Sewell Nelson BURGIS

  General Notes:

Sewell Burgis married Ellen(Jones) and had two sons Sewell Nelson Burgis and Horatio Arthur Burgis and there were older step sisters who were from a previous Sewell Burgis marriage. Sewell Nelson Burgis was the older brother born about 1883 (1884 according Mavis writing) and was called Nelson (Victoria Registration No 17341). Ellen his mother died first in 1896 and Sewell in 1897. The boys were orphaned at 14 and 12 and were separated Nelson to his Aunty Charlotte Geale (his mother's sister) in Gippsland and then Tasmania and his younger brother Horatio Arthur to another Aunty Elizabeth Hayes of 10 Queen St Ballarat.

Nelson(as he was called) had a farm perhaps 200-600 acres out of Smithton in Tasmania and ran both dairy cattle and pigs. At least some of the milk was separated and the cream put in stainless steel milk cans and left at the front gate on a wooden stand for collection by, I assume, the butter factory. The skim milk was fed to the pigs. He had a rather bad tempered bull which on one occasion had charged him and he always carried a whip and would crack it over the bull as he came through the gate with the cattle. The bull would make sure there were other cattle between him and Uncle Nelson when this happened.

Most people who had come through the depression were not used to the using large amounts of butter and cream. I recall that on our only visit to the farm in about 1956 we had butter jam and cream on our bread - what a treat. We also had cereal with cream followed by bacon and eggs for breakfast. We helped with the bailing of the hay and stacking it on the hay stack. As rain was due there was some urgency in stacking the hay defore it became wet. (Lindsay Williams recollections)

Sewell married Elizabeth Evelyn ALLEN, daughter of Thomas ALLEN and Mary Ann ANDERSON (EDWARDS), on 12 Oct 1915. (Elizabeth Evelyn ALLEN was born on 25 Aug 1886 in Wynyard, Tasmania, Australia and died on 12 Sep 1965 in Smithton, Tas.)