Edith Webster Morgan ³⁹⁵

  Research Notes:

Graham Whyte notes:
As I explained Frederick Henry Attride was my great grandfather. It is quite a story.

There has always been a mystery in our family.

My Great Grandfather on my father's side was Ralph Frederick Osborne. He was an enigma. He arrived in Australia in 1876. He married Edith Webster Morgan, my great grandmother, in Melbourne in 1882 and had two male children, one was Francis Dorrington Morgan, my Grandfather. He ran a Horse Bazaar and Livery Stables in Sydney and then Melbourne where he would have met Edith. He was divorced by Edith in 1884.

I could not find his birth or death or anything about him. My uncle Robert Hamilton Morgan 30 years before had also come to a dead end. He was put into my Family History File probably never to be seen again.

I had an Ancestry DNA test and was highly matched with a third cousin in the United Kingdom. We discovered a connection by comparing our family trees. In mine it was Sarah Ann Osborne (nee Philips) who was recorded in the marriage certificate of Ralph to Edith as his mother. The father was recorded as Henry Osborne, Clerk in the Bank of England. However, in my cousins tree it was a Sarah Ann Attride (nee Philips) married to a Henry Attride, Clerk in the Bank of England. It turned out that their son was Frederick Henry Attride. So Osborne and Attride were one in the same. But there was another name that entered the picture, Sydney Frederick Galvayne. It turned out that they were all the one in the same person. The DNA test unlocked a mystery in my family tree and has connected me with family in the United Kingdom.

Frederick left the UK and his wife and two children and went to Australia under an assumed name.

This person who was a mystery was actually a well-known person in the Victorian era. He was a skilled horseman, self-taught veterinary surgeon, self-styled Professor, entertainer, unashamed self-promoter, showman, prolific author, inventor, was bankrupted at least twice, had patronage of Queen Victoria and other British Royalty, served in the British Army in the Boar War and was a famous Victorian era horse trainer/whisperer. He was also a bit of rouge and scoundrel, not to mention bigamist. There are many myths about the man and his origins . My Great Grandfather, who went under three names, Attride, Osborne and Galvayne.

Edith married Henry Attride, son of Henry Attride and Elizabeth Humphreys, in 1882 in Melbourne, Victoria Australia.³⁹⁵ (Henry Attride was born in 1819 and died on 28 Jul 1890 in Peckham Rye, London, Surrey England.)