Ugborough man was one of the first free settlers in Victoria, Australia
James Bickford Moysey was born and baptised in Ugborough in 1809. Bickford was his mother’s maiden name. The Moyseys had been in the locality since the 1600s. Susanna Brown Treeby was born in Modbury in 1825. Not being the eldest, James had inherited little or nothing and times were hard. There were no industrial jobs and the area for farming was very limited. James fell in love with Susannah, who was scarcely more than half his age and the two, convinced that somehow love would find a way, married in 1843 when she was 18.
The administrators of New South Wales had, by that time, realised that their vast new country could never be developed properly with convict labour, a few emancipists and adventurers, and the limited number of free settlers.
Newcomers of “sound British stock” were needed most urgently. For the Port Phillip District, later Victoria, the newly formed Colonial Land and Emigration Commission contracted with a London firm to convey British people to Port Phillip “at the rate of £18/14/0 per statute adult”. James and Susannah who had saved up £100, thought it over and so did his cousin Nicholas. The three decided to seek together those fresh fields offered by the Commission and they sailed by the barque “Sea Queen”, 414 tons, ex London, Plymouth and Cork on January 11, 1844. Landfall in Port Phillip was on April 15, 1844.
For a few months the two men took casual employment in the township of Melbourne, but the conditions were not good enough, so they decided to pioneer the “bush-land”. James and Nicholas took out a joint lease on land of about 3200 acres in about September 1844. They built a three-roomed wattle-and-daub, thatched hut near the cliff-top. After settling in, a good deal of work had to be done. Waterholes had to be developed, clearing had to be done for grazing, kitchen garden, etc. and fencing and housing for stock, and tracks had to be cut. Then a baby arrived who was baptised Treeby, after his mother’s family. Besides looking after the livestock, James grew vegetables, fished and did odd jobs. Susannah saw to the baby, the dairy, household washing and cooking and the making of clothes.
Finding that the 3200 acres was too big to manage after the death of Nicholas, James decided to give up the outlying areas and to concentrate on the central 640 acres. Their second child, George Bickford Moysey was born in December 1850. Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and James joined in the diggings, soon striking it rich. The new Government of Victoria cancelled all the land leases and put the surveyed blocks up to public auction. James successfully purchased a block of 80 acres of his previously leased land.
James Bickford Moysey died in 1889 on his Narre Warren Farm at the age of 80. Susannah then went to live with her daughter Elizabeth until she too passed on in 1895 aged 70. James is known as the founder of the district of Beaumaris.
Source – Beaumaris History Society newsletter August 1962