HARVEY / MILLER
FAMILY HISTORY

Samuel HARVEY (1832-1883)
Son of John HARVEY
& Elizabeth GEORGE

married 26 Jan 1858
St. George Church, Gawler

Fanny MILLER (1834-1917)
Daughter of James MILLER




Fanny HARVEY nee MILLER
also married:
James RICE (1831-1916)
Son of James RICE & Anne PIGGOT
22 Oct 1902, Gawler, S.A.

Fanny Miller's life seems to have had more than its share of tragedy. She first appears in South Australia on the 12th of April 1855 coming ashore alone from the vessel 'Caroline' at Port Adelaide. On the Caroline's passenger list she is recorded in the Single Women's section as a 24 year old domestic servant from Southampton.

At some stage soon after she travelled to Gawler, one of the first South Australian towns to be settled beyond the city of Adelaide. Fanny might possibly have been employed as a domestic servant for one of the more well-to-do families in the fledgling township, although no occupation is recorded on her marriage certificate of 1858. It was in Gawler she met a young Cornish man named Samuel Harvey, and they married on 26 January 1858. The wedding took place in St George's, the oldest church in Gawler and was attended and witnessed by Samuel's older brother, John Harvey Jnr, and John's wife, Jane Loney. The Wedding was officiated by the Rev. William Henry Coombs and witnessed by Leonard Samuel Burton, head master of St. George's School, Gawler.

In May of that same year the couples first son, James (named after his maternal Grandfather), was born in Bertha, but sadly survived only two short months. Their next child, daughter Elizabeth Jane , died at the tender age of three and the couple appear to have been so overcome with grief that the child's uncle, John Harvey jnr, had to perform the sad duty of registering the death.

Their second daughter, Sarah Ann, married Richard James BUSBRIDGE in 1883 but tragically died in 1890 aged just 29, leaving her young husband with three small children to raise. Richard remarried to Ethelleen JOHNSTON later that same year but then died himself the following year, 1891, leaving the three children orphaned.

James HARVEY (1858-1858)

Elizabeth Jane HARVEY (1859-1862)

Sarah Ann HARVEY(1861-1890)
Married Richard James BUSBRIDGE (1864-1891)
Son of James BUSBRIDGE & Jane WEEKS
1883 Tarlee District S.A.
Children:
James Alfred BUSBRIDGE B. 1883
William Henry Harvey BUSBRIDGE b. 1885
Purcival Lancelot BUSBRIDGE (1887-1889)
Winifred Elsie BUSBRIDGE b. 1889

William Henry HARVEY (1863-1948)
Married Rosa DEW (1866-1947)
Daughter of George DEW & Jane HILLMAN
1890 Primitive Methodist Manse Gawler
Children:
Hilda Emily HARVEY (1892-1980)
George Samuel HARVEY (1894-1975)

Mary Jane HARVEY(1869-1961)
Married James SMITH (1866-1923)
Son of William SMITH & Martha BURTON
1892 North Adelaide
Children:
Hurtle James SMITH b 1893
Lillian May SMITH 1894-1966
Olive Pearl SMITH b. 1897
Florence Mary SMITH b. 1905

The couple's only surviving son, William Henry HARVEY, married Rosa DEW, whose parents were weavers from Wiltshire. George & Jane DEW immigrated to South Australia from Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire in 1857 aboard the vessel "Marion".

Fanny and Samuel's youngest daughter, Mary Jane, married James SMITH in 1892. They settled in Echunga and had four children together. Mary Jane was the longest surviving of Fanny and Samuel Harvey's children, she died in 1961 in Echunga aged 92.

Samuel Harvey immigrated to South Australia as a child with his parents in 1840 aboard the vessel 'Waterloo". He was variously described as a farmer, labourer and lime courier. Considering his father, John Harvey, was a miner and his Cornish background, Samuel may also have been a miner. At the height of the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s barely an able bodied man remained in South Australia so it is possible, at the time of his marriage to Fanny in 1858, Samuel was recently returned from the goldfields of Victoria.

In the Autumn of 1883, at age 50, Samuel suffered a bout of Bronchitis severe enough to take his life on the 25th of April 1883. He is buried in the Willaston Cemetary with his brother, John Harvey Jnr and John's wife, Jane Lonely.

Fanny remained a widow for the next 20 years, perhaps she was busy helping to raise her orphaned grandchildren, the Busbridges. Then, surprisingly, she remarried to James Rice of Gawler. They were both in their early 70s. Fanny and James had fourteen good twilight years together before James' death in 1916. Fanny then moved to Echunga to live with her youngest daughter, Mary Jane, and son-in-law, James Smith. She passed away in 1917, aged 87, and is buried in the Wesleyan Church, now the Uniting Church, of Echunga, South Australia.

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Many thanks to Nori Witter, Frank Mold, Doreen Fellows, Anne Parkes, Grant Harvey, Barbara Harrison & Irene Harvey for their help with much of the above information