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town, a village, peninsula, etc'
The viilage of Highton was described by another estate agent in 1892 as 'pretty Highton, dotted
with fair villas and cosy cottages, picturesque churches, and well-kept gardens and orchards.'
There were also vineyards, the first wines being produced in the area in 1845. Viticulture
flourished until the 1880s when a plant disease, phylloxera, destroyed all the vines.
The new Australians thought of Highton and its low rolling hills as being like a more sunny
version of English lanes and downs.
Here Jane Honeycombe was courted by her Wesleyan shoemaker, soon to become a farmer.
Their courtship would have been a decorous one. They would probably meet at church, and go
for walks, by the river or by the sea. it would not have been proper for her to stay out late or be
alone with him for too long.
Quite consciously - for neither was youthful, nor were they foolish, one imagines - Jane and her
suitor proceeded towards a proposal and an engagement.
In the early summer of 1855, on 10 November, they were married in the Wesleyan Church in
Yarra St by Isaac Harding. Both signed the register, and the witnesses, who also signed, were
Jane's younger sister, Martha (now 15), and the groom's younger brother, Caleb Mountjoy.
This seems to indicate that the wedding was a quiet one, and even that Jane's father, and
brothers Richard and Henry, were absent from the scene.
Jane's age is given as 30, which implies that she was actually born in 1825, ie, at least five
months before her baptism in London on 26 March 1826. She is also described as a 'lady'. This
would indicate that Mrs Bauer had lost her housemaid within a few months, and that Jane's
status had much improved. Possibly her father's income had also improved in some way as welf
- through some good luck on a gold-field.
The marriage certificate also states that Jane was living with her father, who is described in his
Bristol fashion as a 'builder1. This was probably occasioned by the second Mrs Honeycombe's
departure for Tasmania (perhaps) in 1854. Jane, as the oldest unmarried daughter, would have
taken over the running of her father's home in Nobie St and the care of Henry, Martha and
John.
Who else was at the wedding? Thomas Mountjoy, as yet unmarried, may have been there;
Caleb was. Now 26, he had married Louisa Jane Harward in Adelaide in March 1854. Louisa,
now 19, had earlier in 1855 given birth to a baby boy, who was christened Lawrence after his
uncle. All three were probably there, along with various Cornish neighbours and friends, and
Lawrence's older, married sister, Kuriah Trewin.
Lawrence's older cousin, Richard Mountjoy, and his wife Mary, may also have attended the
tee-total festivities, she shepherding her flock of six children, aged between 15 and five months.
The non-alcoholic occasion may not have
attracted Jane's younger brother, Richard, although he could have been there with his wife,
Elizabeth, and their four young children: Elizabeth Jane, recently seven; May Ann, four; George,
aged two; and the baby Emma, born in May.
Richard in later life was something of a toper, and so doubtless was his 58-year-old father,
William. As neither Richard nor William signed the register as witnesses, as we have seen,
possibly neither was there.
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