Under Construction
Our Midson family’s early history is in Steeple Bumpstead – Bumpstead is an old Anglo Saxon expression for Place of Reeds. Steeple Bumpstead is in Essex, one of the Home Counties that surround London in Southern England. See our Midson Family Tree web page.
Formerly an impoverished British immigrant agricultural labourer from Steeple Bumpstead Essex, Edward Midson, became a resident (but possibly not initially Freehold) of the Field of Mars aka Marsfield in the Ryde area of Sydney NSW. Less than ten years after arriving in 1855, Edward Midson was listed on the 1861 – 1862 Electoral Roll for Central Cumberland, Sydney NSW. Ultimately he owned “Essex Farm“, Eastwood/Epping Heights, and on his 1887 death, his estate was valued at 7,807 pounds – Daily Telegraph 15.12.1887. Two of his sons, William and James Jacob Midson, married descendants of First Fleet convicts, John Small (Charlotte) and Mary Parker (Lady Penrhyn).
Edward‘s granddaughter was my great grandmother, Lucy Callcott (nee Midson), daughter of his son William Midson.
Lucy Callcott nee Midson seems to have been one of the first of the Midson Family to have lived in the Illawarra, when she arrived in Thirroul in 1915. Her sister Beatrice Southwell (nee Midson) also owned a house, Wyewurk, in Thirroul, which was managed by Lucy and her former railway station master husband Alf Callcott. The English writer DH Lawrence rented it briefly while he was writing his Australian novel “Kangaroo“.
Raymond George Midson, grandson of William’s brother Frank Midson, was also a railway man and lived at Thirroul in the early 1930’s.
Subsequently, it has been found that George Harold Midson, son of Lucy’s uncle James Jacob Midson, was a dairy farmer at “Mayfield” Oak Flats, Albion Park by about 1918. Apparently he had been in the area years before, but moved up to the Central Coast, before moving back south.
Born Lucy Midson in 1875, she was the eldest daughter of William Midson and his wife Charlotte (nee Small) – who had about 10 children in total. As this section focuses on the Midson’s beyond the Illawarra, it will not cover details of Lucy‘s story, which can be read here.
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- Charlotte Midson nee Small – source “The Small Family in Australia 1788-1988”
From an English Workhouse Family to Leaders in the Ryde & Brisbane Communities … and a Member of the Queensland State Parliament
Note sometimes Midson was spelled as Mitson and possibly even Mizon & Mizen.
In 1851 Lucy’s grandparents, Edward and Harriet (Mears) Midson were listed as living in the Malting Cottages in Steeple Bumpstead in the UK 1851 Census . Edward’s occupation was given as an Agricultural Labourer. Maltings Cottages may have been previously used for drying barley for beermaking and had been converted for housing. Alternatively they may have been built of material from old malting yards nearby ?
Then in 1855, Edward, aged 32 years, and his wife Harriet, aged 33 years, had emigrated to Australia with their young family of Susannah, aged 8 years, and William, aged 6 years.
They came as assisted immigrants on the Constitution arriving in Botany Bay on May 27 1855. And they were supposed to have been vaccinated against Smallpox. However many died of Smallpox during the journey on the Constitution out to Australia. So the ship & its occupants were held at the North Head Quarantine Station for a fairly long period of time. Finally they were allowed into Sydney. A memorial was erected at the North Head Quarantine Station by the Survivors – the Midson family was amongst the survivors. It is located in the 3rd Class and Asiatics Precinct of the Quarantine Station.
More Midson children would be born to Edward and Harriet in Australia – Frank, Jacob, Elizabeth, Mary and Henry who died in early childhood.
Edward Midson, resident (but not Freehold) of the Field of Mars was listed on the 1861 – 1862 Electoral Roll for Central Cumberland. Ultimately he owned “Essex Farm“, Eastwood, and on his 1887 death, his estate was valued at 7,807 pounds – Daily Telegraph 15.12.1887. Australia had been good to him. His executors were his three sons William, Frank and James – Proctor for the Executors was prominent lawyer Arthur Wigram Allen – Trove. By 1912, 52 lots were advertised on the “Essex Farm” estate on the heights of Epping – Trove.
