as a bullock driver is documented, but no surviving testimony cited here tells us how he felt about Bunker or what he learned at Collingwood. As Austin Lovegrove writes, ‘the Colony needed workers not only to run [the] place as it was, but also to develop it as more and more convicts and free settlers arrived… [and] many of [the] later convicts would have been acquiring a skill for the first time.’ On arrival, convicts were either directed to work for the government or ‘assigned to work or a free settler or emancipist’ and ‘what work a man or woman did was primarily determined by what they had to offer, not the seriousness of the crime which had brought them to the Colony.’⁴

Charles Throsby owned land near Bunker’s property at Liverpool. That connection offers a possible explanation for George’s later employment at Throsby Park, though it does not establish how he obtained the work. The family account places his move to the Southern Highlands in 1841, after he became free by servitude in 1839, and describes him as one of three free men employed on the estate. Charles Throsby the explorer had died in 1828; the estate was then in the hands of his nephew, also named Charles. ⁵⁰

On 10 April 1837, four years after arriving in Sydney, George received ticket of leave 37/528 on the recommendation of the Liverpool Bench Magistrate. A ticket of leave permitted a convict to work for his or her own benefit within a specified district, subject to conditions such as church attendance and appearing before a magistrate when required. Travel outside the district required permission. Regulations introduced in 1827 removed ticket holders’ right to sue or be sued, weakening the legal protection of their property; that right was restored in 1843.⁵

Convicts applied through their masters to the Bench Magistrates for a TL and needed to have served a stipulated portion of their sentence as follows:

• Seven-year sentence: four years with one master, or five years with two.
• Fourteen-year sentence: six years with one master, eight with two, or twelve with three.
• Life sentence: eight years with one master, ten with two, or twelve with three.

George Rudge’s TL allowed him freedom to live and work in the District of Liverpool, New South Wales. After receiving his Ticket of Leave, George Rudge, at 22 years of age, married a fellow female convict named Mary Ann Keetch, aged 20 years.

Mary Rudge nee Keetch

Born

1817 · London, England

Baptised

July 1817 · Marylebone, London; 5 and 25 July appear in different family research notes

Died

20 or 21 February 1858 · Mereworth, Berrima (day disputed)

Marriage

George Henry Rudge · 17 December 1837, St Luke’s, Liverpool (family account)

Occupation

Nursegirl (convict indent)

Sources

5 July 1817 is recorded as Mary’s baptism date. Family sources give her death as either 20 or 21 February 1858.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Mary arrived in Sydney aboard the Numa in June 1834. Her indent records that she could read and had worked as a nursegirl.

Mary Keetch was born in London in 1817 (baptised 5 July, 1817 in Marylebone, London), daughter of William Keetch (a Coachman) and Marry Ann Bennett. She was tried at the age of 16 years at the Middlesex Gaol Delivery Sessions on 17 October 1833 for larceny and sentenced to 7 years transportation.

The interval between Mary’s trial and her departure leaves a gap in her story. The family account suggests that she may have been held on a Portsmouth prison hulk, but no admission record has yet been identified to establish this. Mary sailed on the Numa, which departed Portsmouth on 29 January 1834. The voyage is recorded as carrying 140 female convicts in total; Mary was one of them. The master was John Baker and the surgeon superintendent Edward Foord Bromley. Her indent is transcribed below.

• Sending No of Convict: 75/34
• Indent No: 77
• Age: 17
• Education (R=Read, W=Write): R
• Religion: Protestant
• Single, Married or Widowed: Single
• Children: –
• Native Place: London
• Trade or Calling: Nursegirl
• Offence: Robbing mistress
• Tried (Where/When): Middlesex gaol delivery/17 October 1833
• Sentence: 7 years
• Height: 4’ 10½” [note: Certificate of Freedom states 5’0’’ — so still growing]
• Complexion: Ruddy and a little freckled
• Colour of Hair: Brown
• Colour of Eyes: Dark Hazel
• Particular Marks or Scars: Nose a little inclined to the right side.

The voyage took 135 days and the Numa arrived in Sydney 13 June, 1834 and on arrival had 138 woman and 24 children. Two convicts had died on the voyage. The Sydney Morning Herald of Monday, 16 June 1834 read:

From London, same day, having sailed from thence, the 29th of January, the Barque “Numa” Captain Baker, with 138 female convicts, and 24 children under the Superintendence of Dr. Bromley, R.N. Imports – June 14, Numa – (Ship) 323 tons, Baker, Master, from London, Dawes, Gore and Co. Agents. Female prisoners, 18 tons Gunpowder and other Govt. Stores.

On arrival at Sydney, Mary was assigned as a domestic servant to Samuel North of Windsor (1791–1864), according to the convict account. North had arrived in 1826 as a lieutenant in the 102nd Regiment and entered the civil service in 1827 as superintendent of bonded warehouses. His obituary records his appointment as Windsor police magistrate in 1829 and his transfer to Berrima in 1844. In the North household, Mary’s recorded occupation as a nursegirl makes childcare a plausible part of her work, alongside domestic duties. The family account describes North’s wife as Susan and their household as including seven children; Mary’s daily responsibilities are not documented by that account.

Marriage for a convict still serving his or her sentence may have resulted in better working or living conditions. Marriage was clearly seen as an indulgence and it was therefore necessary to apply to the Governor for permission to marry.

George’s application to marry Mary was made to the Governor on 21 November, 1837, and permission was granted on 28 November, 1837, and the wedding took place on 17 December, 1837, at St Luke’s Church of England at Liverpool and the chaplain was Samuel Marsden.

The convict muster on 31 December, 1837, showed George Rudge assigned to a Mr George Blackett at Liverpool. Eber Bunker had died 27 September 1836, and George’s assignment was transferred to Eber’s son-in-law George Blackett who had married Charlotte Bunker in 1827 and had taken over the running of Collingwood on Eber’s death. The muster record showed that Blackett was the master of 14 assigned convicts.

The December 1837 muster lists thirteen convicts assigned to Samuel North at Windsor, but the family transcription does not include Mary Keetch among them. She and George had married at Liverpool earlier that month. The omission may reflect a change in her assignment or status; it does not by itself establish when she left Windsor or how the couple met.

George’s TL was cancelled on 12 September, 1838 (No 38/823) for breaching the agreement: specifically, leaving the Liverpool District without permission. However, the TL was reinstated 15 April, 1839 (TL No 39/389) and the family chronology dates Mary Keetch’s TL (No 39/60) to 1 July 1839, although the certificate-of-freedom transcription below instead gives 1 February 1839, on a recommendation of the Liverpool Bench Magistrate in September 1838. This gave both of them freedom to live and work in the District of Liverpool.

George Rudge was finally issued his Certificate of Freedom (No 39/1723) at Liverpool on 3 October, 1839. A Certificate of Freedom (CF) was a document stating that a convict’s sentence had been served and they were free to live a normal life and move around the country without restriction. This arrangement was introduced in 1810 and CFs were usually given to convicts with a 7, 10 or 14-year sentence. Convicts with a life sentence could receive a pardon, but not a CF.

Mary Keetch was also issued with her CF (No 41/457) at Liverpool on 10 April, 1841. The following was noted on the CF: ‘Held a TL 39/60 dated 1 Feb 1839; wife of George Henry Rudge, per ‘Camden’ and free by servitude.’

George’s recorded height changed between his arrest and later records. The measurements were:

Date	Age	Record	Height
13/1/1832	17 years	Date of trial in Gloucester	5’ 3¾”
17/2/1833	18 years	Date of arrival in Australia	5’ 4½”
3/10/1839	25 years	Certificate of Freedom	5’ 7”

As they were now free to live a normal life, George and Mary moved to the Berrima District in the Southern Highlands where George was employed to work as a farm labourer on the ‘Throsby Park Estate’ near Moss Vale and Bowral.

Dr Charles Throsby was born at Glenfield, near Leicester, in 1777 and arrived in New South Wales aboard the convict transport Coromandel in June 1802 as its naval surgeon. His early grants were made by Foveaux in 1808 and Paterson in 1809; Macquarie replaced them with 1,500 acres in 1810. A further 1,000-acre grant followed his 1819 explorations. The family account identifies that land as Portion 21, Parish of Bong Bong, and dates the first cottage to 1820. Macquarie named the estate Throsby Park during his visit that year. Older accounts called Throsby the Southern Highlands’ “official discoverer”; this describes colonial exploration and surveying of country already known and inhabited by Aboriginal people. His later years were troubled by ill health and financial difficulties, including a £5,000 surety undertaken for Garnham Blaxcell. He died by suicide on 2 April 1828. The ADB narrative gives his age as 51, although its precise dates imply 50. He left no children. His nephew Charles Throsby junior, who had arrived on the Mangles in 1820, became his heir. The family account describes the nephew as a lawyer; that occupation has not yet been corroborated. ⁵⁰

By 1841 Throsby had about 80 convict hands working the Throsby Park Estate but there were only 3 ‘free’ men and our George Henry Rudge was one of them. George was employed operating a bullock dray team, taking wool to Sydney and returning with supplies and building materials for the Wingecaribee district as well as Goulburn and Gundagai. An article in the Bowral Free Press and Berrima District Intelligencer (NSW: 1884 — 1901) on Saturday 13 August 1887 gives an account of George’s accident with his bullock dray at Bargo in 1846.

Many of the interesting tales of hardship, adventure, speculation and of the frequent loss incidental to station life might no doubt be told of the Wingecaribee and Throsby estates, although they would trench upon private rather than upon public grounds. I am at liberty, however, to chronicle a few particulars of an accident, which befell one of the early pioneers of the district.

The reader who is paying me the compliment of accompanying me will remember that at the start we agreed, if we shall fall in with an old identity, human or otherwise, we should ascertain something about it. Well, so far as I have been able to discover up to the present, our respected townsman, Mr George Rudge, who has now arrived at the good old age of seventy-five years, was one of the very first free men to engage in service in this immediate district, he having arrived on Throsby estate in the year 1841, within four years of half a century ago.

No one of the present day has had greater experience of the vicissitudes of travel, and of the old bullock-dray system of locomotion, than our hearty old neighbour. A painful recollection of his will vividly portrays this.

Five years after his arrival in the district the season appears to have been one of those exceptionally wet ones about which the oldest inhabitant invariably perpetuates an exceptional fancy. I am not saying this is the case with Mr Rudge. The season to which I now refer, is that of 1846, was wet enough, and the roads were boggy enough in all conscience.

Had they been otherwise the subject of my preference would have been laid under the sod. He had been “down country” with a load, and was returning with his team laden with about 85 hundredweight. The road through Bargo was scrubby, flat, rotten and dangerous and teams were capsized, and wool was lying about in all directions.

A man named Hawthorn, who was on his way up country to embark in a public house speculation, was bogged in the mud, his team being laden with public house stores, “Give us a pull, mate”, said Hawthorn, and no sooner was the request made than Rudge unhooked some of his team, and with this assistance Hawthorn’s team was got out of the bog.

Rudge again yoked up and made a start to get around a treacherous bog hole close to the old saw pit. He was on a steep sidling, and had scarcely started, when by an accident he fell underneath his dray containing a 85-cwt load, and one of the wheels passed over the full length of his legs, along his body, and over his shoulder.

The team being on a siding, and Rudge having fallen on the uppermost side lie did not get the full weight of the load; and this, together with the ground being so soft that he was pressed into it, alone prevented his being crushed to death.

As it was the injuries were severe. They numbered four broken ribs, one of his legs broken, and a small bone broken in the ankle of the other leg. The sufferer was taken to Rush’s, where he lay for twelve days unable to be moved. Dr Temple, then of Berrima, reduced the fractures, and was in attendance upon our friend for four months.

George Rudge and Mary Keetch did not have children and Mary died at ‘Mereworth’ near Berrima on 20 February, 1858, aged 41 years. She is buried in the Church of England section of the Bong Bong Cemetery.

The baptism day is uncertain. The older account gives 5 July 1817, while June research notes report an index entry dated 25 July. The saved genealogy also used 5 July as a birth date. These are different claims: the original register must establish the baptism day, and a baptism date should not automatically be used as the date of birth.

Mary Pauline Rudge nee Stych

Born

1831 or 1832 · London; exact date unresolved

Died

23 November 1899 · Bowral, NSW (family records)

Marriage

George Henry Rudge · 10 August 1859, Christ Church, Bong Bong

Occupation

General house servant (immigration record)

Sources

Family records give 20 June 1831 as her birth date; the obituary transcription gives 30 June 1832. Her exact date of birth remains uncertain.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Mary travelled independently to Sydney on the Nimroud in 1859. The immigration entry describes her as literate and names a brother-in-law, William Barton, already in the colony.

The following year, George Rudge, at 44 years of age, on 10 August, 1859, married Mary Pauline Stych, aged 28 years, at the Christ Church, Bong Bong, only four months after Mary arrived in Australia. The family account gives Mary Pauline Stych’s birth as 20 June 1831 at Bermondsey, London (a date that conflicts with the obituary noted above). She was the daughter of Edmund Stych (a Draper) and Jemima Brown. She immigrated to Australia alone at the age of 27 for a fare of 10/- on a barque called the Nimroud, which left Plymouth England 27 December, 1858, and arrived in Sydney 7 April, 1859, with 374 immigrants on board. The Immigration Department’s records for Assisted Immigrants to Australia detail the following:

• Ship: Nimroud arrival 7 April, 1859
• Name: Mary Stych
• Age: 27
• Marital status: Single
• Native place: Rotherhithe, Surrey (London)
• Parents: Edmund and Jemima Stych (both deceased)
• Literacy: Both read and write
• Calling: General house servant
• Relatives in the Colony: Brother-in-Law William Barton – Residence unknown
• Religion: Independent
• Fare paid: 10/-

Mary’s younger sister Louisa had travelled to Australia alone aboard the Beejapore, leaving Southampton on 2 December 1856 and reaching Sydney on 14 March 1857 with 469 immigrants. The family account gives her age as 22. It also says that she married William Barton and died in April 1859. Mary’s immigration entry independently names William Barton as a brother-in-law, but an April death date alone does not establish whether Louisa died before Mary arrived on 7 April.

The family account places the births of George and Mary’s six children at Kinnoul, also called Kinnoul Vale, in Glenquarry. A house named Kinnoul appears at 790 Kangaloon Road in the April 2024 street image below; its relationship to the historical estate remains uncertain.

