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"GEORGE FROM KENT"
- alone he went to seek a new life
It
was George Flewin, an agricultural labourer living in 1852
on the Common in the Kent village of Wilmington, who made
the decision to leave his family behind to seek a new life
in Australia. His wife, Jane (nee Blackman), and son, John,
joined him three years later and the three became the
forefathers of all Australian Flewins.
George was the second of the three
sons of John Flewin and Phillis (nee Shaves) of Wilmington.
All three were caught up in the agricultural recession of
the mid 1800s -- his older brother, John, went to London to
find work as a carpenter, while the younger brother, Thomas,
left Kent and England six months before George, making his
way to a new life on Vancouver Island, later to become part
of British Columbia.
The sailing ship Emigrant was
George's vessel for the three and a half month voyage in
1853 from Gravesend in Kent to Port Philip in
Australia.
Initially George may have been
lured by the promise of gold in the mountains of Victoria,
but few made their fortunes that way. He fell back on his
farming skills, and soon took advantage of the need for
bricks as the vast numbers of immigrant Australians sought
to build houses and towns. George became one of the land's
first brickmakers, setting up his plant on his
farmland.
In the 1850s with an excess of
single men there were moves to establish more family units
in the new country. Local government schemes in Australia
offered settlers loans to finance the journeys of close
family members. Jane and John travelled to Victoria on the
sail ship Clasmerden.
George and Jane had one more child,
a girl, Ellen, born in 1858, five years after he first set
foot in the new land. By the time he died, aged 95 in 1919,
he had more than 30 grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Jane had died eighteen years before him, and both are buried
near the miners' rest at Ballarat.
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When the photograph of four generations of
the Flewin family (above) was published in 1919 in
Victoria's Weekly Times newspaper, the caption
read:
Mr George Flewin, who is 94 years of age, was
born in Dartford, Kent, England, in 1824, and
arrived in Australia in 1853. Shortly after arrival
he commenced brick making at Ballarat. He made the
first kiln fired bricks ever burnt there .... sold
them to the late Mrs. Thomas Bath for £20 a
thousand. He was on the diggings at the time of the
Eureka riot. He still resides in Ballarat, and
enjoys good health. His son, Mr. John Flewin, of
Morwell, who is 72 years of age, is a colonist of
63 years. He selected land in Morwell district over
forty years ago. Mr. George Flewin's grandson (Mr.
John Flewin) is 43 years of age and owns a diary
farm at Callignee, near Traralgon. His son, Master
Clarence Flewin (Mr. George Flewin's great
grandson), is 17 years of age and assists his
father on the farm. Mr. Flewin has 14
grand-children and 37 great grand-children.
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