November is almost over and the World War I Blog publication I have been working on – A Horse named ‘Kojonup’ … – is not yet complete. The following tale comes from my Muir-Buirchell Family Tree and is actually an extract from a wider project I am working on called There is a pub in my family: The Head and Solly Families in the South Australian Hotel Trade.
Growing up, all I knew of the Solly name was that my great grandmother Edith Margaret (married to Duncan Muir) was “a Solly raised as a Flavell”. Her mother – Ellen Head, married to John Solly, – died in 1882 aged 44 years when Edith was just 5 years old and she was evidently raised by the Flavell family: yet another research project.
Henry Solly was born near Canterbury in Kent, England, in 1800 and in 1827 marries Ann Colyer in Hackington, Kent. Henry and Ann and their eight children depart London aboard the Royal Admiral on 7 August 1840 arriving at Port Adelaide 13 December 1840. In 1846 Henry was the proprietor of 40 acres near Adelaide but by 1854 he was established in Leasingham, Clare Valley, as a farmer and public works contractor.
Thomas Solly was the youngest son of Henry and Ann and in 1842 was their first child to be born in South Australia. As a young man in 1866, he accompanied the South Australian Police Commissioner on an expedition around the north shore of Lake Eyre. The Police Commissioner was Major Peter Edgerton-Warburton formerly an Assistant Adjutant-General in the Indian Army and brother of George Edgerton-Warburton of Western Australia fame. Continue reading →
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