Laurence Stodart and Mary Ann Middleton

This couple appear on the Jan Squire - Family Tree - Stodart Descendents Page, where many relatives are listed, extending back several generations. They are also mentioned in the book "The Tweedie Family – a genealogy", which has a large amount of information on the Stodart family. However, neither of these sources provide any information about the present couple after they left Scotland.

Laurence Stodart was probably born at Biggarsheils, in Biggar, Lanarkshire, on 19/5/1805. His father was Thomas Biggarsheils Stodart (b. Walston parish, Lanarkshire 15/2/1770, d. 1829?) and his mother was Christian Tweedie (b. Tweedsmuir 29/5/1774, d. 1806). He married Mary Ann Middleton on 1/7/1828 in Edinburgh. She was the daughter of John Middleton, a solicitor of London.

Thomas Biggarsheils Stodart was the son of George Walston Stodart (b. 25/1/1731) whose brother Robert Stodart made important contributions to the development of the grand piano, and founded the Stodart piano business.

Laurence and Mary Stodart had three children:

Laurence and Mary Stodart and family migrated to Australia, sailing on the Palmyra, which left Greenock on July 20th, 1839, and arrived at Port Adelaide on October 29th, 1839. (See the passenger list.) They settled at Nairne in 1839 "in the only two buildings there then – the shepherds' huts on the property of Matthew Smillie" (according to a family source).

It appears to me that compared with many other immigrants this family must have been relatively well off. The Stodarts were a prominent family in South Leith, and Laurence was able to pay for a cabin for his family on the voyage to Australia. No doubt the "shepherds' huts" were a temporary arrangement pending the building of a house. However, Laurence Stodart died shortly after his arrival in Nairne, probably in 1840 or 1841.

John Benham Stodart married Jessie Morrison McLean on 7/12/1862. They had the following children:

It is quite possible, for every family, that there were other children I do not know about.

Thomas Stodart married Charlotte Hughes, sister of William Frederick Hughes who married his sister Mary. See the George and Isabella Hughes page for some information about their descendants.

In his memoirs – first published in the Mount Barker Courier, and now reprinted in a book A Miller's Tale: The memoirs of John Dunn of Mt Barker, edited by Anthony Stuart – John Dunn wrote:

When I first saw it there were only four persons settled in the town where Nairne now stands. They were my brother Charles, who was a blacksmith, a Cornish carpenter named Mr John Hillman, Mr John Disher (now father-in-law of Sir William Milne and Mr James Johnston J.P.) and a Scotch widow called Mrs Stoddart who kept a wayside public house where the Distict Hotel now stands.

John Dunn first saw Nairne in 1840, and so the above words indicate that Laurence was already dead at that time.

In an appendix to A Miller's Tale Anthony Stuart wrote as follows:

Albert Mill
The Albert Mill, Nairne

Despite John Dunn's reluctance to become a millowner in Nairne, his company was to work the former Albert mill, which was bought with considerable misgivings in 1864 for £1,500, for most of the remaining years of the nineteenth century. Still standing in the town's Junction Street, the mill was built in the late 1850s on land which had been granted to Nairne's founder, Matthew Smillie, on 4 March 1841. A Nairne resident named Laurence Stod(d)art had intended contracting with Smillie to buy the land in order to establish a public-house, but both parties died before the execution of the conveyance. Smillie's widow Elizabeth and son William conveyed the allotments concerned (46 and 47) to agents Alexander Elder and George Tinline in trust for sale on 2 August 1851.

A sale was subsequently made on 26 June 1852 to Thomas Stod(d)art, son of Laurence, who delayed five years before teaming up on 29 September 1857 with his brother-in-law Frederick Hughes, and successful farmer and former Kanmantoo miner, Thomas Reed, to construct a flourmill. Heavily mortgaged to Henry Ayers for the purpose, the three men completed the mill during 1858.

The brother-in-law referred to must be William Frederick Hughes, since Thomas Stodart had no other brother-in-law named Frederick Hughes. And it makes sense, since William Frederick Hughes was a builder by trade.

The book goes on to say that the rights to the property were transferred to John Toll on 30/11/1859, and after his death in 1864 his widow Charlotte and mortgagee Henry Ayers transferred the property to John Dunn. Evidently the venture was not successful for Thomas Stodart and William Frederick Hughes.

The passage above suggests that Laurence was still alive in March 1841, but it seems to me that the 1841 date is incorrect, since Matthew Smillie had purchased his land at Nairne in 1839. The passage also suggests that Laurence Stodart and Matthew Smillie died at roughly the same time, but in fact the death of Matthew Smillie occurred in 1847. Perhaps Smillie's negotiations were not with Laurence Stodart but with Mrs Laurence Stodart, and took place in 1847.

