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& Hewitt of Echuca, to the Secretary for Lands in Melbourne. Payment of £19 was sought. It
was said to be 'due to the deceased for fencing round land which was subsequently allotted to
Piffrow (sic) at Torrumbarry.'
This was eventually paid, and Lawrence acknowledged receipt of the £19 in October. Two
months later he applied for the acreage that William had left to him.
At a later date, William's larger block of land, which had shrunk from an original 320 acres to
228, was further reduced to 222. No notes have been found to account for this change.
Perhaps the missing six acres were given to another farmer or excised for some public need.
A lease on the 222 acres was ratified in May 1877. The improvements had cost £252-4-0.
Lawrence accounted for this sum in his lease application as follows: 'Fencing -£106-10-0;
Cultivation - £34-7-6; Buildings - £50; Water Storage - £40; Ploughing and preparing for line
fence - £21-7-6.
In this application Lawrence gave some details about the actual crops, about William's
neighbours, the size of the reservoir, and the materials used to build William's house. He refers
to William as 'the deceased' and to himself as the executor - separately, apart from one line in
his declaration: 'During the currency of the said License the deceased and his Executor
cultivated at least one acre out of every ten in the said allotment'
So it seems that Lawrence assisted William in some way with his selection. Their lands adjoined
after all, and may have been farmed as one unit. We also learn that William resided continuously
on his land, had no family with him, had no other place of abode, nor owned any other land
apart from the adjacent 51 acres.
It was not until July 1879, however, that Lawrence made an application for the lease on these
51 acres. Fencing here, he said, cost £69, and cultivation (a wheat crop that yielded seven
bushels from seven acres) £10-10-0. But he adds: 'For the convenience the seven acres
mentioned was cultivated on the adjoining block.' Piffero is on the south of this block: but
someone called Moad has replaced Balding and Ferguson on the north and west. 'Own land'
lies to the east.
This application is made in Lawrence's name and he gives his address as 'Highton, Geelong.' His
family resides at Highton, he says, and he has 11 acres of land there. The lease was apparently
granted after the probate of William's will had been checked. Lawrence's presence in Highton
seems to indicate that
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he was now something of an absentee landlord and that someone also was looking after his
acres, which now numbered 593.
It also indicates that he had a new home, a house with 11 acres. Where was this? And when did
Lawrence hand over his land at Torrumbarry to another tenant, to his nephew, or to his brothers
and their other sons?
It seems that soon after William Honeycombe's death, in 1876 or 1877, Lawrence Mountjoy
and Jane decided to return to Geelong, and in effect to retire. He was 58 in 1878, and in that
year we know that he was residing at Geelong because he is described in a list of shareholders
as a 'gentleman' residing at Highton - not as a farmer from Echuca, and not at Roslyn. We also
know that Roslyn was sold (the house and four acres of orchard) in 1878. So it would seem
that Lawrence and Jane occupied their new home, in Highton, that year.
Lawrence was also one of a group of tradesmen (they included a blacksmith, ironmonger,
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