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died within 24 hours.
Some three months later she also died in hospital of pyaemia (blood-poisoning). Elizabeth
Franklin, nee Honeycombe, was buried in the Wesleyan section of Sandhurst Cemetery on 25
April 1879. She was 41.
It is probable that after her marriage in October 1852 Elizabeth saw very little of her younger
sister and brothers. For later that year, or early the next, they all moved out of Melbourne - to
Geelong.
Indeed they may already have been there when she married, and thus were prevented,
deliberately or not, from attending the ceremony. We know that William was a householder in
Geelong in 1854, and we may reasonably deduce his presence there a year or so earlier from
the date of his son's departure from England.
Richard Honeycombe in fact left Liverpool with his family in May 1853 - for Geelong. So he
must have been directed by his father thither, and not to Melbourne - by letter before Richard
left. That letter would have taken about three months to reach England. So it must have been
sent (from Geelong?) in January 1853, at the latest. It was probably sent months before this, in
1852. For Richard had to find and book a passage on a ship with Geelong as its destination and
sort out much before he left England for good.
Why did William move to Geelong? Apparently without his second wife. Why did Richard, and
then Jane, decide to join their father there?
Richard was a stonemason, like his father, who may have assured his son by letter that work
and wages were good there, even better than in Melbourne, and that Geelong was a better
place to live. Yet there was much more going on in Melbourne. Grandiose stone buildings were
being put together and planned: the Public Library opened there in 1853, and the Town Hall the
following year. Bridges, churches, banks, businesses and homes were being profusely built.
There was plenty of work for a stonemason, as Richard would find out in due course. So why
Geelong?
William may have been unhappy in Melbourne, and eager to dump his second wife. He may not
have liked the place or the people he met, nor its erratic weather, nor felt inclined to suffer the
press of people and soaring prices caused by the gold-rush and every kind of excess.
Geelong was likewise affected, but less so. A sea-port on Port Phillip Bay, and further south, it
was then on a trading par with Melbourne. It was then in fact the commercial capital of
Victoria, its exports exceeding Melbourne's. It was also more British than Melbourne, less
chaotic, and the countryside more pleasing to an English eye. Its leafy lanes, hilly slopes, oak
woods and streams, were more reminiscent of the rural charms of ancient English counties.
Scottish immigrants were agreeably reminded of the Scottish Border Country, and the English of
Sussex and Devon. To most it was more of a comfortable country town than Melbourne, and a
pleasanter place to be.
The Rev John D Mereweather visited Geeiong in August, 1850, a month after he came to
Melbourne. As Geeiong wouid become the Honeycombes' home for the next 20 years, his
description of Geelcng a few years before they settled there provides us with a picture of the
town and countryside they came to know.
Mereweather wrote: '5 August: Having received an invitation from a wealthy squatter in the
neighbourhood of Geeiong, the second city of the colony, I embarked on board a small steamer
at the Melbourne Wharf at eieven o'clock, and reached Geeiong at haff-past four. The Yarra
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