The Blood/Dingle Genealogy Pages

My Pioneer Ancestors

My ancestors, on both my mother's and my father's side, all came to South Australia in the years between 1837 and 1854.

Captain John Hindmarsh was gazetted as the first Governor of South Australia on 21 January 1836.

The first South Australian colonists arrived at Kangaroo Island during 1836, and Captain Hindmarsh arrived at Holdfast Bay, South Australia aboard the "Buffalo", on 28 December 1836. The establishment of government in South Australia as a province of Great Britain was proclaimed on that date. And it should be noted that South Australia is the only Australian State that took no convict settlers, but was entirely free settled.

The first of my ancestors to arrive here, Augustus Winter, who was my mother's great-grandfather, landed at Holdfast Bay 15 days later, on 12 January 1837, with his wife and child. Augustus married again here in Adelaide, some years later, and it is his second wife, Zillah Blackeby of London, who was my mother's great-grandmother. At this stage I have been unsuccessful in tracing the fate of Augustus' first wife and child.

Although the Pioneers Association of South Australia defines our true pioneers as having arrived on or before 31 December 1845, and some of my ancestors did not arrive until up to nine years after that date, I am equally proud to be descended from those adventurous folk, and consider them to all be South Australian Pioneers.

My Pioneer Ancestors are:

1. My Paternal Ancestry (in order of their arrival in South Australia):
   
   
   • WILLIAM BAKER and MARY THOMAS arrived at Port Adelaide from Calcutta via Mauritius, aboard the "Emerald Isle", on 24 July 1838. William was from Lincolnshire, England, and Mary, descended from English and Indian stock, was born in Mauritius. Mary came to South Australia as an employee of the Gleeson family - she was the nursery governess to the son of Edward Burton Gleeson, who afterwards became a well-known resident of Clare. William and Mary married here in Adelaide on 11 February 1843, and were my father's great-grandparents; their daughter ANNIE, a South Australian born and bred, (born at Undalya, Rhynie, on 28 Apr, 1852) married William Howie.
     
     
   • DR.MATTHEW HENRY SMYTH-BLOOD, with his wife MARIANNE CHARLOTTE (née BLOOD) and children, came from County Clare, Ireland, and arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "Success", on 27 January 1848. Their son JOHN HENRY, who was 7 when he arrived, was my father's grandfather, and married Mary Enock. Matthew Henry came as the ship's doctor, andf was later to become the first mayor of Kapunda, in South Australia's mid-north. He and Marianne were friends of the Bagot family, also of County Clare, who discovered copper at Kapunda, and their youngest surviving daughter (my great-great-grandaunt) was named Mary Bagot. The Blood family and the Bagots are related by marriage.
     
     
   • THOMAS ENOCK and his wife MARGARET (née HENDERSON) arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "Jenny Lind" on 13 Jun 1850. Thomas was English and Margaret was a Scot; they were my father's great-grandparents. Their daughter MARY, another true South Australian, born in Adelaide on 21 Dec 1852, married John Henry Smyth-Blood.
     
     
   • WILLIAM HOWIE, from Kilmarnock, Scotland, son of HUGH HOWIE and MARY DUNLOP, was 15 when he arrived in Adelaide as a crew member aboard the "Steadfast", on Nov 1852. William was my father's grandfather; he married Annie Baker.
     
     
2. My Maternal Ancestry:
   
   
   • AUGUSTUS TIMOTHY WINTER, from London, arrived at Holdfast Bay aboard the "Coromandel", on 12 January 1837, with his first wife and child. Augustus was my mother's great-grandfather; his second wife was Zillah Blackeby. Sadly, at this stage nothing is known of the fate of Augustus' first wife and child.
     
     
   • WILLIAM DINGLE, with his wife JANE (née POMERY) and baby son, came from Cornwall, and arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "Royal Admiral", on 18 January 1838. William and Jane were my mother's great-grandparents. Their South Australian-born son JOHN married another true South Australian - Selina Winter, daughter of Augustus Winter and Zillah Blackeby.
     
     
   • WILLIAM FOSTER SERGEANT, with his wife CATHERINE (née GILDERDALE) and children, were from Lincolnshire, England. They arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "Canton", on 2 May 1838. MARY GOODWIN SERGEANT, who was 7 when she arrived, was my mother's great-grandmother; she married Thomas Moss.
     
     
   • ZILLAH BLACKEBY of London arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "Forfarshire" on 1 August 1848. Zillah married Augustus Winter on 15 January 1850, and was my mother's great-grandmother. Zillah travelled to South Australia alone; her father, stepmother and several siblings also joined the colony of South Australia during those pioneer days, but Zillah came on her own, leaving family and friends to join family and new friends, and I am in awe of her spirit and her bravery.
     
     
   • JOHN MOSS with his wife MARY (née AKES) and children also came from Lincoln, and arrived at Port Adelaide aboard the "John Woodall" on 17 January 1849. Their son THOMAS, who was 20 when he arrived here, was my mother's great-grandfather; Thomas married Mary Goodwin Sergeant, and their daughter Mary Goodwin Sergeant Moss married James Brown.
     
     
   • ANDREW BROWN, with his wife JEAN (Ann) and three children arrived at Port Adelaide on 27 August 1854, aboard the "Marion" from Liverpool. Andrew and Jean were both Scots, and their fourth child, JAMES, born in 1855 here in Balhannah, South Australia, was my mother's grandfather; James married Mary Goodwin Sergeant Moss. James' birthdate is extrapolated from his marriage and death certificates; sadly, some records from Balhannah, including James' birth record, were destroyed by fire many years ago, and so further information can never be forthcoming.
     
     

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Interesting Relatives

• Sir Francis Chichester - in 1966/67 he became the first person to circumnavigate the globe singlehandedly, by yacht.
• Robert Holmes à Court - the first Australian businessman to achieve a worth of over a billion dollars.
• Jeffrey Archer - author.
• Nick Minchin - South Australian politician.
• Denys Finch-Hatton - played by Robert Redford in "Out of Africa" (my all-time favourite movie!)
• Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire, immortalised in the book "The Duchess" - and the movie of the same name.
• Chris B. - one of my first boyfriends.
• Peter R. - my sister and I went to primary school with him. I remember him because he got knocked off his bicycle right outside our house. Thankfully there was no lasting damage...
• Colin Cowdrey - played Test Cricket for England from 1954-1975.
• Guglielmo Marconi - inventor of the radio; awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 32nd POTUS.
• Capt. Charles Sturt - explorer of Australia.
• Francis Bacon - English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author.
• And last, but by no means least, Queen Elizabeth II, who has the dubious honour of being my 7th cousin.

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