SCOTT RECORDS – DESTROYED

William’s Relatives in Queensland.

The existence of the family connections in Queensland were discovered in the 1990’s during a search being done for a Family Tree by Di Gibbs (a relative) I told her I had information that William first lived in Queensland before he came to Glen Innes as a teenager, looking after cattle. In 1977 I got a copy of his death certificate and it showed his time in Queensland, so she did a search on shipping lists and found Thomas, Letitia, Jane, Mary Ann and William. From there we got a wealth of information on the families.

William’s family in N.S.W.

I had previously obtained copies in 1977 of William’s death and marriage certificates and in 1984//5 birth certificates of all his children. From my discussions over the years with family members, especially my own grandfather, I was able to put together a ‘picture’ of this amazing man and his wife who were referred to as a “New England Pioneering Family” by the ABC, at the time of the death of William Scott (Jnr.) aged 96, in a news broadcast in 1959….[“ the eldest son of a New England pioneering family, William Scott of the Glen Innes district passed away last night in the Tamworth Hospital, aged 96”] We heard it, and my father said “that’s my Uncle Bill…..he’s gone. What an age to live to.”

In 1939, our family was in the Glen Innes district, heading out to “Brushwood” on Xmas Day. In the village of Red Range we saw an elderly man on horseback. He cut across the road in front of our car and tied his horse up to a fence. When he turned around, my Dad called out “That’s my uncle Bill” and got out of the car and went to speak to him. Uncle Bill later called into Brushwood to have a chat. He was a very tall man, well spoken and would have been in his late 70’s. In the 1960’s I had the pleasure of meeting his younger daughter, Norma, and his two grandsons John and Russell. His wife died in childbirth when Norma was born. She was a sister of Aunty Kate, Uncle Ank’s wife, who lived at “Brushwood”.

In the 1980’s while on holidays at Red Range, I spoke with Jack Scott, who told me he, his brother Walter and Ray Grange went to “Frogmore” to clean up the house and out-houses in the late 1940’s. In an old dairyshed, they found boxes of diaries, books, account books that had been used by Annetta and William. (They died in 1915). The records had been ‘dumped’ by the previous residents, Walter and Mary Ann Scott after they took over ‘Frogmore’, when they moved from ‘Red Hill’. Both Walter and Mary Anne died in 1943. Unfortunately the records were very badly deteriorated and not able to be kept….had they been cared for, we would have had most of the family’s history.

For the record - Jean Scott Deaner 2008.