Phillipa (Vincent) Broad (abt. 1856 - 1921)

Born about 1856 in St Stephen, Cornwall, England

Wife of Jonathan Broad — married Jul 1885 in St Mary & St Cuthbert Church, Chester-le-Street, Durham, England

Descendants

Died 1921 at about age 65 in Scone, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Phillipa Vincent was born in Saint Stephen, Cornwall around 1856, the daughter of a Cornish lead and iron miner William Vincent and his wife Ann. Phillipa never learned to read or write.

The Vincent family moved to the Durham coalfields and in 1871, 14 year old Phillipa was living with her family at Seaham Colliery, on the North Sea coast of County Durham.

By 1881, after she had left home and her older brothers had also become miners, the family had moved a little further north to Hetton-le-Hole and then Tunstall, both near Sunderland. And just as well too: on 8 September 1880 there was an explosion at the Seaham Colliery. Of the 230 miners and boys working underground on the “back-shift”, only 66 were rescued.

Phillis (her preferred name, later spelt Phyllis) had her first child Sarah Vincent in 1872, when she was 16, at Seaham. There was to be an 8 year gap before her next child, so it is unlikely that Jonathan Broad was the father of Sarah Vincent / Broad.

Phillis had her second daughter, Evelina Broad, at Waldridge Fell in Durham in 1880 and Jonathan Broad is the presumed father.

Nine months later the 1881 Census, our first record of them together, shows Jonathan and Phillis Broad living in one of the row houses along Broom Road in Ferryhill, Durham. This town was on the southern edge of the Durham coalfields and there were numerous collieries nearby.

Jonathan was a 32 year old Coal Miner living with his wife Phillis 24, daughter Sarah 8 and Evelina 9 months old. Feling Bridge, which is given as the birthplace for Evelina, is presumed to be Fylands Bridge, Durham, now St Helen Auckland, near Bishop Auckland and just west of Ferryhill.

The couple went on to have another 3 daughters before they were legally married.

Between 1882 and 1884 the family lived at the Durham coal-mining town of Waldridge Fell, where Jane and Ellen were born and then they moved to nearby Chester-le-Street.

At the St Mary & St Cuthbert Church, Jane was baptised in 1882, Ellen and (belatedly) Evelina were baptised in 1884, and Jonathan & Phillis were married in July 1885. Matilda was also born at Chester-le-Street in 1886.

With the continuing decline of mining in Cornwall, thousands of Cornishmen took their families overseas to America and Australia.

Under the Queensland Immigration Act of 1886, a Remittance Passage Warrant could be obtained by any person residing in Queensland for more than 6 months, for a friend or relative in Europe, on payment of the required amount. The warrant was then forwarded to the friend or relative in Europe, who would present the warrant to the nearest Queensland Government representative, and passage would be arranged for the emigrant at a greatly reduced rate.

It is not known who paid for the Remittance Passage Warrants for Jonathan and his family, but his elder brother John, who was later a farmer in Tasmania, may have preceded him to Australia.

In late 1887, when infant Matilda was strong enough to make the long sea voyage, the Broad family became Remittance passengers to Queensland.

Jonathan 35, Phillipa 31 and children Sarah 15, Eveline (Evelina) 6, Jane 5, Ellen 3 & Matilda 1 were part of a complement of 478 passengers aboard the British India Steamship Company’s vessel RMS Merkara.

A barquentine-rigged schooner, it was 368 ft long by 37 ft beam by 28 ft deep with 2 decks; its compound steam engine and single screw gave a service speed of 10 knots; from 1881-96 it made 31 voyages from London to Queensland, averaging just 57 days. The ship left the Royal Albert Docks, London on 19 Sep 1887 and Gravesend on the next day. It passed through the Suez Canal and called at Thursday Island and Cooktown, arriving at Cleveland Bay (Townsville) on 10 November 1887. It then sailed on to Bowen, Port Alma (Rockhampton) en route to Moreton Bay (Brisbane) which it entered on 15 November 1887.

The Broad family disembarked at Townsville, but it is not known what they did at that point. Perhaps they travelled north to the new tin mine at Port Douglas, perhaps they rode on the new railway line to Charters Towers and joined the gold rush there. Perhaps, with the railway line being completed that year to join Brisbane to Cairns / Cooktown on the coast and Charleville in the west, Jonathan became a railway fettler there

In Queensland, a son William was born on 2 March 1888 but he died 3 months later on 13 June. For some reason, Benson is given as Phillis’s maiden name on both the birth and death certificates, but it is almost certainly her. Perhaps it was a misspelling of Vincent, or the middle name of William Benson Broad?

The fact that the same strange mistake is made on both certificates indicates that perhaps they were written at the same time – that is, the Broads were living at a remote location when William was born and he had already died by the time they came to a place where they could register his birth and his death.

We do not know how or why they left Queensland, but we next find them all in the Singleton NSW coalfields, where another 4 children were born: Kate in 1892, James 1893, Thomas 1895 and Elizabeth in 1900. When Kate was baptised in 1892, Jonathan gave his occupation as “Railway Fettler”.

These birth registrations are our only tangible records, we cannot track them through the census as NSW census records for 1891 and 1901 and the first national census in 1911 were statistical compilations and did not record names.

Their ten children were:

1. Sarah born Sarah Vincent 1872 Seaham, Durham, England

2. Evelina born 1881 Feling Bridge (?) probably Fylands Bridge, Durham, England

3. Jane Ann born 1882 Waldridge Fell, Durham, England

4. Ellen born 1884 Waldridge Fell, Durham, England

5. Matilda born 1886 Chester-le-Street, Durham, England

6. William born 1888 Qld, died at age 3 months

7. Kate (Ancestor) born 1892 Glennies Creek NSW

8. James born 1893 Singleton NSW

9. Thomas born 1895 Singleton NSW

10. Elizabeth born 1900

The 1901 census has Jonathan Broad at Rothbury in the Hunter Valley NSW with 4 males and 5 females in the household. The 4 males would be Jonathan 49, James 8, Thomas 6, and ?. The 5 females would be Phillis 45, Ellen 17, Matilda 15, Kate 9, and Elizabeth 1. So Jane (May) 19, Evelina 20 and Sarah 29 are elsewhere, or dead.

Oral history of Ted Alterator, the son of Kate, tells us the Broads were living opposite the Alterators in Park Street, Scone when Charles Alterator and Kate Broad were courting before their marriage in 1913.

Phyllis Broad died at Scone in 1921.

Sources

Phillipa Vincent birth

1. 1861 England Census: Class RG 9, Piece 1551, Folio 30, Page 4, GSU roll 542830

2. 1871 England Census: Class RG10, Piece 4978, Folio 61, Page 46, GSU roll 847434.

3. 1881 England Census: Class RG11, Piece 4903, Folio 51, Page 41, GSU roll 1342179.

4. Registers of Immigrant Ships' Arrivals: Series: Series ID 13086, Roll: M1703; Queensland State Archives

Marriage – Jonathon Broad & Phillipa Vincent

1. England & Wales Marriage Index, 1837-1915; Free BMD – from England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes; London, England, General Register Office.

Broad family arrival in Australia

1. Registers of Immigrant Ships' Arrivals: Series: Series ID 13086, Roll: M1703; Queensland State Archives

Phyllis Broad death

1. Death Certificate NSW BDM 3043/1921 (1921 at Scone); New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; Sydney New South Wales, Australia