The stock report for 1884, tabled in 1885, lists a 1,000-acre Kinnoul Vale property at Bowral under ‘Geo. Budge’, with 15 horses, 150 cattle and 20 pigs. The entry may refer to George Rudge, but that identification is unconfirmed.⁶

Gay notes that Glenquarry was known as Merry Vale or Roberton Park; photographs of the house at Roberton Park (or Roberton House) appear below. It is uncertain, however, whether Kinnoul Vale or Kinnoul is the same house as Roberton House. The house now known as Kinnoul is within walking distance of Roberton House. However, what confuses matters is the following historical note written by the Berrima District Historical & Family History Society regarding the history of Roberton Park, which says that the original land grant was known as Kinnoul:

Roberton Park was built in the 1860s by Richard Hutchinson Roberts. The original land grant of 1000 acres was promised to William Walker in 1821 and signed by Governor Brisbane in 1822. The property was sold to Emanuel and Job Fowler in November 1856 and named ‘Kinnoul.’ Kinnoul was resold to Richard Hutchinson Roberts in May 1858 who named the property Roberton Park. Roberts was MLA for Camden from 1864–1869 and a Member of the Legislative Council from 1882 until his death in 1903. After Robert’s death the property was split up with the Roberts family retaining only the house and 120 acres of land. The house was sold to Professor Sir John and Lady Loewenthal in 1970 and underwent extensive restoration.

It seems likely that Kinnoul was the original house and the Roberton Park house was built later. It also appears that some second-generation Rudges were married at Roberton House but lived in Kinnoul (or Kinnoul Vale). In any event, the house known as Roberton Park House has been photographed often, including by Max Dupain. Three photographs of Roberton House are below:

George and Mary’s six children were the first generation of their family born in Australia. They appear here as the second generation, following their father George Henry:

1. William Henry Rudge: b 11 December, 1861 at Kinnoul; d 22 February, 1933, Bowral (aged 71 if the stated birth date is correct); married 10 August, 1881, at Upper Mittagong NSW to Mary Whatman: b 1862 Burrawang NSW; d 7 July, 1911, Bowral NSW (49 years).
2. Charlotte Rudge: b 2 February, 1863 at Kinnoul; d 16 June 1942; buried 17 June, Moorland NSW; married 26 November, 1884, at Glenquarry NSW to Robert Brancombe Theopholus Hatchwell: b July, 1858 Marylebone, Middlesex England; d 7 May, 1916, Moorland NSW.
3. Richard Rudge: b 31 December, 1864 at Kinnoul Glenquarry; d 5 February, 1946, Roma Queensland; married 27 April 1887, at St Luke’s Church, Upper Mittagong, NSW to Elizabeth Perkins: b 19 September, 1866 Mittagong NSW; d prior to July, 1937, Roma Queensland.
4. George Rudge: b 27 December, 1866 at Kinnoul; d 10 March 1907, Goulburn Hospital; married 22 August, 1894, at Sydney NSW to Julia Agnes (Johanna) Madden: b 8 February, 1871 Glenquarry NSW (Roberton Park); d 21 July, 1962, Hurstville NSW.
5. Mary Rudge: b 27 December, 1866 at Kinnoul; d 16 November, 1957, Redfern NSW; married 11 August, 1897, at Surry Hills Sydney NSW to Henry Alfred Kuhn: b 28 June, 1870 Kangaloon NSW; d 15 May, 1904, Redfern NSW.
6. Ada Rudge: b 6 January, 1870 at Kinnoul; d 17 September, 1939, Bowral NSW; married 22 June, 1892, at Berrima NSW to James Patrick Griffiths: b 3 April, 1869 Wollongong; d 26 July, 1946, Bowral NSW.

In 1880, George Henry was awarded a certificate (see below) in class 20 section 1 for his draught mare over 4 years by the Burrawang and West Camden Agricultural Society. That Society had begun in 1878, when local farmers formed the Burrawang Farmers Club, meeting at the Club Hotel on the Thursday night nearest the full moon. In 1879, the Club was renamed the Burrawang and West Camden Agricultural Society and held its first agricultural show on April 21 and 22, 1880, on flat land in Dale Street, using the nearby sale yards to hold the stock. This was the first show held in the Southern Highlands. The 1881 show was in Moss Vale and again at Burrawang in 1882, 1883 and 1884, after which Robertson became the permanent home. The club was an active organisation interested in promoting agriculture.⁷

The family account records Mary’s death on 23 November 1899, aged 68, and gives cardiac arrest as the cause. It gives George’s death as 25 October 1902, aged 87; another family-tree entry gives 23 October. October 1902 is supported by the death index, but the exact day remains unresolved. Both are recorded as buried in St Jude’s Church of England cemetery at Bowral. Rob Gay reported that no headstones could be found and suggested that they might occupy two of the cemetery’s ten unmarked graves.

According to Gay, when Mary died in 1899, George Henry lived in Hawthorne cottage for about 18 months, which is presumably when the photo featuring George Henry (below) was taken. Gay notes that Hawthorn Cottage was built by William Henry Rudge in circa 1887 and that 8 of the 11 of their children were born there, the first of these being George Henry. The first three children were born at Kinnoul Vale (Glenquarry). Gay notes that George Henry and Mary Rudge nee Stych lived in Bowral from 1886 after they left the property at Kinnoul Vale.

George Henry Rudge’s will was dated 26 November, 1891. Probate was granted to his son William Henry Rudge on 6 December, 1905. A notice in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Bowral Free Press stated as follows:

Application will be made after 14 days from the publication hereof that probate of the late will of George Henry Rudge of Burrawang mentioned deceased may be granted to William Henry Rudge of Burrawang one of the executors named in the said will leave being served to John Griffiths of Glenquarry the executor named in the will to come and prove Mary Pauline Rudge the executrix named in the said will being deceased and all notices may be served at the office of the undersigned. (Henry Molesworth Oxley, Proctor for the Executor, Bong Bong St Bowral).

George Henry Rudge’s real estate and other possessions were to be equally divided between his six children. A valuation of the real estate on 18 November, 1905, stated as follows:

Description: Block of land being Lots 14 and 21 of North Bowral subdivision Gibraltar Estate having a frontage to Mittagong Road and Clarke Street of (1) one chain with a depth of 9 chains or thereabouts. Erected thereon is a brick cottage of five (5) rooms with a short entrance hall iron roof also weatherboard Coach house and Stables. The foundation on the North East corner of the house has settled and caused a crack in the wall of one room which makes against the value of the property. Is within easy distance of the Railway Station and at present is occupied by Mr Condon. We consider the property has not decreased in value to any appreciable extent during the past 3 years. We estimate its cash value to be £260 (Two hundred and sixty pounds).

George Henry Rudge purchased the property from William Thomas Sewell on 19 January, 1886 when he was 71 years and it was probably his retirement property. There was a mortgage over the property of £170 with Charles Waters of Bowral, so the net value of the property on which duty was payable was £90. An earlier family account estimated £260 as roughly $27,500 in 2018 using a historical CPI calculation; this is an attributed comparison, not a present-day property valuation. George and Mary Rudge’s eldest son William Henry Rudge and Mary Whatman had 11 children, with 3 of them dying as infants.

The family account dates William’s construction of ‘Hawthorn’ to about 1887 and says that eight of his eleven children were born there. It recalls that his son George Henry, known as Harry, spent only six weeks living away from the house, around the time of his marriage: he was born there, returned with his wife and lived there until his death. The same account says that Thomas White built ‘Range Villa’ at about the same time, using the same builder, and sold it to William Mortimer in April 1903.

Mary’s family also links the Southern Highlands to earlier generations in England. The family workbook identifies her father Edmund Stych with a baptism at Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, on 16 September 1792, and records his marriage to Jemima Brown at Westminster on 21 April 1822. It lists Robert Edmund (1823), Eliza Ann (1825), Jemima (1828), Mary Pauline and Louisa among their children. June notes record Edmund’s death at Walworth in 1850 and Jemima Brown’s in 1849, consistent with Mary’s immigration entry describing both parents as deceased. These dates come from the compiled family research. The elder Jemima’s namesake daughter is recorded there as dying at Mudgee in 1904, another Australian connection alongside Mary and Louisa.

The proposed earlier Stych pedigree runs through John Stych and Elizabeth Page, and before them Robert Stych and Sarah Aston. John’s death is disputed between 1839 and 1867. These links should therefore be read as the family’s proposed ancestry, rather than a settled sequence of civil and parish records. ⁶⁵

2. Second Generation (1850–1900)

William Henry ‘Harry’ Rudge

Born

11 December 1861 · Kinnoul Vale, Glenquarry, NSW (family account)

Died

22 February 1933 · Bowral, NSW

Marriage

Mary Whatman · 10 August 1881, Upper Mittagong (family account); Margaret Matilda Farrell · 14 August 1915, St David’s, Surry Hills (parish register)

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Occupation

Butcher (family account); agent (1915 marriage register)

Places

Burrawang; Marrickville in 1915

Sources

The birth and death dates given in the family account place his age at death at 71.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

William Henry Rudge and Margaret Matilda Farrell: parish marriage register, 1915

Photograph: Individual portrait captioned William Henry Rudge; courtesy of Rob Gay.

In 1915, William married Margaret Matilda Farrell at St David’s, Surry Hills. The marriage register describes him as a widower and an agent living at Marrickville, and names his parents as George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych.

William Henry ‘Harry’ Rudge was born at ‘Kinnoul Vale’ in Glenquarry, NSW. He was the first child of George Henry and Mary Stych. He died 22 February, 1933, at Bowral, aged 71 if the birth date given here is correct.

William was married on 10 August, 1881, at Upper Mittagong NSW, to Mary Whatman (b 1862 Burrawang NSW; d 7 July, 1911, Bowral NSW at 49 years).

It appears William Rudge hosted meetings of the the Burrawang Cricket Club at Hawthorn in 1901; a Mr H Mackie played a leading role in the Cricket Club (however, it is unclear whether Mr Mackie has any relation to Anne K Rudge nee Mackie (b 1914, Robertson). One connection, however, appears to exist as between Mary Rudge (b 1866; William’s sister). Mary Rudge married Henry Alfred Kuhn; and then their son, Alfred Henry Kuhn, married Mary E Mackey, who was Anne Mackey’s sister (b 1907 in Kangaloon.)

Mary Whatman

Born

1862 · Burrawang, NSW (family account)

Died

7 July 1911 · Bowral, NSW (family account)

Marriage

William Henry Rudge · 10 August 1881, Upper Mittagong

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Photograph: Rob Gay identifies Mary Rudge née Whatman in the seated row of the family photograph, c.1900.

Mary appears in the captioned William Henry family photographs. Her possible relationship to Jane Whatman, Elizabeth Perkins’s mother, remains unresolved.

It is not clear whether Mary Whatman is related to Elizabeth Perkins’s mother, Jane Whatman (see below under Elizabeth Perkins).

Charlotte Rudge

Born

2 February 1863 · Kinnoul Vale, Glenquarry, NSW (family account)

Died

16 June 1942 · Hannam Vale/Taree district, NSW

Buried

17 June 1942 · Moorland Anglican cemetery

Marriage

Robert Brancombe Theopholus Hatchwell · 26 November 1884, Glenquarry (family account)

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Occupation

Farm management and mail delivery by sulky (obituary)

Sources

The funeral-register transcription records death on 16 June 1942 and burial on 17 June. These dates agree with the obituary’s account of a Tuesday death and Wednesday funeral.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

W. T. Howard’s funeral register: Charlotte Hatchwell, June 1942

Photograph: Portrait reproduced in Charlotte Rudge’s section of the family history.

Charlotte’s obituary describes her managing the farm after her husband’s death and carrying mail by sulky until about the age of 70.

Charlotte was born at at ‘Kinnoul Vale’ in Glenquarry, NSW. The funeral-register transcription records her death on 16 June 1942 and burial at Moorland on 17 June. Charlotte married 26 November, 1884, at Glenquarry NSW to Robert Brancombe Theopholus Hatchwell (born July 1858 Marylebone Middlesex England; and died 7 May, 1916, in Moorland NSW). She shares her name with George Henry I’s mother.

Robert Hatchwell

Born

July 1858 · Marylebone, Middlesex, England (family account)

Died

7 May 1916 · Taree district, NSW (family account)

Marriage

Charlotte Rudge · 26 November 1884, Glenquarry

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Robert and Charlotte moved from Bowral through Dapto to Hannam Vale in 1912. The account of his fatal shooting below was contributed by Rob Gay.

Rob Gay gives the following account of Robert’s death and a later tragedy in Charlotte’s family:¹⁰

Charlotte married Robert Hatchwell in 1884 at Glenquarry (or Merry Vale/Roberton Park as it was then known) and lived at Bowral and then Dapto and then moved to Hannam Vale (near Taree) in 1912. Four years later on 7 May, 1916, Robert, Charlotte and 18-year-old son Robert Henry were out shooting wallabies in the bush and Robert Jnr’s gun accidentally went off and shot his dad and he later died in Taree hospital. Can you imagine the burden Robert carried through his life. Then many years later on 23 August, 1939, Robert Henry’s 5-year-old daughter, Ella Mary, was standing in front of the kitchen fire and her nightdress caught fire and she was badly burnt and later died in Taree hospital.

