William Trewin: 'Rhoda Mountjoy is my niece. She has been staying with me on a visit for about three weeks

Nor do we know much about Sam - apart from the date of his first wife's death (December 1869) - until he marries for a second time in 1886. But at some point in this 17 year period he came to Australia and like Eliza, ended up in Bendigo.

It is possible that both of them spent some time in South Australia. For most of those who emigrated from Cornwall, especially the miners, went to the

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copper-mine towns of Burra, Kapunda, Wallaroo and Moonta. The last two were opened up in the early 1860's, and the more expert miners there could earn up to £10 a month.

Cornish miners were also noted for their devotion to Methodism, for prayer-meetings and chapel-building, for their quickness in sinking shafts, and for their dislike of the Irish; in some diggings there were daily fights.

It was at Eaglehawk, a gold-mining community a few miles north of Bendigo, that Sam's second marriage took place, on 20 December 1886.

The ceremony was in a Presbyterian Church and was witnessed by Ann and Richardson Lewers, apparently relatives of the minister, Robert Lewers. Sam's age is given as 39 and he was a gold-miner. His bride, Martha Mitchell Phillips was a widow and a licensed victualler. Said to be 30, she was in fact 40 - this could be a clerical error. She had had a child, now dead. Her place of residence is given in the marriage certificate as Sandhurst, which was the original name for Bendigo as well as that of the whole district. Sam lived at Long Gully in Bendigo - where Eliza Honeycombe is to be found some seven years later. Martha's father was William Wall, and she was born on 19 May 1846 in West Maitland, west of Newcastle. In the Victorian Index to Deaths her father's full name is given as William Price Wall and her mother's maiden name as Elizabeth Buckley. William Wall was a tailor when Martha was born and a butcher when she married.

Where did 'Price' come from - and 'Mitchell'? Martha was christened Martha Wall. Why is her second name Mitchell when she marries? And not Buckley? Or even Price or Wall? What was the family connection with the Mitchells? Or did Martha borrow the name from her first husband's family? When she married him, in 1866, she is described as Martha Wall.

Her first husband was George Phillips, a publican, who held the licence for the Unicorn Hotel in Forest Street, Bendigo, from December 1874 to 1881. It cost him £10. Licensees of hotels in the town centre paid £25. Local directories, those that still exist, confirm that George Phillips ran the Unicorn between 1880-82 and that Martha was there as 'proprietress' between 1888 and 1900. She paid the licence from December 1890 to 1895.

But who ran the hotel between 1882, when George disappears from the scene, and 1888? The answer is probably Martha. For in the interim, George

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His age is given as 49. This means that he was born in 1835 and was therefore 11 years older than Martha. His full name is said to have been George Patrick Phillips and his occupation was 'baker1. Cause of death is given as 'disease of the brain' and his birthplace as Dublin in Ireland. No details are known or given about his parents or his marital status.

But there is a handwritten note on the back of an official memorandum about George's death ('I have to request that you will inform the Coroner for the District of Bourke') which says: 'We sent a telegram to the deceased patient's wife who resides in Sandhurst - will send the reply to you'.

A coroner's inquest was held on 26 July before a 12-man jury. Three statements were read, the first from an attendant, George O'Fee. In it he said: 'From the hour of 8 o'clock on the evening of the 24th instant I was night watchman. Deceased was in a fit when I took charge of him. He came out of the fit and about 10.30 I gave him a little milk. He than took another fit and about ten minutes past eleven I called another attendant and I went for the Medical Officer1. This was John O'Brien. He stated that 'George Patrick Phillips was admitted as a patient into the Asylum on the warrant now produced on 18th February last (1883). He suffered from general Paralysis of the Insane -Epilepsy; and his general bodily health unsatisfactory. On the 10th of March he fell in a fit in the yard and was removed in an unconscious state to the Hospital'. He had two other fits, on 12 June and 2 July. O'Brien continued: 'Since this date, beyond Dysenteric Diarrhoea - to which he has been subject I understand for some years - he gradually improved - but was still confined to bed. On the 24th I was summoned by Attendant O' Fee about 11.15 pm to see the patient. I found him dead'.

The post-mortem, performed by Thomas Ralph, concluded that George Phillips died of 'disease of the brain', which accounted for the fit that killed him.

Poor George. Poor Martha. They had been married for 18 years. When did his epileptic attacks begin? And what was the place and occasion of the attack that led to his committal? The fact that his wife is not mentioned on the death certificate and his occupation is given as 'baker1 seems to indicate that, possibly without her knowledge, he may have been living and working in Melbourne for some months before he was admitted to the asylum in February 1884. Did he leave Bendigo to save Martha from the sorry sight of his decline?

