Found HOLLIS grave, Melbourne General Cemetery

LOG OF THE DISCOVERY

For many decades, descendants of the Yarra-Valley-pioneering Hollis family have been searching in vain to find out what happened to the first father of the emigrant family in Australia, John Frederick Hollis. The family has a letter dated 1854 to young Hubert Hollis from Cousin Gus (Augustus Pearman) in England, which spoke of "the melancholy circumstances of your father's death." But for we did not know where or when in 1854 John F Hollis's short life came to an end.

One hundred and fifty years went by and old stories fell off from family knowledge.

There was no death record for him in Victoria. And none were found in any other state of Australia. And no one knew where he was buried, nor where his bones, connected as they are to our bones, might lie. This has been a lack of peace for some of us descendants, as if their was no place for us to rest in peace about our early father, even if there was for John F Hollis.

There is still no death record for him, though his burial details were recently discovered, and the site of his mortal remains indentified.

This is something of the record of how he was found.


EMAIL LETTER TO BARBARA HOLLIS, in Casino, NSW

4th JULY 2007 Brunswick, Victoria

Barbara,
I am in Melbourne on a break.

Today, I went to the Melbourne General Cemetery to try and find, among others, the grave of Fanny Hollis , aka Elizabeth Frances Simmonds who died, I believe in 4th June 1860 at Crown St, Yarra Berg, Richmond, VIC Alas I failed to find her there. Barbara, do you have her death certificate handy. My copy is somewhere deep in storage and very hard to get at the moment. Does it give her burial place as the Melbourne Cemetery?. I thought it did, but I need to check.

Anyway, The woman at the desk was very helpful, and I explained that Fanny's name was formerly Hollis and she may have been buried under that name. No Luck. In explaining the situation I told her that

'We now knew the date of her husband's death through the date of her widowhood being recorded on her re-marriage to Thomas Simmonds.'

' And what date was that', she asked.

I had my laptop with me so I looked it up. 11 Jan 1854 I told her.

'Hang on a minute', she said.

She went out the back and came back with what I believe was the original burials entry book for that time.

She soon found a Rebecca Hollis recorded as being buried on the 10 Jan 1854.

'I wonder if it is a mistake. And incorrect entry.' she said.

'But it is a day before he is meant to have died', I said. 'And then, I don't think you were allowed to bury people before they died, even back then."

She laughed.

'Anyway, there is no Rebecca recorded in the family'.

[ I see after the event that Rebecca Hollis burial is recorded on the computer date print outs.}

'Sure there is no other entry on that page'.

She looked down the handwritten entries on the list.

'Oh here', she said. 'John Hollis, died Brunswick, Vic age 45 . Buried 12 Jan 1854 ! '

'That's him, I said. 'Buried in the heat of January the day after he died'.

'Yes!' she said, 'But in a Public Grave'. -'You''ll never find exactly where.'

'Why not?"

It says Grave no 216 but no listing of denomination. Those were paupers graves It could be anywhere, and that is reclaimed Land. Burial have been made across those places.'

I believe we have him. In the Melbourne General Cemetery. After all. The entry had been overlooked, and was not made on the computer data base lists

Tomorrow I will go back to try and get a photocopy of that 12 Jan 1854 page.

Happy Hunting

Wayne


EMAIL Letter from Barbara HOLLIS,

4th July 2007 Casino, NSW

Great find Wayne,

I wrote to the cemetery years ago and ask them to search their records and not here was the answer. It pays to visit and ask more questions doesn't it. I am so excited that a mystery has been solved. Now for Fanny her death cert says buried Melbourne Cemetery 13 June 1860 the 5's & 6's look very similar could it be 1850? I'd say it is 1860 though.
she was born 1813 and 45 at death adds to 1858. Good hunting for Fanny. It must be great being a detective maybe we could open an investigation company!!!

Regards Barb


EMAIL Letter from Barbara HOLLIS

19th July 2007 , Casino, NSW

Hi Wayne are you still on your break in Melbourne? Did you have any luck with Fanny Hollis? Barb Hollis



EMAIL LETTER to Barbara HOLLIS, Casino, NSW

20th JULY 2007, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide

Hullo Barbara
I am in Adelaide on transit back to Alice.

I found Fanny Hollis yes, And a surprise. Cannot tell all right now. I will send you details.
The burial entry for her has this additional note - under the entry for grave. 11 Jany 1854.

The grave Section and number is an exact match for the so-called pauper grave of John Hollis

So it seems she is buried with John F. Hollis after all and the grave was retrospectively made a private one. Old Simmonds might not have been pleased.

I have located the exact plot, and it is a area of grass in the middle of scattered old Church of England graves.

will send further details and a plan later

Wayne

Email Letter from Barbara HOLLIS

20th July 2007 , Casino, NSW

Wow that's great news Wayne,
Isn't genealogy hunting fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have just had some photos from Sth Africa and oh the rellies are very dark in colour and seem a lovely lot. I was so excited to get the photos you would have thought they were my rellies. Look forward to the next exciting episode

Regards Barb


Paying Due Honour to our (first) Father and Mother

The deaths, the untimely ends seemed like the fragmentation of something precious, as if the warp and weft of the interwoven edierdown of our Hollis family had come undone, and the stray ends, the broken seems, the orphaned offsprings had been left too thin, to rip apart in the harsh Antipodean winds.

