"The Holes Was Eaten By Rats ..."

William Hudson (1827-1908)

Compiled by Russell Hudson 20 July 2005. Updated 18 July 2008.

William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard/Hudson William Hudson was born at Tillshole, Longsleddale, Westmorland on 28 November 1827 and baptised at St Mary's Parish Church, Longsleddale on 2 March 1828. On 23 December 1861 at the age of 34 he left his home for Australia, to settle some years later on his farm "Sunny Brow", near Clunes, Victoria. His marriage on 4 September 1873 to Mary Jane Goddard was the start of a union that produced seventeen children. He died age 80 on 29 March 1908 and was buried in the Hudson family grave in Smeaton Cemetery. (Photograph Hud-fam-102 by Yeomans, Burke Street, Melbourne, about 1900; click photograph to enlarge; back to return)

William Hudson - A Native of Longsleddale, Westmorland

William Hudson arrived in Australia in 1862, and at his death in 1908, age 80, he had been  resident in Australia for over forty-six years. He never forgot his place of birth, and his pride in his origins is reflected in the inscription on his gravestone in the Smeaton Cemetery, which reads (inter alia):  William Hudson, native of Longsleddale, Westmorland, England.

Longsleddale is a small farming community in the eastern Lake District of England, comprising scattered farms and hamlets along the narrow, scenic valley of the River Sprint. William Hudson was born at Tillshole, which together with Sadgill and Stockdale form a small hamlet close to the northern end of the valley. Here the valley floor narrows and the farming land finally terminates against steep cliffs and rugged crags.

For descriptions of the valley click: Longsleddale. For descriptions of the farm that was his birthplace click: Tillshole.

He was the sixth son and eighth child of Thomas Hudson, yeoman farmer of Tillshole, and Isabella Green previously of Bampton, Westmorland. Thomas Hudson was the head of one of several  farming families named Hudson living in the valley. They occupied properties near Wadshow, halfway up the valley, and at Tillshole, Sadgill and Stockdale, near the head of the valley. Records show that Hudsons had farmed in the western Lake District from at least the 1700s.

For descriptions and records of Hudsons from Longsleddale click: Families.

Thomas and Isabella Hudson were married in St Mary's Church, Longsleddale on 19 April 1815. Their marriage entry is the first in the separate register for the Longsleddale chapelry, all previous marriages in the district having been recorded at the larger parish centre of Kendal. The transcript of the marriage certificate records that they were "married in this chapel by licence with the consent of friends" by Edward Greenwood, Curate, in the presence of William Hudson, presumably Thomas Hudson's brother, and Edmund Kitchen, presumably a friend (a William Kitchen was listed as an unmarried servant, age 19, at Wadshole in the 1851 Census of Longsleddale).

Thomas and Isabella had ten children, eight boys and two girls. In order of birth or baptism (bp) they were: George (bp 14/06/1815), Thomas (bp 18/11/1816), Mary (bp 22/02/1818), John (bp 01/10/1819), Agnes (bp 03/08/1821), Edmund (bp 02/11/1823), James (bp 02/04/1826), William (born 28/11/1827; bp 02/03/1828), Robert (bp 23/05/1830) and Joseph (bp 23/12/1832). George, the first born child , was christened at Bampton, his mother’s birthplace, but all of the other children were christened at St Mary's Church in Longsleddale. For further details of William Hudson's brothers and sisters and their descendants, click: Relatives.

William Hudson and his brothers and sisters remained in Longsleddale through the period from 1815 to the mid to late 1800s, and their residency at the properties of Tillshole, Sadgill and Tom's Howe is recorded in the Census Records for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 (click: Families). 

William Hudson appears in Longsleddale census records for 1841 (aged 13) and for 1851 (aged 23, an unmarried servant), but is absent from the 1861 census record.  It is probable, however, that he  remained in the district throughout the period leading up to his departure for Australia in December 1861; almost certainly he was working as a farm labourer at, or near, Tillshole. His silver pocket watch, which was made in 1842-1843  was regularly serviced in Kendal during the period September 1848 to December 1861, and many of the original service records have been retained within the watch case. The last record was for a service carried out on 12 December 1861, only eleven days before he set sail from Liverpool for Australia on 23 December 1861. Other records of service are simply recorded on discs cut from local newspapers, and some of these, judging by their text content, may relate to the period after his arrival in Australia.  

