Frances was the first born child of Jonathan Green and Elizabeth Cooper. She was born in Wrawby Lincolnshire, England in 1797 and baptised there on 26th November 1797 in the Phillimore Ecclesiastical District. When Frances was 3 years old she accompanied her mother and brother on the Glatton to Australia following the conviction of her father. Refer Jonathan and Elizabeth's story for more detail on this trip.

Frances grew up in Sydney from 1803-1818 when she married John aka Richard Smith , a convict. Frances was a free settler child and not being born in the colony would not have been known as a cornstalk like her brothers and sisters or her son William Richard. NSW looked like this in 1803 when Frances arrived.



 























































 











At the beginning of the decade the British knew little about the shape of Australia
and of its uncharted coastline. By the end of the decade, Matthew Flinders
(1774–1814) had circumnavigated the continent in his ship the Investigator and
charted the southern coastline and the coastline of Queensland.
Lieutenant John Murray (b 1775?), commander of the Nelson, surveyed the Western Port area. On 14 February 1802 he came across a large bay, which he entered after several attempts. On 8 March he took possession of Port Phillip, which he named Port King, and raised the British flag. It was later named Port Phillip by Governor King. There was no recognition of the local Kulin people who had lived on the land for many thousands of years.

The New South Wales colony looked to the sealing and whaling industry for economic survival. By 1802 there were 200 sealers in Bass Strait
and they had a ready supply of oil and seal skin produce for the markets in England and China. n 1802 the Eora warrior Pemulwuy (1750–1802) was shot dead. Over many years, he had led resistance raids against European colonisation in the Parramatta region. After his death,
Governor King reported that he believed Pemulwuy to be one of the bravest and most independent people he had met.

The Sydney Gazette was the first newspaper in Australia. Governor King
authorised the publication of The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales
Advertiser on 5 March 1803. See right. The first edition was issued weekly
and published mostly government-issued official notices dealing with the
import of spirits and General Orders regulating boats' cargoes. Frances and
Probably her parents would have been unable to read it. In 1804,
the population of New South Wales was about 7,000,
with men making up 80 per cent of the population.

In the 1800s, disease affected Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike.
There was no immunity, and few medical remedies against imported diseases such as
tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, chickenpox, cholera, whooping cough and influenza,
among others. On 9 May 1803 Governor King (1758–1808), worried about the possibility of a
smallpox epidemic in the colony being transferred by sailors visiting the ports,
wrote to Lord Hobart in London requesting that a vaccine be developed and dispatched.
At the time smallpox was the only disease for which there was a vaccine and a small amount
of the vaccine had been brought to the colony by surgeons on the First Fleet.
However, this vaccine was not available to Indigenous people.

Disease ravished Aboriginal communities. It is believed that smallpox killed over half the Aboriginal population in these early years, particularly affecting the very young and elderly members of Indigenous communities across the country as it moved beyond the frontier. In 1804, John Savage carried out the first smallpox inoculations of the non-Indigenous community after another consignment of the vaccine arrived on the transport ship Coromandel.

Tuberculosis broke out in the colony in 1805 resulting in many deaths. The most common form attacks the lungs with symptoms being flushed cheeks, bright eyes, fever, loss of appetite and a persistent cough, which in the latter stages produces blood.

Due to the primitive knowledge regarding medical science during these years, there was a high infant mortality rate. Surgery was painful and there were no effective anaesthetics. Dentistry was new and extremely painful. Despite these setbacks, colonial children who lived through disease and malnutrition grew much taller and were healthier than their counterparts in Britain.[1]

The diary of Josephus Henry Barsden provides the best first hand account of these years and can be sourced under his tab.

Frances would have grown up in O’Connell St close to Government House and her father’s early rise from Constable to Assistant Gaoler would have afforded the family some relative comfort.

