Person:Honora Callery (1)

THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE CATASTROPHE

Shortly after marrying, Michael and Honora experienced the Irish Potato Famine, during which someone third of the Irish died or fled the country. With clearly little money, Michael and Honora fled to the nearest British port, Liverpool. Here, Michael appears to abandoned Honora and her child Eleanor and used their cash to run off to the USA" An unconfirmed record indicates that Honora was reduced to hawking goods in the streets.

At about this time, a major scandal broke loose regarding the Gloucester Junction Railway. Shortly before the first rail was due to be lain, investors discovered that soemone had pocketed the entire funds of the comapny, some 2million pounds, (equivalent to about 500million in todays money) and run away. For some reason, it appears that the liability for repayment fell to the company lawyers, the Lander brothers, to fund. The crash laid waste to the Lander brothers fortune. Worse, William, who had also been Chief of Police in the New Forest was sacked and went to debtors jail. Likewise, John Gilbert Lander landed in debtors jail too. The last of the brothers, Geoge Moseley Lander, seems to have been constantly trying to stay one step ahead of his creditors whilst trying to earn some cash by taking any and every case that he could.

At about this time, George Moseley Lander, the disgraced and socially unacceptable lawyer met Honora Scanlon, reduced to near begging. They were married shortly afterwards and the Lander finances stabilised out at zero, but at least the catastrophe was over. However, as with so many who had suffered the Famine, her health would have been irreparably ruined and she died just a couple of years after marrying George, leaving him with her child, Eleanor to be raised as if she was his own.

A few years later, George Moseley Lander married again, this time a pretty barmaid called Susannah Cobb, however, this would surely have creatred friction as Susannah was barely 4 years older than her stepdaughter. As Susannah gave birth to various children, Eleanor must have felt the odd one out. Before she was 16, she became pregnat and was subjected to a "shotgun wedding" to William Inwood.

As they were short of funds, William Inwood went first to Australia to set up things there. However, when Eleanor arrived a few months later, she discovered that her husband had taken up with another woman in Australia and that she was pregnant with his child.

Eleanor vacillated, travelling between England and Australia a couple of times. She was the "odd one out", the stepdaughter in England, and the unwanted wife in Australia.

Her daughter, Mary, finally settled in Victoria, but she was broke, so she took a housekeeping job for an old, unmarried farmer, James Gwyther, who was much older than she was. She married him and produced some children, after which, James died, leaving her to run the farm and raise her children on her own at Leongatha.