Edward and Harriet’s eldest son, William Midson became an Orchardist, a Wesleyan preacher in the Ryde Circuit, and also an Alderman on Dundas Borough Council for the Carlingford area from the late 1890′s. His birthplace Steeple Bumpstead had a Congregational Church, and was long an area of non-conformist religious activity. Though William had also been involved in Church of England activities in Australia, but by the late 1800’s he was very active in Methodist activity, along with his brothers Frank and Jacob Midson.
William was also active in setting up the Carlingford Progress Association in that era. There was also another Alderman on Dundas Council at the same time called James Sonter, and he was married to William Midson’s sister Susannah. Perhaps it was not surprising that Lucy’s brother, Harold Midson became an alderman on Windsor Council too. Curious trivia – in 1899 William Midson (1849–1924) suggested the name for Epping – apparently named after a town near Epping Forest in Essex, where his father was born.
Edward Midson’s Sisters Matilda and Ann
Edward Midson’s sister “Matilda” / Matilda Ann Green nee Midson emigrated to Australia on the Speedy in 1855 with her husband Thomas Green and their children Emma, Charles, Harriet and Frederick. They’d lived in Keddington Sturmer, Suffolk England which is near Steeple Bumpstead. In Australia they seem to have been in West Maitland.
Matilda Green’s sister Ann Midson and husband James Green, also of Sturmer, arrived in Australia with their four children Thomas, Mary, James and Samuel, on the Samuel Boddington in February 1855. James Green was the brother of Matilda’s brother Thomas Green. They also settled in the West Maitland area.
It was a form of “chain migration” when the Midson siblings came to the NSW Colony in 1855.
It’s no wonder there is some confusion with two Midson sisters marrying two Green brothers, both emigrating to Australia in 1855, and settling in the Maitland area. Not to mention that Matilda was also known as Ann Matilda??
Meanwhile …. Hard Times back in Essex
Samuel Midson in the Workhouse
Edward Midson’s father Samuel Midson died in 1858, after spending his last years in an English Workhouse at Risbridge near to Steeple Bumpstead. The Risbridge Workhouse operated until well into the 20th Century with some people still being admitted in the immediate pre WWI years. Information on the Housing estate on the Workhouse site today – see images.
In 1855, Edward Midson, and two of his sisters, Ann Green and Matilda Green, had left their father, Samuel Midson back in England. Their brother George Midson, and sister Betsy Binks nee Midson remained in Essex. George married Catherine Middledith and Betsy appears to have have married John Binks. George and Betsy seemed to have remained around the Steeple Bumpstead and Risbridge area. So their father Samuel Midson would have not been left entirely alone.
Assisted emigration to the Colonies was promoted to help “empty out” the Workhouses. The 1840-50’s were the peak period of assisted emigration to Australia under the Poor Law-Pauper Emigration system. Couples without children were preferred. So perhaps William’s father Samuel was not eligible for the assisted emigration programme in the 1850’s.
Our Midson family’s early history is in Essex, one of the Home Counties that surround London – also included are Berkshire, Buckingham, Hertford, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey. Of recent times residents of these areas have been described as nice, comfortable, conformist, middle class people (Source :Urdang, Laurence. (1987) Names & nicknames of places and things. London: Grafton, p. 146.)
However it was not always so. It’s interesting to note that for years Steeple Bumpstead “was a hotbed of trouble with many ‘riots’ and unrest during the agricultural strikes in 1914 and the 1920s. In fact the national agricultural strike of 1914 was started nearby in Castle Camps and the troubles spread to Steeple Bumstead, which became a stronghold for the strikers” – Wikipedia. These were not peaceful protests
“Samuel Ketteridge, a farmer, had ridden into Steeple Bumpstead on Saturday night for his week’s supplies, but he was set upon in the street by a crowd of strikers and their wives, who attempted to unhorse him. William Cressell, who was said to be the chief aggressor, was charged with assaulting Ketteridge, and was sentenced to a month’s hard labour.
Three other Bumpstead men, who had interfered with another farmer named Pannell whilst he had been cutting his grass, were charged with assaulting a Police Sergeant. John Barnes was sent to prison for 6 months, and Arthur Bentley and Walter Clayden for 2 months each.” – Source Hertspast Policing …. The creation of a workable system of settlement certificates from the 1690s ensured that paupers could hope to receive support or a pension despite living at a distance from their settlement parish. Letters from paupers to their home parish are occasionally included in parish archives as a separate category of document, though more often they are interspersed with receipts and miscellaneous parish papers. The earliest examples of these types of letters date from the 1740s and 1750s, and they only become commonplace in the early nineteenth century (beyond the scope of this website). – Source London Lives
The earlier Luddite era of violent protest was mostly associated with the years 1811 to 1817, however it was beginning to emerge as early as 1779. In 1816 Luddite activity, which had been further north began to occurr in Essex, when threshing machines were smashed and destroyed – 1, .
