Daughter of Richard Lucas.
Susannah Lucas was born around 1796-97 at Tenbury in Worcestershire. Her father was Richard Lucas, a labourer (although on her death certificate her father’s occupation was given as farmer).
1818
Susannah Lucas (a spinster) married James Phillips (a bachelor) at Crayford on 1st August 1818. The register shows that neither party required the consent of parents to marry, which indicates they were both over the age of 21 at the time.
1841
James (40) & Susannah (45) are shown living with their family in an area of Dartford referred to as ‘The Banks’ by the census enumerator.
James is listed as a labourer (later records give more detail about his profession, recording this variously as ‘Trimmer at Iron Foundry’, ‘Moulder’ and either Watchman or Matchman depending on your reading of a later marriage certificate). All the family are born in Kent with the exception of Susannah, who is listed as being born outside the county. It appears that one other person lived in the same house, a 60 year old woman, Johanna Webb, who was born in Kent.
1845
Susannah Phillips became a widow when her husband, James Phillips, died in 1845.
1848
Susannah Phillips married Thomas Tebay, a smith, at Plumstead on July 23rd 1848. Both parties were shown as resident at Plumstead at the time of the marriage. Thomas’s father, William Tebay, was a wheelwright.
1851
After re-marrying Susannah (45) can be seen living at West Hill, Dartford with her husband Thomas Tebay (25), a blacksmith who was born at Wateringbury, Kent. Two of her children, Charles and John Phillips are living with her.
1859
Thomas and Susannah Tebay emigrated to New South Wales (Australia) on the Dirigo under the assisted immigration scheme. The Dirigo sailed from Liverpool on 20th December 1859. Also on board were John Phillips and his wife (Susannah’s son and daughter-in-law). The Dirigo arrived in Sydney on 13th April 1860. Further details can be found in the article Emigration to Australia.
1865
There is an advertisement in the Yass Courier dated 24th June 1865. The notice is as follows:
CARRIERS HOME INN
GAP ROAD
Thomas Tibey (Tebay) late of Picton, begs to acquaint the public and carriers that he has opened the above house with a large stock of the best Wines, Spirits, etc. He has also opened a Blacksmith’s and Wheelwright’s establishment, and is prepared to execute every description of work with despatch, and on most moderate terms.
CARRIERS HOME INN
JUNE 23RD 1865
It seems that Thomas Tebay and/or Susannah never owned the property – it was probably owned by a "Mr Grovenor" who seems to have let it on a lease for £60 p.a. to a Mr Thomas Hillier. The most likely scenario is that Thomas was the licensee and probably employed by Thomas Hillier. In 1867, after Susannah’s death, the licence for the "Carriers Arms" was transferred from Thomas Tebay to Henry Wilson.
A description of "Carriers Home Inn" or "Carriers Arms", which is almost certainly the one we are interested in, is as follows:
"contains 1 parlour, 1 bar, taproom, 5 bedrooms, a kitchen with 2 apartments, 6 stall stables with lofts, and shed at the back. The Inn was on 28 acres and 24 perches" (1 acre is 160 perches).
As an aside, here is some background information about Mantons Creek:
Mr Frederick Manton Esq. (1799–1863) was among the earliest pastoralists on the Yass Plains. Several thousand acres of his grant surrounded the stretch of the Old Hume Highway now called Yass Valley Way. Manton called his station ‘Mon Réduit’ (French for ‘my hideout’ or ‘my cubbyhouse’), perhaps recalling a town in Mauritius. He departed the district in 1839 for Melbourne, where among other enterprises he erected the first flour mill. The State of Victoria claims Manton as a pioneer; before a border was drawn at the Murray River, Manton and others looked to Melbourne as their metropolis.
He left a manager to run his farm, half a dozen sons, and his liberally bestowed name. Not only is the Parish named the Parish of Manton, but the ridge cleft by the Hume Highway is Mantons Ridge, the peak to the south-west with telecommunications towers atop is Mount Manton, and to the east is Mantons Road. Manton Public School, which stood there, closed in 1947 and the classroom became shearers’ quarters: this is sheep country.
This is also bushranger country. Travellers were regularly ‘bailed up’ near Mantons Creek: a neat irony, since Joseph Manton, gunsmith of London Town, was the father of Frederick Manton Esq., pastoralist of Yass Plains, and Ben Hall’s Gang wielded stolen ‘Joe Mantons’ whenever possible. In the late 1870s, when the railway was extended from Gunning to Yass, a tent city of workers sprang up at Mantons Creek. The locality became notorious for sly-grogging, prostitution, and highway robberies. Many local bad characters congregated there, complained the police, though the navvies were ‘a decent body of men' In 1900, the Federal City League inspected the Yass District, and Manton almost became a suburb of the Australian capital. The Manton locality was bypassed by the Hume Highway in 1994, and the Yass Valley Way is now a tranquil, though not unused, rural road. About half-way along it the Manton Park Estate, which offers modest house blocks for sale, seems set to become a dormitory suburb for the increasing number of commuters between Yass and the national capital.
It is suggested that Susannah (nee Lucas) may be related to the Lucas family, descended from a "first fleeter" named Nathaniel Lucas of London transported for 7 years, that settled in Yass some years earlier. The argument for it is that she may have been attracted to the area because she had the social support of relatives. This needs to be researched.
1866
Susannah Tebay died on October 1st 1866 at Carrier’s Home, Manton’s Creek, Yass, New South Wales (Australia) from pneumonia of the right lung. Susannah was buried on 3rd October 1866 at the Church of England Burial Ground in Yass. See photos of Yass below:
1. St Clement's Yass & what is left of the Church of England Burial Ground of the time of Susannah's death.
2. Only a few gravestones have survived the "clean-up" that occurred about 40 years ago.
3. This is the site of the Carriers Home, Manton Creek. It is said there are a few ruins under the bushes.
After Susannah’s death Thomas appears to have re-married in 1867 and had several children.
Children:
Comments (1)
Elaine Phillips said
at 2:22 am on Jan 16, 2012
With regards to the loss of gravestones at the Anglican Church in Yass, a member of the Yass community told me that most of the gravestones still exist - as the surrounds to a Yass Council employee's swimming pool! They were laid face down, so there is a faint hope that some day, some of the stones could be retrieved.
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