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George John Barwise WELLER
Father: George WELLER
Mother: Eliza BARWISE
Born: 1830-08-15
Died: 1884-12-15 (aged 54 years)
Buried: Clarence Town
= Married  =
on: 1853-08-31
at: St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Parramatta.
Rebecca RANDALL
Father: Thomas RANDALL
Mother: Mary GIBBONS
Born: 1835
Baptised: 1835-11-15
Died: 1887-05-25 (aged 52 years)
Buried: Clarence Town. Registered by her son-in-law.
Children:   |
Frances Eliza
Born: 1857-01-27
Died: 1888-01-09
Lauristina
Born: 1860
John George Barwise
Born: 1861
Died: 1896-03-18
Edward
Born: 1865
Died: 1942
Charles
Born: 1867
Alice
Born: 1871
Emily
Born: 1875
Died: 1875
Clarence
Born: 1882
Died: 1888-01-09

Further information for George John Barwise WELLER.

Birth place: Sydney
Profession: Innkeeper
Domiciles: Clarence Town, NSW

Biography

Born at Cleveland House 15 August 1830. Generally called John. He was only 10 when his mother died. When he was 20 it was arranged that his uncle Charles Schultze should train him in business, but he doesn`t appear to have stayed long.

One gets the impression that John, as a boy, failed to live up to his father’s expectations. In a letter written in 1849, when John was 19, his father tells John’s uncle, Charles Schultze:

John, I hope, and indeed I feel convinced, will improve under you if he only gives his mind, which I believe he will do. Tell him I will endeavour to arrange that he shall have a portion of his Mother’s money to use when he arrives at the age of 21, but should I be unsuccessful not to feel disappointed, but exert himself and learn his business well and you can scarcely imagine what pleasure it will be to me on my return to find him Master of it. Give my affectionate love to him and may God bless him.

Charles Schultze, who married George Weller’s sister Anne in 1849, had worked with the Weller brothers for years. By this time he had commercial operations himself, including in New Zealand, where he and Anne (formerly Weller) went to live. It is not clear where the Schultzes were living when George wrote this letter. It seems that John had been placed with Schultze to learn the business of commerce. The letter sounds as if his father thought of him as requiring improvement, but not always able to give his mind to matters like work. Behind these few lines of a letter we sense a difficult relationship, and a father who loved his son but was frustrated by him.

We do not know if John learnt anything from his uncle, or if his father managed to get him any money from his deceased mother’s marriage settlement.  We do know that, at the age of 23, John married a young woman, not yet 18, who came of very humble origins.

She was Rebecca Randall, and they married at St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Parramatta, on 31 August 1853. John was of the Church of England himself, but she was noted as a Catholic. She had been baptised, however, as Church of England, on 15 November 1835 in the parish of St John, Parramatta, NSW. She was born 23 October 1835, the daughter of Thomas Randall, a telegraph labourer, and his wife Mary. They were to have nine children.

John himself was a farmer at Louth Park for a while and then became an innkeeper, holding the licence of the Crown Inn at Clarence Town.

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