Richard Rudge

Born

31 December 1864 (baptism register); birthplace not stated in that entry

Died

5 February 1946 · Queensland (death index)

Spouse / marriage

Elizabeth Perkins · 27 April 1887, St Luke’s, Upper Mittagong, NSW

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Occupation / service

Farmer (1887 marriage register); teamster (1917 electoral-roll transcription)

Baptised

29 January 1865 · Christ Church, Bong Bong, NSW

Sources

Baptism entry 196 gives the birth date and parents’ abode, Mittagong; it does not separately state the birthplace. Marriage entry 49 gives 27 April 1887 at St Luke’s, Upper Mittagong.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Portrait: attributed to Richard Rudge by bevclive_100, first shared 15 May 2017; date and location unknown. Original contributor’s image

Original marriage registerOriginal baptism register

Richard and Elizabeth’s children grew up in the Southern Highlands before the family moved to Queensland. Irene May’s death notice, published in 1937, places that move about thirty years earlier, around 1907. George Thomas later enlisted at Toowoomba in 1916, naming Richard, then living near Miles, as his father and next of kin. The family’s Queensland connections continued through Percival and his children near Roma. ^{51 52}

Richard’s baptism entry gives his birth as 31 December 1864 and records his baptism at Christ Church, Bong Bong, on 29 January 1865. His parents, George Henry and Mary Pauline, were living at Mittagong, and George was described as a farmer. This contemporary entry supports 31 December, rather than the 30 December given in some later family accounts. ⁶³

Two records place Richard in the Southern Highlands around the turn of the century. Yewen’s 1900 directory lists “Rudge, Richard, Mary Vale” under Robertson Post Office in the Berrima district. The following year’s census lists Richard Rudge as a householder at Burrawang, with three males and five females in the household. These entries fit the family’s known chronology before its move to Queensland, although the census does not name the other occupants. ^{60 61}

Wise’s directory for the same year describes him more simply as “Rudge Richard, farmer”, in its Glenquarry (Roberton Park) list. The list also contains Perkins, Whatman and Madden households: names that recur in this family history, although the directory alone does not establish their relationships. ⁶²

Richard was the third child of George Henry and he was, like his brother and sister before him, born at ‘Kinnoul Vale’ in Glenquarry, NSW. He died on 5 February, 1946, in Roma Queensland. Richard married Elizabeth Perkins at St Luke’s Church, Upper Mittagong, on 27 April 1887. The register describes him as a bachelor and farmer, aged twenty-two, and Elizabeth as a spinster under twenty-one. Both were living at Upper Mittagong. Elizabeth was born on 19 September 1866 in Mittagong NSW; she died before July 1937 in Roma, Queensland. A portrait identified as Richard has been shared by bevclive_100 in the Clark Family Tree on Ancestry. Its date and location are not supplied. No photograph identified as Elizabeth has yet been established in this research. ⁵⁸

Richard and Elizabeth had 8 children, all of whom were born in Bowral: Irene May (b 1888); Laurence Edward (b 1889); Lucy Mary (b 1891); George Thomas (b 1893); Olive Jessie (b 1894) ; Kathleen Doris (b 1899); Adelaie Elizabeth (b 1904); and Percival Richard Guy (Mick) (b 1907). The Glenquarry Public School Register of Admissions (from 1902, divided into boys and girls) show that many of these children attended there, although they appear to be registered under their middle names (as may have been conventional at the time).

George Thomas enlisted on 24 January 1916, aged 22 years and six months. His attestation records Bowral as his birthplace, not his address at enlistment. The National Archives catalogue identifies Toowoomba as his enlistment place. He named Richard Rudge, at Gilgulgul via Miles, Queensland, as his father and next of kin. ^{11 52}

It appears that another son of Richard, Percival Richard Guy (‘Mick’) was located in Roma, as his children (Richard’s grandchildren) were born in Roma throughout the 1940s and ’50s. According to Wendy Zimmerman (nee Rudge)¹², Percival RG Rudge (b 19 March 1907 Bowral, N.S.W – 15/5/1953 Roma) was a farmer and general labourer who married Marjory Ellen Rudge nee Gibson (6/4/1915 Dargal Creek via Roma – 18/11/1993 Roma), and the family lived on “Ona Ona” a small sheep property north of the Roma aerodrome. Percival RG Rudge and Marjory had the following children: John Richard Rudge (30/12/1942 Roma – 25/5/1988 Roma), a knife hand at the Roma meatworks; Wendy Elizabeth Marjory Rudge (13/8/1944 Roma), who married Trevor John Zimmerman, a carpenter; Cynthia Lynette Rudge (15/10/1946 Roma – 9/4/1983 Roma), who married Graham John Yarrow, a pipe layer; Percival Benjamin Rudge (12/5/1950 Roma), who married Karole Brown; ‘Percy’ served with the RAAF (more details below under Percy’s entry).

Elizabeth Perkins

Born

19 September 1866 · Mittagong, NSW (family account)

Died

Before July 1937 · Roma, Queensland (family account)

Spouse / marriage

Richard Rudge · 27 April 1887, St Luke’s, Upper Mittagong, NSW

Parents

Thomas Perkins and Jane Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Original marriage register

Elizabeth was a daughter of Thomas Perkins and Jane Whatman. A portrait of Jane, inscribed ‘Aunty Jane Whatman’, survives in the Joe Ford Collection at the Berrima District Historical & Family History Society.

As noted above, there are no known photographs of Elizabeth in circulation. However, there is a photograph and brief record of Elizabeth’s mother, Jane Perkins nee Whatman. The record states that ‘Jane Whatman (1831–1906) was born in Sussex, England, daughter of Henry and Mary Whatman. She arrived in NSW in 1839 with her parents. She was a sister of Emma Ford (nee Whatman) of Glenquarry. Jane married Thomas Perkins in Berrima in 1847 and died in Bowral in 1906.’¹³

George Rudge II

Born

27 December 1866 · Glenquarry/Bowral district, NSW

Baptised

27 January 1867 · Christ Church, Bong Bong

Died

10 March 1907 · Goulburn Hospital, NSW

Marriage

Julia Agnes Madden · 22 August 1894, Sydney (family account)

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Occupation

Butcher; hotel licensee

Sources

The contemporary newspaper report gives 10 March as the date of death and 9 March as the date of the riding accident.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Christ Church, Bong Bong: George and Mary Rudge’s baptism entries, 1867

George and Mary were twins, born on 27 December 1866 and baptised a month later at Christ Church, Bong Bong. George worked as a butcher and later kept hotels. He was the licensee of the Kenmore Hotel when he died in 1907.

George and his twin sister Mary were the fourth and fifth children of George Henry and Mary Rudge (nee Stych), and both were born at at Kinnoul Vale in Glenquarry, NSW. George died in Goulburn Hospital on 10 March 1907 after a riding accident on his return from the Collector Races. On 22 August, 1894, George had married Julia Agnes (Johanna) Madden (born 8 February 1871 in Glenquarry NSW (Roberton Park); they were married in Sydney NSW. Julia died 21 July, 1962, in Hurstville NSW, many decades after her husband. Since their marriage in 1894, George and Julia had 5 children: Hercules (b 1895); John Roy (b 1897); Clement (b 1899); Catherine (b 1902); and George Vincent (b 1906).

George Rudge is said to have operated a butcher business in both Burrawang and Robertson before moving to Taralga in 1902.¹⁴

George suffered fatal injuries while returning from the Collector Races on Saturday 9 March 1907. Admitted unconscious to Goulburn Hospital that evening, he died at about 3.45 the following morning. The newspaper’s account of the inquest explicitly gives his death date as 10 March. As the article below records the events, it appears George was unseated from the horse he was riding when a horse he was leading wandered astray.¹⁵

Again, note that George is Mary’s twin brother (see below).

Julia Agnes (Johanna) Rudge nee Madden

Born

8 February 1871 · Glenquarry/Kangaloon district, NSW (family account)

Died

21 July 1962 · Hurstville, NSW

Marriage

George Rudge · 22 August 1894, Sydney (family account)

Occupation

Hotel licensee (reproduced licensing reports); later caretaker (family testimony)

Sources

Family records give her death as 21 July 1962; the 1952 date in a later family narrative is inconsistent with those records.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Julia continued in the hotel trade after George’s death, holding licences at Binda and at Tattersall’s in Wrightville. Her granddaughter’s recollections later place her at the Valhalla flats in Randwick, where she worked as caretaker.

As noted, Julia died 21 July, 1962, in Hurstville, only one year before her son, John Roy, died (in 1963), also at Hurstville (45 Hodge Street, Hurstville). Perhaps Julia and her son John lived together or near one another, in these final years?

Various documents show that George was the licensee of the Commercial Hotel at 18 Macarthur Street, Taralga from 1898. Images of the hotel are below:

George was licensee of the Kenmore Hotel until his death in 1907. Jane Confoy’s 1914 obituary states that her husband Patrick built the hotel and that the couple lived there for 27 years. It gives Patrick’s death as 1 October 1896 but does not date the construction of the building. ^{16 17}

It is also known as The Kenmore Arms Hotel. The owner, Patrick Confoy, commissioned major extensions in 1892. The builder was William Wilkie. The Goulburn Golf Club was formed in 1900 and the Kenmore Hotel became its Club House. These extensions were designed by the renowned English-born Australian architect EC Manfred and carried out that year, as reflected in the number displayed in plaster moulding on the gable. ¹⁸ A later licensee was Jeremiah Hurrell. His obituary of 12 July 1933 describes him living at the old Kenmore Hotel after it had been delicensed; he subsequently worked as a poultry farmer.¹⁹ A local-history discussion in 2024 names Marie and Matthew Iorfino as owners undertaking restoration.²⁰

The reports below identify George as licensee of the Kenmore Hotel and secretary of the Kenmore Racing Club.

After George died in 1907, Julia, then 36 years old, was left with responsibility for the children: approximately, Hercules was 12; John Roy was 10; Clement was 8); Catherine was 5; and George Vincent was only a one-year-old infant.

In October 1908, Julia faced two cases at Crookwell Police Court concerning her children’s attendance during the six months ending 30 June. The newspaper reports that medical certificates were produced, but the required attendance had not been met. The bench imposed a fine of five shillings in each case and thirteen shillings in court costs, allowing seven days for payment. The report does not name the children.

As various reported proceedings of the licensing court show, Julia was licensee for various hotels in the years following George’s death. Between 1908 and 1910, Julia appears to have been the licensee of the Binda Hotel, or the Royal Hotel, Binda. (It is uncertain whether this is the same hotel, but it seems to be.) Julia was also a licensee of a ‘booth’ at the Binda Races in this period. This would have been a booth at the famous Binda Picnic Races, which have been held on ‘Funny Hill’ in Binda since 1848.²¹

One licensing hearing shows Julia dealing directly with the practical business of keeping a hotel open. In October 1908 she explained that alterations at the Royal Hotel, Binda, had fallen behind: the contractor had been ill, bad weather had delayed the work, and efforts to find another worker in Sydney and Goulburn had failed. The stonework stood about five feet high and the job was only half finished. The court renewed her licence on condition that the improvements were completed within four months. ⁵³

One later account gives 1905 as the year a Binda hotel lost its licence. Julia’s subsequent licensing notices establish that the Royal Hotel was operating after that date. Whether the later account concerns the same premises remains unresolved. ²²

The Binda Hotel, or the Royal Hotel, Binda, may or may not be the same building known as Rose Cottage or as the Flag Hotel. There is some confusion amid the several sources. The Upper Lachlan Shire Community Heritage Study 2007–2008, authored by Jennifer Lambert, confirms the following:

Adjacent to the original Flag Hotel building is Rose Cottage, built as an inn c 1890. This is now a private residence with rooms of substantial proportions featuring pressed metal ceilings and original timber mantle pieces. … A Post Office was established at Binda in 1852 and the original post office became the Flag Hotel. By 1859 there were two mail runs per week between Tuena, Binda and Goulburn, with the mail carried on horseback. This building was erected for the McDonald family c 1870 and subsequently used as a post office and store by various owners. The post office was operated from the room on the right of the verandah and a ladies dress store occupied the large front room.

It appears there are three buildings to consider when discussing the Binda Flag Hotel. The first is the hotel that existed in 1864 into which the bushrangers Ben Hall, John Dunn and John Gilbert ‘bailed up’ the entire town’s population in that year.²³ This event, known as the Binda Ball (and of which a song has been written²⁴), involved these three bushrangers riding into Binda (accompanied by three local girls) and holding up the town store owned by Edward Morriss — a former police Sergeant– and robbing it of over £100. Following the robbery, the bushrangers had all the townspeople gather in the hotel. Obviously, the building involved in this incident in 1864 must have been built before then, and it is likely the original post office established in 1852, mentioned above. In Lambert’s heritage study, an image of a post office is provided; however, the caption says that it operated in this building from 1951 (see below). It may be possible that this is a typographical error and that this is the original post office of 1851 or 1852 (some other sources speak of Binda establishing its police station and post office in 1851); of course, it may also be that the 1951 year is correct.

The second building is the post office building built around 1870 (sometimes said to be 1872). Although this building is now known as the ‘Old Post Office,’ it appears to be the ‘new’ post office: ie, the post office that was used after the original building of the 1850s was no longer used; moreover, it is not the building that became the Flag Hotel (a hotel that is described in Lambert’s heritage study).²⁵

The third building to consider is known as Rose cottage, which — as noted above in the Lambert’s heritage study — was built as an Inn in around 1890. Confusingly, this cottage has been recently renamed the Old Flag Hotel Binda after being on the market in 2019 and sold in 2020.²⁶ It was subsequently advertised as holiday accommodation.²⁷ Plenty of photos of Rose Cottage are available online (such as via real estate notices²⁸); however, some photos are below:

Rose Cottage may have been the Royal Hotel, also described as the Binda Hotel, for which Julia held a licence. Dianne Tillotson’s photograph caption identifies it as the former Royal Hotel. This is suggestive, but does not establish Julia’s connection to that particular building. ²⁹

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=wrightville%20cobar

By 1911, Julia was the licensee or ‘proprietress,’ of the Tattersall’s Hotel in Wrightville (see above). An advertisement in the The Cobar Herald of 11 October, 1912, promotes the hotel as a ‘conveniently-situated hostelry, comfortable and up to date in every way for boarders.’ Interestingly, the Tatersall’s Hotel at Wrightville is reported as having been destroyed by fire in 1903, so it is possible that Mrs Rudge’s Wrightville Tattersall’s was a rebuild of the previous hotel.

Various mentions of Julia Rudge appear in the Cobar Herald at the time; and her name even appears in the Sydney Morning Herald as an endorser of an an ointment for treatments of foot corns:

Julie Allen notes that Julia’s sister Honorah, or Nora, was the licensee of a hotel opposite the Tatersall’s in Dapville; the hotel’s name is unidentified. The Pub Route’s history of Wrightville describes the town’s hotels.³⁰ It also identifies Hercules as a former licensee of the Chesney Hotel:

Wrightville included the village of Dapville but it was difficult to see where it ended and Cobar began. Trade passed between them on a daily basis, while football, cricket and rifle teams visited for competition and often celebrated or commiserated in the pubs.

The Family Hotel was first licensed in 1898 in the name of John Hunter. The hotel was aptly named as the hotel licence passed to Joseph Kelly in 1900 and then between members of the inter-married Kelly and Daley families for almost two decades.

Two of Wrightville’s hotels, the Chesney and the Young Australia, were named for the nearby mines where much of their clientele worked. The Young Australia was the first known hotel in Wrightville, opening in 1896. Jim Martin, proprietor of the Chesney for three years, boasted he owned the first car in Cobar, proudly posing with it outside his pub.

