Mary Frances Henry

Mary Frances Norris was the 4th daughter of John Norris II of Hughenden Manor

Christening

18 December 1813, Yateley, Hampshire, England

Mary married Captain James Henry.

Her second son, Ernest, was born on 1 May 1837 at Harrington, Cumberland, England.

The family migrated to North America from Ayrshire, Scotland, in the early seventeenth century and settled on land near Boston.

In the war of independence (1775-1783) they espoused the Loyalist cause and the sons fought against the American rebels. The lands of the Henrys were confiscated and the grandfather, James, settled in Jamaica as a sugar planter: when he died his sons, James and Charles Edward, were taken to England by their mother. - These two paragraphs predates Mary and relates to Capt James, the father as a boy or young man. JG

Mary and James' sons; Ernest Henry and Alfred Henry, were well-known early colonialists in Townsville, Queensland.

Alfred, the younger brother, was for many years police magistrate at Clermont and Townsville, and later a journalist and sugar-planter at Ingham; he then followed journalism in Sydney where he died on 22 February 1917.

Children of Mary and Capt James Henry

1. Constance (1835 - 1840) ~ 5 years
2. Blanche (1835 - 1846) ~ 11 years
3. James (~1836 - 1916) ~ 80
4. Ernest (1837 - 1919) ~ 82
5. Arthur (1838 - 1937) ~ 82
6. Mary Montgomerie (1840 - 1902) ~ 62
7. Beatrice (~1843) - aged 38 in 1881 and unmarried.
8. Alfred (1845 - 1917) ~ 72
9. Alice Louisa Wood (1848 - 1938) ~ 90 years

The children arrived in very quick succession in the first few years of marriage, the rate slowing down after 1840. Was the reason for this that James was away at war? Or, were more children who died young in between, or perhaps there was illness - the two eldest daughters sadly died as children. Or were the parents just tireder and older?

There's no record of Beatrice's death in this account, however as an unmarried woman, she most likely was childless. Was she intellectually disabled? Or did she remain with her mother to care for her. If she was born in 1843, she wasn't the youngest sibling. Alfred and Alice were born after 1843.

Death of Captn James Henry

Capt James Henry died in 1877 aged 74-75 years. Mary would have been about 65 years when James died.

• Biography of Ernest Henry [1]

In the 1881 census, Mary is recorded as being born in 1812 in Dawlish, Devon, England and aged 69 years, living with her son James (aged 45) and daughter Beatrice (aged 38). James is listed as married and Beatrice single. There are five servants.

Address:

34, Lowndes Street
St George Hanover Square
London & Middlesex, England

References

[1] Clem Lack, 'Henry, Ernest (1837–1919)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henry-ernest-3754/text5853, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 7 April 2018.