George Henry Goodfellow and Margaret Johnston

George Goodfellow was born in Glastonbury in 1848.  His father, Henry Tewksbury, was a druggist (chemist), grocer and dealer in Berlin Wools.   

His mother Grace Fitzpatrick was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Picardie, on the north-west coast of France. Grace was a schoolmistress.  The family lived in High Street, Glastonbury near St John's Anglican Church.  

About 1853, Henry was declared an insolvent debtor.  In 1854, they were living in St Marylebone, London, when their daughter Jane was born.  George was still at school in 1861.  In 1871 he was a railway porter, boarding with other railway workers at Haydon Square next to the goods station of the London and Northwestern Railway.

Margaret Rebecca Johnston was born at "Dunstin Lees", Paris, France about 1852.  Her parents were Arthur William Johnson/ Johnston and Annie Pasquie.  There is a baptism of Anne Françoise Pasquier on 1 August 1833 at St François-Xavier-des-Missions-Etrangères in Paris.  The location of Dunstin Lees is not known.  

There is no confirmation that the parents of Annie Pasquie were Jacques Isidore Pasquier and Gabrièle Corbet.  Little is known about Margaret’s father, Arthur William Johnston.  Is it possible that he is the person baptised in Paris, France in 1827?  On the baptism record is a note that Arthur William Johnson's parents were Colonel Jeremiah Johnson and Saiba and he  was born in Java.

George and Margaret were both immigrants on the Ship Winefred, which arrived in Moreton Bay, Brisbane in January 1874.  They were married in Brisbane on 26 January 1874.

Bustard Head Lighthouse 1886-89

 

Bustard Head was home to George and Margaret Goodfellow and their children from 1886 to 1889.  George Goodfellow was the second assistant light keeper.  My grandmother Grace lived at Bustard Head between the ages of seven to ten years.  There was a one-teacher school from 1882, so Gertrude, Grace and later Henry would have attended with the children of the other lightkeepers. Olive was younger, born in 1885.

Bustard Head was named after the turkey birds seen by James Cook in 1770.  The lighthouse was the first built on the Queensland coast after Queensland became a separate colony in 1859.  The lighthouse, between Gladstone to the north and the Town of 1770 to the south, was extremely isolated, with hazardous access by boat and provisions once a month.  Stuart Buchanan’s The Lighthouse of Tragedy details the history of its construction and stories about the lightkeepers.  Margaret Goodfellow is recorded in this lighthouse history, telling news to the other residents about the 1887 suicide of Kate Gibson, the lightkeeper’s wife.  Later there were drownings and accidental deaths.  Neville Murphy, Grace’s son, visited in 1934; his story is in Chapter 9.

Neville rode his motor bike from Sydney to the lighthouse.  Even then, the only land access was east of Turkey pastoral station by horse to Middle Creek, then walking seven miles (eleven kilometres).  Now, tourists visit by boat along the beach from the Town of 1770.

George and Margaret Goodfellow and their family left in 1889, soon after the birth of George in 1888.  By the time baby Queenie was born and died in 1892, the family was in Sydney.

There is more history about the lighthouse in the following:

Lighthouses of Australia

Queensland State Archives

LARC tours

Australian Geographic