In October 1810, Macquarie gave notice in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser of his intention to establish 'a well reguLated and strict system of police in the town as soon as the watch-houses are completely finished.' By December 1810 the Police Fund had accumulated sufficient money for Macquarie to commence his reform of Sydney's police system. Most of the detailed planning was performed by the Colony's Principal Surgeon,' D'Arcy Wentworth, who was appointed Superintendent of Police on 29 December. Wentworth's salary as Superintendent of Police, when it was eventually paid, was only 200 pounds per annum but he received in addition an annual stipend of 350 pounds as Principal Surgeon. Robert Jones was appointed Assistant Superintendent at the same time.[2] Frances dad was appointed Constable of the first district covering From Dawe's Point on the North, to Surry lane Inclusive on the South; and extending from Sydney Cove on the East to Cockle Bay on the West.
 
Further ensuring an orderly life in the bustling colonial capital, Macquarie directed that street traffic be regulated from 29 June 1811. From them on, any persons leaving their car or cart unattended in a Sydney street or driving a car or cart through the streets rather than Leading the ~east pulling it, was to be prosecuted. Similarly, anyone who permitted their cattle to invade a footpath was to be punished. On 11 August 1810 he moved to improve the situation obtaining in the Town's congested streets. From that date, streets were not to be less than fifty feet wide, including a footpath on each side of the carriageway. Where necessary garden fences were to be removed to achieve this purpose and, even, in fact, some houses had to be moved. Sydney's approximate police establishment in 1811 was as shown below at Table 2 together with remuneration where known.[3]












 



Note Frances father Johnathan Green is listed here. He was not a normal constable but a District Constable with defined duties as outlined by Macquarie. Refer his story.

Her dad was Assistant Gaoler at Sydney Gaol which J.T Bigge described as:
 
The Sydney Gaol is situated in one of the principal streets called George Street and upon the declivity of a rugged and rocky hill that overlooks the harbour of Sydney Cove. The entrance from the street is through a courtyard 97 by 34 feet, in which there are two small lodges, one for the gaoler's office and the other for the confinement of misdemeanants. On one side of the courtyard is a place of deposit for wood and coals, and a house for the under gaoler; and at the other is a separate courtyard 71 feet by20, with a wooden building at the upper end, containing two small rooms for the separate confinement of female prisoners. The principal building stands on a raised terrace, to which there is a steep and inconvenient stair case, and it is divided by a passage of 10 feet into two apartments that measure 32 feet by 22. In these rooms there are fire-places and raised wooden platforms upon which the prisoners sleep. The walls of these rooms, as well as the wooden platforms and the floors, have been much damaged, although they have been frequently repaired. The yard behind the gaol is 16 5 feet in 1ength by 79 in breadth, is well flagged and contains a pump that affords a good supply of water; at the upper end is the building that is appropriated to the debtors containing two rooms, one of which is 28 feet by 12 and divided into two bedrooms, and the other is 28 feet by 17; on the same side, and in front of the yard, two rooms have been lately appropriated for the women, each 27 feet by 18, and in which two fire- places have been constructed there are three cells at each end of the principal building for the confinement of prisoners under sentence of death, or condemned to solitary confinement. The report indicates that the whole site was enclosed by a perimeter wall. The elevated area between the present day Gloucester and Harrington Streets outside the west wall of the gaol complex became known as Gallows, or Hangman's, Hill. From this position it seems that the public could observe any hangings which took place in the gallows yard to the west of the main building.[4]
 
Frances may well have visited her father at the Gaol.
 
On 1 January 1814, Robert Jones was still Assistant Superintendent of Police and John Redman was still Chief Constable, both on a salary of 60 pounds per annum. There were five District Constables at 50 pounds per annum each.[5]  Jonathan would have been paid 50 pounds per annum. A good sum for supporting his family.
 
