John and Ellen Irving arrived in New South Wales on the
barque Garrow. They left Belfast in
Ireland on 9 November 1838 and arrived in Sydney on 2 March 1839. They were from
County Antrim and both stated their ages as 38 years old.
Their eldest child Mary Ann was 16 years old when
she arrived in Australia. Many passengers were sick during the voyage and the
Surgeon's Report shows that both John and Ellen suffered from a fever severe
enough to place them in the sick bay. Ellen was still ill when the ship berthed
and was taken to the Lazaretto where she remained until 13 April.
On 28 November 1842, Mary Ann married artist
William Nicholas in the Scots Church Pitt Street Sydney. Her parents were shown
as the witnesses to the marriage and the name is recorded as Ervine. Another
daughter, Margaret was married in the same church on 24 May 1848. She married
John Simpson of Mt Connell and one of the witnesses to the marriage was John C
Laycock of Mt Connell. Margaret gave her address as Bottle Forest and her name
is recorded as Erving.
The author, Andrea Biddolf, is a descendant of
this family through Mary Ann and her second husband Alexander Munro so the entry
connecting her sister to Bottle Forest was of particular interest.
Major Thomas Mitchell, whilst undertaking the
survey of the Illawarra Road in 1843, instructed assistant surveyor Darke to
draw up allotments for the village of Bottle Forest. George Hall took up 50
acres, Patrick Hynes, George Coulson, W T Fleming, E M Hill, John Annan and
Peter Caffray were also known to take up land as did John Erving. He purchased
Lot 13 which was 21 acres 2 roods and 27 perches for which he paid £21.13.5 on
30 June 1845.
The isolated settlement of Bottle Forest became a
small community of agriculturists. Water was obtained from a tributary of
Kangaroo Creek and vegetables and fruit trees were grown as well as wheat. An
article in the St George Call dated 1
June 1907 recalls a visit in the 1860s to the area in which the reporter gives
evidence of Irvine's lifestyle at Bottle Forest and describes in some detail the
building known to be the Irvine's (Irving’) cottage as follows:
...the
house has a westerly aspect, with about 60ft frontage, built of slabs on the
outside and lath and plaster inside, French windows were in the front with
Venetian shutters; the plaster inside was of an excellent nature...made from
shell lime from George's River with local sand...The roof was of forest oak
shingles, split on the ground, as was all the timber used in the construction of
the edifice. The main entrance was into a large room, looking more like a great
hall than otherwise, into which all other rooms led...The house was supposed to
have been built by Irvine in the early forties...
Research indicates that John Irvine's cottage was
called the 'Cottage of Content' and it is interesting to note that when tracing
the family of Mary Ann, another 'Cottage of Content' was found. Three years
after her husband William Nicholas died in 1854 at Kurnell, Mary Ann married
Alexander Munro who came from Scotland with his brothers. They were house
carpenters before their arrival in Sydney and when working at Liverpool in the
1850s built a 'Cottage of Content'. It is possible the Munro brothers were also
involved in building the cottage for Margaret and John Irvine at Bottle Forest.
The settlement at Bottle Forest was abandoned in
the 1860s. About the same time the Georges River punt was destroyed in a flood
making it difficult to take goods to market and could have been the reason for
the demise of the settlement. Thomas Holt purchased 41 acres of land on 13 March
1865 at Bottle Forest and had over 300 dingoes destroyed there after they
attacked his sheep.
The Irvine family moved to Moorebank where they
continued to farm. Ellen died in 1876 in Liverpool aged 78 and John Irving died
in 1879 at the residence of his daughter Mary Ann Munro in Elizabeth Street
Liverpool aged 81years. They have a headstone in the Pioneer Park at Liverpool.
When the
railway line opened to Waterfall in 1886 the station at Bottle Forest was named
Heathcote. Today the area that once was Bottle Forest is known as East Heathcote
and is dingo free and much more densely populated than in the past.
Andrea Biddolf
First published in
Sutherland Shire, Some Early Residents.
Compiled by Maree McKinley and Sue Hewitt
Click on the names
JOHN and ELLEN IRVING at the heading of this
story. You will be taken to the database entry for John Irving and his
family.
References
NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Kennedy, Patrick -
From Bottle Forest to Heathcote
Lawrence, Joan -
A Pictorial History of the Sutherland
Shire
SRNSW - Passenger list
Garron arrived 15 April 1839
Surgeon Superintendant's Report and SIck List
Garron 1838-1839
Parish Register of Scots Church Pitt Street Sydney
St George Call, 1 June
1907
LTO - Map 525 69
LTO - Purchase by John Erving No 36, 30 June 1843
LTO - Certificate of Title to Thomas Holt, 13
March 1865, Vol X111 Folio 164
