Margaret Parnell and George BartonThe children of the marriage were - May 1866, --George 1867, --Edith M 1868.
Margaret Isabella Parnell was born in 1843 she married George Burnett Barton in 1865.
George Barton's parents William and Mary Lousia came out to Australia in 1824, William was an accountant. His appointment as accountant for the "Australian Agriculture Company" had been made in England; he was also regarded as the first sharebroker in the colony. Mary was a schoolteacher.
George's younger brother Edmund went on to become Australia's first Prime Minister.Unfortunately the marriage was not a happy one.
George had written several letters to Margaret's brother Charles. The following passages have been extracted from these letters. (All possible care has been taken as to not alter the meaning).
"My dear Charles in your last letter to May you generously offered to let me have another £50 on the same terms as before". (The money was intended for furniture, but was used four days later on short stay at Manly).
"I am going to Melbourne as Editor of the "Age" on a salary of £500 pa."
"To Otago, NZ. where the salary will be between £800 and £1000 pa."
Christmas 1867 to Charles: -"I request you to transfer some securities, "The Balmain Debentures" from the marriage settlement to Margaret". Margaret was then to deposit these with the bank as security on his overdraft. He wrote "I have a very reasonable expectation of an appointment as librarian, and will repay the overdraft out of the salary".
Barton signing a bond in favour of Charles guarded against, Charles' liability as trustee of the marriage settlement. Charles wrote: - "there remains the possibility of the children calling upon you. The eldest is not yet 2 years old; 19 years therefore must elapse before she is of age". (Possibly an age error on Charles' part.)
On the 22nd. June 1875 Edmund Barton wrote to Charles hoping that some arrangement would be made by his brother and sister- in-law; whereby Charles would be " relieved of this the last, I hope of your annoyances in connection with the Trusteeship".
However pleas, requests, demands, continued to rain in until 25th. October 1880, when Mr. Norton, solicitor for the Parnells, recorded all monies have been duly accounted for in respect to Mrs. Barton's Marriage settlement.
George and Margaret appear to have had two daughters Edith M. 1868 and May 1866. The writer has found no explanation at this stage, regarding the notation of four children including two sons in the following extract.
In 1886 a set of three leather bound folio size books were published, the "Picturesque Atlas of Australia" with over eight hundred engravings on wood. George with his "Historical Sketch of New South Wales" was a major contributor to this publication. ( I am fortunate enough to own an original copy of all three).
[Abbreviated Extract]. BARTON, GEORGE BURNETT (1836-1901), lawyer, journalist and historian, was born on 9 December 1836 in Sydney, the second son of William Barton and his wife Mary Louisa, nee Whydah, and older brother of Sir Edmund. Barton's early schooling seems to have been from his mother. He attended W. T. Cape's [q.v.] school and, after working in a solicitor's office, was coached by Rev. F. B. laughton for the matriculation examination of the University of Sydney, which he entered on a scholarship in 1853.
Barton went to England were he was admitted to the Middle Temple on the 20th April 1857 and called to the bar in 1860. On returning to New South Wales he practised journalism rather than law. Deafness may have discouraged him from the Bar, although he was always a lively conversationalist. His early writings included some satirical sketches on current topics and poems, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and elsewhere. Probably in 1864 he became editor of the new Sydney Punch, which was intended to adapt London methods to colonial themes. He also wrote for the Empire and contributed literary and historical articles to a variety of periodicals.
In July 1865 at Holy Trinity Church of England, Sydney, Barton married Margaret Isabella, aged 22, the eleventh child of Thomas Parnell, a farmer and grazier of Maitland In 1865 Barton was appointed reader in English Literature, University of Sydney, at £50 a year. His inaugural lecture on 6 March 1966, published as The Study of English Literature, emphasised the importance of the classical studies over which Woolley had presided so successfully. In that year Barton also published Literature in New South Wales (with extensive bibliographies) and edited The Poets and Prose Writers of New South Wales. In 1868 Barton's university appointment ended and he went to New Zealand to edit the Otago Daily Times, which had been founded in 1861 and had run into difficulties over the editorial policies of Julius Vogel [q.v.]. In October 1870 Barton published articles alleging that the Telegraph Department delayed news telegrams for his paper until summaries had been given to the pro-government press. By methods bordering on the illegal, the government found evidence to identify Barton as author of the articles and prosecuted him for libel. In 1871 he was committed for trial; the case was dropped, and Barton issued a writ claiming £5000 for malicious prosecution and published The Telegraph Libel Case. He resigned from the Otago Daily Times and was admitted to practise as a barrister and solicitor on 21 July in Dunedin. Some of his work was in court. He edited many legal works, including The New Zealand Jurist and The Practical Statutes of New Zealand (1876).
By 1878 he had moved to Christchurch, practising as a solicitor. In the 1880s Barton was in Sydney contributing to the Sydney Morning Herald, Evening News and other newspapers and Practising in law. In 1887 he was appointed to bring out a new Edition of the Official History of New South Wales (1883). In February 1888 he proposed to the government that a larger history be written, based partly on the transcripts that James Bonwick q.v.] had made in London. Soon afterwards he proposed that he himself be appointed head of a New South Wales Public Records Office. The government agreed that he should write a history of New South Wales from the Records' in fifteen volumes. The project foundered in bitter acrimony, with allegations of delay and expense against Barton and of illiberality against the government. Only the first volume, Governor Phillip, 1783-1789 (Sydney, 1889), was completed by Barton. His posthumously published (The True Story of Margaret Catchpole (Sydney, 1924), first appeared in the Evening News. Another popular work was his contribution to the second volume of J. C. Ridpath and E. S. Ellis (eds), The Story of South Africa (Sydney, 1899). In it Barton described how Australia and New Zealand became involved in the Boer war and the part played by their forces. He also edited some of the other contributions, making it a competently organised study. As the Federation movements gained strength, with his brother prominent in them, Barton's enthusiasm was stirred. Before the 1891 convention he produced the topical Historical Sketch of Australian Federation printed in the Yearbook of Australia, 1891. With Parkes, Barton also prepared for the New South Wales government The Draft Bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia (Sydney, 1891), Barton's last comments on Australia were gloomy. Writing in the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review on 'Troubles of Australian Federation', he bitterly criticised 'the degeneracy of Australian parliaments', the 'dismal failure' of responsible government and the lamentable rise of an ambitious, class-conscious labour movement. Barton feared that the Labor Party would gain control of the federal parliament, amend the Constitution to destroy State rights and introduce radical 'class legislation'. In 1899 he clashed with W. A. Holman and Professor Pitt Cobbett when they attacked the principle of equal representation of States in the senate. In 1901 he became editor of the Werriwa Times, a protectionist newspaper published in Goulburn. He caught severe influenza and died in Goulburn Hospital on 12 September. A week later the Bulletin described him as 'the first purely literary man produced by New South Wales. His literary criticism certainly had lasting interest. He was a careful editor and a good working journalist especially when attacking a cause. He was survived by two sons and two daughters to his first marriage, also by his wife Laura Maude, nee Wilshire, whom he had married at Bondi in 1900, and by their infant son.