There were also the later Swing Riots – a widespread uprising in 1830 by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England, in protest of agricultural mechanisation and other harsh conditions – Wikipedia
It began with their destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830, and by early December had spread throughout the whole of southern England and East Anglia.
The Swing Rioters smashed the threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them. The riots spread rapidly through the southern counties of Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex and Hampshire, before spreading north into the Home Counties (Berkshire, Buckingham, Hertford, Kent, Middlesex, Essex and Surrey), the Midlands and East Anglia….
The Swing riots were a major influence on the Whig Government. They added to the strong social, political and agricultural unrest throughout Britain in the 1830s, encouraging a wider demand for political reform, culminating in the introduction of the Reform Act 1832; and also to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 ending “outdoor relief” in cash or kind, and setting up a chain of workhouses covering larger areas across the country, to which the poor had to go if they wanted help.
The population specialist Malthus was not a supporter of Poor Laws in the late 18th Century. He argued that the aid provided to the poor through the Poor Law encouraged labourers to marry when they lacked resources of their own to support a family, depressed the real value of labour (by increasing competition for a fixed supply of food) and discouraged families from saving to enable them to survive future crises. Any benefits obtained from the successful alleviation of some individual cases of distress were minor compared with the social and economic evils that were produced elsewhere directly or indirectly as a result of the operation of the Poor Laws.
There is even a book “Essex Pauper Letters 1731 – 1837”, of 758 letters edited by Thomas Sokoll – which how describes, in their own words, how the poor sought assistance in their poverty, eg .
“On 14 July 1828, Phillis Webb wrote back to the parish of Braintree in Essex
from Ipswich (Note Steeple Bumpstead is part of the Braintree area). Her letter said,
Honoured Sir,
I write these few lines to inform you that I cannot keep my brother with two shillings a week I have also a shilling to pay for lodgings therefore I cannot keep him with two shillings a week he has not got any shoes to his feet nor any thing to wear and the people where I lodge will not allow him to lode with me you did send me only 8 shillings for 5 weeks and I cant afford to keep him out of that as I have to work for my living and work is very scarce I hav not heard of a place yet what will be the most that you can give if he gets a place please send me word.
She writes a series of other imploring letters subsequently, and then her second brother writes in his own hand on 7 July 1829,
Have the goodness to oblige me and send my jacket and trowes to the Angle Inn witham by the Maite to be left for Mr Turner, Driver of Burry’s wagon and I shall be much oblige to you for I am living with my sister Phillis now …
We go on to learn that Phillis Webb had two brothers, a sister and a mother,
all of whom had come to live with her on a temporary basis at some point in
the 1820s and early 1830’s. The Webb letters are drawn from a set of more
than 700 pauper letters transcribed and annotated by Thomas Sokoll for the
English county of Essex. Of these letters, 42 per cent detail the way in which
kin, friends and neighbours come to the aid of poor families not living in their
parish of settlement. In turn, recent archival discoveries have revealed that
the Essex pauper letter sample is by no means unique.” – Source Steven King
The Midson’s did well in escaping these scenarios when they left England from the 1850’s as assisted emigrants.
On his 1887 death, Edward Midson’s estate was valued at 7,807 pounds – Daily Telegraph 15.12.1887.
His cousin’s son, Charles William Midson, became a Member of Queensland’s Parliament.
Such outcomes would have been unthinkable had they remained in England.
As they say, it’s so easy to lose your history within three generations, no wonder I knew so little of our Midson Essex family history, a mere four generations after the Midson’s left Steeple Bumpstead ?
Other Midson’s in Australia – see Midson Family Tree web page
A cousin of our Edward‘s, Charles “James” Midson, a son of Thomas Midson, emigrated to Australia after 1851 and by about 1863. He was a carpenter/builder who settled in the Brisbane area with his family, which included sons Charles William Midson and Arthur Midson. Charles James and these two sons were involved in the building and construction industry in Brisbane.
