Page 29

IDENTITY: Marion Agnes Hughan,Bertha Hughan's sister and Henry Bishop's sister-in-law.The third daughter of Robert Alexander Hughan and Hannah oakley, she was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, on Sunday, November 5th, 1824.
In 1850, at the age of twenty five years, she boarded the ship ‘Culloden’ with her mother, sisters Jessie and Bertha, and 38 other women between the ages of 17 and 36, to voyage to Australia.Two years after their arrival, Marion married a fellow Englishman, Henry Aulert Edmiston. Henry had emigrated to Victoria in 1849 on the ship ‘Tasman’, which also carried his future sister-in-law, Laura Hughan. Marion and Henry were married in the Presbyterian Church, Melbourne, in 1852.
Only five years after the birth of their final child, Marion Edmiston was left a widow... at the age of 47 years, Henry Aulert Edmiston, native of London, England, and son of Charles and Ann Edmiston, died at Ballarat East on 23 February, 1872. The cause of his death was dysentery, and he had been ill for 12 days before succumbing to the disease. Details on his death certificate, which were given by Fergus McIvor Hughan, brother-in-law, journalist, Melbourne, included the following:
Born London, 22 years in Victoria. Occupation: clerk. Married in Melbourne aged 27 to Marion Agnes Hughan. Issue: Ada 18 years; Claudine 15; Blanche 7; and Leonard 4 ½.
Marion Hughan raised her children alone without remarrying, and lived a long life before passing away 38 years after her husband. The electoral roles of 1903 and 1909 reveal that she spent her later years in Hamilton, Victoria, living with her daughter Claudine. In 1903 their address was Skene Street, and in 1909 it was Martin Street. In both years her occupation, and that of Claudine, was ‘home duties’. Marion died at a house in Thompson Street, Hamilton, Victoria, on June 1, 1910.
The details on her death certificate were as follows:
‘ June 1, 1910, at Thompson Street, Hamilton, Marion Agnes Edmiston, 84 years old, of senile decay and exhaustion. She had suffered with the condition for three years, and her physician, Dr. James B. Hayes, had last attended her on May 20th, 1910.
Marion was buried on June 3, 1910, at the Ballarat West Cemetery, by undertaker Hugh Loughlin.