Phelan and Atkin Family History

Of the family lines I've researched, the Davenports stand out for their high representation in both World Wars. No fewer than 12 Davenports and their descendants signed up for the First World War, and 26 for the Second (including my own father of course!). Add in men who married into the family and these numbers rise to 18 and 45! Four of these brave men would lose their lives in WW1 and two in WW2. Unfortunately, these came from just two family branches. I have already written about three of those six: brothers Charles and Ken Cowan, and their nephew Ken Clark, descendants of Joseph Cowan and Florence Davenport. The second family which suffered loss was that of George and Emily Stone, of Mornington, the subject of my previous post. You might remember that they had a large brood of 13 children! Four of their seven sons would go on to fight in the First World War (Ted, Clive, Roy and Hugh), Clive and Roy never to return. A fifth son (Les) was signing up just as the conflict came to ...

In the last post I mentioned that two of John Davenport's daughters, Caroline and Emily married two brothers from the Stone family of Mornington, Henry and George. While Caroline and Henry ultimately moved back to Melbourne, George and Emily remained in Mornington, where they raised a huge family.  In the early 1880s, Emily Davenport found employment working as a nursemaid to the children of Rev. James Caldwell at 'Glenbank', where she caught the eye of George Stone, who worked there as a gardener. In 1883 they married and took up residence at Herbert Street, where George had purchased land the year before next to blocks purchased by the Rev. Caldwell, and built a two-roomed cottage. Herbert Street was separated from Mornington proper by Tanti Creek, so George built a bridge to make getting into town easier. Eventually the council replaced this with a new bridge, and signs today still mark it as 'Stone's Crossing'.                  ...

Now to possibly one of the biggest discoveries I have made researching my family history - certainly for a Hawthorn supporter - finding out that you are related to someone who many people believe was the greatest ever VFL/AFL player to have played the game!  You may remember in a previous post I wrote about John Davenport, and a visit I made to a 3rd cousin named Lesley in Adelaide. Well Lesley took me to meet an older relative of hers, maybe an aunt... I can't quite remember who it was but I do remember she was grumpy and her small dog attacked me as soon as I arrived, biting me on the shin! But I digress. It was during a conversation with this old woman where she informed me that we were related to Leigh Matthews! Once I got home I did the necessary research to establish that Leigh and I are indeed third cousins, ie. my great-grandmother Florence Cowan nee Davenport and Leigh's great-grandmother Caroline Stone nee Davenport were sisters (daughters of the aforementioned John D...