#52Ancestors - Week 40 - Ten

The challenge this week is to write a post with a connection with the number ten.

Branches of my family tree show that in the nineteenth century many of my ancestors had a large number of children with the number ten featuring frequently. Generally these families made a successful transition to life in Australia often acquiring large areas of land.  Many generations on I have had people suggest that we must have inherited some  of their wealth. I just laugh and state that these families had ten children who had ten children. Consequently the family fortune has been dispersed long ago.

In this post I am looking at two branches of the family tree that came together when Arthur Brougham Lord married Nancy Hazel Hutton on 1 February 1922. Arthur and Nancy were my grandparents.
 
Lord Family
The first member of the Lord family to come to Australia was  Simeon Lord, a convict who arrived on the third fleet. Simeon Lord and Mary Hyde, another convict, were married at St Phillip's Church in Sydney on 27 October 1814. By this time they had five children and in the next seven years had another five children - ten children in all.

However the reality was that the Lord family, at this time, consisted of thirteen children, all of whom lived to be adults. Mary already had two children from a previous relationship so she gave birth to twelve children in total. In 1796 Simeon had adopted an orphan, Johanna Short.

Simeon made his fortune largely through trading and manufacturing ventures and also owned large landholdings in New South Wales. When Simeon, and later Mary, died their fortune was distributed between all the family members, including the girls.

Simeon and Mary's eldest son, also Simeon, was born in 1810. He married Sarah Birch and they had ten children. Simeon was a successful property owner initially in Tasmania and later in Queensland.

Simeon and Sarah's youngest son, Alfred Percy Lord, was born in 1852. Initially Alfred worked as a bank manager in Gympie before eventually purchasing a number of properties. In 1877 he married Catherine Anna Louisa Hillcoat. They did not quite make the target of ten children, only having eight. Their youngest son was Arthur Brougham Lord born in Gympie on Christmas Day, 1893.

 
Hutton family
Thomas Hutton (1772-1856), a merchant with the East India Company married Janet Robertson (1780-1862) and they had ten children. For many years Thomas and Janet lived in India and Penang before eventually returning to England.

Their second son, William Forbes Hutton, was born on 25 February 1816. On 27 June 1849 he married Eleonora Mackillop. William and Eleonora had eleven children - but one died when a baby. William served in the British Army in India before settling in Victoria where he purchased a property.

George Hutton, born on 5 May 1850, was the eldest son of William and Eleonora. George and his wife, Annie Hardwick Weston were married on 8 January 1889.  They broke the mould of having large families as they only had three children. Their youngest daughter was Nancy Hazel Hutton.

This pattern of large families also occurs in other branches of my family during the nineteenth century. Fortunately in the twentieth century family sizes were greatly reduced.