Chater, William (Jnr) and Mary

There were two William Chaters associated with Berrima in the 1830s, father and son.

The birth record of William Chater (Jnr) gives the location as ‘at sea, Sulawesi Tengah, Indonesia’ (in 1814?).[1] His parents were en route to Australia where his father was to join the NSW Royal Veterans Corps and, on retirement, be granted 60 acres at Bong Bong (see William Chater Snr).

It must, therefore, have been his son who, in July 1835, was appointed bailiff in the Court of Requests and chief constable at Bong Bong and who occupied those same positions in Berrima from March 1836 until 1839 at which point he transferred to Wollongong.[2]

Whether this move was prompted by William receiving a very adverse media review in 1839 when a correspondent describes the theft of goods from drays parked alongside Berrima Bridge and castigates the police magistrate, the police chief and the constables for their lack of action to apprehend the thieves, is not known. Part of the review reads:

Three or four days after the robbery, the owner of thee dray arrived, post-haste, at Berrima. Mr. Thompson was very polite, but seeing the Chief-Constable in Court, so drunk as just to be able to stand erect without oscillation, and hearing an imbecile censure from the Magistrate to his chief, as if the latter’s being drunk was not of very rare occurrence, and having learnt from his men on the road the absence, among the Berrima Constabulary, of ????? and diligence in their calling and their heartless indifference to their duty, he saw there was nothing to expect, from the Police authorities of Berrima, and accordingly remounted his horse and quietly returned home.[3]

William Chater Jnr married Mary Huddleston (alias Anne Jones) in 1837.[4] Mary was a convict who had arrived in December 1834 on the George Hibbert, sentenced to 7 years for stealing money.[5] She was a kitchen maid from Lancashire and 17 when she arrived. The NSW Convict and Settler Lists for that year confirms her two aliases.[6] They had a large family and descendants on ancestry.com say he died on July 4, 1871, in Victoria, at the age of 57.

[1] Donna’s family tree on ancestry.com

^[2] Returns of the Colony 1822-1857; Series 1286; Publication Years 1835-40

[3] Sydney Gazette and NSW Monitor, 9 August 1839

^[4] NSW BDM 1766/1837 V18371766 21

[5] NRS 12189; Item: [X636]; Microfiche: 711

^[6] SRNSW Convict and Settler Lists 1834 Entry no. 529 p 132