The children of most free settlers had to work hard alongside their mothers and fathers. Typical chores included fetching water from the well or river, washing the dishes, helping with the laundry, and gathering wood. Children also did farm work, such as feeding the hens, gathering eggs, milking the cows, shearing sheep, and harvesting crops. Girls were expected to knit and sew, cook, clean, and make beds as well as look after younger siblings. Boys sometimes helped their fathers in construction work. There were few schools in the early years of settlement, and most children did not attend. Schooling did not become compulsory (required by law) in New South Wales until 1880.[6]
 
Lachlan Macquarie arrived in Sydney from England on 28th December 1809 with his wife Elizabeth, replacing Captain William Bligh who had been relieved of his duties as Governor-in-Chief of NSW in the Rum Rebellion on 26th January, 1808. From the day he stepped ashore he treated Sydney not just as a penal colony but as a settled farming community and channelled all his energies into its growth and development. His predecessors had all been naval men who, apart from Phillip, viewed the settlement as nothing more than a naval base with convicts as the non-enlisted labour force, but such was not the case. Free settlers, most of whom were convicts who had long since completed their sentences, far outnumbered the convicts, but they had continued to be treated as prisoners and second class citizens after their emancipation. They were a people struggling for survival with no hope, no civic pride and no future. Macquarie was determined to change all that.
 
Macquarie was appalled at the state of shameful dilapidation of Sydney. He immediately set about restoring order, beginning with the introduction of systematic naming of streets, dropping the use of terms like row and alley. Sgt. Majors Row - it was also known as Tank Stream Row and High Street - became George Street, Governors Row became Bridge Street, Stream Row became Pitt Street. Macquarie closed off many little-used thoroughfares, and widened others (he doubled the width of Pitt Street) discouraging the common practice of cutting through the bush rather than using the road to go from one place to another. Typical of Macquarie's attempts to bring order to the town was his ruling that any stock found wandering in Hyde Park would be confiscated. 
 
The use of rum as the main currency, not to mention the grip on the colonys economy held by the military and landowners through their control of its trade, irked Macquarie. To avoid a repetition of what happened to Bligh when he had tried to break this stranglehold, Macquarie imported 40,000 Spanish dollars in 1813 for use as local currency. He set up a small mint in Bridge Street where a convict named William Henshaw counter stamped the coins and punched out their centres, creating Australias first official currency - the holey dollar and the dump. These coins were quickly circulated throughout the colony and remained in use until 1829.
 
By the time of the arrival of Gov. Macquarie, most if not all the makeshift humpies built in 1788 had been replaced by more substantial yet still rather spartan dwellings and business houses. This second generation of buildings, though more solid than the first, were still rudimentary in construction and design. Only a handful of stone cottages in outlying districts survive from this era. The high standards set by Macquarie in the public buildings he had erected were the catalyst for new standards in private dwellings and commercial building construction utilising the excellent sandstone that was in plenteous supply throughout the Sydney basin.[7]
 
From this we can get a glimpse of what Frances’s life might have been like. Their house in O’Connell St likely to have been a second generation building but rudimentary. She would have seen the introduction of currency but also the chaos of the Rum Rebellion and the corrupt and drunken nature of the military. Sydney was awash with alcohol and dilapidated thanks to the chaos under Bligh and the goings on with John Macarthur. Even though she was a free settler she would have been treated under King and Bligh like a convict child and as a second class citizen until under Macquarie her father became a Constable. Frances would have worked hard and likely looked after her siblings. We don’t know what her life was like whilst her father served out his term prior to 1814 as we do not know who he was indentured to.
 
Frances married John aka Richard Smith in 1818. She was 21 years of age.  Richard as we know had been indentured to John Thomas Campbell, Colonial Secretary under Macquarie. Richard had gained his Ticket of Leave in 1815 and was labouring in Sydney in 1816 and became a servant to a Captain in 1818. One can see how his and France’s paths might have crossed either through her father and Richard’s relationship with the Colonial Secretary or the constabulary/gaolers of the time.
 
In 1802 Governor King divided the colony into two parishes. Sydney Town was to be the Parish of St Philip's and the Parramatta area was to be the Parish of St John's….. Before the 1820s it was accepted that the Anglican church was the established church in Australia. The Church of England worked with the State to maintain order and organise the education system. [8].  Hence all our early ancestors born in Sydney were baptised at St Philip’s the only parish and Anglican.

