Elizabeth Moore (Kennedy) Hume (1763 - 1847)

HUME, ELIZA MORE (née KENNEDY) (b. Kent, England, c. 1760; d. Gunning, NSW, 14 Aug 1847). Public servant, landholder, mother of Hamilton Hume, friend of the Aborigines.

Eliza Kennedy was the youngest daughter of the Rev John Kennedy who, in 1789, became vicar of Teston and Nettlestead in Kent. This church had a strong evangelical tradition, involvement with the anti-slave trade movement and one of the first Sunday schools in England.

A year after the emigration of her brother-in-law, Matthew Pearce, to Australia, she accompanied her widowed brother, James Raworth Kennedy, and two of his three children aboard the Royal Sovereign. They came as free settlers and arrived on 5 Nov 1795. On 29 Sept 1796 at St John's, Parramatta, she married Andrew Hamilton Hume, who had come out from Ireland five years earlier. At first they lived in Parramatta during Andrew's unsuccessful tenancies as official storekeeper, and later superintendent of livestock. In 1806 they moved to the Hawkesbury, losing everything three times by fire or flood. Only after he was granted land in Appin in 1811, did the family settle down.

Described as an 'equable' woman who exhibited great patience with her husband's erratic behaviour, her contributions to the fledgling colony were noteworthy. She was the first woman appointed to a public position, as senior mistress of the newly established Orphan School for homeless and unwanted girls in Parramatta, at a salary of £40 pa. She retired from this only because of difficult domestic circumstances and a growing family. Behind this appointment may well lie her prior involvement in the Sunday school for the poor and uneducated in Teston.

She was one of the first women to receive a land and cattle grant, some 60 acres at Prospect Hill in 1809. This was due to the advocacy of the Lieutenant Governor's wife, Mrs Paterson, who had helped gain her initial appointment at the school.

She educated her four surviving children at home, the eldest being Hamilton Hume, the first native-born Australian explorer (b. 1797). His legendary ability to get on with and protect the Aborigines stemmed largely from her influence. Her exposure to the anti-slave trade movement in England may have been a factor here. In later years she is said to have found a home on a station in NW Vic for the last of the Waradgery tribe. Apart from Hamilton's explorations, two other of her children helped open up land to the south and west of Sydney, viz Francis Rawdon Hume and John Kennedy Hume. Through marriage, they and her niece also developed links with other influential early families, eg the Dight's of Richmond, and the Howe's of Windsor. If, as has been suggested, the Kennedy clan was among the most significant contributors to the early colony, a vital place must be given to Eliza More alongside her better-known brother, James Raworth, and his son, John.

J Severn, The Teston Story: Kent Village Life Through the Ages (Teston, 1975); R H Webster, Currency Lad: The Story of Hamilton Hume and the Explorers (Sydney, 1988); ADB 1, 'Hume, Andrew Hamilton' and 'Hume, Hamilton'

http://webjournals.ac.edu.au/journals/adeb/h_/hume-eliza-more-1760-1847/

November 5, 1795 ‎(Age 35)‎

Sydney Cove, Greater Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Hide Details Source: Huntley, Hamilton Douglas. Some Australian pioneer families : their genealogy and history. ‎[Ryde, N.S.W.]‎: the author, 1978-1979 Text: Eliza's father had remarried late in life and Eliza was not able to agree with her new stepmother. She decided to leave home, and eventually accompanied her widowed brother James and his three motherless girls to the colony. Eliza arrived in the colony aboard the ship 'Royal Sovereign' with her brother James Raworth. Upon arrival, Elizabeth obtained a matronship or an orphanage at Parramatta and held this until a few years later when she married Andrew Hamilton Hume.