Son of a convict, daughter of a gentleman

Thomas Ratcliffe - my Great Grandfather - was the son of John Ratcliffe (the convict) and Mary MacMahon - which is about all I know of him, other than that he lived in Launceston in the same suburb as his parent (Inveresk) and worked as a train driver or railway worker of some description in and around the port on the Tamar River. Aunt Floss is fond of saying "His name was Thomas, and he drove a tank engine!".


Thomas' eventual wife, Ada Stephens (my Great Grandmother), was born in England to Harriet Elizabeth Hanson and William Jeane Stephens on the 9th of November, 1869 in Edmonton, Middlesex (now part of current day London). Floss says "they came from money" and she was right.  William Jeane Stephens came from a wealthy land-owning family from Somerset - I've traced the family right back several hundred years to Somerset nobility, with several knights among them, including Sir Amias Paulet, keeper of Mary Queen of Scots.  The census records show a number of servants working for the family when William was a young boy, and later when he lived in London with his mother and sisters at 19 Thornhill Square, Islington (check it out on 'Google Street'), but later after he married (quite late, at 43 or so) and with two young daughters (Maude and Ada) the family lived in the relatively lower class neighbourhood of Edmonton, first at 6 Geneva Cottage, Snell's Park, and later at 'Elizabethan Villas'.  Floss also says that the family story is that something happened that caused the family to lose their wealth, but that is all we know.  Could it have been Williams failing health?  William Jeane Stephens died in 1878, and his will states that he was worth less than 100 pounds.  Whatever had happened, the family had fallen on hard times.

Ada Stephens (date unknown)

Ada emigrated as a child to Tasmania (from England) between about 1879 and 1881 with her mother (Harriet Elizabeth Stephens, formerly Hanson), sister Maude, and new step-father Alexander Phillips - it seems Harriet had remarried quickly after her husbands death, and her new husband soon after moved the family to far off Tasmania.  Could Alexander be the 'Captain Phillips' (or was it 'Admiral Phillips?) that mum was fond of mentioning?  Mum didn't seem to know where he fitted in - except that there was a mariner in the family of surname 'Phillips' - clouded by the fact that there seems to be another Phillips of greater Tasmanian antiquity in the family tree (and also a Sailor/Mariner) - but I am still working on that one, so you'll have to wait!

In August 1894, at age 25, Ada married Thomas Ratcliffe in Launceston, Tasmania.  You may well ask how the son of a common transported convict came to marry the daughter of landowning English gentry?  How they met, is anyone's idea, but presumably their marriage was a matter of great urgency, because at the time Ada was about 3 months pregnant with their first child (my grandmother) Florence Vera Ratcliffe, who was born the following February.  Incidentally, sister Maude had married two years earlier in 1892 for apparently the same reason, being 6 months pregnant at the time with her first child.

Ada and Thomas had 4 children that I am aware of - Florence (1895), Lillian (1896), Maud - who everyone called 'Ila' (1898), and late arrival Thomas William John Ratcliffe ('Uncle Jack') who was born in 1910.


In 1914 the family were living in the industrial dock-side working-class suburb of Inveresk (Launceston), but in 1919 they were living in Devonport, and later in 1922 had moved to Hobart. By 1936 Thomas and Ada were back back living in Inveresk (Launceston) at the old family home at 13 New Street after Thomas' mother Mary Ratcliffe (MacMahon) had passed away.  By this time, children Florence and Jack had moved to Melbourne, and Lillian had passed away at a young age (a story for another time), but Maude was still living in Launceston, and had married Bill Trinder, brother of Ray Trinder who famously won the 1972 Melbourne cup with Tasmanian horse 'Piping Lane' (who came in at 40 to 1 odds).


Thomas and Ada both lived on into their 70s.  Thomas died at home at the family address of 13 New Street, Inveresk on 27 February, 1945 - the same address where his father (John) and mother (Mary) had died.  Ada died a year later on September 13, 1946 at 35 Williams Street (to the best of my knowledge, the current site of Boags Brewery's "Centre for Beer Lovers'!)  She and Thomas are both buried in the same plot at Carr Villa Cemetery, Launceston (Catholic Section A8 No 65). You have to look hard for this (almost) unmarked grave. There is no headstone, but there is the name ʻRatcliffeʼ engraved in the concrete border of the plot.

The almost unmarked grave of Thomas and Ada Ratcliffe

Newspaper notice for death of Thomas Ratcliffe

Newspaper notice for death of Ada Stephens