| A genealogical presentation of the life and times of the ancestors and descendants of William Henry Mathews (1880 – 1964) and his wife Sara Louisa Florence Mitchell (1889 – 1972). |
| THE MITCHELL FAMILY LINEAGE – the children of John and Susannah (Sarah) – |
| Francis “Frank” Anderson Mitchell (1851 – 1936) Unlike his siblings, Frank was born south of the river Thames, the event being registered in Bermondsey, London. He was still a babe-in-arms when he boarded HMS Asiatic for the family's journey to the antipodes. Frank Mitchell was twenty-four when he, and his brother John, travelled from Dunedin, New Zealand to the northern shores of New South Wales. The pair journeyed north from Newcastle with John finding employment with a blacksmith in the Macleay River district. Frank ventured further afield eventually finding work as a timber labourer in the Gladstone area. The New South Wales Government Gazette of 1879 records Frank [1] as an applicant for a land grant of 50 acres in the Raleigh district, and he eventually found steady employment as an overseer of roads in the Nambucca Shire. In 1887 thirty-six-year-old Frank married a twenty-one-year-old Irish lass named Margaret Mary “Margaretta” Kathleen McCARTHY (1868 – 1945), the ceremony taking place on the 17th of November 1887 at the Bowraville Catholic Church. |
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Seeking more fulfilling employment, Frank and his new spouse chose to head south to a new community at Mitchell's Creek in the central west region of New South Wales, with local newspapers [2] promoting attractive job opportunities at the Sunny Corner Silver Mining Company. During their journey a visit to brother John and his wife was timely as Margaretta was pregnant with their first child Charles John Vincent (1888 – 1969), his birth being registered in Boat Harbour, just north of Newcastle. The family arrived in Sunny Corner the following year where they built their family home. Frank became a smelter at the factory and he and Margaretta raised another eight children: Francis William Joseph (1890 – 1918), Norman (1892 – 1894), Eileen Mary (1894 – 1970), Kathleen Philomena (1896 – 1980), Madalene Lucy (1898 – 1981), Islet Margaret (1901 – 1994), Justin Robert Leo (1903 – 1972) and Marshall Patrick Bede (1907 – 1975). |
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The family lived in Sunny Corner for twenty-three years, Frank working until his retirement. In 1913 the family moved to Portland where Frank and Margaretta purchased a residence on Ridge Street. Frank continued a modified working life for a period at the Cullen Bullen coal mines with his son Charles until ill health saw him hospitalised in 1936. |
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Frank died on the 5th of September 1936. Margaret survived him by nine years. |
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