Rosa Corvan was 18 1/2 years old when she married. On Monday, September 27, 1869, at Bridgewater, Loddon district, Victoria, she married 33 year old Robert Brown,a miner from County Durham, England.
We know that Rosa's father Anthony wasn't on the scene at this time,because he was in New Zealand.The fact that Rosa had a legal guardian who had to approve of her underage marriage reveals that her mother Mary was also absent-either dead or living elsewhere. Her guardian was Thomas John Mathewson, the husband of Rosa's eldest sister, Ellen Annette Mary Corvan.John and Ellen had married at nearby Inglewood in 1867, and by 1869 were residing on a property at Powlett Plains, Inglewood.
If Rosa had been living in a Melbourne orphanage in 1867, she may have been released into the guardianship of the Mathewsons..in September of 1867 when Ellen married, Rosa would have been sixteen years old.
The same couple who had signed Ellen's marriage certificate as witnesses also signed Rosa's...Inglewood farmer Henry Lawrence Jenkins and his wife Susan Jenkins.
Rosa stated that she was residing in Bridgewater but her usual residence was Huntly, and no occupation was given.Her parents were given as Anthony Edward Corvan, commercial traveller, and Mary Healy.
Robert Brown was born on August 3, 1836, and baptised at West Rainton, Durham, on March 20, 1837, five months after the marriage of his parents John Brown and Penelope Gray.
Rosa's first child was a daughter named Penelope after her paternal grandmother, Penelope Gray Brown.She was born in Whitfield, Victoria, in February 1871. Whitfield is located 245 km north-east of Melbourne, 60 km north-east of Mansfield and 50 km south of Wangaratta.
My great-grandfather, John George Brown, followed on October 24, 1873. He was born at Bagshot, near Huntly.Nine children were born by Rosa over a period of twenty two years...she was twenty years old when she delivered her first child Penelope, and forty two when her ninth and final child, Eileen May, was born.
Rosa spent all of her married life around the goldfields area of Victoria...the Bagshot, Huntly and Kamarooka districts, where her husband Robert worked as a miner or labourer. Their children were as follows:
Penelope Brown: born 1871.
John George "Jack" Brown: born October 24, 1873, Bagshot.
Anthony Edward Corvan Brown:born 1875, Huntly district.
Robert Henry Brown: born 1878, Huntly district.
Margaret Ellen Brown: born 1882, Kamarooka.
Sarah Jane Brown: born 1885, Kamarooka.
Mary Ann Brown: born 1887, Kamarooka.
Ralph Brown: born 1890, Kamarooka.
Eileen May Brown: Born 1893, Kamarooka.
On October 29, 1894,at Kamarooka, 59 year old Robert Brown suddenly dropped dead of heart disease, leaving Rosa a widow with nine children aged between 23 and 1 year old. Rosa herself was 43 years old, and she managed to keep her family together without remarrying.
Her life was not yet done with tragedy, however...in 1899, her youngest son Ralph Brown, died of tubercular meningitis at the age of eight years.He died in the Bendigo Hospital on October 10, 1899, and was buried in the Raywood Cemetery in grave number 267, the same as his father.
The same disease claimed the life of Rosa's youngest child, Eileen May Brown, on July 11, 1909.She also died in the Bendigo Hospital, aged 16, and joined her father and brother in the Raywood Cemetery.
Rosa was still living at Kamarooka at this stage of her life. The Electoral Roll of 1909 shows "Rosa Constance Corvan, Kamarooka, home duties." She is also at Kamarooka in 1914. I can't find her in the 1919 electoral roll, but she appears for the last time in 1925:
"Rosa Constance Brown, 227 Moray Street, South Melbourne.Home duties."
Rosa Constance Corvan Brown died just one month after her eightieth birthday, on February 22, 1931. Her cause of death was given as "Chronic bronchial asthma, senility", and she was buried in the Boroondara Cemetery at Kew on February 23, 1931.
Many years ago I exchanged letters with a lovely lady named Beryl Barnett, who was the daughter of Rosa Corvan's daughter Margaret Ellen Brown. Beryl actually remembered Rosa, and described her as follows:
"She was a very kind but firey lady, very tiny( hence the name "little Grandma" which we all called her), who always wore button-up boots."
I hope Rosa found happiness in her later years, as I very much suspect that her younger life left much to be desired.
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