In its 18-year history, Tattersall’s Hotel had ten licensees, three of whom were women. Hotels were one of the few businesses where women could be the acknowledged proprietress. However, this was not a role open to single women, only wives and widows. Helena Coates, the last female licensee of Tatt’s, died at New Year in 1918. Her boarder and odd-jobs man was so distraught at her loss he took his own life. She represented home, income, and all that he had that he could call family.

It was common to swap between pubs — Julia Rudge’s resoundingly-named son, Hercules, was for a time the licensee of the Chesney Hotel, as was John Hunter, who had started the Family Hotel.

All of these hotels relinquished their licences in 1920 when the end of WWI brought devastation to Cobar and its surrounding district. Some were demolished and others dismantled, packed up, and taken away for re-use elsewhere. Helena Coates’ sister, Jane Hutchinson, took apart the Tattersall’s hotel building and transported it to where she put it back together, all but the chimney-piece. She had to get someone to do that bit for her as she didn’t have the skills.

The Great Cobar Museum holds a large collection of beer and spirit bottles from locations around Wrightville. The most numerous are the Compass beer bottles. The extent of this collection of intact glass bottles indicates that there must have been many thousands more such bottles, long lost to history.

Hercules’s association with the Chesney Hotel places another member of the family in Wrightville’s hotel trade. Whether this was also the hotel kept by Nora is uncertain.

By the 1940s, Julia had moved to Sydney, where she managed the Valhalla apartments at 6 Bradley Street, Randwick, which the 2025 account described as still standing.

In 2016, Julia’s granddaughter Valerie Gleeson, Eileen’s daughter, recalled visits between 1944 and 1949:

What do I remember of Julia Rudge? My maternal Gran [whom] I simply adored. Where to start! We called her ‘Mum Rudge.’ School holidays with her at Valhalla flats at Randwick where she was caretaker; tram into the city for lunch; treat at DJs [David Jones]; [and then] Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral. Gran would come to our home on a Sunday [and] help mother (her only daughter [Eileen]) boil up the copper for the big wash, make a huge batch of scones, cook dinner, [and] then play cards in the evening with Dad and others [and] then she would go home to Randwick [on the] 11 pm tram. Mother would play piano some nights and I can still hear Gran say, ‘Play Danny Boy, Eileen!’ Those flats at Randwick are still there in Bradley St, overlooking the race course. Those few memories are from years 1944 to 1949. I have many more memories when she retired and came to live with her sister Norah not far from our home in Marrickville I wrote a poem dedicated to Gran, called it ‘Sad Blue Eyes’ and that’s a lasting memory I have of Julie Rudge.³¹

Evidently, Eileen Rudge, whose full name was Catherine Aileen Whilhemina (‘Eileen’) Rudge, and who was George and Julia’s only daughter, lived in Marrickville in the 1940s.

Other conversation notes associate Julia’s sister Honorah, or Nora, with a Rose or Native Rose Hotel and describe her as Jack’s aunt. This may concern a different hotel from the one remembered opposite Tattersall’s in Dapville. The notes do not establish a location or period of proprietorship, and the two recollections have not been merged into a single hotel history. June tree notes also give Nora’s death as 29 July 1951 at Marrickville; this remains an attributed tree entry. ⁷⁵

Mary Rudge

Born

27 December 1866 · Glenquarry/Bowral district, NSW

Baptised

27 January 1867 · Christ Church, Bong Bong

Died

16 November 1957 · Redfern, NSW (family account)

Marriage

Henry Alfred Kuhn · 11 August 1897, Surry Hills (family account)

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Christ Church, Bong Bong: George and Mary Rudge’s baptism entries, 1867

Mary was George’s twin sister. The account names three Kuhn children—Karl Harold George, Alfred Henry and Ada Louisa—and places Mary in Redfern in later life.

Mary and her twin brother George were born at Kinnoul Vale in Glenquarry. The family chronology records her marriage to Henry Alfred Kuhn at Surry Hills on 11 August 1897, and his death at Redfern on 15 May 1904, less than seven years later. His birth is given as 28 June 1870 at Kangaloon. Mary died on 16 November 1957. Redfern appears in both death entries, but those two dates do not establish that she lived there continuously throughout the intervening years.

One source³² indicates that Mary and Henry Alfred Kuhn had three children (two sons and a daughter), all with surname Kuhn: namely, Karl Harold George (b 1899); Alfred Henry (b 1901 in Waverley, NSW) and Ada Louisa (b 1901 in Waverley, NSW).

Note that Mary is George’s twin sister (see above).

Ada Rudge

Born

6 January 1870 · Glenquarry/Bong Bong district, NSW

Died

17 September 1939 · Bowral, NSW (family account)

Marriage

James Patrick Griffiths · 22 June 1892, Berrima (family account)

Parents

George Henry Rudge and Mary Pauline Stych

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Ada’s marriage links the youngest child in this generation to the Griffiths family. Her husband’s dates in the account are 3 April 1869 to 26 July 1946.

Born at Kinnoul Vale in Glenquarry NSW, Ada died on 17 September, 1939, in Bowral NSW; she married James Patrick Griffiths on 22 June, 1892, in Berrima. James was born on 3 April, 1869, in Wollongong; and he died on 26 July, 1946, at Bowral.

3. Third Generation (1880s–1910s)

Children of William Henry Rudge and Mary Whatman

Amy Adeline Rudge

Born

14 Dec 1882 (family account)

Marriage

William E Hayes (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Amy married William E Hayes. She appears with her sisters in the captioned photographs of William Henry Rudge’s family.

William E Hayes

Born

1875 (family account)

Marriage

Amy Adeline Rudge (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

William married Amy Adeline Rudge. Amy’s sister Lillias also married into the Hayes family, becoming the wife of Walter Harrison Hayes.

Florence Louisa Rudge

Born

10 September 1883 (parish baptism index)

Baptised

7 October 1883 · Wingecarribee parish

Died

4 May 1951 · aged 67 (gravestone)

Marriage

Arthur William Morton · 9 September 1908, St David’s, Burrawang

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

The parish baptism index gives her name as Florence Louisa and identifies her parents as William Henry and Mary. Death dates are recorded on the Morton gravestone.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Florence Louisa Rudge: Wingecarribee baptism index, 1883 · Shared Morton gravestone

Photograph: Portrait reproduced in Florence Louisa Morton née Rudge’s section of the family history.

Florence was born on 10 September 1883 and baptised on 7 October in the Wingecarribee parish. She married Arthur William Morton at St David’s, Burrawang, in 1908. Their shared gravestone records her death on 4 May 1951 and his on 17 April 1943.

Florence is notable for wearing glasses — no other Rudges at the time seem to do so. She was batised on 7 October 1883.³³ She married Arthur William Morton (b 15 Jun 1879 at Lake George, NSW) at St David’s Church Burrawang on 9 September 1908. Florence and Arthur had 5 children: Irene Sybil Morton (b 23 Apr 1909); Phyllis Dorren (b 12 Mar 1911); Arthur Henry Norman (19 Jan 1914); Gertrude Mary (b 1 Feb 1917); and Bertha Jean Morton (2 Feb 1921).

Florence died 4 May 1951, aged 67 years.

Lillias Pauline Rudge

Born

1 January 1886 · Kinnoul Vale, NSW (family account)

Died

28 November 1953 · Bowral, NSW (family account)

Buried

Burrawang, NSW (family account)

Marriage

Walter Harrison Hayes · 17 May 1905, Burrawang

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

The account records three children of Lillias and Walter. Their daughter Nell is identified beside her grandfather William Henry in a photograph dated approximately 1931.

Lillias Pauline Rudge was born on 1 January 1886 at Kinnoul Vale. She married Walter Harrison Hayes on 17 May 1905 in Burrawang, New South Wales. They had three children during their marriage. She died on 28 November 1953 in Bowral, New South Wales, at the age of 67, and was buried in Burrawang, New South Wales.

Walter Harrison Hayes

Born

9 Apr 1873 (family account)

Marriage

Lillias Pauline Rudge · 17 May 1905, Burrawang (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Walter married Lillias Pauline Rudge at Burrawang on 17 May 1905. The family account records three children of the marriage.

Minna R Rudge

Born

28 Sep 1891 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Minna was a daughter of William Henry Rudge and Mary Whatman.

Oliver Bertram Rudge

Born

June 1894; day not established (family account)

Occupation / service

Police constable; acting Assistant Registrar, Raleigh at Bowraville, from 2 December 1922

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

The account records Oliver’s appointment in 1922 as acting Assistant Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Raleigh at Bowraville. Later newspaper references place Sergeant Oliver Rudge in Liverpool.

By December 1922, Oliver was a police constable at Bowraville. A government notice appointed him acting Assistant Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the District of Raleigh from 2 December, while Sergeant Perry was on leave. Alongside policing, he was temporarily entrusted with the civil records through which local families registered births, marriages and deaths. ⁵⁴

Newspaper reports place Sergeant Oliver Rudge in Liverpool during the 1940s. One records his evidence in a negligent-driving case:

Frank Leslie Rudge

Born

18 Jun 1896 (family account)

Died

19 June 1896 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Frank died on 19 June 1896, the day after his birth, according to the family chronology.

Mary Eveline Rudge

Born

13 Aug 1898 (family account)

Died

7 December 1898 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Mary Eveline was born and died in 1898, according to the family account.

Kenneth Stych Rudge

Born

14 Mar 1900 (family account)

Died

24 October 1900 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Kenneth’s middle name preserves the Stych surname of his paternal grandmother. His recorded birth and death both fall in 1900.

Eric James Rudge

Born

11 Jul 1903 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Eric was a son of William Henry Rudge and Mary Whatman. He was a cousin of Clement Joseph Eric Rudge, who also used the name Eric.

Vera Mildrid Rudge

Born

14 Jan 1906 (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

The family account identifies Vera as William Henry and Mary Whatman’s youngest child.

George Henry (Harry) Rudge III

Born

16 Feb 1888 (family account)

Marriage

Edith MA Mortimer (family account)

Parents

William Rudge and Mary Whatman (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

George, known as Harry, is pictured with his daughter Beverley at Burrawang in August 1958.

A share-farming dispute offers a glimpse of Harry’s working life at Burrawang. In September 1927, the Moss Vale District Court heard a claim by G. H. Rudge against William Lloyd for £29 1s. 8d. under their agreement. Rudge recovered the full amount and also succeeded against Lloyd’s £75 counterclaim concerning potatoes that had not been delivered to Canberra. The initials and locality support the identification with Harry, although the report does not spell out his names. ⁵⁵

The family workbook records Harry’s marriage to Edith Margaret Abigail Mortimer at Burrawang on 18 June 1913. It gives his death at Bowral as 2 July 1968 and Edith’s as 6 January 1978. Their children are listed as Doris Winifred (1914–1963), Oswald Bertram (1916–1993), Esma or Esme Beryl (1925–2013), Ronald Henry (1930–1985), Joy Edelle (born 1934) and Beverley Joan (1937–2018). Oswald Bertram belongs to this later generation and should not be confused with Harry’s brother Oliver Bertram, born in 1894. Harry’s home, Hawthorn, and the family photographs connect these children with the earlier Burrawang household.⁶⁵

Edith MA Mortimer

Born

1891 (family account)

Marriage

George Henry (Harry) Rudge III (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Edith married George Henry Rudge, known as Harry. A 1941 newspaper reference to Mrs G. H. Rudge of Burrawang may concern her, although the identification is uncertain.

A note of 1941 reports that Mrs GH Rudge of Burrawang — presumably Edith MA Rudge nee Mortimer — was sick and receiving treatment in the district hospital:

Children of Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins

Irene May Rudge

Born

1888 (family account) · Glenquarry, NSW (1937 notice)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Died

24 July 1937 · Roma, Queensland

Places

Southern Highlands; Queensland from about 1907; family address Injune in 1937

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Irene May was the eldest of Richard and Elizabeth’s eight children. Her death was reported in the Southern Highlands press even though the family had been in Queensland for about thirty years. A notice in The Southern Mail records her death at Roma on 24 July 1937 and identifies her as Richard’s daughter, born at Glenquarry. It also says that she had lived with a disabling illness for many years, without naming the condition. A separate death notice on the same page gives the family’s address as Injune, Roma, Queensland, and describes her mother as already deceased. ⁵¹

Laurence E Rudge

Born

7 July 1889 (family account)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Laurence was a son of Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins, born at Bowral.

The family workbook records Laurence Edward’s death in Queensland on 6 April 1909. If its birth date of 7 July 1889 is correct, he was nineteen, rather than twenty. This brief lifespan belongs to the period in which Richard and Elizabeth’s family moved north; the cause of his death has not been established here.⁶⁵

Lucy Mary (‘Daisy’) Rudge

Born

16 July 1891 (family account)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Lucy, a daughter of Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins, was known in the family as Daisy.

The family workbook follows Daisy into a Queensland household of her own. It records her marriage to Donald Iverson at Killarney on 16 October 1912 and her death at Dalby on 6 February 1962. Contributor trees also contain a competing 1937 death year and duplicate Lucy entries. The workbook’s dates are retained as an attributed account pending civil certificates, rather than selecting dates from the duplicates.⁶⁵

George Thomas Rudge

Occupation / service

Labourer; 42nd Battalion, AIF, service no. 1948

Born

1893 · Bowral, NSW; 27 June is family-supplied

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Places

Born near Bowral; enlisted Toowoomba, 24 January 1916

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

NSW birth index, registration 7799/1893

George Thomas was a labourer when he enlisted on 24 January 1916. He was unmarried and gave his age as 22 years and six months. Born near Bowral, he entered the army at Toowoomba and named his father Richard, at Gilgulgul via Miles, Queensland, as next of kin. Those details place this branch of the family in Queensland by 1916 while preserving George’s connection with the Southern Highlands. His service number was 1948. ⁵²

George Thomas served with the 42nd Battalion. He left Brisbane aboard the Boorara in August 1916 and proceeded to France that November. His service record reports that he was wounded in action on 31 July 1917, then evacuated to England in August. He eventually left England for Australia aboard the Saxon on 11 December 1918 and was discharged on 25 March 1919. The file traces a much longer absence than the enlistment entry alone suggests: more than three years between joining the army and discharge. ⁵²

Later family-workbook entries record a marriage to Mary Nimmo in Queensland on 6 December 1922 and death at Chinchilla on 6 February 1960. These later events have not yet received the same original-record check as his enlistment and parentage.⁶⁵

Olive Jessie Rudge

Born

1894 (family account)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Olive is listed among Richard and Elizabeth’s eight children, all described in the account as born in Bowral.

