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It seems the next Mountjoy to emigrate was Caleb, perhaps in 1852, although the name of his
ship and the dates of the voyage have so far not been unearthed. It seems he disembarked at
Adelaide. For he married there, in St John's Church, on 20 March 1854. His bride, Louisa
Jane Harward, was the daughter of Lawrence Harward of Kilkhampton, who was more than
likely related to Lawrence Mountjoy's mother (Anna Maria Harward). Caleb and Louisa were
probably cousins. He was 24 or so when they married {born 1829) and she was 18. It is also
more than likely that they voyaged to Australia on the same ship.
Thomas Mountjoy, born in Kilkhampton in 1826, was the third brother to emigrate. He left
Liverpool on the 1565-ton Saldanha on 17 March 1854, one of the 593 adults, children and
infants on board, 15 of whom were cabin passengers. Thomas was in steerage. His trade is
given in the passenger list as 'cordwainer' - which means he was a shoemaker like his brother
Lawrence and their father. 'Cordwain' was a Middle English term (cordewan or corduan) for
Spanish leather, and derived from an Old French adjective corduan, meaning 'of Cordova'.
The Saldanha {named after a Portuguese duke and government leader) arrived in Melbourne on
16 June 1854, a month before Jane Honeycombe came to Geelong.
Another member of the Mountjoy family also emigrated in 1854. This was the older, married
sister of Lawrence, Caleb and Thomas - Kuriah Trewin. She was 38. Born in 1816, she had
married William Trewin in 1847 when she was 31. Kuriah and her husband probably travelled
to Australia on the Saldanha, with her brother, Thomas. She had two children, both born in
Australia, and she would live to be 96.
What happened, one wonders, in the Cornish village of Kilkhampton in the eariy 1850s that
caused the Mountjoys and Harwards to ieave their native land -and other villagers, for all we
know? Thomas was not the last. A John Mountjoy who died in Australia in 1876, aged 23, was
the son of a William Mountjoy and was born in Devon.
And another William Mountjoy, aged 20, and probably a brother of that John, emigrated on the
Lady Jocelyn in July 1876. The passenger list notes in a column headed Conduct during Voyage
that this William's behaviour was 'indifferent' and that he was 'indolent, and complained without
cause of his diet'.
Local Victorian histories say the three Mountjoy brothers, Lawrence, Caleb and Thomas
arrived in Australia, in Melbourne or Geelong, in 1853. We know they didn't, and that they
voyaged separately. A family tradition says that Caieb and Thomas landed at Adelaide, and
came overland from there to Geelong. As Caleb married in Adelaide in March 1854, it would
seem that the town was for him at least a temporary base. Thomas, who features in a Who's
Who of Victorian worthies published in 1888, is said to have 'arrived in Melbourne in 1853,
and settled at Geeiong.' In fact he arrived in June 1854. The entry continues: 'After a year on
the gold-fields, he commenced farming, with his brother Caieb, on the Barrabool Hills, and
carried it on for ten years.'
Another biographical reference in the Advertiser m March 1914 says of Caleb that part of his
early married life was spent on the Avoca gofd-fieids.
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It was by no means as simple as that. Thomas and Caleb may well have been digging for gold
around Avoca or Bendigo for a year or so, from 1854 to 1856. But we know that Thomas was
living in Geelong when he married Sophia Allin there in 1856.
This wedding took place at the Bible Christian Chapel in Chilwell, Geelong, on 25 November
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