The year is 1855, and Joseph is a butcher with a shop in Mt Barker. He is now sixty years old and has led a tough life. After years of backbreaking work on the chain gang and flogging, making a living as a timber splitter, bullocky farmer and now returned to butchering. He was not wealthy. He would have been comfortable. However, based on the research from Liddy Family in 1859, Joseph Hatfield was assessed for a rate of £2-2/- by the Onkaparinga District Council for Cultivation and House, Brick House and Butcher Shop at The Tiers, Woodside.
Woodside was the central hub for the area. Given the gold rush at Echuca and the discovery of copper, Joseph was manoeuvring his family fortunes during the uncertain economy of the State. These were the times of "Boom and Bust".
Below is a photo of a shop in Woodside, taken in 1880, typical of shop fronts during this period. A brick house and garden was attached.
In 1855 Joseph and Mary/Rachel had a family, a business, land and hope for the future. Some difficulties arose when Joseph subdivided his land. Confusion over the spelling of his name (Hadfield/Hatfield ) caused some delays. New legislation regarding land titles may have also raised concerns. Or perhaps it was time. They had been together for eighteen years.
Whatever the reason Joseph and Mary decided to marry. They married on 2 October 1855 at the home of Wilson Bayswater in Balhannah. Joseph states his full name as Joseph Alexander Hatfield for the first time, and Mary says her name as Rachel Davis. Josephs age is 52, and Rachel states her age as 41. They both make their mark (x), neither writing. The photograph below is from Liddy Family research.
Joseph was born circa 1795 and was more like 60 than 52. Mary was born in 1806 and was more likely 49 years old. Mary now Rachel was still bearing children. There were nine living children born before the marriage. David arrived on 27 April 1855, and Sophia was born two years after David. Sophia died of dysentery on 15 August 1861. Her sister, 9-year-old Elizabeth, died from the same illness two days later. It is doubtful that Rachel would have known that both her daughters Mary and Sarah Cowburn died the following year. Mary's husband, Federick Phipps, died on 12 January 1862, and Sarah on 29 July 1862. The cause of death for both was "Natural Causes". Six months later, in December of the same year, Mary also died. There is no record of her cause of death.
Cemeteries from the 1800s are filled with the graves of those who succumbed to illness. T.B., typhoid, measles, pneumonia, a minor infection, childbirth and accidents claimed many lives. By the 1860's women in the Victorian goldfields and their children were at the highest risk.
Rachel had successfully given birth to 12 children. Two to Robert Cowburn. These girls, Mary and Sarah, she left behind in Tasmania. With Joseph, she had ten children. Unfortunately, only six survived into adulthood.
Table 1: Mary Davis children showing date of birth and age of death.
In 1864, nine years after their wedding Joseph Hatfield died. How and where he died is unknown. There is no record of his death in South Australia. However, his son Alexander was admitted to Adelaide hospital on 2 December 1864. He recovers and two years later goes to the Victorian goldfields. Perhaps the same illness took his father.
In 1866 Rachel married another former convict John Neaves. Unfortunately, Robert Cowburn was still alive, and he died in 1874. He also had married again. Each lived in separate worlds. Maybe the notion of leaving the old life behind ran deeply in the convict culture. Rachel indeed operated from an "out of sight out of mind" approach to marriage.
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