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George & Sarah Lovegrove (nee Hazelett)

The family arrived in Sydney on 24 Jun 1853. It is intriguing to contemplate their thoughts as they sailed through Sydney Heads on that mid-winter day so long ago.

Thought to be a photo of George Lovegrove

NSW had a population of some 250,000 and Sydney was a bustling frontier town at the time. Some substantial buildings had risen in the sixty-five years since the arrival of the First Fleet under Governor Arthur Phillip. Although convicts were no longer being sent to NSW, there were still many in the settlement and elsewhere serving out their sentences.

Thought to be a photo of Sarah Lovegrove

The family didn't tarry too long in Sydneytown as there is evidence to show that by 3 Jul 1853 they had arrived at East Maitland in the Hunter River Valley for on that day Jane Lovegrove, the eldest of the Lovegrove children gave birth to a base-born child who was baptised Alfred Lovegrove on  9th July 1853. Unfortunately Jane also died on that day.

To compound the sadness, which must have attended the loss of their daughter, the emigrant family then had to contend with the death on 14th July 1853 of the newly born child. 

It is presumed that both mother and son were buried in St Peter’s Church glebe cemetery, East Maitland, but no records of their disposal appear to exist.

It is not clear how the family arrived in Maitland, but it is most likely that, after leaving the ‘Malvina Vidal’ in Sydney, the impecunious migrant family would have wanted to move on to their final destination without delay and thus avoid the expense of accommodation and food in Sydney.

They probably took a passage on one of the coastal vessels that plied between Sydney and Newcastle or Sydney and Maitland or Morpeth on the Hunter River, a journey of some 120 miles; as the Great Northern Rail-way didn’t reach Maitland until 1863, they may have travelled from Newcastle to Morpeth by one of the many steam packets which ran this route. The trip

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