Sargent Family in Tasmania
Descendants of George Hewlett Sargent (1844-1914)
& Elizabeth (Bessie) Dodd (1849-1924)
George Hewlett Sargent
(1844-1914)
George Hewlett Sargent was the fourth child and second son of George Eliel Sargent and Emma Sargent. As his elder brother, Daniel George, died young, the name “George” was carried down through the family by George Hewlett’s descendants.
George Hewlett Sargent was born in Eythorne on 27 May 1844. His childhood seems to have been rather idyllic, spent rambling around the countryside of his village home and attending his uncle Theophilus’s private school with his brothers.
Henley-on-Thames and Marriage
As a young man, George moved to Henley-on-Thames to work as a brewer’s clerk for his cousin and brother-in-law, Peter Beuzeville Byles, at Gray’s Brewery in Friday Street. He attended the old Independent Chapel—now Christ Church United Reformed Church in Reading Road—where he may have met his future wife, a genteel young lady, Elizabeth Dodd, known as Bessie.
Bessie was born in Iver Heath on 19 December 1849, the daughter of John Dodd and Hannah Elizabeth Knight. The marriage took place on 20 December 1873 at St Margaret's Church.
Family Life in Henley
Their three children—George Newton (1875–1955), Amy Ruth (1877–1950), and Myra Bessie (1878–1940)—were all born in Friday Street, Henley-on-Thames.
Elizabeth Sargent (nee Dodd) (1849-1924) with her children, George,Amy, and Myra.
George Hewlett’s mother’s family had long associations with this town. George Hewlett lived with his cousin Martha Byles in a house located between the Anchor Hotel and Peter Beuzeville Byles’s home. Gray’s Brewery stood behind the houses.
Middlesex and Birmingham
By the time of the 1881 census, the family had moved to Enfield, where George Hewlett worked as a mailer of periodicals.
They later moved to Birmingham, where George Hewlett took up a position as a clerk at Cadbury. They lived in Camp Villas on Cadbury’s Estate at King’s Norton.
Emigration to Tasmania
In 1886, the family left their familiar surroundings and sailed for a new life in Tasmania, on the other side of the world.
We can only speculate as to why they took this adventurous step. One possible reason is that they were attracted by advertisements describing Tasmania as a paradise where money could be made growing apples.
However, it is likely that the true catalyst that drove them from their home was the shame and humiliation felt when a member of the Ebenezer Sargent branch of the family, Zwingli Sargent, a solicitor in Birmingham, misappropriated a large sum of money from a client. The money embezzled was refunded by the extended family before their departure, but nevertheless, the shame remained.
George and Elizabeth spent their last night in England at the home of George Hewlett’s elder sister, Emma Davison, in Whitfield. Bessie is said to have told Emma, “You could have knocked me down with a feather,” when she was informed of her husband’s decision to emigrate.
They sailed from London on the SS Sorata on 29 April 1886, the last voyage this ship made to Australia.
The family settled in the Launceston area of Tasmania.
George Hewlett Sargent applied for a Land Grant on 2 July 1886. He received 80 acres and bought a further 20 acres at Glengarry, in the West Tamar area of northern Tasmania. We believe that he had an orchard there, but it was not profitable.
By October 1888, the family had moved to a property called "Fairbanks" in Rosevears on the Tamar River. They rented 320 acres and had a pickle manufacturing business for a short while. The children attended St. Michael's State School three days a week. On Sundays, they travelled by boat across the river to St. Matthias' Church at Windermere. Later, they attended the Baptist Tabernacle in Cimitiere Street, Launceston.
In 1890, the family moved to Launceston, where George was a fruiterer and grocer. They moved frequently in those early years. A letter George wrote to his cousin Obeithio in 1906, who had settled in York, Western Australia, gives us the reason. They were renting houses that George spent time and trouble renovating with good-quality materials "... and just as we were reaping the reward of my toil, the landlord/s sold (them)".
In 1910, the whole family, except for Amy, who had remained in England, moved to Wynyard on the north-west coast of Tasmania. They did this at the urging of a friend, Ralph Margetts, who insisted that Wynyard was about to develop considerably, and it would be wise for the Sargents to take advantage of its future prosperity.
They took up land at Flowerdale, a beautiful rural area not far from Wynyard, but in 1912, they moved into the town. Three years later, George Hewlett died on 22 October 1914 at the age of 70. At the time of his death, he was a Justice of the Peace, a member of the Table Cape Licensing Bench and a prominent church warden of the Wynyard Baptist Church.
George Hewlett Sargent also wrote a few novels, including: Adventures of Two Brothers, Joe Harman's Experiences, Ned the Barge-Boy and the same book in French, Le Petit Batelier.
Little is known about Bessie. Apart from quietly attending to her duties, caring for her husband and children, she was the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement in Launceston in 1904.
Bessie died suddenly, nearly 10 years after her husband, on 3 March 1924, at her son's residence in Hogg Street, just 10 weeks before her son Newton was to be married. She was 75 years of age.
Children of George and Bessie Sargent
George Newton Sargent
b. 1875 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
d. 1955, Wynyard, Tasmania
m. Ruth Dodgshun (1891-1896) in 1924 at Surrey Hills, Victoria.
Children of George and Ruth Sargent:
Eric George Sargent (1928-) m Barbara Jean Briggs (1933-) in 1925
Charles Sargent (1931-2009), m. Moya Hay McLeod (1928-2002)
Amy Ruth Sargent
b.1877 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
d. 1950 in Wynyard, Tasmania. unmarried.
Myra Bessie Sargent
b. 1878 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
d. 1940, Wynyard, Tasmania. Unmarried.
Sincere thanks to Marion Sargent (author of the
above) for sharing her data and images.