For a photograph of the watch together with examples of the service records, follow the link to: Pocket Watch.

The pocket watch was clearly a valued possession and was given by William Hudson to his son (my grandfather), Thomas Hudson, who in turn passed it on to his son (my father), William Hudson.   It is probable that Thomas Hudson was given the watch in 1899, together with a new chain (acquired in 1898-1899), on the occasion of his departure from Clunes for Western Australia.   At the same time, his mother presented him with a prayer book.

Australia Bound

William Hudson was 34 years old on 23 December, 1861 when he boarded the "Star of India" in Liverpool, and set sail for Melbourne, Australia, arriving on 31 March, 1862. 

  The total passenger list of 163 comprised 143 adults (married: male 7, female 12; single: male 106, female 18), children 17, infants 3.   Of these, 75 were English, 28 Scottish, 50 Irish and 10 from other parts.  Only five adults were classed as cabin passengers. William Hudson was the first listed passenger, with the following details given (extracts taken from "Schedule B - Names and Descriptions of Passengers":

Name of Passenger: Wm Hudson; Single, male, age 34; Profession: lab.; Origin: English; Destination: Melbourne.

Name (of sailing ship): Star of India; Master: Peter Buchan; Tons Register 1697; Aggregate number of superficial feet for other than cabin passengers: 3871; Total adults that can be carried exclusive of crew and cabin passengers: 254; Where bound: Melbourne.   The ship was certified as carrying provisions sufficient according to the requirements of the Passengers Acts for 155 statute adults for a voyage of 140 days.   Signed Peter Buchan, Master, 23 December, 1861.

For further details of the sailing ship, click the link: Star of India.

“Sunny Brow" Farm, Lord Clyde

Little is known of the detail of William Hudson's movements subsequent to his arrival in Melbourne on 31 March, 1862. Like so many others at that time (see the section titled "The Farming Life", below), his vocational skills were related to farming, and it is probable that he walked and worked his way via Ballarat to the developing farming districts on the black-soil plains to the north of the Great Dividing Range. His choice of Clunes as a destination is believed to be, in part, related to favourable correspondence received by the  relatives of some of his Westmorland farming friends who had already migrated and made land purchases in the district. Older family members recall that, prior to the purchase of his own farm, William Hudson had a job as a farm labourer at Coghills Creek, 12 km south of Clunes; this fact is also recorded in his funeral notice in the Clunes Guardian and Gazette of 31 March 1908. 

Land holdings in the Clunes district commenced when squatters first established their sheep runs in the 1830s and 1840s. The first recorded land sale in the Creswick district was held by the Crown on 21 May 1855, and comprised fifty-three lots from 58 to 398 acres, all of which were purchased by three squatters, Hepburn, Birch and Clarke . The first sale of land in the Smeaton district was on 14 July 1856, and included part of the pastoral run "selected" by one of the successful squatters, Captain Hepburn. Prices ranged from £1 to £6.17.00 per acre.

Life was difficult for the early farmers, and as stated by John Graham in his book "Early Creswick" (1942): “From the first glint of dawn until the fall of night they toiled incessantly, denying themselves everything but the essentials of existence, felling and grubbing trees, removing stones, ploughing, harrowing, fencing, and performing all the other necessary operations, and handicapped at the beginning by terrible roads. The womenfolk worked as laboriously as the men in household duties, rearing their families, milking the cows and churning the cream. With the sale of butter and eggs they provided the cash requisite to provide the household in food and clothing.” 

For more details see the link: Sunny Brow.

A factor that may well have facilitated William Hudson's purchase of a property in the early 1870s was the depressed state of farming in the district at that time. Joseph Jenkins, for example, notes in his diary for  May 1871 (see "The Farming Life", below): "Smeaton district, once considered the garden of Victoria, is now a ruinous area from continued exhaustion of the land. The farms are over-run by weeds. There are numerous deserted homesteads. Landlords are letting their land for 5s an acre to tenants who have no capital to improve it. Two-thirds of the farmers are unable to pay their rates which only amount to 1s in the pound”.  