According to the Manning Index the following appeared in The Observer on 19/12/1885, page 36:

Mrs Stodart begs leave to return thanks to her friends and the public for the ample patronage she has experienced since she built and established an inn and store at the village of Nairne... As the population of the village and neighbourhood is rapidly increasing, she has started a bullock dray to communicate with Adelaide once a fortnight, or oftener if required, which may be heard of at Mr Campbell's (late Campbell and Grieve) Hindley Street... Parties from Adelaide... will find the village well worth visiting as it is situated in one of the finest and most beautiful locations... It is a good stage from Mr Crafer's house in the Tiers and an easy day's ride from town... The nearest and the most direct road is by the village of Hhandorff [sic] and Glenfoy [sic], the residence of Allan Mcfarlane Esq. A medical man is situated in the neighbourhood and several builders and carpenters, a blacksmith and a butcher are in the village. A shoemaker is much wanted...

The date of this has clearly been incorrectly recorded: it must have been in 1841 rather than 1885. Mrs Stodart died in 1847, and ownership of the hotel had passed to James Shakes in 1845, after which the Stodart family had no connection with it. In any case the words above seem more likely to refer to Nairne of the 1840's than the well established Nairne of the 1880's.

The book Mountain upon the Plain: A history of Mount Barker and its surroundings, by Bob Schmidt, says this:

In 1841 an attempt to establish a regular carrying business was made by Mrs Sturdeck, a widow who kept an inn at Nairne. Her teams were the first which came over the hills and formed the one means of obtaining supplies from Adelaide. Two men started on Monday with six or eight bullocks and a dray, carrying their blankets and provisions with them, and if they completed the return trip by the end of the week, their load intact, they were well satisfied.

The following death notice appeared in The Register on Saturday 13th February 1847: "On Sunday last, Mary Ann, widow of the late Mr Laurence Stoddart." Thus Mary Ann died on 7/2/1847. Presumably the 15 year old Thomas Stodart had to take on the role of head of the Stodart household, and the 13 year old Mary the role of housekeeper, when their mother died. I suppose that Thomas was not able to legally complete the purchase of allotments 46 and 47 until after his 21st birthday, in 1852. (The 21st anniversary of his baptism was 7/5/1852.)

In the Mount Barker Library I found a pamphlet entitled Interim Mt Barker and Nairne Townships Heritage Register (draft, March 1997), prepared by Fiona Gardiner. Here is what it had to say about the "District Hotel":

The District Hotel was originally built in c. 1840 by Thomas Stoddart and named the "Nairne Arms". Mrs Stoddart's original hotel stood at the rear of Joseph Ryder's block of shops where one of its brick walls is built into his building and may still be seen today. The "Nairne Arms" or new hotel or both may have existed in the same area as that where the District Hotel was built and licensed in 1851. On Thomas Stoddart's death it was run by his widow Mary Stoddart who also conducted the first carrying service to Adelaide.

The "Nairne Arms" was first registered to Mary Ann(e) Stoddart on 11/6/1840. She retained the licence until 1845 when the property was transferred to James Shakes.

Stodart's house
Stodart's house, Nairne

Of course we should read "Laurence" where it says "Thomas".

Although this line of Stodart's have consistently spelled their name with only one "d", others seem to experience an irresistible impulse to insert a second. I wonder how the name was spelled on the hotel licence, and whether or not "Ann" had an "e"!

Given that Mary Ann, not Laurence, was registered as the licensee of the hotel in June 1840, I am inclined to believe that Laurence had already died by then.

The Nairne Heritage Register also mentions Stoddart's house, 45 - 51 North Road Nairne:

Constructed of freestone rubble with roughly shaped stone surrounds to openings. The exterior appears to be original with retention of scalloped vallance picket fence and half paned easement windows. The house is two-storey at the rear and has a central staircase.

The home of Mrs Stoddart. Mrs Stoddart was the caretaker of the Nairne Inn from 1840. It is believed that the house was built in 1847 or 1840 after the sale of the inn to James Shakes in 1847.

I have faithfully reproduced the words in the booklet, but I suppose they meant "1847 or 1848". Nevertheless, I think the house would probably have been built earlier than this. It seems unlikely to me that Thomas would have organized the construction of a new house as a first priority after his mother's death. If the hotel was actually sold in 1845, as the article on the District Hotel says, Mary could have organized the building of the house then after selling the hotel. It may be that the hotel building was also the family home up to 1845, so that a new house was necessary when the hotel was sold. But is it not also possible that Laurence built this house for his family as soon as they settled in Nairne?

If you have any corrections, complaints, criticisms, suggestions or additional information, please email bobhow@tpg.com.au.