A family reunion is planned for the weekend of July 26-27 at Parramatta and Liverpool for descendants of James Chilvers, one of John Macarthur's carpenters.
The couple had seven children and the family were pioneers in the Camden area.Elizabeth Chilvers, his daughter, married Frederick Taplin in 1850.
Associated names CHILVERS, COMBER, DAWSON, HALL, HAWKEN, LYGOE, McKENZIE, PENGLAZE, TAPLIN, TIMMINS
For reunion details please contact Karys Fearon on 4323 1849, or at jkfearon@iinet.net.au
Karys Fearon, Tascott
Background
Our family interest is in the history of Thomas Chilvers 1816-1896, as we are having a Bi-centennial celebration on the weekend of 26/27th July 2014 to commemorate the arrival of his mother, Mary Smith, on the "Broxbornebury", that arrived in Port Jackson on the 28th of July 1814. Mary was sent to the Female Factory in Parramatta. Evidently she found "accommodation" with James Chilvers who was working for Mrs Elizabeth MacArthur on Elizabeth Farm at the time. Thomas was born in 1816 in Parramatta, and after his father James was accidentally killed in January 1825, he and his five and a half year old brother James were sent to the Male Orphan School at Bonnyrigg, Thomas was 9, James did not survive, dying from Dysentery in the May of that year. Thomas was eventually apprenticed to a Sydney boat builder named William Brown of Macquarie Place.
Mary's female children, Mary and Elizabeth were sent to the Female Orphan School, eventually being apprenticed out as domestic servants.
In our research up to now, it is obvious that the "Thomas Chilvers" that became a boat builder in the Stockton area, and the numerous references to him gleaned through "Trove" indicates that he is "our" Thomas Chilvers and he had a long and productive association with Stockton.
He married and had 7 children, they also married and the surnames of the females became, Penglaze, McKenzie, Dawson and Hildreth. The son Thomas married and had 7 children, adding the surnames of Ralph, Houston and Harvey to the growing descendants through subsequent generations, to include James Chilvers who became the licensee of the Federal Hotel Stockton as well as a boat builder and his son James, who was killed accidentally in 1930 when working on the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