Shire records show that in 1873 he was the owner of a 45 ha (112 acre) farm in the District of Lord Clyde, within the Parish of Smeaton, County of Talbot. It is probable that he acquired the property earlier than 1873, and his funeral notice in the Clunes Guardian and Gazette of 31 March 1908 suggests about 1868. The farm is situated at the northern boundary of the Parish of Smeaton where it adjoins the southern boundary of the Parish of Glengower. The property was originally purchased from the Crown by W. Lane and Others on 24 September, 1863.

Mr Ron Pryor, Shire Secretary, Shire of Talbot and Clunes, provided the following information on the history of ownership of “Sunny Brow” in correspondence with me dated 29 April, 1980:   “The land was purchased from the Crown by W. Lane and two others (unnamed) on 24 September, 1863.   Lane was shown as 1/3 owner until 1866 when his name was removed from Rolls.   In 1873, William Hudson’s name appears but I cannot identify the owner or owners between 1866-1873.   Wm Hudson remains on the roll as “Farmer”, Smeaton Parish.   In 1900 rolls, property is shown as “Sunny Brow”, Lord Clyde, which is still the local name for that area.   It is assumed that he died or left in 1908 because the rolls from 1908-1913 show occupier as Mary Jane Hudson.   She is removed from the roll of 1914 and again, it is not possible to identify the new owner, but for at least the last 20 years until the present, the property has been owned by Mr Joseph Fraser and Sons of Clunes and now forms part of a holding of some 6000 acres.   The Frasers are well known in Municipal and Community affairs”.

The farm is situated on the rich basaltic soils of the "Smeaton Plains", and nestles at the foot of an ancient volcanic cinder cone. The combination of the sunny Australian climate and the volcanic topography led  William Hudson to name the farm "Sunny Brow", using terminology from his Lake District origins . For more details of the location of the farm and photographs of its appearance today, see link: Sunny Brow.

William Hudson’s young bride Mary Jane Goddard joined him on the farm in September, 1873 and it is believed (by older family members) that he/they lived in a tent on the farm prior to erecting the first double-fronted home on "Smeaton Plains". The farm carried milking cows, with milk being sold to the local creamery, and pigs. In recognition of his knowledge of pigs, William Hudson was appointed as the judge of pigs at the local Clunes "shows".  

Family Group at "Sunny Brow", Lord Clyde, near Clunes William and Mary Jane Hudson with some of their children on the veranda of “Sunny Brow”, Lord Clyde. Photo taken about 1906.   Back row (L) are Victoria, Fred Jackson (visitor), Gertrude and John.  Seated are Mary Jane Hudson, grandson Charles Henry, and William Hudson.  Front row are Doris, Ruby Jane and Joseph Edmund. (Photograph Hud-clu-005, probably about 1906; photographer unknown)

The Farmer Takes a Wife

William Hudson left the Lake District in England at the age of 34 and was 45 when he married Mary Jane Goddard on her 20th birthday, 4 September, 1873.   The marriage was solemnised at Skelgill Farm, Campbelltown (Ullina on William Hudson’s Death Certificate), Talbotshire, and the ceremony was performed by William Hicks, a “Bible Christian Minister”.   William Hudson was described as a bachelor farmer of Smeaton, having been born at Kendall (sic), Westmorland, England, and Mary Jane Goddard was described as a spinster domestic of Campbelltown, having been born at Mudgee Boloc (sic), Grant, Victoria.   Consent for the marriage was given by Mary Askew/Goddard/Sinclair, mother of the bride, the father being dead. The signatures of the witnesses are unclear, but could possibly be John Robinson and Hannah Forbes.