The history of St Philips’ church shows the original church was built by orders of the colony's first chaplain, the Reverend Richard Johnson, using convict labour in June 1793. The wattle and daub construction church was later burnt down by convicts in 1798. A second stone church operated on the current site of Lang Park from 1810 to 1856. It was made from poor materials and gained a reputation as "the ugliest church in Christendom".[9] This second church had a 150-feet high, round clock tower. It is the second church which Richard and Frances most likely were married in.













 




Frances and Richard welcomed son William Richard 9 months after their marriage on 3rd  December 1818. See his separate story.
 
In 1819 we know Richard was working again for John Thomas Campbell in Sydney and his petition for mitigation of sentence tells us he had saved some funds and purchased cattle to better support his wife and 2 boys. The 1822 muster also sees the family living in Sydney with Richard listed as a householder. Does this mean they were able to purchase their own home? We know in 1822 they lost young George aged 1 and a half possibly from TB or smallpox or any other of the diseases common in the colony. Richard leaves the colony in 1823 on the Britomart never to return. This leaves Frances with a young son 5 years of age. If they did own their house this would have assisted her but she had a strong family around her. Her father was in a bit of a pickle having lost his job in 1820 as assistants gaoler but by 1822 he was back being a District Constable and on a wage again with government stores. Frances lost her oldest brother Jonathan Cooper Green in 1823 also so perhaps her next brother William Richard Green was able to assist and support her and the young William Richard.
 
The census of 1825 lists Frances as being the wife of Richard Smith but Richard is not listed on the census with her instead he is listed as John Smith who left the colony in 1823.








An article in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser on 13th May 1826 identified a Frances Smith as being a shop owner in Pitt St. This may well be our Frances. Pitt St is just around the corner from O’Connell St and this is in keeping with the enterprise of her siblings also. Her father would have a blacksmiths in the same area.
 
Charles Henry Green aka Charles Smith was born to Frances Smith on 8th March 1829 in Sydney and baptised at St Philips on 5th April 1829. It is interesting that Frances uses her married name and perhaps at this stage Richard has not returned. No father is listed on documents but could it have been Richard Smith who returned in 1825 ? [ refer the John aka Richard Smith document on his page].
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Relatives have debated Charles parentage and linkage to our family and it is considered given that Frances and Joseph Sewell were witnesses to Charles Henry’s marriage to Sarah Hoffman/Heffernan in Davys Creek that Charles Henry Greene was France's son. After he died 15 Sep 1853 at Campbells River and when Frances died on 13 Feb 1854 in Sydney , Joseph married his widow, Sarah. So why was he born Smith and married Greene? Go to his page for more information.
 
We can say here that Charles parentage is heavily linked to the issue of whether his father might be the returned convict Richard Smith of the Royal Charlotte in 1825-see his story.  
 
If we assume one story for Frances is that her husband left the colony in 1823 and never returned having died either at sea or in England, then we can assume she was using Smith as a married woman in Sydney when Charles was born in 1829 but his father was not Frances husband. How she met Joseph Sewell is not that clear then if she remained based in Sydney and he in Oberon / Rockley. Trade however probably brought Joseph to Sydney at some stage.
 
If we take the alternative pathway that John
aka Richard returned as Richard Smith
on the Royal Charlotte in 1825 being
indentured to John Thomas Campbell again
then he may have fathered Charles in
Sydney and records indicate Richard was
bound to JT of Melville which is the
Bathurst region. Did Frances, William and
Charles move out there? One possibility is
that in 1831 when Richard stole from his
master that Frances finally had had enough
and went her own way. If she was in Bathurst
perhaps this is the connection to Joseph Sewell.

