Robert Woodhouse and Eliza Ellis are my great great great grandparents.  Robert was the third son in his family and he married Eliza by special licence at St John’s Anglican Church in Preston, Lancashire, England on 27 September 1830, (although Eliza’s family may have been Roman Catholic).  Francis (Frank) was born in 1835, and was seven years younger than his brother James (1828), and two years younger than their sister Margaret (1833).

The Woodhouse family had farmed in the Preston/Ribbleton area for centuries, and in particular at Samlesbury and Walton-le-Dale, but at some time prior to the 1841 Census, Robert, Eliza and their three young children moved from Preston to Liverpool.  There they opened an eating house at 138 Dale Street, in the heart of Liverpool’s central business area.  The building has now been demolished to make way for roading and parking.

In 1844 Robert Woodhouse died, leaving the widowed Eliza to operate the eating house, which she did even after remarrying, this time to Samuel Booth Faulkner the following year.  However, in 1847 Eliza was widowed a second time.  She retained the hospitality business and her family lived with her, along with two household servants.  At this stage the 1851 Census of Liverpool tells us James (22) was working as an engineer, Margaret (18) was married with an infant son (but had left her bankrupt husband and returned home to mother) and worked as a bonnet maker, and Frank (14) was still attending school.

In 1853 the news of gold discoveries in Australia was a hot topic in Liverpool, because ships from Melbourne sailed ‘home’ to there with their rich cargoes.  Many young men saw opportunities for themselves and decided to emigrate.  James and Frank embarked upon the upmarket and now famous steamship “Great Britain” and sailed for Australia in August 1853.

They were unassisted passengers, so paid the full fare, and arrived into Melbourne in October and they went to the Fryer’s Creek goldfields.

Three months after James and Frank departed from England, Eliza remarried, this time to Richard Serpell.  At this time, Eliza was operating a Liverpool boarding house in Denison Street, handily placed near the docks, and ideal for travellers in transit between the port of Liverpool and overseas.

The marriage of Eliza and Richard Serpell did not last, because in April 1856, Eliza arrived in Melbourne, Australia, to join James and Frank. The women had sailed out on the “Royal Charter”, the sister ship to the “Great Britain” and had also paid full fare.  Note: the regularly incorrect spelling of Faulkner.

After advertising her arrival in the newspapers, seeking contact with James and Frank they were reunited again in Victoria.  It has proven difficult to trace Margaret because she did not sail under her married name (Leigh) and her son James had previously died in Liverpool in 1853.  It is possible that Margaret did not travel to Australia and is more likely that she returned to Preston to live.

By 1859 Eliza had established a restaurant at Lamplough, Avoca, on a popular goldfield. There she met a miner from Staffordshire, England, named George Corden.  He was only a little older than her son James, but on 10 January 1860 Eliza and George were married at the Church of England parsonage at Avoca.

In 1862 the family move to Otago in New Zealand and after their discovery of gold in the Teviot River they became pioneer settlers in the district to be later known as Roxburgh.

James Woodhouse and George Corden went into partnership in owning the Union Hotel for several years, with Eliza doubtless being in charge of the housekeeping and catering until her death in 1868.  George Corden died later the next year.