For some years I and other Hudson relatives were uncertain of the location of  “Skellgill Farm”. We believed it was almost certainly named after Skellgill, near Ambleside in Westmorland, in the English Lake District, in the same way that William Hudson had named his farm “Sunny Brow”, reflecting his Lake District origins. This suggested that the owner of Skellgill Farm might also be from Westmorland, and perhaps was one of William Hudson's friends, such as John Postlethwaite or William Eckersley. Another possibility was that Skellgill Farm was the home of either Mary Jane Goddard's mother (Mary Askew/Goddard/Sinclair) or her uncle (Thomas Askew - Mary Askew/Goddard/Sinclair's half-brother), as both had properties between Ullina and Campelltown. The mystery of "Skellgill Farm" was solved in January 2007, when  I received a letter from Miss Meg Barry of Ullina Landcare Group. I had written to Miss Barry on advice from relatives Jack and Evelyn Weatherson, and she responded advising that Joseph Tyson, one of the early settlers of the Ullina District owned a farm, named "Skellgill", on Tysons Road which runs north from near Ullina to intersect the Glengower-Campbelltown road. The farm was close to the boundary between the parishes of Smeaton (south) and Campbelltown (north), and thus the Tysons, the Askews, the Goddards(Sinclairs) and the Weathersons were neighbours. It was thus a most logical place to hold the wedding celebration. Miss Barry was also kind enough to enclose a notice of sale of "Skelgill Farm" that appeared in the Creswick Advertiser of 28 November 1892. The property for sale was described as follows: "Skellgill, Ullina (comprising)  Snug Farm, containing 238 acres, well-bred dairy herd, sheep, horses, pigs, dairy utensils, household furniture, &c." Full details of the farm and stock and implements followed in the advertisement.

Marriage of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard On 4 September 1873, at Skelgill Farm, Ullina (near Smeaton, Victoria), William Hudson married Mary Jane Goddard. He was 45 years old, and a bachelor farmer of Smeaton; she was a spinster and domestic of Campbelltown. Mary Jane had two reasons to celebrate the happy occasion - it was both her twentieth birthday and her wedding day. The productive and long-lasting union was to produce seventeen children, and their descendants are estimated to number more than 725. (Photograph Hud-fam-101 by Meek, Clunes, 1873; click photograph to enlarge; back to return)

Children and More Children

"Sunny Brow" was the birthplace for all of the seventeen children of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard. Three of the children died soon after birth, and two in their early twenties. The other children married, raised children and moved to other regions and vocations within Australia and overseas. Since 1979, I have maintained a database of the descendants of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard, mainly through contributions from relatives in each of the main Hudson lines. The database in May 2004, although far from complete, contained the names of 627 descendants, comprising: 17 children, 79 grandchildren, 139 great grandchildren, 270 great great grandchildren, 117 great great great grandchildren, and 5 great great great great grandchildren. The number now exceeds 725, and may well be approaching the thousand mark. For a summary of the descendants of the children of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard click the link: Descendants.

Even for the mid-to-late nineteenth century, to have seventeen children was remarkable. In this case, it was made even more remarkable as there were no multiple births and all seventeen children were born during the first twenty three years of the marriage. When the first of these children, Isabella (named after William Hudson’s mother Isabella Green/Hudson), was born on 25/05/1874 (a little over nine months from the wedding day), William Hudson was 46 years old, and when the last child, Charles, was born on 22/01/1896, he was 68. Mary Jane Goddard was only 20 when Isabella was born, and was 42 when the last child, Charles, was born. A rough calculation, assuming Mary Jane lost no other children, indicates that she was pregnant for more than 50 percent of this period of her marriage. Mary Jane could have had no inkling of the productive years that lay ahead when on her wedding day in 1873 she celebrated both her twentieth birthday and her nuptials.

After twenty two years of near-constant child-bearing, most parents would have been pleased to have seen the end of napkins and bottles.   Not so for William and Mary Jane, who took responsibility for rearing Charles Henry Hudson, a child born out of wedlock on 4 April 1901 to Agnes Hudson.   Charles Henry was raised as their own child, and in a sense was a substitute for their own son Charles, born in 1896, who lived for only 10 hours.

Both parents lived to the age of 80 and are buried in a family grave at Smeaton Cemetery. The grave also contains three of their children who died before them. To see a copy of funeral notices, published in the Clunes Guardian & Gazette, and bereavement cards for William Hudson, Isabella Hudson and John (Jack) Hudson, click the link: Records.

The Seventeen Children of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard

  *Baptisms were recorded in the Register for St Paul's Anglican Church, Clunes (lodged at Creswick in the 1980s).