Sam Honeycombe must have known him, and Martha, and more than likely was a regular at the Unicorn Hotel. Two years after George Phillips died, his widow and Sam were married, in December 1886.

From Sam's point of view, marrying the proprietress of the Unicorn must have been an improvement on his bachelor existence in Long Gully - which was less than a mile from Forest St. He not only had the comforts of a proper home but of a hotel. It must also have been a fairly respectable establishment, for Samuel was a freemason, and as such he must have had, as well as his wife, some status in the community.

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We can guess at this through Martha's second (assumed) name, Mitchell. It was certainly one to be proud of. Major Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales from 1828, had led several expeditions to map some of the colony's rivers and seek good farming land. Most towns had a street named after him. This aside, Mitchells were well established in Bendigo.

The directories, incomplete as they are, also record that a 'Mrs Eliza Honeycombe1 was in Bendigo between 1893 and 1900, in charge of a stationer's in Long Gully. Hopefully, for the sake of her business, Eliza had learned to read and write by then. Samuel's address at the time of his marriage (in 1886) was given as Long Gully, so brother and sister may well have been living together up to then.

There can be no doubt that 'Mrs' Eliza was in reality our Miss Eliza and Samuel's sister. 'Mrs' could be a simple clerical error, or an honorary appellation. For it is a 'Miss' Eliza Honeycombe who dies in Bendigo of pneumonia on 23 February 1910.

Evidently Eliza was of good standing in the community and no one had ever heard of her illegitimate child (born in Melbourne in 1878). For she rated an obituary in the Bendigo Advertiser.

It said: 'The death took place yesterday of Miss Eliza Honeycombe, 139 New Violet Street. The deceased lady who was 73 years of age has resided in this state for 40 years. Her health has been declining for some time, but it was only a fortnight ago that serious symptoms manifested themselves. The deceased lady was much respected by all acquainted with her. The funeral will take place today at 4 pm A Methodist minister read the service.

She was not in fact 73 and had been in Victoria for about 42 years: she and Louisa stepped ashore at Hobson's Bay at the end of 1867. According to the Calstock censuses she was born in 1841 or 42, which would make her about 69 when she died. It was not unusual for individuals (or relatives) to be unaware of their own or someone else's correct age in those days, and if it was of no account to her, her appearance, after a lifetime of service and in the heat of Australia, may have made her seem older than she was.

New Violet St, where Eliza lived, was the street on which the Central Deborah mine was situated, and was less than half a mile from Forest Street.

Let us return there now, to Sam and Martha.

They were married for 16 years. They had no children. While Martha ran the Unicorn, Sam worked at or in one of the local gold-mines, and on some occasions in the evening attended meetings of his masonic lodge.

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There were many of these mines, and most were hugely productive. One of them, the Central Deborah, which may have been Sam's workplace, was in operation from 1851 for 103 years; and throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Bendigo, as well as Ballarat, of all the gold-rush towns, remained the biggest and most prosperous.

Bendigo, 150 kilometres north of Melbourne, is still noted for its substantial Victorian architecture, epitomised now by the grandiose Shamrock Hotel, rebuilt in 1897 and the third hotel of that name to stand on the site. A Chinese joss-house on Finn St is one of four that once catered for the large Chinese community of shopkeepers and workmen, who when they died were buried in the Chinese section of the White Hills cemetery. Trams were a noisy feature of the main streets, and tourist ones still run in Bendigo, between the joss-house and the Central Deborah mine, now a museum. Vines were first planted in the area in 1856, and a pottery, functioning to this day, was established two years later. For many years Bendigo was the richest quartz reef mining area in the world, and was known by the Chinese as 'Dai Gum San' - the Big Gold Mountain.

No doubt Sam and Martha Honeycombe prospered, like the town, in the last decade of the 19th century. In the 1894 Bendigo rate book Sam is shown as being in possession of the hotel in Forest Street. Martha is shown as possessing seven properties, four in Forest Street and three in nearby Wattle Lane.

But Sam was ailing. He had the miner's disease, phthisis, and on 11 September 1902 he died at his Forest St home of 'chronic pulmonary consumption.' He was 55.

A nephew, John Ennor, informed the registrar about Sam's demise. John was Mary Jane Ennor's son and lodged in Quarry Hill. It would appear that Martha was too distraught, ill, or otherwise occupied, to visit the registrar herself.

