John and Ellen Crothers
... Jospeh and Ellen Crothers ...

Elizabeth Crothers and John Garland

2-Elizabeth Crothers was born on 26 May 1857 in Pontville and died on 31 May 1944 a the home of her daughter, Alma Mortimore, 22 Cascade Street, North Balwyn, aged 87.

Elizabeth married John Mackay Garland, son of Peter Garland and Isabella McKay, on 2 July 1886 at St Saviours Church of England, Collingwood, Victoria.  John was born in 1857 in Pentland Hills, Victoria and died in 1916 in Northcote at age 59.

John's fater, Peter Garland was identified as a drayman on John's marriage certificate in 1886, a carrier (deceased) on his daughter Elizabeth’s marriage certificate in 1897, and as an Able Seaman on Elizabeth’s death certificate in 1936.

He married Isabella Margaret Mackay in 1851 in Victoria. Isabella, daughter of John Mackay and Margaret Munro, was born about 1834 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and died in 1879. They had 12 children, of whom John was the third. Their youngest child, Elizabeth, married Elizabeth Crothers brother, Robert Crothers.

Elizabeth Crothers and John Garland married on 2 July 1886 at St Saviours Church of England, Collingwood, Victoria.

They had four children:

3-Ida Constance Garland was born in 1887 in Collingwood, Victoria and died in 1934 in Fairfield, Victoria at age 47.

3-Alma Beatrice Garland was born in 1890 in Clifton Hill, Victoria, died on 2 May 1963 in Freemasons Intermediate Hospital, East Melbourne at age 73, and was buried on 6 May 1963 in Springvale Crematorium, Victoria.  Alma married Parker Mortimore in 1930 in Melbourne, Victoria. Parker died in 1930 in Brighton, Victoria.

3-Iris Mackay Garland was born in 1893 in Clifton Hill, Victoria.

3-John Eric Garland was born in 1896 in Collingwood, Victoria and died on 15 Feb 1976 in Prahran, Victoria at age 80. John married Sylvia Maude Eagleson about 1938 in Malvern, Victoria. Sylvia was born in 1938 in Malvern, Victoria. They had two children: Marian Sylvia and John Terence.

4-Marian Sylvia Garland was born about 1940.

4-John Terence Garland was born about 1947. John married Mira Christine.

 

Elizabeth had been baptised at St Marks, Pontville, on 28 June 1857, when her father was stationed there as a constable. The witnesses who signed as sponsors were her mother and William Elliott, a policeman, and Mary McGuinney, the wife of a policeman. She was aged 7 years and 2 months when her mother died in 1864.

Elizabeth evidently left Tasmania, possibly in the company of her brother, Robert, some time in the 1870s or 1880s. She had become an orphan at the age of 13, when her father, Joseph, died in 1871. She probably kept house for her brothers, John, then 22, and Robert, 10, until John’s marriage to Julia Hally in 1879, or until John and Julia moved with their two young children to the North-East of Tasmania in 1883 or 1884.

But the most likely year for her transfer to Melbourne was 1877. Her death certificate of 1944 shows she had lived in Tasmania for 20 years and in Victoria for 60 years. Because the age of death should be 87 not 80, either the 20 should be 27 or the 60 should be 67. Given that Robert's death certificate of 1927 had shown him to have been in Victoria for 50 years, it would seem most likely that they crossed Bass Strait together in 1877, when she was 20. At this stage, brother John would have been 27 and within 2 years of marrying Julia Hally.

As there were a number of Garlands in the Pontville area, it may be that Elizabeth knew or knew of her future husband, John, before leaving for Victoria. But, then, she may have simply met him somehow in Melbourne.

John grew up in the Pentland Hills area, northeast of Bacchus Marsh, before moving with his family, at the age of about 7, to Melbourne, where 4 siblings were born from 1864. According to their marriage certificate, John was a plumber and Elizabeth a housemaid. Both were 29, although the certificate gave Elizabeth’s age as 27, and both were living in Collingwood. Robert Crothers and a George Edward Burness were the witnesses.

Elizabeth’s brother, Robert, married John’s sister, Elizabeth Hope Garland, in 1897 in Clifton Hill, a neighbouring suburb to Collingwood, with J. M. Garland as a witness.