 Living in the Clunes District

The Farming Life

One of the best descriptions of farming life in the Clunes District in the mid to late eighteen hundreds is contained in the detailed diaries kept by Joseph Jenkins (1818-1898), which have been published in an abridged form by his grandson William Evans. Evan's book, "Diary of a Welsh Swagman 1869-1894", published by Sun Books, Melbourne in 1975, covers the twenty-five years spent by Jenkins as an itinerant farm labourer in gold mining and farming communities in the Ballarat and Castlemaine areas. Having decided to leave his wife and family of nine children in Wales, he emigrated to Australia at the age of 51, arriving in Melbourne on the 22 March 1869. His daily diaries describe in considerable detail the farming practices of country Victoria, and include commentary on the weather, his health, his morale, his meals, his daily work, his financial situation, and his pleasures, including his poetic contributions at the annual Ballarat eisteddfod. He is often very critical of the attitudes of farm owners who, to him, engaged in short-term practices of clearing increasing amounts of the land, rather than building up the fertility of their existing holdings by mulching and recycling. On the other hand, he applauds the way aborigines maintain and share resources rather than exploiting them. He was, arguably, one of the first Australian advocates for recycling and environmental sustainability.

William Hudson, like Joseph Jenkins, left a farming community and emigrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 31 March 1862, some seven years before Jenkins. He too travelled to the districts around Ballarat looking for work as a farm labourer, and Jenkins' descriptions of conditions in rural Victoria provide an accurate picture of what life was like for the settler who chose to remain working on the land rather than to seek work in the gold mines or the towns. Summaries of a few sections of Joseph Jenkins' diaries, of particular relevance to William Hudson's early years in Australia, appear on the link: Swagman.

Golden Days

At the time of his purchase of "Sunny Brow", the town of Clunes and the town of Creswick, 19 km to the south-east, were well-established, as indicated by their descriptions from F.E. Hiscocks and Co’s “Atlas of the Settled Counties and Districts of Victoria (1874):

Clunes: "A borough postal town in the Electoral district of Creswick.   The principal industry carried on is Quartz Reefing, and this borough may be said to be the next in point of importance to Bendigo for its reefs.   The population is (?unclear 6068) and have been rendered somewhat famous in preventing the introduction of Chinese labour on this gold field.   The Lachlan Co. sent a number of Celestials to work their claim, who were met by the miners en masse, who successfully resisted the innovation.   Geological formation, Silurian.   Gold was first discovered here on the 8th (sic) July, 1851."

Creswick: "Is a borough town in the parish of the same name, situate on the Tullaroop Creek, 105 miles S.W. (sic) from Melbourne.   The diggings in this district are lightly auriferous and were among the first worked in this Colony.   Creswick is well supplied with water from the Government Reservoir at the head of the Bullarook Creek, 600 feet above the borough, containing upwards of 37,000,000 gallons of water, brought to Creswick by 4 miles of iron piping.   Geological formation, Silurian, and volcanic to the North.   Population 3969.   The Creswick Electoral district comprises the following:- Amherst, ?Back Creek, Clunes, Creswick, Daylesford, Franklyn, Glenlyon, Kingston, Loxton, Strangways, and Smeaton, and contains 6320 electors; returns two members."  

It is clear from the these accounts of Clunes and Creswick, that gold mining in each of its various forms played a critical role in the establishment and growth of these Victorian towns. William Hudson arrived after the excitement of the gold discoveries in 1851, but he and his family were there to see the deep quartz-reef mining at Clunes, and the development of the "deep leads" - rich gold-bearing alluvial deposits beneath the basalt-derived soils and basalt flows that form the Smeaton Plains. For a summary of the gold mining history of the district see the link: Gold.

School Days at Lord Clyde and Clunes

The older Hudson children were educated at the Victorian State School at Lord Clyde, and later, after the school closed in 1898, the children went to the Clunes Primary School. The following is a description of the school:

