Henry Gumbleton

  Research Notes:

Michelle Monk notes:
Under the bounty immigrant scheme, the MacArthurs [of Camden Park] brought out 41 families between April 1837 and March 1839, together with a small number of single men. Six families were vignerons from the valley of the Rhine near Frankfurt, and the rest of the people were Southern English. Edward MacArthur [son of John & Elizabeth MacArthur] was in charge of the English end, which meant finding the people, signing them up and seeing them on to the ships. The first import, by the ship "Brothers" removed 15 families and one single man from the north-east corner of Dorset, from the area of Cranborne Chase. During the English summer of 1836 Edward had begun by making contact with the Rev John West, an evangelical clergyman with experience in Canada, who parish was at the border of the Chase. Most of the labouring men and women found for MacArthur had 'a general or immediate acquaintance' with each other. Several were brothers, two were sisters and the evidence suggests other close ties. These original bonds were important because it was MacArthurs' intention that at Camden the immigrants 'should form the nucleus of a rural community within themselves', relying as far as possible on each other. All were agricultural labourers, except for Samual Arnold, a wheelwright, who was appointed overseer for the passage. Cranborne Chase was a lawless place from time immemorial and its worst parish was Sixpenny Handley, from which many of the Camden people first came. At one point during troubles the magistrates said of Handley that had they fully done their duty they might have arrested 'two-thirds of the labouring population of the district'. Some of the people who arrived by the 'Brothers' did prove difficult, but according to William they were managed with firmness and good temper. Thus the evil habits of their old life were soon 'repressed or reformed'. Repressing and Reforming began aboard ship. As with the convicts at Camden, the process depended in the first place on giving the people secure rights and a certain minimal, but uncommonly high, standard of comfort. On the 'Brothers' for instance, the MacArthurs provided every family with a small, individually lighted cabin, 6 feet square, or two cabins in the case of a large families, most of the room in each being taken up with mattresses of twill or sacking, bolsters, blankets and cotton counterpanes. Each individual had his or her own tin pan and pringer, and in each cabin there was a green-painted slop-pail and cover, hook pots, a mess dish, a tea cannister, a sugar box, iron spoons, a mess kit for washing and a haversack. A printed ration list was hung up between decks for general information, and the food was proved to the people already cooked. The people were also promised that they were to have nothing to do with ordinary shipboard duties, and they were to be exempt from the painful ritual usually suffered by ships' passengers on their first crossing of the line. As well, every family on the vessel was provided with a Bible and every individual with a prayer book. All had access to an entire series of the 'Penny Magazine' and other 'useful' books and there were stationery and school texts for the children. There were prayers every morning and very night and Divine Service every Sunday. All were kept busy during the week, the men making up wool bales and nets of twine, and the women stitching shirts and shifts from material already cut up for them. They were paid form this labour when they got to Camden, and allowed to keep two out of every seven shirts and one out of every four shifts.

  Noted events in his life were:

• connection.

• connection. ¹⁰²⁷

• Occupation: Labourer, 1837, Macarthur Estates at Camden, NSW Australia. ¹⁰²⁶

• connection. ¹⁰²⁵

• connection: no longer linked. Different parents to one on my tree. ¹⁰²⁸

Henry married Jane Oxford, daughter of George Oxford and Phillis Merefield, on 14 Nov 1833 in Compton Abbas, Longcritchill, Dorset England. (Jane Oxford was born on 27 Nov 1812 in Compton Abbas, Dorset England and died on 23 Apr 1890 in Racecourse Rd, Cootamundra, NSW Australia.)