Frederick Thomas Lansdown (1849-1910)

Frederick Lansdown was born circa 1849 in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia and died 20 December 1910 in Merriwa, New South Wales, Australia of Cancer. His parents or adoptive parents were Thomas Lansdown (1817-1885) and Jane Kelly (c1830-1872). He married Maria Gosper (1844-1910) 24 November 1875 in Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

According to the age that he gave when he married in November 1875, Frederick was born in 1849. He added the name Frederick to his name before he married in 1875 to become Frederick Thomas Lansdown. In records after that date he is recorded as Frederick Thomas Lansdown or Thomas Lansdown. Later in life he dropped the name of Thomas altogether, and became Frederick William Lansdown, the name under which his death is registered. By the time of his death the spelling of his surname had also become LANSDOWNE, the spelling also used by most of his children.

If Frederick was born a early as 1849 he was adopted by Thomas Lansdown (1817-1885) & Jane Kelly (c1830-1872). The alternative from the age given by his family when he died is that he is Thomas Lansdown (1855-) who was born in 1855 to Thomas Lansdown (1817-1885) & Jane Kelly (c1830-1872).

Frederick was illiterate and worked as a station hand all his life. Even though his wife inherited farmland from her father and sister this land was sold to her brother rather than farmed by Frederick.

There are stories within the family that Frederick share-farmed with his brothers at Murwillumbah before his moving to Colo before his marriage in 1875. Marriage records show that the following generation was definately associated with Murwillumbah.

No birth registration exists for Frederick (or for Thomas Lansdown born in 1855). Frederick's stated birthplace at death was Goulburn. His stated age at death was 55 giving a year of birth of about 1855. No parents were listed at his death. At his marriage in 1875 he stated that his mother was unknown but that his father's name was Thomas Lansdown. The only Thomas Lansdown who fits the profile for his father was Thomas Lansdown (1817-1885) who owned land at Boxers Creek near Goulburn.

When Frederick married in 1875 he gave his age as 26, suggesting a year of birth about 1849. His wife Maria is known to have mistated her age. She was 31 but said that she was only 22.

From the details that Frederick provided when he married in 1875 of father Thomas Lansdown, mother unknown, and year of birth about 1849, there has arisen a story in the family of Thomas Lansdown from Boxers Creek that Frederick is possibly the son of Sophia Todd, the first wife of Thomas Lansdown (1817-1885). In this story after Sophia died, possibly in childbirth, as the sole surviving parent Thomas Lansdown ended up raising Frederick. This story was muted because until 2013 no record had been found of what had happened to Sophia after the wedding in 1850. It is now known that Sophia moved to Melbourne after the break-up of the marriage and lived to the age of 85. It is also now known from records associated with her death in Victoria that Sophia had no children.

There is also another story that has become folklore within the family. In this story Thomas had an adopted son by the name of Frederick, adopted in exchange for a piece of land, and that his birth name was either Day or Faithfull. The only Faithfull associated with the Goulburn district in that period was pastoralist William Pitt Faithfull (1806-1896) who had settled in the district in 1828, and married in 1844. (William Pitt Faithfull was the son of Corporal William Faithfull (1774-1847) who had arrived on the Pitt on 14 February 1792 as a soldier in the NSW Corps.) It is known that Thomas Lansdown worked on the "Springfield" Stud of William Pitt Faithfull at Quialigo near Goulburn. There is no record of a Day family associated with the Goulburn district in that period. One version of the story states that Frederick the son of a Miss Faithfull and an employee by the name of Day who became scared of what her family would do to him and absconded. There was, however, no Miss Faithfull of child-bearing age in the Faithfull family in that period. Neither has a record of transfer or ownership of a piece of land been found.