The little I knew about my South Australian forebears was that my great grandmother was “… a Solly raised as a Flavel.”  Over recent years, I have been reasonably successful in documenting the Solly Family dating from the 1840 arrival of Henry Solly and Ann Colyer, and their seven children, in the Colony of South Australia from Kent, England, aboard the Royal Admiral.  One child had perished on the voyage and two more were subsequently born in South Australia (see Thomas Solly – Explorer, Mounted Policeman and Publican, November 2012).

George Head and Mary Ann Walton migrated from Suffolk, England, with four children, arriving in South Australia aboard the Duchess of Northumberland in 1839.  George Head established himself as a storekeeper at Thebarton and became a prominent community member when he secured the licence for the Morphett Vale “Emu Hotel”.  Henry Solly initially obtained a land grant in Adelaide in 1846 but by 1854 was established as a farmer and public works contractor at Leasingham in the Clare Valley region.

John Solly – the second son of Henry and Ann – and Ellen Head – fourth daughter of George and Mary Ann – were married in Adelaide on 21 January 1863.  This couple, then, were my 2^nd great grandparents.  Not a lot is able to be discerned about their life together.  Of their children, Emma (1864-1954), John (1867-1931), George William (1869-1922) and Sydney (1872-1962) were each born in Leasingham.  Sydney’s birth place is shown on the Birth Register as “Skilly Creek”, actually Skillogalee Creek, and which is close to Leasingham.  John Solly is working as a Timber Carter when he is involved in an accident in 1868 at a saw mill near Skillogalee Creek.

The couple’s youngest daughter Edith Margaret Solly – my great grandmother – is born in Burra Burra 8 February 1877, the year the copper mine closed.  The township officially became Burra in 1940 but previously it was a conglomeration of small towns and villages including Redruth (Cornish), Llwchwr (Welsh), Aberdeen (Scottish), Hampton (English) and Kooringa, all being within the Hundred of Kooringa.  Kooringa was the first mining company township in Australia and was strictly a company-run town.  By the time of the mine closure, the townships had developed as the centre of a surrounding pastoral district and so managed to survive the closure.

Ellen (Head) Solly dies in Kooringa 8 January 1882 age 44 years leaving John with five children aged 4 – 17 years.  The eldest daughter Emma is married 18 months later to Leon Johnson in Adelaide.  John Solly and his sons John and George William move to the New South Wales “Corner Country” where there was a gold rush in the 1880s and 1890s.  John Solly senior dies in Tibooburra in 1896; George William Solly marries Emma Grey on Mount Sturt Station near Milparinka and is killed in a horse riding accident in Broken Hill in 1922 and John Solly junior marries Sarah Bamess in Milparinka in 1889.  John Solly junior and Sarah move to Katanning in Western Australia around 1904.

It would seem therefore that John and Ellen‘s youngest child Edith Margaret then age 4 years, and possibly Sydney then age 10 years, did not move to New South Wales with their father and siblings but were ‘fostered’ with families in South Australia.

Knowing that Edith Margaret Solly married my great grandfather Duncan Muir at Jeparit in Victoria, I set about looking for a Flavel family who may have moved from South Australia to the Jeparit district.  I identified a Henry Thomas Flavel who married Honor Alice Bailey, age 16 years.  The couple was married in the residence of Tom’s brother George at Gladstone, South Australia 2 March 1879.  The Victorian and Commonwealth Electoral Rolls later showed that Tom and Honor were living on a farm near Jeparit in 1909.

An unsourced account located on the Internet describes the move of Tom and Alice to a farm near Jeparit in 1893.  However, Tom and Honor’s seventh child – Daisy Honor Victoria Flavel – was born at Dimboola in 1891 and the eighth child – Albert Flavel – was born at Jeparit in 1893.  Therefore it would seem that the Flavel move to the Dimboola/Jeparit area took place earlier than claimed in the Internet account.  Honor Flavel was barely 20 years of age when her second child was born on 1 January 1882 just seven days before the death of my great great grandmother Ellen Solly.  Tom and Honour Flavel, therefore, were the candidates for being the foster parents of my great grandmother.  But – how could I ever prove this?

Just recently, I visited my mother in Western Australia and whilst there Mum’s sister delivered a copy of an oral history account recorded in the 1990s from their uncle Duncan Muir.  I had no idea this document existed; I fell on the account hurriedly scanning it and – aha!  There it was!  Asked for the name of his mother and how his parents met, great uncle Duncan explained:

So – after all this time; incontrovertible evidence of the accuracy of the family tale about my great grandmother: “She was a Solly raised as a Flavel”.  Uncle Duncan’s oral history account contains valuable detail about my Muir family’s move from Victoria and re-settlement in the Katanning/Kojonup area in Western Australia.  But that is for another time.

June (Muir) Jones with her uncle Duncan Muir (1908-1996) c.1934

Tom and Honor Flavel continued as farmers at Tullyvea near Jeparit on a property known as “Pine View” and raised 12 children although two died at age 2 and 4 years.  Tom Flavell died in 1916 with death notices published in both South Australian and Victorian newspapers:

Obituary Notice – Henry Thomas Flavel Adelaide Advertiser 6 Aug 1916

Honor (Bailey) Flavel lived to age 85 years passing away in 1947 and the couple are buried in the Jeparit Cemetery.

Jeparit Cemetery

Headstone: Henry Thomas and Honor Alice (Bailey) Flavel, Jeparit Cemetery

Tom Flavel’s brother George had 14 children and at least three of them also moved to Western Australia.  Elsie Annie May Flavel married Frank Purvis Murray in Albany in 1904 although the couple subsequently returned to South Australia.  Amy Anna Flavel married Peter McQuade in York in 1912 but died in childbirth just two years later age 27 years.  George’s youngest son John Gilbert Richards Flavel – and Tom and Honor’s nephew – married Robina Pennells Hunter in 1919 in South Australia but by 1931 they were farming at Ballidu in Western Australia and continued to do so until they retired to Perth around 1954.

The Flavel family were old ‘colonists’ arriving in South Australia from Northamptonshire around the same time as the Solly and Head families.  Departing London 12 September 1838 on the Prince George, Joseph Flavel and his wife Mary Bayes and their six children arrived at Holdfast Bay, Adelaide, 26 December 1838.  Also aboard this ship, from Hamburg, were 200 German Lutheran immigrants known as ‘Kavel’s People’.  Thomas Flavel – the father of Henry Thomas Flavel was aboard this ship.

On showing my research to Mum, she immediately asked whether ‘Flo’ and ‘Albert’ appeared in the tree.  I think Mum may have known more about this story than she has let on to me!  Mum says that her grandmother used to refer to the Flavel family members.  ‘Flo’ evidently is Florence Mary Flavel (1886-1959) who married James Melvin Bell ( a name also familiar to Mum) and ‘Albert’ would be Albert Norman Flavel (1893-1971) who married Harriet Elizabeth Pitt.  Both Florence and Albert remained in the Jeparit area.  There is also a curious photograph, in the album my mother compiled as a teenager, labelled – “Grandma Flavel’s cat”.

Grandma Flavel’s cat

Edith Margaret Solly was born in Burra Burra 8 February 1877 and married Duncan Muir 8 August 1903 in Jeparit, Victoria.  Margaret and Duncan and their children Norman (my grandfather), Duncan, Jean, Robert and Ronald moved to Western Australia in 1914.  Edith died 19 March 1959 in Northam, Western Australia, age 82 years and is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.

Edith Margaret (Solly) Muir (1877-1959) raised as Edith Margaret Flavel