"Lord Clyde (formerly Smeaton Plains): "Smeaton Plains 869 was established on the fertile plains, about 4 miles E of Clunes, by an almost wholly Presbyterian farming community.   Duncan McLenan acted as Correspondent for a local committee elected in 1866 to promote the establishment of a vested common school.   The site chosen was 2 acres of Crown land in the NW corner of allotment 58, of Section B, of the Parish of Smeaton.   The school was a shingle roof, hardwood building, 40ftx16ftx10ft with a pine floor, partly lined but unceiled, and erected for £134.   It opened on 1st of January 1867 with an NE (?nominal enrolment) of 30 and with Farquhar Morison as HT (head teacher).   Aid by way of salary was received from the Board of Education and a grant of £67 towards the erection of the building.   Eight feet of the schoolroom was partitioned off and served as quarters for the HT.   A 4-room residence was erected in 1870 on the £1 for £1 basis.   The post office attached to the school was called Lord Clyde, due to the activities of the famous gold mining company of that name, and in 1892 the school was officially renamed 869 Lord Clyde.   The NE in 1883 was 35, but in 1893 the school became temporary/unclassified, and was permanently closed on the 1st of January 1898.   In 1902 both buildings were sold to Charles Westleigh for immediate removal for £40 and the reservation of the school site revoked." (From “Vision and Realisation, Volume 2 - A Centenary History of State Education in Victoria”).

Lord Clyde School was located on a Government Reserve on the north bank of Bullarook Creek, adjacent to a stone bridge. At this site there is a 2 acre block (5 chains x 4 chains) designated 58G, in the NW corner of block 58D, adjoining the east side of the road and some 18 chains (~400 metres) north of Bullarook Creek. The north-south access road from the stone bridge to the main Clunes-Glengower road goes past “Sunny Brow” farm giving the Hudson children  a walk of about 2 miles (3 km) south along the dirt road to reach the school.

Lord Clyde School Headmaster and students of Lord Clyde School, in a photograph taken in about 1885. The school was located about 3 km (2 miles) south of "Sunny Brow". All that remains today is some rusting corrugated iron (possibly a water-tank) and a grass-covered allotment by the bridge over Bullarook Creek.  (Photograph: Hud-clu-100, probably about 1885; photographer unknown).

A photograph of the school, with the headmaster and students was taken in about 1885. Several of the Hudson children are in the photograph, which Gertie Wolfenden described as follows (from a letter sent to me at Christmas, 2000): "The girls with the crosses are the Hudson girls: Mary 9 years, Isabella 11 years, Agnes 5 years; the Hudson boys: Thomas 8 years, (and) James 7 years. Our Mum (Lizzie) and Auntie Gertie went there too". If the photograph had been taken on 30 June 1885, the ages of Hudson children who may have attended the school would have been:

A number of the younger Hudson children would have reached school age before the Lord Clyde School officially closed its doors at the end of the 1997 school year.

I have not seen any records confirming that any children of William and Mary Jane Hudson attended the Clunes Primary School. However, it is believed that some would have travelled to Clunes following the closure of the school at Lord Clyde. The oldest records from the Clunes School are from the nineteen hundreds, and contain the names of some of their grandchildren. These can be seen on the page Records.  

The Final Years

A chronological list of significant events in the lives of William and Mary Jane Hudson has been compiled in tabular format and readers should follow the link to: Timeline. The list includes some historical facts about the settlement of the Clunes district, the arrival of William Hudson to the district, his marriage to Mary Jane Goddard, their child-bearing years, and some of their involvement in community affairs. It also records the deaths of some of the Hudson children, also their marriages, their departure to other states (notably Western Australia), and their activities within the district.

The Hudson Family Grave at Smeaton Cemetery, Victoria William Hudson, Mary Jane Goddard/Hudson and three of their seventeen children are buried in the Smeaton Cemetery. The gravestone inscriptions read: " In loving memory of my dear husband William Hudson, native of Longsleddale, Westmorland, England. Died 29th March 1908 aged 80: We have eternity for life's communion yet. Also, Mary Jane Hudson beloved wife of above died 26 May 1934 aged 80 years. Also his beloved children Isabella died 26 July 1895 aged 21 years, John died 25 July 1907 aged 22 years, and Robert Stanley died 29 September 1893 aged 2 years." (Photograph Hud-clu-063, Russell Hudson, 1988)

Death of William Hudson in 1908

The end of an era occurred when William Hudson died on 29 March 1908 at the age of 80 years. The Clunes Guardian & Gazette of March 31, 1908 reported his death as follows:

