In Brighton on 9th June 1855 was born Horatio, the fourth child of William Garrett RANDELL and his wife Ann. Twenty years later Horatio married 24-year-old Eliza LONGHURST. Their son Horatio Frederick was born on 2nd August 1876.
In late 1883 Horatio RANDELL, his wife Eliza, and ‘the boy’ left Sussex for a new life in Australia. The creator of these webpages possesses the diary kept by his great-grandfather Horatio chronicling the arduous voyage aboard the sailing ship Corona. Only after nearly four months at sea does Horatio say: “the voyage is getting monotonous”!
Transcript of diary Photo of first page of diary
The only names of fellow travellers mentioned in the diary were BERRY, BROOKS, DEACON, EVANS, MUGRIDGE, SHARP, SIMMONDS, and TAYLOR. However, contact has been made with the descendents of a CHEETHAM family who were also on that same voyage from Plymouth to Townsville. Evidently there were 207 assisted passengers and 190 free passengers on board. Master: G. SHEARER; Surgeon: J. WELL; Matron: Mrs McKEDDIE.
In Queensland Horatio carried out his trade of bootmaker, apparently in the manufactory of James HUNTER, in the Brisbane area. A second child, William Garrett RANDELL, was born in September 1888. However, Eliza died in March 1889 and the baby barely two months later. Hence Horatio and son Horatio Frederick returned to England the following April aboard the Austral, a steamship of the Orient Line. Their combined fare home was £28 7s.
NOTE: In his diary, Horatio used virtually no punctuation or capital letters so most capitals, commas and full-stops, plus the interpretation of mis-spellings are those of the transcriber.
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© Trevor Hanson 27-Sep-2009 E. & O. E.