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asked his questions and assessed the answers. Perhaps he felt like a young farmer from Devon
who said: 'I cannot stand the temptation of the diggings', and set off on horseback in a group of
four or six, with a signed
agreement avowing the group would work as a team for three or more months, divide the
spoils, and touch not a drop of wine, spirits or beer.
But, although a fortune could be made in a day, it could all be spent in town in a week. Gold
was a major element in the making and unmaking of men, and in the making of Australia - its
economy, character, topography, towns and myth. And like the voyage out, gold was a great
leveller. Sn its pursuit many were destroyed, but many prospered: store-keepers as well as
diggers, speculators, officials and the government's coffers. While on the roads bushrangers
flourished - gangs of ex-convicts, sailors and labourers, robbing coaches, individuals and banks.
Were William and Henry diggers for a while in 1852 - in Castlemaine and Ballarat? While in
sleepless Melbourne the second Mrs Honeycombe looked after the younger children, Elizabeth,
Martha and John? These four seem to have been resident there in 1852. For in Melbourne, in
October that year, there occurred the second, surprising marriage of a Honeycombe in
Australia; that of Elizabeth Honeycombe - aged but 14 and a half.
It was perfectly legal, although her bridegroom, Charles Frankiin, probably neither knew or
cared about her real age. They were married by the Dean of Melbourne on 4 October 1852, by
license, in the parish of St James. There is no mention of her parents' consent Both signed the
register, and their signatures were witnessed by William Lambert Bure and James Phillips,
probably two friends of the bridegroom. As none of the bride's family was a witness, none was
probably there - which suggests that the marriage was sudden and performed without the
knowledge, or approval, of Elizabeth's father, stepmother or older brother. Maybe both of the
men were out of town.
However, we find from Charles Franklin's death certificate that there may have been a family
connection. Aged 31 when he married, he was bom in Bristol. His parents, George and Mary
Ann Franklin, were therefore contemporaries if not actually Bristol acquaintances of William
Honeycombe. It was perhaps through William and George Franklin that Charles and Elizabeth
Honeycombe met. The younger man may even have been a mining associate. But unlike Jane,
this daughter wedded the man who bedded her, and she had no bastard child.
Like William, as we shall see, Charles Franklin was a gold-miner in the Bendigo area and he
lived there from 1856 to 1872 at least. For six of the couple's children were bom there during
those years. He also appears in the Bendigo Rate Book for 1859, having a house in Golden
Gully rated cheaply at £5. Their second child was born about that time and christened Mary
Ann Furneaux Franklin.
It is interesting that Elizabeth chose to commemorate her mother's maiden name. Possibly she
did so because it had a pedigree: Tobias Furneaux, remember, had some islands off Tasmania
named after him. Or because she loved her mother and could not forgive her father for marrying
again and so soon.
Her life was a hard one, it seems, and brief. She had her first child when she was 18. Her
husband, Charles, died aged 51 in 1872, leaving her at the age of 34 with six children. She
remarried two years later, in 1874. Her second husband was William Thompson, a Scot from
Galloway, who was a miner living in Golden Gully. In 1879 she bore him a child, a boy, who
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