The local newspaper carried a notice of Samuel's death. The notice requested that members of his masonic lodge should meet at the lodge and 'follow the remains of our late Samuel Honeycombe to place of interment'. He was buried on 14 September.

Later, Martha placed a headstone 'In Loving Memory' on his grave in the Bendigo Lawn Cemetery, where he lies alone - Martha was buried elsewhere. On the headstone's base she had the mason inscribe: 'Erected by his loving wife - Though lost to sight, to Memory ever dear.'

Presumably Eliza Honeycombe and the Ennors attended Sam's funeral, as might have his other sisters, Ann Stevens and Louisa Gribble. Presumably, Eliza and Martha kept in touch after her brother's death, until Eliza's demise, in 1910.

Martha lived on in Bendigo. She was there, according to the directories, in 1912. Or rather a 'Mrs MM Honeycombe' is recorded as living there, at 201 Forest St, in a small frame house not far from the Unicorn. The hotel has now gone, but the house remains.

She was at 201, according to the records, until 1923, when she died. She was 77. She died on 5 December, fifteen days before the anniversary of her wedding to Sam. In her will she directed that she be buried - not with Sam - but with her first husband in Melbourne, in the St Kilda Cemetery where he lay. A tombstone was erected above the grave bearing their names.

In the will she left a bequest of coral to the Bendigo Art Gallery, and her property consisted of some land on which were a five-room brick villa and a weatherboard cottage, one or other of which she rented. The other properties, in Wattle Lane and Forest Street, had clearly been disposed of and sold before this time.

A piece of local history perished with her death, as well as the last person named Honeycombe in the gold-mining town of Bendigo.

One other Honeycombe is known to have emigrated independently to Australia. This is Jacob Honeycombe, whose origins, parents and place of birth remain unknown. All we know is that a 21-year-old Jacob Honeycombe arrived in Melbourne in 1852, having left Plymouth on the ship Posthumous in August.

He could have been a brother (whose birth about 1831 has not been noted) of Samuel and his five emigrant sisters. There is the Plymouth connection. Or he may have been a scion of another family, perhaps illegitimate. Or the name could be wrong. He arrived in Melbourne in 1852 and then vanishes.

Or is he the James who makes a mysterious appearance in the Melbourne directories in 1891, at Suffolk St? And are that Jacob and this James the same as the 'Jas' who is noted as living in Falconer St in Melbourne in 1916 and 1917?

Do we have a separate Jacob and James? Or is the Jacob of 1852 the same as the later James noted as living in Melbourne? It is possible, as the Jacob who arrived in Australia in 1852 (and may have been born in 1831) would have been 85 in 1916. But where did he come from? Where did he go? Did he marry and when did he die?

One day we may have the answers. But not to one of the most intriguing questions of all.

Did any of these male Honeycombes, all cousins, ever meet in the burgeoning colony of Victoria? Did Jacob ever bump into his cousin Richard? Or his cousin John? In Melbourne or Ballarat? Or come across cousin Samuel in Bendigo?

They must have known about each other's presence in Australia. And the fact that they were not just Cornishmen, but blood relations, would have been sufficient cause to seek each other out. The two Williams, progenitors of

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Richard and John, of Samuel and possibly Jacob and all their sisters, were practically the same age. William, the mason, the father of Richard and John, was born in the village of Calstock in 1797, and Will the miner, father of Samuel, was born there the following year. As boys the two Williams must have known each other: the Honeycombes were an ancient clan, whose ancestors had lived in Calstock and thereabouts for centuries.

One would like to think that the sons and daughters of both Williams, by accident or design, met once or twice.

I see the men in some rowdy Victorian hostelry, sinking several beers together, and as they do so reviving memories and images of the damp ancestral English village that had been their fathers' birthplace. I see them reminiscing about the people their fathers and they had known, and wondering for some sad nostalgic seconds how everything was in the misty Cornish valley that none of them would ever see again.

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The fourth child and first daughter of John and Mary Honeycombe was Jane Winifred, known as Jenny. She was born at Crocodile Creek in 1885, on 27 December, and attended the shanty school at Crocodile Creek for about three months until the family left the district in 1892.

Her father, John, worked in the mines around Crocodile Creek (now known as Bouldercombe) and managed one or two. However, he is described as a 'miner1 on the birth certificate of his second daughter, Annie Frances, born in February 1891 at Union Hill.

Two years later, Mary Honeycombe and her (by now) five surviving children - little Frank had been killed in an accident in 1881 -were back in Charters Towers, where she and John had married. Here her seventh child, Ellen, was born in August 1893.

