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1856.
The officiating minister was William Hockin. Sophia was two months pregnant at the time.
Thomas, a shoemaker, gave his age as 27 (in fact he was probably 30) and Sophia was 20. She
was born (like Thomas) in Devon, in a village called Bradworthy, about five miles east of the
Mountjoys' birthplace. In the marriage certificate she is described as a 'housekeeper1 and her
residence was in the Barrabool Hills. As her father's occupation is given as 'farmer', it seems
likely that her mother was dead, and that she kept house for him. In view of the consequent
territorial expansion of the Mountjoys, Thomas's marriage may have played a not insignificant
part.
We know that Caleb, Richard and Lawrence Mountjoy were also in Geelong in 1856. For all
three appear as householders in the electoral roll for Victoria that year. Caleb's home was in
Foster Street, and Richard and Lawrence both resided in Turner's Place. All three are
described as 'labourers.' But Lawrence and Jane, by the end of 1856, had moved to Fyans St,
as we have seen.
A William Honeycombe also appears in the 1856 Electoral Roll as a miner, holding a miner's
right - at Kangaroo Flat, south of Bendigo.
He is also listed in the Bendigo Rate Book: Wo 1338. William Honeycomb, Main Creek.
Owner/Self & Crown; Lease No 149 (?). Land, dam and erection for puddling. £25-0-0.
Now, although this William may have been William the stonemason's son (William Robert) - or
even another William, a miner, from Calstock in Cornwall -there is no evidence to prove that
either of these other two Williams was ever in Australia. No passenger list refers to them, and
there is no record of their marriage or death in Australia, nor any other mention whatsoever. All
the Australian references to a William Honeycombe between 1850 and 1876, other than the
Bendigo one, relate without doubt to William Honeycombe, the stonemason and builder, who
emigrated in 1850. We may therefore presume that the Bendigo reference also relates to him.
After all, it is not so unlikely that our William, who moved about so much in England, should
have gone in search of gold.
As we have seen, he is registered as living in Geelong in Noble St in 1854, but does not witness
the wedding of his daughter, Jane, in 1855.
Although he is described in the marriage certificate as a builder, not a miner, to Jane and his
family the former was his main occupation: he was a builder by trade. It is possible that the
Noble St address was the family home, where his children, minus his second wife, lived while he
was away, for months at a time, gold-mining in Bendigo or Ballarat.
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William is only recorded as being in Bendigo in 1856. But in the rate book for 1859, Charles
Franklin appears, having a 'house, etc,' at Golden Gully which is rated at £5. We know that he
and his teenage wife, Elizabeth (William's daughter), had in fact been living in the Bendigo area
since 1856 - her first child was born there that year. Perhaps, to begin with, they lodged with
her father, or he with them. There would seem to be a continuing connection between Charles
Franklin (bom in Bristol) and his father-in-law.
The Bendigo reference to William Honeycombe is the last we have of him for a while. After
1856, when he was 59, he disappears from the records, reappearing, again as a builder, when
his daughter Martha marries in 1861, and later in connection with the territorial acquisitions of
the Mountjoys near Echuca.
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