Emma Burton

BAPTISM I have found Emma's baptism record. See documents. Name: Emma Clarke Gender: Female Event Type: Baptism Father: Thomas Clarke Mother: Ann Clarke Baptism Date: 14 Dec 1823 Baptism Place: Foulmire, Cambridgeshire, England Denomination: Independent 1823, Dec 14 were baptized - Emma Daughter of Thos & Ann Clark of Fowlmere/Foulmire.

Since she was baptised at Fowlmere her parents were most likely living and working at Chrishall Grange, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire. The owners of these great estates moved workers around between them, and many Chrishall and Elmdon families, including the Button/Burtons were at Chrishall Grange when the census was taken in the C19th. By Emma's marriage she was apparently living at Chrishall as her parents were moved there, or she, as a single girl, was sent to work on one of the Chrishall estates where she met James. Chrishall Grange still exists and I have added pictures of the manor house. Workers like Emma would have lived in cottages on the estate or the servants quarters in the main house.

MARRIAGE March quarter 1841: Emma Clark married James Burton in Saffron Walden district i.e. probably Chrishall church. Vol 12 Page 327. May 1 1841: James Burton & Emma Clark, both of Chrishall, he 23 yrs, she 20 yrs, neither able to read or write, are married in the Parish Church Chrishall. His father is Timothy, hers is Thomas. May Day was a holiday for farm labourers and so a popular day for marriages. See docs.

EARLY LIFE in ESSEX 1841 census, Broad Green, Chrishall: Name: Emma Button Age: 15 Estimated birth year: abt 1826 Gender: Female Where born: Essex, England Civil Parish: Chrishall Hundred: Uttlesford County/Island: Essex Country: England Household Members: Name Age Thomas Clark 55 James Button 20 Emma Button 15 [James and Emma are living with Thomas Clark, Emma's father. Emma was actually 18yrs - the enumerator for the 1841 census was required to round ages of adults down to the next 5 years. James is 20-24yrs and her father 55-60yrs] Also at Broad Green is Timothy Button 17yrs; Joseph Button with what looks like a household of his siblings; Timothy Button 50-54yrs with wife Mary 50-54yrs (not born in Essex), their son Stephen 13yrs and daughter Emma 8yrs; and William Button 25yrs with wife Marther Button 23yrs living next door to Timothy and Mary]

At Chrishall Grange, Ann Button 26yrs is a farm servant in the household of David and Mary Ann Ellis farmers.

An excerpt from an article on agricultural labour and their relationship with farmers in East Anglia, re migration:

The Poor Law clearly changed farmer's attitudes towards emigration, a fact seen in the correspondence between Norfolk Magistrates and the emigration agent for Canada between 1835-37. A Digby, The Labour Market and the Continuity of Social Policy after 1834: The Case of the Eastern Counties, p81 (1) Local magistrates such as William Mason had become 'much interested in the emigration of poor people from my vicinity, in consequence of the effect the new poor law will have on this county in our populous parishes', emigration had become a necessity because there existed 'so great a deficiency to employ 'Return and correspondence on Emigration P.P. 1836 XL, p.476 Report from the Agent for Emigration in Canada, 1836 P.P. 1837, XLII, p32 in A Digby, p82 (12-14). Farmers took the financial lead in assisting emigration, sponsoring it privately and in their capacity as ratepayers and occupiers: They were also the local administrators of the poor law schemes and participated eagerly in providing 71% of the national total of 6,403 emigrants of early schemes. Yet despite early enthusiasm, farmers by 1837 had shifted their attitudes East Anglian farmers were naturally keen to preserve the quality of their workforce and could only tolerate a small exodus of good labourers if it was in the interests of persuading inferior men to imitate them. A Digby, ibid p81 (26-28) The burden of a surplus labour force was clearly preferable to losing first class labourers. Farmers were ambivalent towards the problem of surplus labour because, as a Norfolk proprietor wrote, 'the labourers 'except during the harvest, become during the great part of the year a dead weight upon us. H.Lee-Warner to Sir E Parry, 8th of August 1835 M.H 12/8596 quoted in A Digby, The Labour Market and the Continuity of Social Policy after 1834: The Case of the Eastern Counties p82 (5-7) '. A large surplus of labour was also necessary because different quantities of labourers were required every year depending on the state of the harvest. Resident full time workers provided farmers with only half of their labour force during harvest time so there was a dependency on casual and part time labour. This situation was highly precarious because few Irish or Scotch harvesters were available.