Kathleen D Rudge

Born

29 Apr 1899 (family account)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Kathleen Doris was a daughter of Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins.

Adelaie E Rudge

Born

14 Nov 1904 (family account)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

The family account names Richard and Elizabeth’s daughter as Adelaie Elizabeth.

Percival Richard Guy (‘Mick’) Rudge

Born

Disputed: 9 March 1911, Bowral (signed army declaration); 19 March 1907 (family correspondence)

Died

15 May 1953 · Roma, Queensland (family correspondence)

Marriage

Marjory Ellen Gibson (family correspondence)

Parents

Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins (family account)

Occupation

Farmer and general labourer (family correspondence)

Places

“Ona Ona”, north of Roma aerodrome (family correspondence)

Sources

His signed 1941 army papers give 9 March 1911 at Bowral. Family correspondence gives 19 March 1907. Neither declaration has yet been resolved against a birth registration.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Percival, known as Mick, was a farmer and general labourer. Wendy Zimmerman’s account places his family at ‘Ona Ona’, a small sheep property north of Roma aerodrome.

Percival’s signed army papers offer another view of his Queensland life. A labourer living at Injune via Roma, he enlisted at Toowoomba on 7 May 1941, naming Richard Rudge as his father and next of kin. He declared that he had been born at Bowral on 9 March 1911. The file includes his enlistment photographs and records service with the 7th Training Battalion before his medical discharge at Brisbane on 25 October 1941. This declared birth date differs from the 19 March 1907 recalled in the family correspondence; a birth registration is needed to resolve the difference. ⁵⁹

https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/751538; Percy Rudge junior photo (his son?) https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1585528221682309&set=gm.629952847128109;

Children of George Rudge and Julia Agnes Madden

Hercules Thomas Harrington Rudge

Born

1895 · Robertson, NSW (family records; reported ages differ)

Died

21 March 1930 · St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney

Buried

22 March 1930 · Roman Catholic cemetery, Rookwood

Marriage

Philomena Devery · 14 September 1916, Wrightville

Parents

George Rudge and Julia Madden (family account)

Occupation

Town clerk and returning officer, Wrightville (1916); electrician (1930)

Places

Wrightville; later Cessnock

Sources

His marriage certificate records age 22 in September 1916; the death-registration transcription gives age 33 in March 1930 and age 20 at marriage. These ages conflict with one another and with the inherited 1895 birth year.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Hercules Thomas Harrington Rudge: death-registration transcription, 1930, prepared by Joy Murrin

Photograph: The caption identifies Hercules as the standing brother; the photograph’s date is uncertain.

A 1916 municipal-election notice names Hercules as Wrightville’s returning officer. He and Philomena had two daughters, Jean and Yvonne. By 1930 he was working as an electrician and living at Cessnock. His mother Julia supplied the information for his death registration.³⁴³⁵

Hercules and Philomena’s divorce was finalised shortly before his death. A Sydney Morning Herald court report of 20 February 1930 lists “Philomena Rudge v Hercules Thomas Rudge” among the decrees made absolute. ³⁶

Hercules died at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, on 21 March 1930 and was buried the following day in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Rookwood. The death-registration transcription records his surviving daughters as Jean C., aged 13, and Yvonne K. M., aged 11.

Philomena Rudge née Devery

Born

1898 · Nymagee, NSW (family records)

Died

1975 · Gold Coast, Queensland (family records)

Marriage

Hercules Thomas Harrington Rudge · 14 September 1916; later Murdoch Robertson (family account)

Parents

Denis Patrick Devery and Kate Doyle (marriage certificate)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Philomena married Hercules at her parents’ home in Wrightville on 14 September 1916, according to Roman Catholic rites. The marriage certificate gives her age as 18 and her birthplace as Nymagee, and records her father Denis Patrick Devery’s occupation as accountant. The marriage ended in divorce shortly before Hercules’s death in 1930. Philomena later married Murdoch Robertson; family photographs show her with her daughters and grandchildren at the Darlington Hotel. ³⁷

At 22 years old, Hercules Rudge married 18-year-old Philomena Devery, who became Philomena Rudge, on 14 September, 1916.

According to Julie Allen (married to Peter Allen, son of Philomena’s daughter, Jean Rudge), Philomena owned the Darlington Hotel with her second husband, a Murdoch Robertson. When she married Murdoch, Philomena became Philomena Robertson.

John (‘Jack’) Roy Sylvester Rudge

Born

1897 · NSW (family records)

Died

8 December 1963 · Hurstville, NSW (family records)

Marriage

Anne Kathleen Mackey · 1940, Waverley, NSW (family records)

Parents

George Rudge and Julia Madden (family account)

Occupation

Labourer (attestation); AIF serviceman, no. 5206

Sources

The dossier supports the gas injury and hospital chronology; it does not identify the gas or establish a causal connection with his death in 1963.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

John Roy Rudge: AIF service dossier, NAA item 8072460

Photograph: The caption identifies John Roy (Jack) as the seated brother; the photograph’s date is uncertain.

Jack enlisted at Liverpool on 28 January 1916, joining the 16th reinforcements of the 4th Battalion before serving with the 56th Battalion. His record dates his gas wound to 15 October 1917. He reached Napsbury hospital in England on 20 October; that was his hospital-admission date, not the date he was gassed.⁶⁶

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8072460

From Julia’s hotel to the Western Front

Jack’s attestation gives his age as eighteen years and six months and his occupation as labourer. He named his mother, Julia Rudge of Tattersall’s Hotel, as next of kin and signed ‘J. R. Rudge’. His medical examination at Sydney on 15 January described a young man five feet six inches tall, weighing 116 pounds, with a fair complexion, brown hair and eyes, and moles on his back, shoulders and chest. His religion was recorded as Roman Catholic and his regimental number was 5206.

He left Australia aboard the Makarini on 1 April 1916 and reached Egypt on 1 May. After joining the 56th Battalion, part of the 14th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division, he travelled to France at the end of June. The 56th participated in the attack at Fromelles on 19–20 July. The battalion’s participation supplies the setting for Jack’s service; it does not identify his individual movements in the battle. His own record notes a wound on 3 August 1916 and adds that he remained on duty.

Ypres, October 1917

In September 1917 Jack was briefly detached to the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, rejoining the 56th on 23 September. Three days later the battalion fought at Polygon Wood. His service record places him with the unit during this period, although it does not describe his precise role in that action.

The battalion diary brings the circumstances of his next wound into much sharper view. The 56th was at Westhoek Ridge on 13 October. From midnight on 14–15 October until 5.30 am, its position was subjected to a heavy bombardment of gas and high-explosive shells. Further gas casualties occurred on the afternoon of the 15th, including men and officers sheltering in a pillbox; others were evacuated on the 16th. Jack’s casualty sheet records a gas wound on 15 October. The matching unit, date and injury strongly suggest that he was a casualty of this bombardment. The diary does not name him or establish that he was in the pillbox.

His evacuation took him through the 37th Field Ambulance and casualty-clearing system to the 35th General Hospital at Calais on 16 October. He left for England on 19 October and was admitted to Napsbury on the 20th. The entry describes the gas injury as slight. He transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford on 14 November and was discharged to the command depot at Hurdcott on 21 November. The words ‘2nd occasion’ refer to his second recorded wounding, following the August 1916 wound; they do not establish that he had been gassed twice.

Neither the service entry nor these diary passages identifies the chemical agent. An earlier family chapter called it mustard gas and explained his recovery by reference to that substance. The record supports gassing and a prolonged period before he returned to France, but it does not support that chemical identification, a particular diagnosis or five continuous months in hospital.

Recovery and return

The June family chapter transcribes an incident on 4 January 1918: Captain M. Readford awarded Jack two days’ confinement to barracks for ‘failing to report at the Y.M.C.A. hut on returning from leave’. The wording does not say that he returned late. The same chapter records his fitness for duty on 20 March, subsequent training at the 5th Divisional Signal School, return to France on 29 July and rejoining the 56th in the field on 13 August 1918. It places him on picquet duty at Charleroi in January 1919, after the Armistice.

He returned aboard the Beltana in 1919. The family chapter gives departure from Plymouth on 3 June, arrival at Melbourne on 19 July and discharge from the AIF on 14 September. Its account of the medal entries records the British War Medal, no. 37833, and Victory Medal, no. 37207, on roll 2/38; the 1914/15 Star is marked ‘N.E.’, or not entitled. The chapter also describes the familiar nicknames ‘Mutt and Jeff’ for the pair and ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ for the three-medal group that included a campaign star. It describes St George on the British War Medal and the winged Victory figure and rainbow ribbon of the Victory Medal. These details preserve the chapter’s account. They do not establish that the physical medals survive in the family, or what any surviving rim inscription says.

Home and later life

Jack married Anne Kathleen Mackey at Waverley in 1940. Their son, John Damien, was born in 1945. The family records Jack’s death on 8 December 1963 at Hurstville and gives his home as 45 Hodge Street. He died twenty years before his grandson Christopher was born. Julia’s death at Hurstville the previous year does not, by itself, establish that she had lived in the same household.

The family remembers Jack coughing for fifteen minutes or more on rising in the morning and describes his final illness as ‘war diseases’. Chris also recalls that Anne received a war widow’s pension. These recollections belong in the history, but they are not independent medical findings. The earlier family chapter suggested chronic bronchitis and discussed emphysema and asthma as possible consequences of gas exposure. Those comparisons do not establish Jack’s diagnosis. A persistent cough does not establish a diagnosis, and the service file does not prove that the 1917 gas wound caused his death in 1963.

The pension recollection is also consistent with more than one route to eligibility. DVA’s historical account records that eligibility was extended to widows of totally and permanently incapacitated veterans in 1936. Anne’s receipt of a pension could therefore reflect an accepted war-caused death or Jack’s qualifying disability status. His TPI status has not been established. Her award decision, his post-service medical records and his full death certificate would be needed to determine the basis of the award and any connection between his wartime injury and death. ^{66 67 68 69}

Anne Kathleen Mackey

Born

1914 · Australia (family records)

Died

Unconfirmed: 19 September 2004, Shoalhaven Heads (saved genealogy); an earlier family recollection gives 1999

Marriage

John Roy Sylvester Rudge · 1940, Waverley, NSW (family records)

Parents

William Mackey and Julia Curtis (family records)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Anne married John Roy Sylvester Rudge, known as Jack, in 1940. Photographs preserved among her effects form part of the family archive, including the unidentified group outside ‘Woodlowne’ in 1928.

Anne’s parents were William Mackey and Julia Curtis. An original electoral roll places them at East Kangaloon in 1913: William was a maintenance man, while Julia’s occupation was recorded as domestic duties. The entry gives no house name and therefore does not connect them to Woodlowne. Julia’s 1919 Bowral death-index entry names her parents as Thomas and Mary, but Mary’s maiden surname remains unresolved.

The family chapter identifies Anne’s sister Mary Elizabeth Mackey as the wife of Alfred Henry Kuhn. This is a separate relationship from Mary Rudge’s marriage to Henry Alfred Kuhn in the earlier generation; the similar names require care. The photographs preserved through Anne’s family remain valuable evidence of these connections even where the sitters have not been identified.

Anne’s death date is not yet settled. The saved family genealogy gives 19 September 2004 at Shoalhaven Heads and links a cemetery index. Chris initially recalled 1999 and questioned the later date. Until the underlying death or burial record is checked, 2004 should remain an attributed family-record date rather than a confirmed correction. The uncertainty does not alter the value of the photographs she preserved, including the inscribed Woodlowne group of 28 October 1928. ^{71 70}

The later Mackey research identifies a possible additional sister, Ethel Therese or Teresa Mackey. A 1935 marriage index records Ethel T. Mackey and Peter P. Gerrey at Moss Vale, while a cemetery index for Ethel Gerrey names William and Julia Mackey as her parents. This supports the family connection, but the cemetery information is contributor-supplied and the birth year differs between 1899 and 1900. It does not establish a Gerrey household at Woodlowne in 1928. ⁷¹

Clement Joseph Eric (‘Mick’ or ‘Eric’) Rudge

Born

12 September 1899 · Taralga, NSW

Died

7 May 1969 · Hurstville, NSW

Marriage

Ruby Violet Davies · 15 July 1918, St Paul’s, Cobar (family account)

Parents

George Rudge and Julia Madden (family account)

Occupation

Coal miner; boxer (family account and reproduced press)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

A PIX feature describes Mick and Ruby’s life in Lithgow with their eleven children, including Mick’s work at the mine and his garden, cows and fowls.

Mick was a boxer. He was born at Taralga, so while his parents were operating the Commercial Hotel. He married Ruby Violet Rudge (nee Davies) on 15 July, 1918, at the Church of St Paul in Cobar NSW. His family were photographed in Lithgow for Pix Magazine (see below). When Clement Joseph Eric (“Mick) (“Eric”) Rudge was born on 12 September 1899 in Taralga, New South Wales, his father, George, was 32 and his mother, Julia, was 28, and they were operating the Commercial Hotel. Mick and Ruby had 11 children in 24 years. He died on 7 May 1969 in Hurstville, New South Wales, at the age of 69.

Volume 16, issue 15 of Pix Magazine featured a series of stories in a section on Lithgow. One two-page story within the section was titled ‘Coal is the Foundation of Lithgow,’ and it featured a photographs of Mick Rudge’s family. AT the time, Mick worked at the State Coal Mine and the family lived on Macauley Street, Lithgow (as reported in a wedding notice for Dulcie: see below).

PIX described the family’s home and Mick’s daily life:

Mick Rudge and his wife Ruby have 11 children (“the crying of babies is the miner’s music,”) and live in a cottage which they brought from Cobar after the slump there during the last war. The Rudges have lived in Lithgow since 1919, are well-known and well-liked. Mick, a grandfather at 46, is a steady-living man, a good citizen. He neither drinks, smokes nor gambles, spends his spare time tending his three cows, 20 fowls and the garden.

The caption names those present at the family lunch:

Part of the Rudge family was at home having lunch when PIX called. Mick (nearest camera) is feeding the youngest, Robyn, 23 months. Round the table are: Dulcie, 24, who works at a Main-street store; her husband Bob McLean; Eric, 20, mechanic in a Main-street garage; “Young” Mick, 14, still at high school; Norma, 12, and Pat, 6, who go to public school; Phyllis, 16, who helps at home; and Mrs. Rudge. Missing from the family table were John, 26, who has a son and lives in Sydney; Joyce, 19, who is in Sydney; Nance, 22, theatre usherette; and Joan, 18, trainee nurse.

