Visiting Hay in the sunshine

We went on an eight day road trip in early July 2013. It was nearly 3,000kms all up - to Broken Hill, via the Murrumbidgee River and Lake Mungo, then home along the Barrier Highway via Wilcannia, Cobar and Nyngan.


Julie, near Silverton

There’s so much to see out west, from colonial history to even older Indigenous culture and history, from kangaroos, eagles and herds of cattle and sheep to the quirkiness of Broken Hill and White Cliffs. It’s also nice to experience the peaceful, vast emptiness of the outback – out of mobile phone range.


This was my first visit to Hay, where my grandmother, May Queenie Tyson, was born in 1901. Hay is in the western Riverina region of south-west NSW, described in Wikipedia as “the centre of a prosperous and productive agricultural district”.

 

We drove 170km to Hay from Narrandera on a crisp, sunny winter morning, through very flat country along the Murrumbidgee river. Hay is smaller than I imagined but is busy and lively.

 

With the kind help of Pat Howard at the public library in Lachlan Street, we found and visited a number of sites in town with Tyson associations. Some descendants still live in the Hay district, including Beverley McGuffick. Beverley is featured in a book Pat showed us - The river people (Cowan and Beard, Reed, 1983).

 

At the Hay Shire Council building we were kindly shown a painting of “Riverton”, in South Hay,  the home of my great grandfather James Tyson (1841-1901) and great grandmother, Jane Georgina (nee Sturkey). My grandmother, Queenie, and her brother and sisters lived at Riverton as children.

 

James Tyson was a nephew of the other James Tyson (1819- 1898), the famous pastoralist. The nephew was a wealthy man, having been involved in his uncle’s business, then inheriting some of his estate. The nephew James’ deceased estate file makes interesting reading (the file in the NSW State Records Office detailing his assets for the assessment of NSW estate duty).

 

We drove to Boon Street, South Hay, at the end of which was the site of Riverton. The original house had been replaced by a new one, with the same name. There is also a B&B on a subdivision of the old block. Even though the house is long gone, I have a precious few minutes of B&W film taken in 1935 (I think) of a family gathering at Riverton, to celebrate my father’s seventh birthday.  

Murrumbidgee River, Hay, 1935. My father, Edwin (foreground).

Riverton, Hay, 1935. Back row from left: Queenie, with Edwin jnr; Rose Tyson; unidentified girl. Front: "Wooz" (Ethel Carr); Alice Tyson with Tom Carr.

 

 

The wish list

That’s the list of the projects I’m trying to finish. There are three of them. The problem is, I keep getting diverted around corners and down interesting rabbit holes.

(1) The sporty Carrs

I started by researching my father’s family – his mother and father, May Queenie Carr (nee Tyson) and Edwin William ("Slip”) Carr - and my great grandfather and great grandmother – Thomas Peter “TP” Carr and Harriett Carr (nee Augood).

I have a lot of information about many members of this group, especially Slip Carr and his father and brothers, who were outstanding sportsmen. Slip represented Australia at Rugby Union and competed at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. I decided to research and write his and their stories.

(2) The early Carrs

Then I discovered my great great grandfather and gx2 grandmother – Henry William Carr and Maria Carr (nee Lillyman). Henry had come out to Australia from Ireland when very young, most likely in the late 1850s, and settled in Wee Waa, New South Wales (pronounced “we wore”). There he met and married Maria Lillyman, an immigrant from England.

I decided to research these “first arrivers” from Europe and the founders of the Australian family. I would write their story up to the end of the 19^thC and then move seamlessly back to project (1). Good plan.

(3) The Irish Carrs

But no. While doing that, I discovered that William Henry Carr had several brothers and sisters who had also come out to Australia in the 19thC. There were clues to them in a mysterious letter written by an Irishwoman, Mrs Magill, to a distant Australian relative, Fred Carr, in the early 1920s. The letter turned up in my grandfather’s trunk in 1994 (see “How the journey started”).

Who were these Irish immigrants? I had to find out. I delved some more, the list grew and I learnt there were still more siblings in Ireland. Also, a gx3 grandfather and grandmother, Frederick and Elizabeth Carr. They may have had 16 children or more.

I thought I had gone as far as I could with the Irish Carrs. But then, earlier this year, I made contact with other descendants of that big Irish family and found out more (see "Advertising works”).

So I have some partly written manuscripts, a growing pile of research and a whole lot of new questions.

One day maybe, I will find out more about my mother’s family tree - the Camerons and Davidsons - and about the Tysons – the family of my grandmother, May Queenie Tyson.

 

So what’s he actually done?

The journey started nearly twenty years ago (see post 23 May 2013). I have been researching and writing, on and off, since 1994:

• Go through the trunk belonging to my grandfather, Edwin William “Slip” Carr, sort and conserve
• Transcribe letters to Slip from family and friends when he was away at the First World War in the Middle East (1917-1919)
• Sort, transcribe and catalogue scrapbooks, letters, postcards and photographs from Slip’s sporting career (1916 to 1924). Slip represented Australia in Rugby Union and at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He equalled US sprinter Charlie Paddock’s 1920 OR for 100m in 1923 and set a WR for the 60m sprint twice that year.
• Research the vital records of the Carr line, up through my father, Eddie, my grandfather, Slip, and my great grandfather, TP Carr and their families
• Gather stories from my father, aunts and uncles and other family members about this line of people; receive precious gifts of photos, objects and documents from family
• Some research into my grandmother’s people – the Tysons. Her maiden name was May Queenie Tyson. A lot of work has been done by other genealogists on the Tyson family in Australia. Isabella Tyson, the matriarch, was a convict. One of her sons, James, became a fabulously wealthy pastoralist, known as “the Cattle King” - a wonderful “rags to riches” story. Click here for more about James Tyson in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
• Convert my father’s and grandfather’s 16mm home movies (some filmed in the 1930s) into digital format
• Discover my great, great grandfather, William Henry Carr, who was born in Ireland and who emigrated to Australia in the 1850s. The family of William’s wife, Maria Lillyman, has extensively researched the Lillyman family
• Discover that William Henry Carr had up to 15 brothers and sisters (wow), about eight of whom also migrated to Australia and New Zealand in the 19thC; research their descendants
• This year (2013), I came into contact with some of the descendants of the siblings of William Henry Carr, expanding my knowledge of the extended Australian family
• Another person contacted is GJ, a fourth cousin in Wales, UK who has generously shared her research and information about the Carrs back in Ireland. She also unlocked many of the secrets of a mysterious letter I found in Slip’s trunk. Written in the early 1920s by a distant Irish relative, it potentially expands significantly the Irish family tree.

[Photo: Slip Carr, Copenhagen, 1923]