David Pollock, b1812 was from Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland, he was an agricultural labourer when he married Margaret Campbell from the same village in 1831. Her father was Mathew Campbell and her mother Janet. At the 1841 Scottish Census the couple were still living at Maybole and had four children and they were Malaea b1831, Alexander b1834, Janet b1835 and Elizabeth b1838. By the 1851 Census they had added four more children, Mary b1843, David b1845, Wilhelmina b1849 and James b1850.
Daughter Mary was Rhonnies matrilineal great great grandmother.
A year later in late 1852 David and Margaret set sail aboard the ‘James Brown’, out of Liverpool, for the new Colony of Victoria. Arriving at Geelong on the 5th January 1853. The shipping manifest records that David could read and write and had been hired as a farm labourer for 3 years and for which he was to be paid £45 a year plus rations. His sponsor or employer was HR Sabine of Bellarine Hills, which is a peninsula South-west of Melbourne and near Geelong. He was most probably covered by the Bounty Scheme, operating at the time.
Interestingly the couple had sailed with all their children, except the eldest Malaea, who was aged 20 and probably would have been married or at least working away from home. Four of the children were accompanying them on the ship manifest and they were James, aged 2, Wilhelmina, aged 4, David aged 7, and Mary, aged 9. During the journey David and James were admitted to the ship’s hospital with serious illness and both died before the journeys end. The elder children were on the same ship but shown as independent adults. Alexander was shown as a labourer travelling unassisted and on his own recognizance; Janet as a domestic servant on her own recognizance; Elizabeth, also as a domestic servant, indentured to an A Backslay, of Indented Head, which was close to her father’s employment, at Bellarine Hills.
For the period after arriving at Geelong, from 1853 to 1872, we are unable to identify any more births for the couple. David probably continued in agriculture and they appear to have stayed in the Geelong region. We have no record for the death of David, but Margaret died in 1884 at Derby aged 72, whilst living with her son Alexander.
Surviving and eldest son, Alexander died in 1887 aged 51, at Bridgewater, Victoria and he had married Jennet Baxter and they had eleven children, while moving between Indented Head, Ballarat and Derby, and various places in between. He was probably working in agriculture like his father.
Daughter Janet had married Frederick Kirby in 1855 and there are no records for them after that date. We believe daughter Elizabeth married Henry Reitz in 1859 and Wilhemina married Samuel Holden in 1864. Samuel was a cousin of James Holden, our ancestor, who that same year had married Mary Pollock and her story will continue as Mary Holden.
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