There are many instances of various members of the Rudge family being said to live in Macauley Street; however, a number is rarely provided. However, the below indicated that the Rudges lived at 24 Macauley Street, Lithgow:

An article titled ‘Proud Tradition comes to an End’ (The Age 1 March 2003)³⁸ reflects on the boxing career of Nathan Croucher, the fourth generation of his family to box in a professional bout. The article charts the history of Nathan’s forebears, including that of Harry Croucher and Dan Croucher. As the author writes,

Harry had three sons who fought for money. The youngest, Dan, was the welterweight champion of the Royal Navy before docking in Sydney in 1920. Dan jumped ship and swam for his new home.

A year later, he fought Mick Rudge of Lithgow over 20 rounds for a purse of 20 pounds. He broke his finger before losing on points. His finger later was amputated and he retired.

Ruby Violet Rudge (nee Davies)

Born

1901 (family account)

Marriage

Clement Joseph Eric Rudge · 15 July 1918, Cobar (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Ruby and Mick’s household of eleven children is described and photographed in the PIX feature reproduced in his section. She is also identified with Joan, Dulcie and Nance in the family photograph below.

Catherine Aileen Whilhemina (‘Eileen’) Rudge

Born

1 June 1902 · Taralga, NSW (family records)

Died

Disputed: 3 August 1987, Belmore (tree); 1994, Kogarah (family workbook)

Marriage

John Bryant Morgan, 24 March 1924, Sydney (family workbook; certificate not inspected)

Parents

George Rudge and Julia Agnes Madden

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Eileen was the only daughter of George Rudge and Julia Agnes Madden. Her daughter’s recollections describe Julia visiting their Marrickville household and asking Eileen to play ‘Danny Boy’ on the piano.

Eileen was George and Julia’s only daughter. The family workbook records her marriage to John Bryant Morgan at Sydney on 24 March 1924 and names a son, Ross Charles Morgan, whereas an earlier version of this history said that she married a Gleeson. Her daughter is known in the family recollections as Valerie Gleeson; that surname alone does not establish Eileen’s husband’s name. The family remembers Eileen’s household in Marrickville and her piano playing when Julia visited. Accounts of Eileen’s death also conflict: 3 August 1987 at Belmore and 1994 at Kogarah. The marriage and death certificates are needed to settle these differences.⁶⁵

George Vincent Sarto Rudge

Born

7 February; year disputed: 1906 birth index versus 1908 army attestation

Died

21 June 1961 · aged 55 (cemetery transcription)

Parents

George Rudge and Julia Madden (family account)

Occupation

Second World War serviceman · NX21592

Sources

His birth year is disputed between the army attestation and civil and cemetery records.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

George Vincent Rudge: army service dossier, NAA item 4846659

George Vincent served in the Second World War as NX21592. His signed army attestation gives his birth as 7 February 1908, while a 1906 NSW birth registration and his recorded age of 55 at death support an earlier year.

A family and a diary

George Vincent’s family workbook records a marriage to Josephine M. Mullins at Warwick on 1 January 1926, and a daughter, Maureen Catherine Julia, born there on 13 August that year. It gives Josephine’s birth as 19 March 1907 and Maureen’s later marriage to Bernard Cornelius Manahan at Sydney on 9 July 1949; the couple had six children. These are the workbook’s identifications. The Queensland marriage index uses the name George Joseph Rudge, so the full certificate is still needed before the marriage can be treated as independently established for George Vincent.

The family package associated with Maureen Manahan preserves Tobruk Titbits, a substantial transcription combining an account of the siege with a diary of overseas service. The signature ‘Sapper NX21592’ matches George Vincent’s army file. A birthday entry on 7 February agrees with the day and month in his attestation. Together these identify a much fuller wartime story than the bare service dates suggest, although the date and process of the surviving transcription remain uncertain.

Through the Mediterranean to Tobruk

The diary begins with departure from Sydney Showground on 14 November 1940 and embarkation aboard the Orion. Its writer describes the ship, crowded quarters, the passengers from several services and the voyage through Ceylon towards Egypt. By 25 January 1941 he was at Tobruk. The diary identifies his unit as the 2/4 Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers. The work was that of a sapper: mines, roads, water supplies, the power house and the wharf. His 7 February birthday entry moves readily between drinking, exploring abandoned shops and houses, and those practical tasks. He found rooms with tables still laid for meals—a small detail of the town’s sudden abandonment.

The siege brought air raids, rationed water and long periods of waiting. George wrote about running for shelter, playing bridge or chess, and the discomfort of going days without a wash. He names a bridge quartet of Jackie Davern, Jack Short, Jack Callinan and himself. Music, including the saxophone, gambling and verse also appear in the account. These details give the diary its particular voice: ordinary diversions alongside work and danger.

A poem headed ‘To My Mother’ and ‘A Night in the Desert’ appears above his service number. Its speaker thinks of home, shelters from an air raid and kneels beside a dying comrade. The preceding entry discusses writing poems, so the transcription presents the verse as part of the diarist’s activity; independent authorship has not been established. The mother addressed would, on this identification, be Julia, then in her seventies. The complete verse remains in the transcription held in the family archive. The opening historical account also recounts Corporal Jack Edmondson’s fatal action and Victoria Cross; this should not be taken as proof that George personally witnessed the action.

Leaving by sea

On 4 August the diary places him in Tobruk hospital:

In Tobruk Hospital today, air raids all day long, blokes dying all round me bloody terrible to see them. Everybody doing a grand job, short of staff.

At 10 pm he expected to leave on a destroyer. The entry of 6 August, written from hospital in Alexandria, recounts the ambulance journey to the wharf, wounded men waiting in a tunnel, coffee and biscuits, and doctors working without respite. It names the Vendetta as the ship he boarded at about 2 am. His account says an air attack diverted the journey intended for Mersa Matruh, taking the evacuees on to Alexandria instead. That is the diarist’s account of the passage, rather than a separate identification from a ship’s log.

Well I am in Hospital in Alexandria. I arrived at 2pm yesterday after a most sensational trip. I thank God I am still alive

A bed with white sheets and pillow slips was itself worth recording after Tobruk. Later passages follow his convalescence and onward journey through El Kantara and Bombay, including a visit to the races. He writes admiringly of the sailors who carried out the evacuation. His army record and diary should be read together: the official file supplies dates and identity, while the family transcription preserves the texture of his experience.

The family workbook records his death at Sydney on 21 June 1961 and burial at Waverley. The cemetery transcription gives his age as 55, supporting the 1906 civil-index year rather than the 1908 year he declared to the army. The two dates remain visible because the signed declaration cannot simply be dismissed as a later copying error. ^{65 72 73}

4. Fourth Generation (1910s–1940s)

Of Hercules and Philomena Rudge (nee Devery)

Jean Cavell Rudge

Born

14 September 1916 (family records); Cobar versus Dapville locality conflict

Died

18 August 1957 · Randwick, NSW

Marriage

Alfred Douglas (“Doug”) Allen · 25 September 1937, St Agnes, Matraville (family caption)

Parents

Hercules and Philomena Rudge (nee Devery) (family account)

Children

Peter S. and Michael Allen; aged 16 and 10 in the 1957 certificate

Sources

The certificate reports birth at Cobar, whereas the tree and account say Dapville. It reports marriage at Matraville at age 21; the exact wedding date comes from the contributor’s caption.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Photograph: The gallery caption identifies Jean Allen née Rudge; courtesy of Julie Allen. Undated.

Jean married Alfred Douglas (‘Doug’) Allen and had two sons, Peter S. and Michael. Her 1957 death certificate names Hercules Rudge and Philomena Devery as her parents and records her sons’ ages as 16 and 10.

Family records place Jean’s birth at Dapville on 14 September 1916; her death certificate gives Cobar. These place descriptions may refer to the same district at different levels of detail. The exact birthday remains to be checked against her birth registration, especially because the same date appears on her parents’ marriage certificate.

Julie Allen’s conversation notes add that Jean and Doug later divorced, with Peter living with Doug and Michael with Jean. The recollection gives Peter’s birth as about 1940 and Michael’s as 1946 or 1947; those estimates are compatible with the ages of sixteen and ten on Jean’s August 1957 death certificate. Jean was John Damien Rudge’s first cousin. Doug’s connection to John Damien was through that marriage, rather than blood descent. ⁷⁵

Yvonne Kerry Rudge

Born

11 November 1918 · Wrightville, NSW

Died

2 January 2001 · Gold Coast Hospital, Queensland (family records)

Marriage

Patrick Joseph (“Pat”) Kelly · 1944, Redfern (family account)

Parents

Hercules and Philomena Rudge (nee Devery) (family account)

Occupation

Shop assistant (1943 electoral entry cited in the account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Yvonne’s 1943 electoral entry places her in Maroubra before her marriage to Pat Kelly. Later family accounts connect the couple with hotels, but the identity of the alleged Swan Hill hotel remains unresolved.

Yvonne Kerry Rudge was born in Wrightville on 11 November 1918 and lived at 237 Maroubra Road, in Maroubra in 1943 (and worked as a shop assistant).³⁹ married Patrick Joseph Kelly, known as Pat, in Redfern in 1944. This would have made her name Yvonne Kerry Kelly.

According to Eunice Miller (via ancestry.com.au), ‘The Swan Hill Hotel was Pat and Yvonne’s first hotel,’ it being ‘just over the river at Swan Hill in Victoria.’ Miller adds, however, that the hotel burnt down. It appears, however, that there are only a few hotels in Swan Hill, they being the Royal Hotel, the White Swan, and neither of them burnt down.

Note: There is a hotel called the Swan Reach that is said to have burnt down⁴⁰; however, this does not seem very likely to have been the hotel owned by Pat and Yvonne. (Another candidate is the Tooleybuc Hotel, near Swan Hill, which burnt down in 1928 and again in 1950?⁴¹)

According to a source that cites the Gold Coast Bulletin as its original source,

The five people in the photograph are unidentified. The house was built by James Webster; and by 1969, was owned by Mr Pat Kelly who also owned the Miami Hotel. (Information source: Gold Coast Bulletin, 30 July, 1969). … It is believed the house seen to the right was moved into position or built by the army when training on the beaches was done in the Second World War. James (also known as Stanley) Webster is believed to have purchased the property from the South Coast Council for five pounds, which was to cover unpaid rates. By 1969 the house was owned by Mr Pat Kelly who also owned the Miami Hotel. The property was resumed by the Council in 1970.

A link has been recorded for this information but it appears to no longer work and is not functional on internet archive.⁴⁴

In the 1920s and ’30s, Hotel Miami was associated with a local bunyip. The above photograph, for instance, is captioned as follows:

As estate development grew in the North Burleigh area in the 1920s, public curiosity grew in the story of the Miami Bunyip. Miami Hotel was built in 1925 and the opening of the sanitary depot in the swamp area in 1930 led to numerous reports of the triple “boom – boom – boom” which sounded nightly from the swamp, and yet, occasionally was not heard for twelve months, only to return in full voice and vigour. Local aborigines would pull up camp when the booming noises came from the swamp, referring to the ‘Debil Debil.’ Over the years there were numerous reports of the creatures in the swamp and surrounding areas including one of a crocodile. These reports gradually died as the Miami — North Burleigh areas became more densely populated and as land reclamation and drainage schemes changed the face of much of the Miami Swamp.

The South Coast Bulletin reported the bunyip’s supposed return on 11 July 1930:

After a lengthy absence the mysterious bunyip has returned to his old abode, the swamp, opposite the Miami Hotel (Qld). Probably the flooded flats at Merrimac may have hastened the elusive bunyip’s return to his spacious summer quarters. The nightly boom of the monster is causing mild excitement in this centre.⁴⁵

Of John Roy Rudge and Anne Rudge (nee Mackey)

John Damien Rudge

Born

1945

Marriage

Marian Joyce McLaren

Parents

John Roy Rudge and Anne Rudge (nee Mackey) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

John is the son of Jack Rudge and Anne Kathleen Mackey. He married Marian Joyce McLaren.

Marian Joyce Rudge nee McLaren

Born

1947

Marriage

John Damien Rudge

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Family genealogy on Ancestry

Marian married John Damien Rudge, joining the McLaren and Rudge branches of the family.

Of Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies)

John Roy Rudge

Born

1919 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

John Roy was the son of Mick and Ruby Rudge and the nephew of John Roy Sylvester Rudge, known as Jack.

The 1932 item names Jack Rudge of Macauley Street, aged fifteen, who sprained an ankle while camping at Glenroy. That age does not agree with the 1919 birth year recorded here for John Roy. The street connection is suggestive, but the identification remains uncertain.

This John Roy was Jack’s nephew, the son of Mick and Ruby. The family workbook gives his birth as 29 July 1919 at Lithgow, his marriage to Mary Williams as 9 August 1941, and his death at Wallaroo as 3 August 1978. His Second World War service belongs to a different generation from his uncle’s AIF service as no. 5206. A 1932 newspaper report about a fifteen-year-old Jack Rudge with an ankle injury does not fit a 1919 birth closely enough to attach confidently to him.⁶⁵

Dulcie May Rudge

Spouse / marriage

Robert McLean · St Paul’s, Lithgow, early 1945; exact date not reported

Occupation / service

Shop worker (PIX account reproduced on this page)

Born

1921 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Dulcie’s wedding brought the Macauley Street family together early in 1945. The Lithgow Mercury reported her marriage to Robert McLean at St Paul’s, describing her as the eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs E. Rudge. She wore powder blue with white accessories and carried frangipani; her sister Nancy stood beside her as bridesmaid. The reception followed at her parents’ home, where Ruby and Robert’s mother received the guests. Mrs Marshall decorated the wedding cake in pastel blue. The newlyweds were reported to be honeymooning in Brisbane and Melbourne and planning to make their home in Melbourne. The notice was published on 15 February; it does not give the precise wedding date. ⁵⁶

Nancy Rudge

Born

1923 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Occupation

Theatre usherette (PIX account reproduced on this page)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Nancy, called Nance in the PIX feature, worked as a theatre usherette. She also appears in Dulcie’s wedding report as her sister’s bridesmaid, dressed in beige crepe with red accessories and carrying red roses. This is a dated glimpse of Nancy taking part in family life in Lithgow in 1945, alongside the magazine’s account of her work. ⁵⁶

The family workbook records Nancy’s birth on 3 March 1923, marriage to Arthur Edward Penrose in 1946 and death at Lithgow on 20 November 2003. These dates extend the contemporary portrait of ‘Nance’ in the PIX feature but remain family-workbook particulars pending their civil records.⁶⁵

Eric George Rudge

Born

1924 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Occupation

Garage mechanic (PIX account reproduced on this page)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Eric’s childhood and working life appear in two quite different accounts. In June 1939, the Lithgow Mercury reported that Eric Rudge, aged fourteen, had injured a finger when a large piece of stone fell on it at his Macauley Street home; he received ambulance attention. The name, age and street support the identification with Eric George. The later PIX feature describes Eric, then twenty, working as a mechanic in a Main Street garage. ⁵⁷

The family workbook gives Eric’s birth as 25 October 1924 at Burwood, his marriage to Marjorie Isobel Colley in 1947 and his death at Lawson on 12 July 1960, aged thirty-five. The 1939 injury report and the later PIX portrait provide contemporary glimpses of the boy and the young mechanic; they do not, by themselves, establish these later marriage and death details.⁶⁵

Joyce Agnes Rudge

Born

1926 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Joyce appears with her sister Norma in the family beach photograph below.

