The Stories from the Stones 24 - By Steve Lavender

'Stories from the Stones'
Please visit the Contents Page for this section where you will find other 'Stories from the Stones.' From the St John’s Church Burial Ground Project.

These same stories are also published on Penistone Archive Group's Facebook page, their Journal and in 'The Bridge' magazine issued by St John's church, Penistone. Many thanks to their tireless author, Mr Steve Lavender, for his worthy contributions to local history and this website. - JB.

Story 24 - William Bedford Mitchell (Senior), Born Penistone 13.9.1833, Died Bunbury Western Australia 1.4.1907

Part 2 of the Mitchell trilogy (Stories 23, 24 and 25). See also Part 1 and Part 3.

This is 'a first' for the Stories of the Stones. An additional story of a member of the Mitchell family to take a look at; someone who we just mentioned in passing during Story 23 yet made me question aspects of his life which led to his own story being worthy of a place in our series. Indeed, you may have also thought - as I did whilst reading number 23 - 'What on earth was behind a young farmer from the outskirts of Penistone at Dean Head Farm making a decision at the age of 22 to sail halfway around the world to begin a new life?' At the same time what might we be able to discover about him rather than simply saying – "Oh, he had fifteen children – the first of which rose to the highest state appointment."

As I am now located in Perth WA, I have been able to take advantage of the local library facilities to look into Australian immigration and individuals’ activities. With that in mind here is William Bedford Mitchell’s (Senior) Story. Sometime in January or February of 1856, William, possibly whilst outside in the cold Penistone air of winter, decided that he was going to make the journey to Australia. It is fascinating to wonder how he learnt of the opportunities which might be open to him during a time before the basic communications had been established. That being said, he made his way to Liverpool (maybe alone, certainly without any of his family) and boarded the ship The Royal Charter. This ship itself has quite a story which I will add as a short postscript.

'The Royal Charter' was an iron-hulled steam clipper launched on the River Dee in 1855, it had three clipper masts and a single funnel. She could carry up to 600 passengers and offered a remarkable 60-day journey to Australia for £14 and, whilst this seems quite a good deal, in today’s money that would equate to just under £2,000, which would seem quite a cost for a farmer’s son. The ship made a good trade not only in taking prospectors out to Australia but also making the return journey bringing back those who had successfully made their fortune out in the goldfields of Victoria. The Australian immigration records show that The Royal Charter berthed at Port Phillip (the immigration port for Melbourne) on 13th April 1856. William had travelled with four others who all recorded their trade as miners. It may be that his travel companions were from the Penistone area but maybe you have more information and can share that with me – their names are Mr Hoyland (40); Mr Charles Sanderson (30); Mr Pope (17); Mr Prisk (43) and Nicholas Penrose (33).

From Melbourne, William made his way up to the Ballarat Goldfields around 115km to the northwest of Melbourne. Gold had been discovered there in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush saw around 6,000 miners (now named 'Diggers' in Australia) arriving each week to try their luck. We can find no further record of William’s life in Ballarat except that during the 1860s the gold rush had peaked, and that Ballarat was beginning to make the transition from a gold rush centre to an industrial city. The next news we have of William is that he has left the Ballarat goldfields (did he make that fortune he was seeking?) and arrives in Fremantle (the port of Perth) on 16th February 1861 in Western Australia on the ship 'Elisha Dunbar.' From Fremantle he makes his way a few hours south to the Bunbury region where he is recorded as being employed as an Estate Manager on the Prinsep (sometimes Princep) Park estate.

Whilst this story might seem a bit of an afterthought to that of Sir James Mitchell, the more I discover about William Bedford Mitchell’s life, the more I am impressed with his hopes and ambitions. The Prinsep Park estate at Paradise was named for the Prinsep family and purchased on the family’s behalf during the 1840s. Charles Robert Prinsep was from part of the family involved with the East India Company and had seen service in the Indian government. Henry Charles Prinsep was the second son of Charles, born in 1844. Following a variety of travels and personal events, Henry settled in Paradise where he would employ William.