Charles William Midson also emigrated to Australia in 1853 where he was on the Victorian Goldfields before returning to England in 1855 – Reference. In 1856 he was in Sydney and by 1860 Brisbane beckoned to him. was later both a Council Aldermen on the South Brisbane Council, and an elected Ministerialist Party MLA member in the Queensland State Parliament, from around 1893. He and his brother Arthur were prominent in Brisbane business and political circles for decades – Arthur was also President of the Queensland Protectionist League in the 1890’s.
There was a Walter Midson of Steeple Bumpstead who emigrated to South Australia in 1855 on the Punjab. He was possibly the son of Edward Midson’s cousin Joseph Midson, also of Steeple Bumpstead, Essex. Was he the Walter Midson who possibly lived in Bendigo Victoria? That Walter Midson seems to have married Bridget Maloney in Eaglehawk, Bendigo area Victoria where he died in 1905. They had four children Mary Jane, Joseph, Annie and Rebecca.
There also appear to be Midson’s in Tasmania – however a direct Midson link between this Midson and our own branch has not yet been found, although there seems to be an indirect connection on a Tilbrook line.
The Tasmanian Midson’s seem to date from 1570 in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex England – while our own Midson branch has only been dated to 1660 in Steeple Bumpstead – see Midson Family Tree web page for more details. It is plausible that our Midson’s and the Tasmanian Midson’s are connected but way – way back ?
There seemed to be two Midson convicts transported to Australia, however so far there are no connections to our Essex – Suffolk Midson’s.
- George Midson – convicted at the Central Criminal Court in 1838 and sentenced to be transported for 10 years. In 1839 he departed on the Canton and arrived in Van Diemans Land in 1840. By 1846 he had gained a Ticket of Leave in Van Diemans Land. Sources : Convict Records,
- Charles Midson – there is some evidence of a convict of this name, but it may be an alias – ie – Charles Duggins. He was convicted of Stealing at Warwick Quarter Sesssions in 1844, sentenced to be transported for 7 years, departed on the Maria Soames in 1844 Source : Tasmania LINC – 1, 2, 3,
Click here for newspaper items on the Midson family in NSW.
Also Search via State Records of NSW Search Page has Midson references.
Click here for baptisms of Midson’s in Steeple Bumpstead 1676 – 1907 – see more
Midson Places in Essex – Suffolk
Steeple Bumpstead
Apparently “Bumpstead” is said to be an Anglo Saxon word for “place of reeds”. One of its Churches, St Mary’s dates from the 11th Eentury, while its Moot Hall dates from at least 1592, and possibly in the Doomsday Book 11th Century era ?
Was a town of about 1200 people in 1848 – when there was a Joseph Midson, Tea Dealer, and David Midson, Carpenter, as mentioned in White’s History, Gazetteer & Directory of Essex ~ 1848 – refer Pubs History . Of course, agricultural labourers would not have rated a mention.
In 2011 it was a town of a little over 1600 people.
– see Wikipedia reference to Steeple Bumpstead
St Helion Bumpstead
Haverhill
Wikipedia : A medieval era town, and possibly Saxon era, with some nearby Bronze and Iron Ages evidence. Its market is recorded in the 1086 Doomsday Book. Currently its population is over 27,000 – its growth was part of the re-construction to re-settle London communities followin the WW2 devastation. One of its most significant buildings is the 1540-built Anne of Cleves House, which is now a nursing home – 1, 2, 3, .
There was once an Australian Arms hotel in Haverhill where Charles Henry Whiting was the licensee. He was a family connection of the Tarvin family who were also connected to Martha Barnard nee Midson‘s daughter Sarah Barnard nee Tarvin. Nobody seems to know how it came to be known as the Australian Arms – though one suggestion: “is thought to have received the name from Irish navvies who used the pub while building Sturmer Arches viaduct and that part of the Colne Valley Railway line, and moved on after that job to one in Australia?” (Reference) And it is believed to have still been operating after 2007. There has been a proposal for redevelopment in 2010 and an archaological study in 2014.
More at Haverhill Whitings
Sturmer
Risbridge
Great Wratting
Midson’s have remained in the Haverhill area until into the 21st Century.
Who am I ? Kerrie Anne Christian (nee Adams), a great granddaughter of Lucy (Midson) & Alf Callcott.
The Callcott Family in the Illawarra 
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