Joan Rudge

Born

1927 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Occupation

Trainee nurse (PIX account reproduced on this page)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Joan was a trainee nurse, aged 18, when the PIX family feature appeared. She is also pictured with her sisters Dulcie and Nance and their mother Ruby.

The family workbook expands Joan’s name to Phillipa Joan and gives a marriage on 8 June 1955 at St Luke’s, Liverpool. These particulars remain an attributed family entry; they should not be confused with her sister Phyllis, known as Doody.⁶⁵

Phyllis (‘Doody’) Rudge

Born

1927 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Phyllis was known in the family as Doody.

Ronald Hercules (‘Mick’) Rudge

Born

1931 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Ronald Hercules, a son of Clement and Ruby Rudge, was known as Mick, as was his father.

Norma Rudge

Born

1932 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Norma appears with her sister Joyce in the family beach photograph below.

The family workbook identifies Norma’s husband as John Bennett Baird. That connection adds a later branch to the Lithgow household described in PIX; no marriage certificate is cited here.⁶⁵

Patricia Edna Rudge

Born

1939 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Patricia E. Rudge appears among Lithgow High School’s successful Intermediate Certificate candidates in results published on 25 January 1954. The Lithgow & District Family History Society has also been identified as a repository of local school records. ^{46 47}

The family workbook names Patricia’s husband as Donald Richardson. Her place as one of Mick and Ruby’s younger children is clearer than the presently documented details of her adult life.⁶⁵

Robyn Maude Rudge

Born

1943 (family account)

Parents

Clement Rudge and Ruby Rudge (nee Davies) (family account)

Occupation

Clerk · NSW Department of Labour and Industry

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Robyn Maude Rudge worked as a clerk in the NSW Department of Labour and Industry. Confirmation of her appointment was gazetted on 6 January 1961. A notice headed “Resignations”, published on 9 November 1962, gives her last day of service as 27 November 1962 (half day). ⁴⁸

The family workbook records Robyn’s marriage to Dennis Norman Collins at St George, Hurstville, on 18 January 1964. This remains a family-record date, rather than a newly inspected marriage entry.⁶⁵

Of George Henry Rudge III and Edith Rudge (nee Mortimer)

Esma Beryl Rudge

Born

June 1925 · Bowral Hospital; 5 versus 15 June disputed

Died

2013 (family eulogy)

Marriage

Ian Gay · December 1943 (family eulogy)

Parents

George Henry Rudge III and Edith Rudge (nee Mortimer) (family account)

Sources

Rob Gay’s eulogy gives 15 June 1925; an earlier heading gives 5 June. The precise birth day remains uncertain.

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Rob Gay’s eulogy recalls Beryl’s childhood in Burrawang, her schooling and her marriage to Ian Gay in December 1943. It gives her birth as 15 June 1925; an earlier family account gives 5 June.

Esma was born in June 1925 and died in 2013; the conflicting birth days are noted above. She is the mother of Rob Gay; sister of Ronald Henry Rudge.

Eulogy for Esma Beryl Rudge by Rob Gay delivered in October 2013:

Esma Beryl Rudge was born on 15th June 1925 at Bowral Hospital and grew up here in the village of Burrawang in a bygone era, without all the mod cons that we have today. Beryl, as she was known, was the daughter of George Rudge and Edith Mortimer and the 3rd eldest of six children. Her siblings were Dot, Bert and Ron — all now deceased — and Joy and Beverly who are here today.

The Rudge family were early pioneers in the Burrawang area with Beryl’s Great Grandfather (also George Rudge) settling in the Berrima District sometime in the 1840s after a very tough start in life. At the age of 17, in a tiny village in Gloucestershire England, George was caught stealing 3 rabbits from a fowl house to help put food on the table for his family. For that petty crime, he was transported to Australia for 7 years.

After serving his time, George married but his wife died at an early age. He remarried, had 6 children, amassed property and assets and lived to the ripe old age of 87. George’s tenacity, perseverance and love of family were passed on to future generations and his Great Granddaughter Beryl was no exception.

Mum attended Burrawang School to Qualifying Certificate (as it was known in those days) but was unable to continue further at high school in Bowral, as, at that time, there was no transport to Bowral. She was bright at school and loved it and was also crowned Queen of the Wattle at the age of 15 years.

Beryl married Ian Gay in December 1943 and had two children, Jenny and Rob. Initially they lived in the Gay family homestead at Ocean View, and later moved to a house in the main street of Robertson.

In 1969, after separating from Ian, her life became somewhat fragmented and her security and self-confidence suffered for a few years. Another marriage followed but was short-lived. Then she met Ron who became her rock — they have been a partnership through thick and thin for 35 years.

Ron has been a devoted partner and companion to Mum over their life together and in recent years has been almost a permanent fixture at her nursing home at Dapto.

Ronald Henry Rudge

Born

1930 (family account)

Parents

George Henry Rudge III and Edith Rudge (nee Mortimer) (family account)

Sources

Family records and the documents and recollections cited below.

Ronald and his sister Joy are identified in the 1940 Burrawang Public School photograph.

Unidentified photographs and family connections

1. Motorcycling

The Woodlowne photograph, 1928

The inscription names Eric and an absent Jean, but it does not give a surname, town or state. None of the candidate households has yet been shown to fit all these clues. The year 1928 can be read from the inscription; the people and house remain unidentified. Anne’s possession of the photograph is provenance, not proof that every sitter was a Rudge or Mackey.

Newspaper reports of a Lithgow house fire in 1930 mention a Rudge family. A connection with this branch has not been established; Harry and Elsie Rudge, later of Marrickville, are another possible family connection.

A Lithgow Mercury report, “Death of Stan. Hoy” (14 October 1940, p. 2), names John Lloyd Rudge at 24 Macauley Street. His relationship to this family is unresolved, and the name alone does not establish that he was John Roy Rudge. Read the newspaper report

Historical background preserved with this history

Rob Gay’s earlier history placed the family within a much wider account of migration, imprisonment and rural settlement. It discussed possible origins of the Rudge surname, traditions of heraldry and the motto In Cruce Fides, and other Rudge families in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Somerset. Shared names and arms do not, by themselves, prove a link with George Henry’s family. The traced pedigree above should be distinguished from those broader surname traditions.

The older account also described the industrial changes in England, the criminal courts, prison hulks, transportation and assignment. It included extracts attributed to the Sydney Herald in 1834, Peter Cunningham, John Boyle and Martin Cash: descriptions of hulk discipline and rations, cramped sleeping quarters at sea, arrival at Hyde Park Barracks, and assignment to colonial households. They offer historical context for the surviving personal records, but do not establish that George or Mary experienced every practice described. The original extracts and their wording are preserved in the source companion.

For the Southern Highlands, Gay described bark huts, rough beds, salted meat and bread, tallow lighting and the later arrival of kerosene, stoves and sewing machines. Mail routes, dances, racing and agricultural shows punctuated rural life. His account of Burrawang followed the clearing of the Yarrawa Brush, the growth of farms and a village, and the churches, schools, inns, shops, sawmills and butter, flour and bacon industries that served the district. This local background gives substance to the family’s later work as farmers, carriers, butchers and publicans. Precise dates and generalisations in the older account still require their own sources; they are not all established by the family’s records.

The complete background typescript is retained as a source companion in the family archive, including passages not incorporated as factual assertions in this narrative. Its original Word file, pedigree charts and illustrations remain in the family archive. This preserves the material while distinguishing an inherited account from a verified event in a person’s life. ⁷⁴