About this time the family split up. Mary had a mental breakdown and John took his two eldest boys down south with him; and the three little girls were put in the care of Granny Chapman in Charters Towers. Jenny was eight.

Her father returned to the Towers and worked there as a mine manager until 1898, when he disappears from this history, not reappearing until 1904 in Western Australia. His children were apparently never restored either to him or to their mother.

In due course Jenny became a domestic servant in one of the hotels in Charters Towers. But we lose sight of her until her marriage in Cairns in 1908.

What was she doing in Cairns, so far to the north? She had met her future husband, George Butcher, in Charters Towers, and had known him for several years, since they were children. He had been at school there and worked for a time in local mines. Perhaps, like other young girls on the gold-fields (and like her mother) she discovered she was pregnant, or thought she was, and in order to avoid any social embarrassment, she married him far away from her hometown and during one of his journeys as a teamster. At any rate, they married in Cairns on 12 February, 1908; both were 22.

George Trainor Butcher was born on 11 December 1885 at Georgetown, halfway on the long, long road, then a track, between Cairns and the Gulf of Carpentaria. He was one of twelve children, whose father, John Butcher, hailed from London; his mother was an Irish girl, Margaret Trainor, of County Armagh. It was a rough and rugged life for the family, with the father, John, often away. As a carrier and a teamster, he drove the bullock wagon-trains that serviced the growing communities in the outback and on the goldfields. Riflemen guarded the wagon-trains, as robbers known as bush-rangers (originally escaped convicts) could sell the supplies or make use of them themselves.

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George's brother, Frank, was killed in the Mt Mulligan disaster in September 1921, when 75 miners died in an underground cave-in following an explosion. George was in Mareeba at the time. The mine was never re-opened.

In 1914 the Butchers and their children - there would eventually be seven - moved to Ravenshoe, where George worked with the bullock and horse teams carting logs to the Tumoulin mill. Ravenshoe is on the southern edge of the Atherton Tableland, and set in an area of fine timber, gemstones and waterfalls. Five km from Ravenshoe are the Millstream Falls, the widest in Australia, although only 13 meters high.

Jenny's youngest child, Fred Butcher, born at Herberton in March 1924, wrote about his parents 65 years later.

'Mum and Dad were devoted to each other and went everywhere together. My Mother often used to tell of the early days in Ravenshoe, when they lived on the edge of the bush outside town. The blacks used to wait until Dad left for work and approach the old house and demand food and terrorise her and the young children. This used to happen quite often, until my father took to them with his stock-whip, and life became more tolerable. Dad was a big fellow in his younger days, a bare-knuckle fighter if trouble arose. On the other hand Mother was a gentle and kind person. She had a good sense of humour and would at times tell some extremely funny jokes, sometimes at the expense of Dad - like the time he told her to wash some of the powder, rouge and lipstick off her face before going to a dance. Knowing Mum, I don't think she would grant such a request. She was only 'pint-size' beside Dad, but she was quite firm in her ways.

'She had a remarkable memory, which no doubt stood her in good stead in card games. Euchre was her forte and somehow always seemed to become included in a four-handed game... Mother was able to cope with most crises without too much emotion. An exception was the occasion when a large tree fell on Dad in the bush, and he had to be transported to town on a stretcher. Despite his assurances that he would be OK, she broke down and cried incessantly. I clearly recall him saying: "Don't cry, Jinny. I'm all right and will be home soon." He was as good as his word, and his injuries had no serious aftereffects - at least, none that he complained about.'

Fred relates that his father always pronounced his wife's name as 'Jinny', not 'Jenny', and that for many years she (wrongly) celebrated her birthday on 26 December, not the 27th. The mistake was discovered a few years before her death.

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In February 1968, he and Jenny, then living in John St, Ravenshoe, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary; they were 82.

Congratulatory telegrams were sent by the Queensland Premier, JCA Pizzey; by the Governor, Sir Alan Mansfield; and by the Shire Chairman, Councillor Holdcroft. The Butchers were guests of honour at a dinner attended by almost 40 relatives and friends at the home of their daughter, Irene (Mrs Bewick) in Wormboo Street. At the celebration, which featured a large wedding-cake, were another daughter, Maggie Mealing, from Cairns, and Jack, from Herberton. Sons George and Fred were unable to travel from, respectively, the Northern Territory and Rockhampton, and floods prevented the arrival of sons Arthur and Len from Ingham. In addition to their seven children, George and Jenny now had 23 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.