But now I find that the Hollis parents are in their shared grave, lying together as they did in life, resting in peace.

It can only have been through the Hollis children, in the time of grief at their mother's death in 1860, and then all under eighteen, who had the wit and strength to collect the fees and dues to pay for the bruial plot, and to insist on their parents being buried together, even if their step-father was against it, and so ensure that their father's grave also be restored as a plot of respect.


GOING TO THE ORIGINAL BOOKS - for the detail that matters.

NOTE: In respect to original documents in doing history. Melbourne General Cemetery has a computer database which purports to be a complete record of all recorded burials there.

John Hollis' burial was not on that list. Years, and searchings, asking of that resource got fat nothing. One researcher since told me that pauper's burials are not included on that database! Why? But then, Fanny Simmonds was not on the database either. The data base is only as good as the transcibers, and human error and distraction cause oversights, ommissions and flaws. It was only when I had the blessed service of a officer with goodwill and initiative who went to the original books that I got to find out what was really going on.

I asked to have Frances Simmonds death added to the computer database, and watched at the counter while she was entered in to that easy access, but then more enquirers came to the desk and the officer was busy, so we have yet to get John Hollis up there.

But, even then, the computer database would not have included the further record book columns which allowed me to discover the fine print and the backdated detail which led me to deduce that John and Fanny were buried in the same grave after all.

Email Letter from Barbara HOLLIS

19 August 2007, Casino, NSW

Hi Wayne,
Hope your trip was a great success and you are now settled back to the routine of life. You have me intrigued with your email sentence:
" I found Fanny Hollis yes, And a surprise. Cannot tell all right now. I will send you details."
Can you tell me now as I am impatient waiting? Raining here all day and don't we need it.

Regards Barb Hollis

Email Letter to Barbara HOLLIS

20th August 2007, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Sorry Barbara, a life of intense work has overtaken me here.

The surprise was what I then went on to give away. That the grave was the same number as the one John Hollis was in, after being told it was a pauper burial and we would never know where it was exactly. The grave/graves are in the same section, same number, so the same plot. I believe they are buried together after all. When I asked the woman at the desk what the addition of the date (11-Jan 54) meant in the normally empty column (in the record-book), she said it probably meant the grave had changed from being a public one (Pauper's) to a private grave. She was going to confirm for me my reading of these documents, as she found my interpretations surprising, though convincing on the evidence. She was as excited as I was, as she did not usually get to see such breakthoughs. I did not arrange for anything to be sent on, addresses etc, so I need to contact her. She gave me exact photocopies of old grave maps and I have worked out the exact site of the grave plot. It is in an area filled with soursob and grass, with a few remnant graves scattered about between pepper trees. This lovely grassy treed area is framed by heavy crowds of block graves of old stone on every side.

I want to call for family contributions of money to get a memorial stone and plaque placed in the grave. I imagine this would be on the horizontal as in a lawn cemetery, though I have not made full inquiries about whether a vertical/ upright headstone is permissible,

I wrote a screed proforma for how I imagine it might go,

Wayne


[ The PLAN ]

Draft Screed Proforma for A MEMORIAL STONE


Here, waiting the promise of God, lay the mortal remains of

John Frederick HOLLIS -yeoman farmer, (very briefly) of Melbourne
born: - c.1808 Cane End, near Caversham on Thames, Oxfordshire (nr Reading)
died, a pauper, 11th January 1854 Brunswick, Victoria, - 3rd child &
2nd Son of William Hollis, Esquire & his wife Elizabeth nee Pottinger
of “Lashbrook Farm” Gentlefolk, Yeoman Farmers on 450 acres at Cane End

and also his wife
Frances Elizabeth (late Simmons) HOLLIS nee CLOSE
[ married 8th July 1840 at Old Church, St Pancras, London ]
Born c.1813, Shiplake-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (near Reading)
Daughter of Francis James CLOSE, auctioneer & Mary Ann nee Bullock
Died 4th June 1860 Crown St, Yarraberg, Richmond, Vic. (by then the wife
of a second husband, Pennsylvania-born Thomas Simmons, brickmaker)

The Hollis’s emigrated on 1st August 1852 on the ship “Chalmers” from London arriving in Hobsons Bay on the 22nd November 1852 with their six children:

1. Hubert John HOLLIS: (1841-1888) – pioneer farmer of Wandin Sth (Burleigh)
2. Arthur HOLLIS: (1842-1909) fencer and carter, of Mooroolbark
3. Frances Elizth HOLLIS (1843-1928) m. John Thomas SMITH, brassfounder
4. Edward HOLLIS (1845-1892) of Richmond - died Beechworth Asylum
5. Edith HOLLIS (1846-1892) – m. William Henry GRASS - of Richmond
6. Lucy HOLLIS (1848-1891) – m. John CURTIS - of Richmond

Early parishioners of St Stephens Anglican Church, Richmond

Erected by descendants in humble thanks for their
brief lives, for the sacrifice they made to be Australian.

“The seed must go down to the ground and die if it is to bear much fruit.”


written by Wayne David Knoll 10 July 2007, Brunswick, Victoria