1. ↩︎ Rob Gay, [Rudge family genealogy spreadsheet], undated. Family compilation.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQeqtCrrhBZq84erX3axsGcm2c1xudwgxeZUpBko2kv7nE8ZC3HUiHez3Sjy1rEuHm5T4XYn-kwLuLK/pubhtml
2. ↩︎ John S. Cumpston, “Bunker, Eber (1761–1836)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1 (1966).https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bunker-eber-1849/text2143
3. ↩︎ John S. Cumpston, “Bunker, Eber (1761–1836)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1 (1966), on the description “father of Australian whaling”.https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bunker-eber-1849/text2143
4. ↩︎ Austin Lovegrove, Images of an Australian Enlightenment: The Story of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie’s Treatment of the Convicts as a History Tale for Today (Unicorn, 2019), pp. 68–69.
5. ↩︎ Museums of History NSW, “Convict Tickets of Leave”, State Archives research guide. Explains conditions, district restrictions and changes to ticket holders’ legal rights.https://mhnsw.au/guides/convict-tickets-leave/
6. ↩︎ New South Wales Department of Mines, Stock and Brands Branch, Report of the Chief Inspector of Stock, 1884, p. 42, tabled in the Legislative Council in 1885 (LCTP 1885 151–193). The reproduced page lists Kinnoul Vale, Bowral, under “Geo. Budge”; identification with George Rudge is provisional.https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/historictabledpapers/files/132699/LCTP%201885%20151-193_001.pdf
7. ↩︎ Burrawang and Wildes Meadow Community Association, [New residents’ information booklet], historical account of Burrawang, PDF pp. 3–4. The history credits the Berrima District Historical and Family History Society archives; Chris McCann signs the separate association welcome.https://burrawangvillage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BWMCA-new-resident-0818.pdf
8. ↩︎ Southern Highland News, “‘I have nothing but fond memories’: Avoca Public School celebrates 150th birthday” (2023). Background on Garry Virtue; not independent evidence of the identities in the Rudge family photograph.https://www.southernhighlandnews.com.au/story/8136491/i-have-nothing-but-fond-memories-avoca-public-school-celebrates-150th-birthday/
9. ↩︎ Australian Cemeteries Index, “Inscription 15492950 – Mary Ann Maloney”, née Fenton (1881–14 October 1977), Burrawang Catholic Church cemetery. The index names her parents as John Fenton and Catherine McKenzie and her spouse as Michael Maloney. Identification with the Mary Ann Fenton in the family photograph is tentative.https://austcemindex.com/inscription?id=15492950#images
10. ↩︎ Rob Gay, [Account of Charlotte Rudge and Robert Hatchwell], reproduced in the family history and attributed through Ancestry. Family recollection.https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/person/tree/75722700/person/182162435786/facts
11. ↩︎ National Archives of Australia, [George Thomas Rudge: First World War service dossier], item 8072459, attestation, reproduced in Ancestry’s Australian Imperial Force personnel collection.https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/60864/images/8072459_0001?pId=60305455
12. ↩︎ Wendy Zimmerman née Rudge, [Recollections of Percival Richard Guy Rudge and his family at Roma], Facebook contribution, undated. Family testimony.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/12Chb9Wg676/
13. ↩︎ Berrima District Historical & Family History Society, “Aunty Jane Whatman”, photograph, c.1900, Joe Ford Collection, item 106676. The linked address is the collection catalogue.https://berrima.imagegallery.me/
14. ↩︎ Rob Gay, [George Rudge’s butcher businesses and move to Taralga], email correspondence with Christopher Rudge, 26 August 2020. Private family correspondence.
15. ↩︎ “Shocking Fatality. Mr. George Rudge Killed”, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 12 March 1907, p. 4. Report of the inquest, including the hospital matron’s evidence and the coroner’s finding of death on 10 March 1907.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/98780354/9595908
16. ↩︎ “Obituary” [Jane Confoy], Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 1 October 1914, p. 2. Records Patrick Confoy’s construction of the Kenmore Hotel and the couple’s 27 years there; does not supply a construction year.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/98823626
17. ↩︎ [Kenmore Hotel: local-history discussion], Facebook group search. A discussion index, rather than an identifiable archival record.https://www.facebook.com/groups/418900881871539/search/?q=+kenmore+hotel
18. ↩︎ Goulburn Mulwaree Library, [Kenmore Hotel architectural record], local archives catalogue, record 2759255. Cited for E. C. Manfred’s 1892 alterations; catalogue description unavailable.https://goulburn.spydus.com/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/OPAC/ARCENQ/52039590/2759255,1
19. ↩︎ “Mr. J. Hurrell”, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 12 July 1933, p. 2. Identifies Jeremiah Hurrell as the former Kenmore Hotel licensee and states that the hotel had already been delicensed. A separate Facebook photograph is also linked.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102860862https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10232242376668921&set=p.10232242376668921&type=3
20. ↩︎ [Kenmore Hotel restoration and ownership discussion], Facebook group contributor page. The account concerns 2024; this link does not establish present ownership.https://www.facebook.com/groups/418900881871539/user/1091052059/
21. ↩︎ Jennifer Lambert, Upper Lachlan Shire Community Heritage Study 2007–2008 (revised 2010), pp. 47–48 (Binda and Funny Hill), 54–55 (Rose Cottage and the post offices).https://upperlachlan.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Heritage-Study-1.pdf
22. ↩︎ Aussie Towns, “Binda, NSW”, local-history guide. Its reported licence-closure date does not establish when Julia Rudge’s hotel closed: the identity of the premises is unresolved.https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/binda-nsw
23. ↩︎ A Guide to Australian Bushranging, [Flag Hotel articles], subject archive. Background on the Binda raid; the link is an archive page rather than a single identified article.https://aguidetoaustralianbushranging.wpcomstaging.com/tag/flag-hotel/
24. ↩︎ “Binda Ball, 1864”, words by John Manifold, music by John Harpley, documented by the Bush Music Club in its February 2018 archive. The song commemorates the event; it is not a contemporary account.https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2018/02/
25. ↩︎ Elders Real Estate, “103 Queen Street, Crookwell, NSW, 2583”, sold-property listing. Cited for the former post office; the listing’s locality label differs from Binda.https://www.eldersrealestate.com.au/residential/sale/103-queen-street-crookwell-nsw-2583-300P164907/
26. ↩︎ GetSoldPrice, [87 Queen Street, Binda: sale record]. A property-sales source, not evidence of Julia Rudge’s hotel licence.https://www.getsoldprice.com.au/sold/view/state/NSW/id/dwsmdqw4/?addr=87+Queen+St%2C+Binda+NSW
27. ↩︎ [Old Flag Hotel Binda: accommodation listing], shortened booking link. Publisher and listing date unidentified.https://t.hmwy.io/wdUDKloG7Pb
28. ↩︎ Realestate.com.au, “1 Rose Cottage Queen Street, Binda, NSW 2583” and “87 Queen St, Binda, NSW 2583”, sold-property listings. Photographs and later property descriptions.https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-binda-104189810https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-binda-132543490
29. ↩︎ Dianne Tillotson (hipbookfairy), [Rose Cottage, formerly the Royal Hotel, Binda], photograph and caption, Flickr, photo 42962237701. Caption transcribed in the family account.https://www.flickr.com/photos/hipbookfairy/42962237701
30. ↩︎ The Pub Route, “Pubs & Breweries of Wrightville”. Local-history account identifying Hercules Rudge as a former licensee of the Chesney Hotel.https://thepubroute.com.au/pubs-breweries-of-wrightville/
31. ↩︎ [Recollections of Julia Agnes Rudge at Valhalla, Randwick, and Marrickville, 1944–49], family contribution in a Facebook discussion. The contributor recalls Julia as her maternal grandmother and Eileen as her mother.https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0dG7kYn6GwAUQk9M3oGZt6UBGetqLdvjyf7MvN82qgf8bDZtjXCy6CPzm48GQoUeyl&id=360696427434738
32. ↩︎ [Mary Rudge and Henry Alfred Kuhn: family genealogy], RootsWeb, page galla001. Family compilation cited for the three Kuhn children; original page unavailable.https://sites.rootsweb.com/~rvoull/galla001.htm
33. ↩︎ “Florence Louisa Rudge”, Sydney, Australia, Anglican Parish Registers, 1814–2011, Wingecarribee parish baptism index, Ancestry, record 121991. Birth: 10 September 1883; baptism: 7 October 1883; parents: William Henry and Mary.https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/61177/records/121991
34. ↩︎ “Municipality of Wrightville—Extraordinary Election”, newspaper clipping naming Hercules Rudge as returning officer. Julie Allen identifies the source as the Western Age, 4 January 1916; the supplied crop omits the masthead and end of the notice.https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/75722700/person/182162435787/media/663f7f94-aea5-4e39-89b9-92af01d0612c
35. ↩︎ NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, death registration 05293, Hercules Thomas Harrington Rudge, died 21 March 1930; transcription by Joy Murrin for Julie Allen, 5 October 2006. A transcription, not a certified copy. Records occupation, residence, age, parents, burial and surviving children.https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/75722700/person/182162435787/media/e7b341e6-6e3c-4211-84a4-4adad929d92c
36. ↩︎ “In Divorce—Decrees Absolute”, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February 1930, p. 6, entry “Philomena Rudge v Hercules Thomas Rudge”. Clipping preserved in the Ancestry gallery.https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/75722700/person/182162435787/media/c9eef4aa-0f31-4393-860b-f387acbab0dd
37. ↩︎ NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, marriage certificate 1916/015486, Hercules Thomas Harrington Rudge and Philomena Devery, 14 September 1916, Wrightville; certified copy issued 27 June 2005. Records Hercules’s occupation as town clerk, the parties’ ages as 22 and 18, and their parents.https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/75722700/person/182162435787/media/33886821-7511-4893-bc02-eba117eda2f6
38. ↩︎ “Proud tradition comes to an end”, The Age, 1 March 2003. Retrospective account of Nathan Croucher and four generations of boxing in his family.https://www.theage.com.au/sport/proud-tradition-comes-to-an-end-20030301-gdvazx.html
39. ↩︎ [Yvonne Kerry Rudge, Maroubra, 1943], Australian electoral rolls, Ancestry, collection 1207, record 23448354. Cited for her address and occupation as a shop assistant.https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/31242_202511__0005-00271?pId=23448354
40. ↩︎ [Swan Reach Hotel fire: local-history photograph and discussion], Facebook. No established connection to Pat and Yvonne Kelly.https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=9099171020155196&set=gm.3625152397714761&idorvanity=1755971574632862
41. ↩︎ [Tooleybuc Hotel fires: local-history discussion], Facebook. No established connection to Pat and Yvonne Kelly.https://www.facebook.com/groups/1529587660512959/posts/3101388163332893/
42. ↩︎ Vanessa de Groot, “Beach shacks and fibros: The history of Mermaid Beach”, Domain, sponsored feature. The beach-cottage photograph is credited to the City of Gold Coast, photographer unknown, c.1940s; the feature does not identify its subjects as members of the Rudge family.https://www.domain.com.au/news/beach-shacks-and-fibros-the-history-of-mermaid-beach-782852/
43. ↩︎ [Beach cottage near Albatross Avenue, c.1940s], Historypin, pin 213587. Linked photographic record; the individuals’ identities remain unconfirmed.https://www.historypin.org/en/person/43505/explore/geo/8.391765,-0.827048,8/bounds/6.108689,-2.035544,10.661502,0.381448/paging/1/pin/213587
44. ↩︎ City of Gold Coast Libraries, [Catalogue record formerly cited for the Miami Hotel], resource pyPmCjSCkmY. Original catalogue title unavailable.https://link.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/es/resource/pyPmCjSCkmY
45. ↩︎ Mick Roberts, “Distinctly Australian, Cavendish’s uniquely named Bunyip Hotel”, Time Gents, 5 June 2016. Reproduces “The Bunyip Returns”, South Coast Bulletin, 11 July 1930, concerning a swamp opposite the Miami Hotel. Historical setting only; no evidence of Rudge ownership.https://timegents.com/2016/06/05/the-legend-of-the-bunyip/
46. ↩︎ “Intermediate Certificate Examination”, Lithgow Mercury, 25 January 1954, p. 4. Lists Patricia E. Rudge among the successful candidates from Lithgow High School.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220811325
47. ↩︎ [Lithgow school records held by the Lithgow & District Family History Society], Facebook post, 2024, as cited in the family account. A description of holdings, not a pupil record.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/128YKTsW6Le/
48. ↩︎ “Confirmation of Appointments”, Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, 6 January 1961, no. 2 (supplement), p. 36; “Resignations”, 9 November 1962, no. 112 (supplement), pp. 3365–3366, especially p. 3366. The notices identify Robyn Maude Rudge in the Department of Labour and Industry and give her last day of service as 27 November 1962 (half day).https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220242633https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220383373
49. Heritage NSW, “Collingwood”, State Heritage Inventory, item 5052418; Liverpool City Council Library, “Casula”, section on Collingwood House. These histories date the Liverpool grants to 1804 and 1810 and identify Collingwood as Isabella’s family name. Estate acreage and the earliest construction date vary between accounts. ↩ https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5052418 https://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/history/ourstories/suburbs-of-liverpool/casula
50. Vivienne Parsons, “Throsby, Charles (1777–1828)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 2 (1967). The article gives age 51 at death, but its life-summary dates imply 50. ↩ https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/throsby-charles-2735
51. “About People” [Irene May Rudge] and “Death” [Rudge], The Southern Mail, 13 August 1937, p. 3. Trove groups the biographical paragraph with an adjoining article titled “Mr. New Killed.” Both notices were checked on the page image. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/114790855
52. National Archives of Australia, B2455, RUDGE GEORGE THOMAS, item 8072459, service no. 1948, attestation and enlistment record, 24 January 1916. Bowral is the birthplace; the catalogue records enlistment at Toowoomba. ↩ https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8072459
53. “Licensing Court”, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 27 October 1908, p. 4. Julia A. Rudge’s evidence about work on the Royal Hotel, Binda, and the conditional renewal of its licence. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/98790060
54. “Appointments”, Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, 8 December 1922, no. 169, p. 6438. Acting appointment of Constable Oliver Bertram Rudge, effective 2 December. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/225132544
55. “District Court”, The Southern Mail, 13 September 1927, p. 3. G. H. Rudge v William Lloyd, concerning share-farming at Burrawang; the same report includes James P. Griffiths’s horse-loss claim. Initials and locality support the Rudge identification, but the report does not give his full names. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/118706401
56. “Lithgow Wedding: McLean—Rudge”, Lithgow Mercury, 15 February 1945, p. 3. The article reports a recent wedding; its publication date is not the wedding date. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219727337
57. “Six Injured”, Lithgow Mercury, 13 June 1939, under “Minor Accidents”. Eric Rudge, aged 14, of Macauley Street. ↩ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219632200
58. Bowral, Sts Simon and Jude parish marriage register, 19 February 1879–3 January 1912, entry 49: Richard Rudge and Elizabeth Perkins, 27 April 1887, St Luke’s, Upper Mittagong. Ancestry, Sydney Anglican Parish Registers, collection 61177, record 126746. Original image inspected; the automated Sydney locality is incorrect. ↩ https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/61177/images/45578_bow%5Ema18791912-00014?pid=126746
59. National Archives of Australia, B883, QX18107, RUDGE PERCIVAL RICHARD GUY, item 4494210, six-page service file. Attestation, 7 May 1941, and service/discharge records; all six images inspected and saved. Birth date is his declared date, not a newly inspected civil registration. ↩ https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4494210
60. Yewen’s Directory of the Landholders of New South Wales (1900), p. 55, Berrima district, Robertson division, Robertson P.O.: “Rudge, Richard, Mary Vale”. Original page inspected. Ancestry, collection 62688, record 4743. ↩ https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/62688/images/i2893631-00062?pid=4743
61. New South Wales census, 1901, Camden district, G Yarrunga subdistrict, Burrawang, household schedule 134: Richard Rudge, three males and five females. Original return inspected; other occupants are not named. Ancestry, collection 1738, record 220652. ↩ https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/1738/images/32095_223830__0001-00063?pid=220652
62. Wise’s New South Wales towns directory (1900), p. 271, Glenquarry (Roberton Park), Camden county: “Rudge Richard, farmer”. Original image inspected. Ancestry, City Directories and Almanacs, collection 60845, record 57509936. ↩ https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/60845/images/i3195855-00318?pid=57509936
63. Christ Church, Bong Bong, baptism register, 1865, p. 15, entry 196: Richard Rudge, born 31 December 1864 and baptised 29 January 1865; parents George Henry and Mary Pauline, abode Mittagong, father a farmer. Original image inspected. Ancestry, Sydney Anglican Parish Registers, collection 61177, record 50722. ↩ https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/61177/images/45578_bon%5Eco18451932-00020?pid=50722
64. Rob Gay, Rudge Family History, part 2a, opening English pedigree; June 2026 family-workbook research notes 03–06. The remote Charlotte baptism index corrects the century to 1789. Earlier generations are a compiled pedigree, not a newly verified chain of original registers. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/4732/records/962303
65. Family workbook, Rudge Family Tree copy 2.xlsx, as extracted in June 2026 notes 01 and 03. Dates identified in the text as family-workbook dates have not all been checked against certificates. The dated research notes are retained in the reconciliation archive. Source retained in the family archive.
66. National Archives of Australia, B2455, RUDGE JOHN ROY, service no. 5206, item 8072460. Full service dossier; archival page 8 (PDF page 9) records the October 1917 gas casualty and subsequent hospitals. The June John Roy/Anne chapter is a secondary account of other service details. Source retained in the family archive. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8072460
67. Australian War Memorial, 56th Battalion war diary, October 1917, AWM4 23/73/21, printed pp. 6–8 (PDF pp. 7–9). This records the battalion’s bombardment and gas casualties, without naming Jack. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1344303
68. Australian War Memorial, 56th Australian Infantry Battalion, unit history. Unit participation is distinguished from proof of an individual soldier’s actions. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51496
69. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, War Widow(er)’s Pension, historical changes in eligibility: extension to widows of TPI veterans in 1936. Historical eligibility does not establish the basis of Anne’s individual award. Accessed 4 October 2026. https://clik.dva.gov.au/compensation-and-support-reference-library/intent-paper-2013/rehabilitation-and-compensation-veterans-entitlements-act-1986-vea/war-widowers-pension
70. Family genealogy and Rudge_JohnRoy_Anne_Full, June 2026; Chris Rudge’s October 2026 recollection. The saved tree gives 19 September 2004 at Shoalhaven Heads, while Chris initially recalled 1999 and questioned the later date. Neither an original death record nor the pension award has been inspected. The linked cemetery index is a lead. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60528/records/145267393
71. Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1913, East Kangaloon: William Mackey, maintenance man, and Julia Mackey, domestic duties; original image saved in the family archive. September 2026 Mackey–Curtis evidence log also records Julia’s death index, 6986/1919, Bowral, naming Thomas and Mary as parents. Source retained in the family archive. https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/44400_b219743-00231?pId=194139394 https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/1779/records/3950961
72. Tobruk Titbits, family-held transcription preserved in the Maureen Manahan package; diary of Sapper NX21592. Passages cited below follow the transcription. The relationship between wartime manuscript, later recollection and transcription has not been fully established; incidental spelling is preserved in quotations. Source retained in the family archive.
73. National Archives of Australia, B883, RUDGE GEORGE VINCENT SARTO, NX21592, item 4846659. His signed attestation gives 7 February 1908; the 1906 NSW birth index and cemetery age conflict with that declaration. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4846659
74. Rob Gay, Rudge Family History, part 1, undated copy in the family archive. Historical background, surname traditions, transcribed extracts and local recollections are preserved in full as a source companion. They are not all independently verified and do not establish descent from unrelated bearers of the surname. Source retained in the family archive.
75. Notes on Rudge History, family-held conversation notes, including Julie Allen’s recollections. Oral testimony is identified as such; uncertain hotel names and photo identifications remain unresolved. Source retained in the family archive.