In 1837 therefore, farmers caused the collapse of a scheme financed by the government of New South Wales to assist the emigration of 30 agricultural labouring families from Wayland and Guiltcross in Norfolk, Blything in Suffolk and the Royston Union in Cambridgeshire. The aspiring emigrants were to be sent in the Orontes from Yarmouth in August of that year yet by that date opposition to losing good labourers had grown to such a degree the scheme was shelved, A Digby,ibid p81 (28-29). Landowners such as Coke of Holkham were quick to remove their financial support for emigration if they felt that their good labourers were simply voting with their feet R.A.C Parker, ‘The Financial and Economic Affairs of the Cokes of Holkham, 1707-1842 D.Phil thesis, University of Oxford 1956, pp260-1

Amongst some East Anglian workers there was great enthusiasm for emigration as a means of gaining employment. In 1836 a petition from labourers in Attleborough in Norfolk stated that due to low wages and lack of work, they were 'willing to emigrate, with a good hope of bettering our situations in consequence of obtaining permanent employment for ourselves and our families 'Attleborough Poor to P.L.C 4th of May 1836, MH 12/8616 quoted in A Digby, ibid p81 (40-41). When farmers increased employment in Norfolk and Suffolk in order to retain labour, this eagerness to move disappeared. Unless undertaken through great necessity, emigration to the East Anglian rural worker was unlikely to be a popular option given the undoubted trauma involved in loss of settlement and the breaking of ties of kinship. Labourers, particularly in the south of England did not want to move far from their native place choosing to remain on land which offered full employment only in harvest time M.A Crowther The Workhouse system 1834-1929 p14 (25-38). Richard Bacon writing in 1826 on The distress of the Agricultural labourer and its Remedy refers to 'a repugnance to emigration which is only overcome generally by the pressure of extreme distress. There is the separation of families and connections and the final danger of the separation of the colony itself from the mother country 'Richard Bacon The distress of the Agricultural labourer and its remedy, p6 (3-4).

Brian W has sent me a photo of Emma which I will add. I hope the definition is good enough.

DEATH Leader (Melbourne) 30 Jun 1906 DEATHS BURTON.— On the 19th June, Emma, widow of the late James Burton, of Nagambie. A colonist of 56 years.

Death cert added.

FROM VICTORIAN PLACES Tabilk is a rural locality between Seymour and Nagambie in central Victoria, best known for the Chateau Tabilk vineyard.

During the mid-1860s small farms began to be occupied in the Tabilk district, for which much grey box forest had to be cleared. The land was suitable for growing wheat and grapes. Upwards of 30 vineyards were developed in the Tabilk district before the phylloxera infestation. The sole survivor was Chateau Tabilk, a vineyard on the Goulburn River. Begun in 1860, the vineyard is noted for its five storey timber tower and cellars which are on the Australian and Victorian historic buildings registers. Chateau Tabilk vineyard was badly run down by the 1930s, when the Purbrick family brought it back to improved standards.

The vineyard is set in an area with numerous river meanders and billabongs. It is near Mitchellstown, the town specified by the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Thomas Mitchell, as being a place for a township. His plan was supplanted by Seymour, which had a better crossing place for getting over the Goulburn River. The Mitchelton Winery (1971) is nearby.

Apart from vineyards, Tabilk had orchards and grazing. A school was opened in 1868. In 1903 the Australian handbook described Tabilk:

Apart from the Tabilk Winery, the Tabilk locality has no building which has public use. It is a farming district with a scatter of dwellings.

