THOMAS GEORGE BOARER (1848–1932) and FAMILY

Built First Cemetery Fence

Thomas George Boarer lies buried in the Woronora Cemetery which he once enclosed, having constructed the first post-and-rail fence around it about 1894/5.¹ Born an Englishman in Kent about 1848 to father Thomas and a mother whose name is unknown, Thomas George Boarer, commonly known as George, came to Australia with his wife and family of four children after a few years in New Zealand.

George grew up in Kent and in July 1872 married Lydia Drage at Pembury in his home county.² Pembury’s closest large town is Tunbridge Wells and the Pembury Church was a mile or so from the village. It was renowned for its fine old king-post roof (an upright timber extending from the ridge to the tie beam of a roof-truss) and looked south over a wooded valley .³ Lydia was a few years older than her husband, having been baptised on 3 August 1845 at Barley in Hertfordshire. Her parents were William and Lydia Drage and she had two older brothers and a sister.⁴

In the year following their marriage George and Lydia had one child, George, who died in 1874. That year they sailed for New Zealand on the Strathnaver, departing on 1 June from London with 391 passengers and were at the equator by the end of the month. Twenty-three days later they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and struck some heavy weather as they sailed east across the ocean. They were off Stewart Island at the southern tip of New Zealand on 26 August and arrived in Wellington on 31 August 1874. As assisted immigrants they had paid a total of £36.5.0 for their passage.⁵ They settled in that emerging city, the capital of the country and centre of government since 1865,⁶ living on part of town acre 335 which became Elizabeth Street.⁷ Two sons and two daughters were born there – Thomas George in 1876, Ada Ellen in 1877, Leonora Lydia in 1879 and Percy Owen in 1881.⁸

George was a carpenter, a trade that was in great demand in Wellington, as the homes there were almost all built of timber because of the frequent occurrence of earth tremors. Wellington was a windy city of steep hills, with many buildings perched precariously on slopes around the harbour so building work would have been difficult and sometimes hazardous.

Whatever encouraged George and Lydia to cross the Tasman Sea and make their home in Australia is unknown. Living in Elizabeth Street, they were close to the city’s hub with all that could offer but perhaps the frequent tremors were unsettling. Actual dates for their sailing from Wellington and arrival in Australia are not known but it is thought that it was sometime before the marriage of their daughter, Ada Ellen, to John Douglass at Kogarah in 1897.⁹ They appear in the St George area, south of Sydney in the late 19^th/early 20^th century until they later moved to the Port Hacking area.¹⁰ According to electoral rolls of the period, George and Lydia were registered as residents at Sandringham, Sans Souci and Kogarah until 1908 and at Port Hacking from 1909. The land where they lived on Port Hacking Road, Tyreel (Turriell) Point is shown as Leased 50990 in 1911-1915.¹¹

Whilst living in the St George area George was said to have built a hotel at Marrickville and also to have worked on ‘Primrose House’ at Sandringham, an impressive two-story home for James Conley Gannon. Despite being the grandson of a convict and leaving school early James Gannon was able to study and rise to the position of New South Wales Attorney General in 1904.¹² In later years the house was used as an annexe for the St George Hospital.

After settling at Port Hacking, which was steadily gaining more residents keen to have their own plot for poultry and market gardens, George’s trade kept him reasonably busy. When he was employed about 1894/5 to build the first fence around the new Woronora Cemetery site, it is said that his daughter Leonora took his lunch to him.¹³ This implies that the Boarer family lived in some proximity to the site, but confirmation of this has not been uncovered. Leonora was married in 1901 at Kogarah to William James Mudie Larnach, a relative of the William Larnach, whose home is now a well-known tourist attraction in Dunedin, New Zealand – Larnach’s Castle. Though born in Australia, that William, who married three times, was a member of the New Zealand parliament for some years from 1876.¹⁴

Both sons of George and Lydia went into the building trade, Thomas George as a painter and Percy Owen as a carpenter. Thomas had married Phoebe Wilson at Newtown in 1900 and Percy had married Jessie Freshwater at Kogarah in 1905 and with their families were living in the inner southern and western suburbs.¹⁵ Just before Christmas in 1923 Thomas was working on the top coping of Fay’s new building at the corner of Pitt and Liverpool Streets, Sydney when he fell down the side of the building and struck the scaffolding. He died shortly after his admission to Sydney Hospital and was buried at Woronora Cemetery.¹⁶ George and Lydia, then in their seventies, would have deeply felt the loss of their oldest son, who left a family then living at Petersham¹⁷ to cope with the difficult years ahead without a father.

Lydia died aged 83 on 21 July 1929 and George died three year later, aged 84 years. Probate records reveal that George, as a retired carpenter, had a cottage that he had built on land with a total value of £150 and almost £33 at the bank. The land, which passed to his son Percy on 29 May 1934 was the residue of Certificate of Title Volume 2836 Folio 243, being Lot 3 comprising 2 roods with a frontage of 72 feet and 9 inches to Port Hacking Road with varying depths of approximately 300 feet.¹⁸

George and Lydia were laid to rest beside their son Thomas in the cemetery that George had enclosed with his post and rail fence almost 40 years previously.¹⁹ Some descendants of the family still live in the St George and Sutherland Shire areas.

Merle Kavanagh

First published in  Sutherland Shire, Some Early Residents, 2006, by Botany Bay Family History Society. Compiled by Maree McKinley and Sue Hewitt.     

Click on the name THOMAS GEORGE BOARER (1848-1932) and FAMILY in the heading of this story .You will be taken to the database entry for him and his family.

Endnotes:

     1        Michael Boyd, Woronora Cemetery and Crematorium 1895-1995, 1995, Woronora General Cemetery and Crematorium P1

2      New Zealand Birth Record No 683, 9 Jul 1877, Ada Ellen Bo

3      L. Rurrell Muirhead, Ed, Kent, Sussex and Surrey, 1939, Wyman & Sons Ltd London, Reading, Pakenham, p103

4      IGI for Hertfordshire, 1992 ed

5      NZ Archives IM 15/133, p3, Comber Index, Shipping to NZ 1839-1889

6      Maurice Shadbolt, Reader’s Digest Guide to New Zealand, 1988, Reader’s Digest Service Pty Ltd, Surry  Hills, NSW p183

7      NZ Electoral Roll, Wellington 1878/9 No 256, Electoral Roll, Wellington 1880/1 and NZ Post Office Directory 1880/1

8      NZ birth Ada Ellen Boarer, 9 Jul 1877, No 683, NZ birth certificate Leonora Lydia Boarer 8 Jun 1879 No  37257; NZ birth index for sons Thomas George and Percy Owen.

9      NSW BDM Index Ref 1897 3367

10   Electoral Rolls 1903,1906, 1908, 1909

11   Department of Lands, Torrens Title Purchasers Index, 1911-15 Volume, Instrument A89374

12   Beverley Earnshaw, The Land Between Two Rivers, The St George District in Federations Times, 2001, Kogarah Historical Society Inc Kogarah, p6

13   Michael Boyd op cit p1

14   Sun Herald, 8 Mar 1998

15   SRNSW BDM indexes for Boarer, Thomas G and Phoebe

16   Woronora Cemetery Anglican 2A No 122, Thomas George Boarer, died 18 Dec 1923

17   Sydney Morning Herald 19 Dec 1923, p16

18   Probate No 181032, George Boarer, 17 May 1932

19   Woronora Cemetery Anglican 2A No 123, Lydia Boarer and George Boarer