"Funeral of William Hudson: A highly esteemed and old resident of the district passed away on Sunday in the person of Mr William Hudson, of Lord Clyde.   The deceased, who had been ailing for a few months past, was 80 years of age.   He was one of the earliest settlers of the district.   He was born in the parish of LONGSLEDDALE, county of West Moreland, and arrived in Victoria in 1862.   After working for a time in Coghill’s Creek he bought a farm at Lord Clyde about 40 years ago, on which he remained.   The deceased leaves a widow and family of twelve.   Three of the daughters are married, and two of the sons are in Western Australia, the remainder being at home.   Much sympathy is expressed for Mrs Hudson and the family in their bereavement.   The funeral will leave deceased’s late residence to-day at 1 o’clock for the Smeaton cemetery."

The paper also contained the following funeral notice:

"FUNERAL NOTICE - Hudson-The friends of the late Mr William Hudson, of Lord Clyde, are most respectfully invited to follow his last remains to the place of internment, the Smeaton Cemetery. The funeral cortege will leave his late residence THIS DAY (Tuesday), at 1 o'clock p.m. punctually. J.W. PRESTON, Undertaker.

Mr Preston had previously recorded his praise for William and Mary Jane Hudson of Lord Clyde, when he wrote (inter alia) in a reference for their son Thomas Hudson, dated 9 October 1899: "His parents are highly respected residents of Lord Clyde".

This endorsement was repeated in another reference for Thomas Hudson from Rev. C.M. Lowe, Vicar of Clunes, who wrote (inter alia) on 11 October 1899: "The whole family are widely known and highly respected in this district."

William Hudson's death certificate records that the cause of death was "Gastric carcinoma exhaustion, about 4 months". The informant was listed as Thomas Hudson, son of Lord Clyde. William Hudson (1875) was the first-born son of William Hudson and Mary Jane Goddard, but as he died soon after birth, my grandfather Thomas Hudson (1877-1956), the second son of William Hudson, became the oldest surviving son. It would seem that Thomas Hudson had  returned home to Clunes from the Western Australian goldfields to be with the family during his father's final months, and he remained in the district for several months after William Hudson died. The Clunes Guardian & Gazette of 24 July 1908 reported that he was one of the office-bearers for the Clunes Coursing Club, and on 27 July 1908 he married Laura Dunstan, daughter of William Dunstan and Eliza Jane Bolitho/Dunstan of Clunes.

Mary Jane and Joseph Edmund

Following William Hudson's death, the ownership of "Sunny Brow" farm was transferred to Mary Jane Hudson, who in 1908 was still only 55 years old. As reported to me in a letter (dated 29 April) 1980, from Mr Ron Pryor, Shire Secretary, Shire of Talbot and Clunes: "It is assumed that he (William Hudson) died or left in 1908 because the rolls from 1908-1913 show occupier as Mary Jane Hudson.   She is removed from the roll of 1914 and again, it is not possible to identify the new owner, but for at least the last 20 years until the present, the property has been owned by Mr Joseph Fraser and Sons of Clunes and now forms part of a holding of some 6000 acres." 

Older Hudson relatives have informed me that for some years after William Hudson's death the property was managed by Mary Jane Hudson and her son Joseph Edmund. Certainly, in records listing Joseph Edmund Hudson as the "guardian" of his children at the Clunes Primary School, he is described variously as "farmer", "manager" and "overseer", and his address is given as Lord Clyde (presumably on the farm "Sunny Brow"). 

Mary Jane  Hudson in Ballarat.

Mary Jane Hudson lived out the final years of her life at 22 Bond Street, Ballarat (now listed as number 522) in the home (also named "Sunny Brow") of her daughter Margaret Doris (Doris) Hudson and her husband George Frederick Smyth. There, in the midst of the Smyth family, including her nine Smyth grandchildren, she was able to find love and purpose in her days, as blindness progressively diminished her ability to lead a fully independent life. The Smyth photograph albums record that she was never far from many of her other children. Those living in the district would seek her out at the new "Sunny Brow", and those living interstate would make a special effort to see their mother. My grandfather, Thomas Hudson, for example appears in photographs, taken in about 1934, together with his mother and several of the Smyth children .

Mary Jane Goddard/Hudson died on 26 May 1934 aged 80 years and was buried with her husband William in the family grave at Smeaton Cemetery.