CENSUS DATE POPULATION 1891 168 1911 252 1961 130 Further Reading Joyce Hammond, Bridging the gap: Shire of Goulburn 1871-1971, Shire of Goulburn, 1971 Fay Woodhouse, Vintage stories: a 150 year history of Tabilk, Tabilk, 2010
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Nagambie is a rural township on the Goulburn River in central northern Victoria, 27 km north of Seymour. It is on the Goulburn Valley Highway and the railway line (1880) between Seymour and Shepparton.

Farm selection activity began in the mid-1860s in the Nagambie district, and in 1868 the Nagambie township was gazetted. It was located beside a flood prone horseshoe shaped piece of ground which was usually surrounded by a lagoon on the town site. Nagambie is thought to be an Aboriginal word meaning lagoon or still waters.

Within ten years Nagambie had a school (1870), a Catholic church (1872), a mechanics’ institute and two flour mills. There were 76 buildings in the township in 1877. The Goulburn Valley vineyard, one of several in the district, adjoined the lagoon. In 1871 the Goulburn shire was created, with Nagambie as its administrative centre.

A local waterworks trust was formed in 1886 for a town supply. In 1885 a pumping plant was installed on the Goulburn River near Nagambie to supply water for stock purposes. Five years later it was superseded by a weir on the Goulburn River, causing water to bank up and turn the lagoon into Lake Nagambie. The weir began the Goulburn Valley irrigation area.

Shortly after the filling of Lake Nagambie a rowing club was formed, holding the first of its annual regattas in 1898. The club was the Victorian Rowing Champion Eights in 1934.

Nagambie grew as the largest township in the Goulburn shire and some settlements, particularly in the gold mining district, declined. Nagambie itself is not greatly assisted by irrigation works, but its hinterland is mostly undulating, used for sheep grazing, with intensively farmed land near the Goulburn River. About 7 km to the south near the river there are the Chateau Tabilk vineyard (1860) and the Mitchelton vineyard (1970). Tabilk is a small settlement now mainly known for the vineyard. Its school (1868) has closed.

Nagambie is known for its lake, with several jetties for rowing and speed boats, and a swimming area. The caravan park near the lake was removed in 2008, and there are two others near the river. There are also a golf course, a recreation reserve, a swimming pool and tennis courts and bowling rinks at Glass Square recreation area. In 2010 the Australian Rowing Championship was held at the upgraded Lake Nagambie facilities. A convent school supplements the State primary school (108 pupils, 2014) and there are a bush nursing hospital (1929), four churches, three hotels and three motels. The former shire hall and court house is home to the Nagambie Historical Society and museum.

The township is noted for its three chain road, a 60 metre wide main street with a median and clock tower which can be viewed from the town water tower.

The upgraded rowing facilities have attracted tourism, restaurants and holiday houses in Nagambie. Residential property prices moved ahead accordingly.

In 2013 the Goulburn Valley Highway was diverted around Nagambie, removing the trucks and pollution from the main street, but with them the highway traffic that had sustained the town. However, tourism was given a boost later that year when a full-size bronze statue of the champion mare Black Caviar, born on a property near Nagambie in 2006, with jockey Luke Nolen dressed in Black Caviar's racing colours of salmon and black, was unveiled in its central position in front of the picturesque lake. The racehorse Black Caviar was trained by Peter Moody, winning 25 of its 25 races and claiming almost $8 million in prize money.

CENSUS DATE POPULATION 1871 146 1881 456 1891 681 1901 715 1911 908 1921 849 1933 764 1947 728 1954 941 1961 958 1971 972 1976 1075 1981 1102 1986 1099 1991 1215 1996 1335 2006 1383 2011 1547 Further Reading Joyce Hammond, Bridging the gap: Shire of Goulburn 1871-1971, Shire of Goulburn, 1971