Society > Family Life > A Family in Victorian Pyrmont
A Family in Victorian Pyrmont
Based on talk by Kris Needham
In 1867 Jane Johnson was living at 79 Chowne Street, as a domestic servant. She was about 21, with a daughter, Emily, and expecting her second child when she married Thomas Remfry, a carter, who was living in Strawberry Hill. They started their married life in George Street, but soon moved to Pyrmont, attracted by the growing trade that created work for carters such as Thomas.
Thomas and Jane had ten children. Thomas, their first was born in Bathurst Street in 1868; Frederick, the second, was born in Pyrmont, possibly in Chowne Street. The others were all Pyrmont-born, including Sydney Jersey, the tenth, in 1891.
Thomas’s business prospered and expanded. In 1877 he leased 48 Harris Street from George Ingram Allen for 70 years at a yearly rent of £7.00. By now Thomas and Jane had six children, ranging from three weeks to eleven years. In this weatherboard cottage, with two rooms, an attic and a kitchen, and a stable at the rear, they raised nine children.
Thomas died in this house in 1893. His will describes their circumstances. He left Jane an estate valued at £612, £340 of which was property (‘two houses’, probably in Young Street, Redfern), £122 savings and £52 in a Building Society. His estate included five horses and carts. They had five Austrian chairs and a grand piano, old and in bad repair. In the bedroom Thomas and Jane had a half-tester bed and cedar chest of drawers, lamp, washstand and basin. The attic had three stretchers and bedding.
Jane still had several children at home. Three years later she had moved to her house at 2 Young Street. (She also owned the house next door.) She kept the property at Harris Street for some years but by 1903 all the Remfrys had moved on. By 1911 there were complaints about the house: it was dilapidated and overrun by rats.
Jane was living at 74 Young Street at the time of her admission to Sydney Hospital in 1921, where she died. She was 73.
48 Harris Street