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The Helyar Family |
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CHAPTER THREE - THE HELYAR FAMILY Wat Tyler and Coker Court
The information in this chapter is by courtesy of Valda Strauss whose great grandmother, Mary Amelia Helyar, and my great grandmother, Eliza Helyar, were sisters. Valda has done a large amount of research on the family amongst the records in England including those in the Somerset Records' office at Taunton. Helier, Helyer, Hellier, Helyar and variations, are derived from the Anglo-Saxon "helian", to heal over, and the word came to refer to roof-coverers, such as tilers - the historical character Wat Tyler was sometimes known as Gualterus Helier. Elias Helyar, of whose ancestry nothing is known, was born l May 1804 near Yeovil, Somerset, England. Elias's parents were John and Elizabeth Helyar, the father being a shoemaker and cordwainer. The name Helyar is of some prominence in this area of Somerset, and at East Coker there is a beautiful Tudor home, "Coker Court", owned by the Helyar family for over 600 years, the family being described in Burke’s Landed Gentry as dating back to as early as 1345. The mansion still stands, but was sold soon after the last Helyar died in the 1940s. While Elias Helyar and his son George spoke of the Helyars of Coker Court as family connections, the link has not been authenticated. Valda Strauss, having researched the Coker Court family tree and wills, believes there is no connection. On Christmas Day, 25 December 1826, Elias Helyar married Martha Doling, born 4th May, 1805, to Joseph Doling and Elizabeth Parker, who in turn were married in Netherby, Dorset, 15 January 1801. Elias and Martha’s first child, Joseph, died in infancy. The next four, George, born 28 November 1828, Eliza, 27 October 1830, Emily, 29 December 1832, and Mary Amelia, 3 April 1834, were born at Vicarage Street, Yeovil. Two more boys, both named Joseph, survived less than a year: the first was born 19 March 1837, and died a few days later, on 26 March; the other, born 6 May 1838, survived ten months, dying 15 March 1839. On 2 October 1839 Martha was delivered of twin girls, Martha and Ellen. In 1840, Elias and his family emigrated to Melbourne as Bounty Passengers, imported by John Marshall of London. They sailed from Plymouth on the "Ferguson" of 600 tons among 229 passengers, 21 September 1840. On the voyage the women registered an official complaint against the medical superintendent's "harsh and unjustifiable" treatment of women on board. In fact Martha and one of her little twin daughters, Martha, both died on board and were buried at sea. No date is given. Ellen, whose passage the family had to pay for, survived only a little longer, in spite of the efforts of her now widowed father, her eleven year old brother and the three other girls, to help her through: she died 27 April 1841, tragically choking, it is believed, on a piece of roast lamb. She was buried from the Independent Church, Collins Street, Melbourne. The ship arrived in Melbourne, 15 January 1841, and the family settled there for some years. In the early 1850s they moved to Mount Pleasant, Ballarat, where Elias became a storekeeper, assisted by George who had earlier been employed by a Melbourne butcher. They were also gold-buyers, carting the gold from the mines to Melbourne by horse and dray. On 19 July 1855, George married Charlotte Ann Hockey in St. Paul's Church of England, Geelong; and in 1859 the family moved from Ballarat to Jan Juc, to a farm ten miles west of Torquay, between the great Ocean Road and Jan Juc Creek. The next door farm was owned by Alexander Edward Butler who had married the eldest Helyar girl, Eliza, in 1852 in Melbourne. Elias, the father, contracted cancer around 1870 and spent some time in the Geelong Hospital. One of his daughters was taking him back to Melbourne, when he suffered a massive heart attack on Geelong railway station and died, 7 September 1870, at the age of sixty-six. His son-in-law, Alex Butler, whose address was given as Richmond, seems to have made the necessary arrangements and Elias Helyar was laid to rest in the Geelong cemetery. In 1875 George bought a farm at Kewell in the Wimmera, he and Charlotte having produced nine children by this time. In 1886 they moved to Dunmunkle near Minyop. There were ultimately fifteen children, eight boys and seven girls. There are many Helyar descendants living in Australia, many of them becoming teachers or missionaries both Catholic and Protestant; one Jenny Helyar from Tasmania, is a Methodist missionary in Austria. Of George Helyar's family, William moved to Western Australia; Jim worked in Melbourne and then went to New Zealand; Harry went to West Wyalong in N.S.W. and opened a store; Charlie owned a grain store in Rainbow, Victoria, and many of his descendants still live in the district; Evelyn became a school teacher; and Laura, the only one of the girls to marry, became Mrs. Austin Barnes in 1901: they lived in Rainbow and in 1971 celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary. Annie (Eliza Ann), engaged to be married, died of diphtheria, 20 December 1896. Nell (Ellen Charlotte) and Evelyn both died on the same night in September 1953. George, living in Grange Road, Caulfield in his later years, was a small, autocratic man who in his old age lost his sense of direction. He insisted on walking alone, would allow no one to accompany him and could not be told. His daughter Nell would follow him at a discreet distance till he became tired and lost; she would then catch up, take his arm and guide him home. He died 30 July 1915, aged eighty-six. His wife Charlotte, live on another ten years at Shepparton Avenue, Carnegie, looked after by her daughters Nell and Evelyn. After their mother's death they lived at Martin Avenue, Bellgrave where they died in 1953. Emily Helyar married George Sweetland. Mary Amelia Helyar, the youngest of Elias and Martha’s daughters to survive, married Mark Halkyard 22 May 1858 in Melbourne. He was born 9 February 1825, in Oldham, Lancashire. He was a teacher and taught prisoners to read and write holding his classes in an old bluestone building at the back of Lee Street State School, North Carlton, Victoria. They had four boys: Frederick, Charles, Albert and Arthur born between 1859 and 1867 in Modewarre, Victoria. Albert is the grandfather of Mrs Valda Strauss who kindly provided all of this invaluable material.
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