2.4.5.8 Mary Jane Barnett

[Last amended: February 1, 2005]

By the time Mary Jane was born her parents, Daniel Barnett and Elizabeth Dreweatt, had moved to Moorabbin, an area living east of Melbourne. She was born on December 15, 1863 and she was their eighth and last child.

On Mary Jane's birth entry it lists her father, Daniel, as a farmer who was born in Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, England [Hambleden, his birth place, lies a couple of miles out of Henley]. Her nother is listed as having been born in Oxford, England [Elizabeth's birth place was Barton which is part of the Oxford city area today]. There are a number of errors on teh birth registration. Daniel, who was the informant, misquoted both his and Elizabeth's ages - reducing them by 5 years - and gave the year of marriage as 1848 rather than 1849.

Mary Jane died in February 1864 at Cheltenham, Victoria, at 9 weeks of age.

The Beaumaris Cemetery, where Mary Jane was buried, operated from 1855 to 1865. The burial ground was at the Wesleyan Church, situated on Balcombe Road between Reserve Road and Charman Road on land donated by Stephen Charman. The site no longer exists as a cemetery. It has been subdivided and turned into residential blocks. The grave sites, as a consequence, are covered by residential housing.