On 24th July 1865 William married Caroline Morgan in Bussleton. Caroline’s family were from Breconshire, Wales, and the two had met a few years earlier at a horse race meeting (Caroline was an experienced horse rider). They moved into Paradise Farm in 1867 where they began their family and as we told earlier the first of their children was James. This would seem a reasonable place to end our story however William’s story continues – for many years he was a buyer of horses which would be transported to the Indian polo market. Indeed it was mentioned in his obituary that he was a remarkably good judge of horses. Not surprisingly, he also loved horse racing as a sport and won the Queen’s Plate in Perth on two occasions with 'Star of the South.' For a number of years he was the handicapper for both the Perth Racing Club and the Bunbury Racing Club. During the coming years he prospered in his supply of polo horses to the Indian market and the family had 15 children. William Bedford Mitchell died in 1907 at the age of 73 and his wife Caroline passed away in 1918 at the age of 71.

When Richard and I started the process of finding out who was buried at St John’s churchyard in Penistone and trying to discover their stories, little did we expect to find such a wealth of interesting characters associated with our market town. It is clear that the research into the Mitchells could go on and on, but this is where I have to draw this particular one to a close – well almost! If you recall that William arrived on the ship The Royal Charter, we find that this ship had a particularly sad end to its life – which now appears as a Postscript below. For now, if you are part of the extended Mitchell family and can add to this particular story please let me know. My thanks as usual to all who have helped put this together

Ancestry.com
The Mitchell family
St John’s Church Penistone Burial Ground Project
Richard Galliford
Written by Steve Lavender formerly Chair of the Friends of St John’s Church, October 2024

Story 24 Postscript
The final days of 'The Royal Charter', 25/26th October 1859

Our Stories 23 and 24 record that William Bedford Mitchell left Liverpool on board The Royal Charter in 1856 arriving at Port Phillip (Melbourne) on 13th April. The ship was a steam clipper and was renowned for its speedy passage (often less than 60 days) between England and Australia. The ship was used mainly to transfer passengers from England to Australia at the time of the gold rush in the 1850s. Understandably, as time passed there was also a trade in passengers returning from Australia, having made their fortune and returning back to England. In late August of 1859, the Royal Charter left Melbourne with around 371 passengers, a crew of 112 and some other company employees. The records show that many of the passengers were carrying considerable amounts of gold on their person and that there was also around 79,000 ounces of gold bullion loaded onto the ship (at today’s price of gold, this would equate to £150 million).

The journey was uneventful until the ship reached the north-western tip of Anglesey on the 25th October 1859, when the barometer reading started to fall. The wind rose dramatically to storm Force 10 and moved direction from E to NE and then NNE driving the ship toward the Anglesey coast. The ship was unable to battle the strong winds and was at first grounded on a sandbank. However, a rising tide, continuing storm winds and huge waves led to the ship to being battered on the rocks and she quickly broke up. Most of the passengers and crew died, some being crushed against the rocks, others drowning being weighed down by their belts full of gold. There were around 40 survivors – all men. No women or children survived.

Following the breakup of the ship, a large quantity of gold is said to have been thrown up onto the beach at Port Helaeth. In 2012 a prospector from Norfolk found what was then Britain’s biggest gold nugget (3.4 ounces with today’s value of around 7,000GBP) in the waters around Anglesey. For many years, scuba divers continued to find sovereigns, pistols, spectacles and other items from the area. Today the wreck remains just off shore in less than 5 metres of water. 140 of those who perished are buried in the local churches at St Gallgo’s and Llanallgo where there is also a memorial to those lost. Amongst those who perished were a Mr and Mrs Mitchell.

My thanks to Ancestry.com and Wikipedia.
Shipwreck picture from People's Collection Wales, Creative Commons (non-commercial) usage. (See also Anglesey History).

Steve Lavender October 2024
Former Chair, Friends of St John’s Church 2023, St John’s Burial Ground Project, Stories of the Stones Sept 2024.