The Argents of Argents Hill - Part 1
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WHEN Allen Argent, wife Emma and two children left England in 1855, they were the forerunners of moves to populate Australia that extended to after the Second World War.
While the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme of 1945 brought 'Ten Pound Poms' - the Argents, 90 years earlier, paid just one pound for their voyage.
In their native Essex, Allen was a farm labourer working in orchards and gardens, with Emma supplementing their income by plaiting straw hats (see footnote). The part of England they lived in may not have suffered the extreme poverty of the clearances in Scotland and Ireland but it is likely they would have only eked out an existence before migrating.
Emma's sister and her husband, the Wesley family, were already in NSW when the Argents arrived and it was no doubt their reports had encouraged them to set sail.
Interestingly the time they arrived was also the period that convict transport ceased to NSW although it continued in other parts of the colony until 1868.
Allen, Emma and children took a coastal boat to Port Macquarie and were met by the Wesleys.
The pair were employed at Lake Innes by a Dr MacKellar who is cited as the grandfather of renowned poet Dorothea MacKellar. Seeking land and a permanent home, the family moved to a farm on the Rollands Plains where they stayed for 12 years.
It was 1868 and a resurgence of the cedar trade on the Nambucca was reported along with farm land remaining after clearing.
The lure of 'red gold' and for selection of land saw Allen, two of his sons and Frank Grace set out for the Nambucca.
With all the land around Bowra taken, they selected a rich piece of land west of Bowraville between the North Arm and the Buccrabendinni rivers.
Separated from their families, their lives were taken up with what are called the "five chores of settling", which are ringing, brushing, falling, clearing and burning.
Frank Grace took the timber to market by bullock dray.
Frank has been the subject of an earlier article and in his obituary was hailed as a "grand pioneer of Bowraville". His relationship with the Argents was cemented when he married their daughter Rebecca in 1872.
The next step in the Argents' story is the transporting of Emma and the family from the Rolland Plains to the Nambucca. This was carried out two years after the men.
Allen and Emma's daughter Hepzibah, born 1869, was only 18 months old on the journey but later in life wrote an evocative account:
"The job of moving a family of ten with all the necessities needed to start a new life a distance of almost one hundred miles through virgin bush was a task to make the stoutest heart quail.
"With the household furniture and the family on one bullock wagon driven by Frank Grace; farm implements, poultry, pigs, fruit trees on the other and the boys leading two cows and taking turns to ride the horse, they set out."
Hepzibah describes the trip routine:
"Three tents were carried and pitched every night by the menfolk. The women would prepare the evening meal and cook sufficient food to last through the following day whilst the bullocks would be fed from the corn carried on the wagons."
At the very end of their journey they still encountered delays as Hepzibah relates, "The party enjoyed good weather till the final stages of the journey when rain and a boggy crossing only a few hundred yards from home forced a stop of three days while the men built a culvert to make the crossing."
The journey which now takes less than two hours by the Pacific Highway, took the entourage two months.
Hepzibah writes of its conclusion: "Implements were placed in the barn, slush lamps were lit, the bullocks fed and the Argents were home."
Footnote:
Straw plaiting was a cottage industry that saw its heyday in 18th and 19th century rural Britain, and was in the main part practiced by women and children.
The straw from wheat crops was braided into strips to make hats, baskets and other wares. The income was a valuable supplement to the low wages of farm labourers.
Plaiting had physical dangers as the sulphur bleached straw was drawn through the mouth, damaging the worker's teeth and mouth.
An Australian equivalent is the cabbage tree hat of which there are three examples on display at the Nambucca Headland Museum.
The Argents' story will continue in Part 2.
This article was written from records of the Nambucca Headland Museum, the Bowraville Folk Museum and Argent family accounts. Particular thanks to Faye Stuart and the photo collections of John Argent and Annis Jones.