Phelan and Atkin Family History

In my last post I wrote about my 2x great-grandfather John Davenport who sailed out to Australia from England in 1849. He wasn't the only member of his family to make the trip: brother Richard Davenport, 12 years his junior, also make the journey sometime in the mid to late 1850s. While I don't know the exact circumstances of his arrival, I do know that Richard ended up in the town of Learmonth, approximately 22 km northwest of Ballarat, on today's Sunraysia Highway. He resided at 'South Park Cottage' at Saddle Back Hill on the south shore of Lake Learmonth, where today you will find Davenport Road and Davenport Park, no doubt named for him! However another lake features prominently in Richard's story. For many years he was the curator/caretaker of parks for the Ballarat Shire Council, with a particular focus being Burrumbeet Park on the shores of the lake of the same name, which lies a few kilometres to the south on the Western Highway.   In 1894, a visitor to ...

John Davenport This week I turn my attention to the Davenport branch of the family tree. Dad's maternal grandmother was Florence Cowan, nee Davenport. Florence was the 8th of 10 children born to John and Elizabeth Davenport. John Davenport was born in 1824, the son of 'carver and gilder' William Davenport and his wife Charlotte, and grew up in the Bethnal Green/Shoreditch area, part of London's East End. In 1849, at age 24, John sailed out from London to Adelaide on board the Calcutta . He married fellow immigrant Elizabeth Froggatt in Adelaide in 1851 (she had arrived just three days before John on the Florentia ) but once the gold rush hit they came to Victoria to try their luck at Fryers Creek - this is where Florence was born in 1865. By 1872, John had brought his family to Ascot Vale where he set up business as a painter. It was here that Florence met and married local architect Joseph Charles Martin Cowan (whom I previously wrote about in my three part post 'A...

When my sister Sue first looked into our family history some 25 years ago, her biggest discovery was probably the divorce of Mum's maternal grandparents, Nicholas and Margaret Lawless. For years Mum and her siblings had believed that their grandfather had died in an electrical accident. However this was not so: the reality was the marriage had ended in a divorce newsworthy enough to have made papers across the country! The year was 1905, so divorce was still seen as scandalous - being Roman Catholics wouldn't have helped - and making this case even more notable was that the petitioner was Margaret. In those days, divorces were harder to be won when instigated by the wife.  Nicholas and Margaret Lawless, possibly on their wedding day Nicholas Lawless had been born in Gordon near Ballarat in 1868, but sometime around 1888 his family moved to Gippsland, as that area was opening up to farming. Similarly Margaret Catherine Kenny, who had been born in Warrnambool in 1875, had moved a...

The Cowan brothers: Charles standing, Ken seated at right (with younger brother Arthur seated at left) One of the interesting parts of my journey in family history research has been discovering the many men in our family who served in the Great War. Dad in fact had uncles on the Phelan side who served that he himself didn't recall. But there were another two who were definitely remembered: Ken and Charles Cowan were the two eldest sons of Joseph Charles Martin Cowan and Florence Davenport, and would also have been Dad's uncles were it not for the fact that both were killed in the horrific conflict. Ken and Charles were among the first men to sign up in support of the empire. On 11 August 1914, just one week after the declaration of war, the call went out for volunteers in Australia. Four days later, on 15 August, both boys showed up to heed that call, Ken enlisting at Melbourne and Charles at Moonee Ponds. Harry Kennett (Ken) Cowan was 20 years old, had been working as a grocer...

The First World War claimed the lives of several members of the Phelan and Atkin family trees, however not as many suffered the same fate in the Second World War - in fact it may have only been one: Dad's first cousin George Kennett Charles Gilbert Clark, known as Ken. The name 'Kennett' was likely bestowed in honour of Ken's (and Dad's) uncle Harry Kennett Cowan, who was one of those to be tragically killed in the preceding war. Harry, also known as Ken, and his brother Charles Cowan both paid the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War; I will write about their wartime experience in a future post. Ken Clark was the son of Harold and Essie Clark (nee Cowan) and was employed as a window dresser at the time of his enlistment, on 20 May 1940 at Brighton, a month after his 25th birthday. His initial posting was to the 2/14th Battalion and he embarked at Sydney on 19 October on the Aquitania , arriving in the Middle East on 25 November. He spent over a year there, but...

Welcome to my first post in a very long time! Despite Covid seeming to be the perfect opportunity to power ahead with my research and blogging, I actually found myself concentrating on other projects. I hope to get back into the research soon, but I did have this post sitting around as a draft from when I was researching my Phelan ancestors: it is about a family link to an American World War II Flying Ace, James Mugavero: James Dennis Mugavero was born on 3 July 1920 in Port Huron, Michigan. He grew up there and attended Port Huron Junior College before enlisting in the U.S. Army following the United States’ entry into World War II. He applied for pilot training, was accepted, and was sent to Arcadia Field, Florida, for Primary Flight Training, with Basic Flight School at Bainbridge Field, Georgia. He subsequently earned his wings and commission as a Second Lieutenant at Marianna, Florida on 1 October 1943. Following additional training in the P-47, Lieutenant Mugavero was sent to the ...

At 5.35pm on the evening of 2 September 1948, the ANA DC3 airliner Lutana (pictured above), took off from Archerfield Airport in Brisbane on a routine flight to Sydney. It was carrying 10 passengers and 3 crew, including the pilot, Captain John Drummond. Above Coffs Harbour the captain reported that there was heavy ice on the plane, and was given permission to descend slightly. At 7.56 he reported that he was over Williamtown air base near Newcastle, and after brief further contact at 8.12pm, all looked on track for the expected 8.55pm arrival at Mascot. Except that it never arrived. Reports of an aircraft heard flying very low off Terrigal in misty rain at around 8.15pm led to initial fears that the Lutana had crashed into the sea. Several RAAF planes and civil aircraft searched the sea without luck the next day. On September 4 an oil slick near Swansea was spotted, lending weight to the theory of a crash at sea. Among the passengers listed missing was a  Mr Rossiter of 392 Uppe...