We do know Frances had partnered with Joseph Sewell by 1836
with the birth of her son Jonathan Sewell. His death certificate
in 1860 indicates his parents are Joseph Sewell and Frances
Green of Daveys Creek Campbells River . Notice Frances
is Green not Sewell. Jonathan’s baptism record also lists his
mother as Frances Green not Sewell and his sponsor was
Amelia Carrick France’s sister. Daniel William their second son
is born in 1840 and on his marriage certificate in 1861
his parents are listed as Joseph Green and Francis Green.
Daniel’s death certificate in 1911 also lists Frances as Frances
Green not Sewell. Daniel had been born at Sewells Creek.
When Charles Henry Green married Sarah Hoffman / Heffernan
in 1851 the witnesses were Joseph Sewell and Frances Sewell
of Davys Creek.

From the interchanging of Green and Sewell one conclusion
is that Joseph and Frances never married as she was already
married to Richard Smith but used the Green or Sewell
surname interchangeably as suited the situation.
 
Daniel is pretty special as he was born on my daughters birthday
Christmas Day and died on my birthday, 13th September.
Interestingly he was born at Peppers Creek and witnesses
on the birth certificate included Thomas Foran.
His sponsor at baptism was Patrick Grady. Refer Sewell page for more of this story.































By 1840 Frances and Joseph had moved to Sewells Creek and Joseph was a highly successful grazier. William married Mary Ann Barsden in 1840 so he would have gone his own way on his 100 acres next to the Sewells Creek property. Charles was still a lad aged 11 years and living with Frances and Joseph. His 2 younger brothers would join him during 1840’s growing up on the property.
 
Then a series of tragedies hit. Frances sister Amelia Carrick died in 1853 in Woolloomooloo leaving a family of 8 children aged 18 yrs to 1 yr old. The next year Frances was visiting the Carrick children and I assume the rest of her family when she died on 13th February at Camperdown at her brothers residence, William Richard Green. Her burial records lists her as Frances Sewell wife of a gentleman. She was buried in Camperdown Cemetery 13th February. The news of her death stated: On the 13th of dropsy at her brother’s residence Parramatta Street Mrs Frances Sewell after a short but severe illness in the 54th year of her age. Dropsy was a term used to describe generalised swelling and was synonymous with heart failure. Could this have been typhus? Was there time for Joseph to get to Sydney to attend her funeral or was he there with Frances? Given the notices do not mention him we might assume he was not with Frances when she died. Frances was in fact 57 years of age when she died as her birth record in England is exact re her birth date in 1797.
 
Illustrated Sydney News Sat 18th February 1854
 
 
 
 
 

Frances’s funeral notice was put in the 14th Feb edition of Sydney Morning Herald but given her burial records indicate she was buried on 13th not sure if she in fact was buried before her funeral was held. Could this have been because it gave time for Joseph and the boys to actually attend?
 
 
 
 























She was definitely buried on 13th Feb 1854.
St Stephen Burial Register Newtown  1854




Camperdown cemetery was a Private cemetery in Newtown that was consecrated in January 1849 and remained the main burial ground for the Church of England until the opening of Rookwood in 1868. St Stephen's Anglican church was built in the middle of it in the early 1870s. All but 4 acres 0f the cemetery were resumed in 1948 to become the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. [10]Camperdown cemetery was a Private cemetery in Newtown that was consecrated in January 1849 and remained the main burial ground for the Church of England until the opening of Rookwood in 1868. St Stephen's Anglican church was built in the middle of it in the early 1870s. All but 4 acres 0f the cemetery were resumed in 1948 to become the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. [10] There were 15,733 burials in Camperdown Cemetery between 1849 and 1867 when the creation of new grave plots was prohibited and burials were only permitted by license from the Chief Secretary. Between 1867-1900 there were a further 2,057 burials – in already existing plots and family graves. A final number of 172 burials took place in the first half of the twentieth century. As at May 1942 the total number of headstones, vaults and stone enclosures in the cemetery was 2120. [ref: P. W. Gledhill A stroll through the historic Camperdown cemetery N.S.W. Sydney, Robert Dey, 1946 and Chrys Meader Beyond the boundary stone: a history of Camperdown Cemetery, Marrickville Council Library Services, 1997] Today the surviving monuments are all contained within an area of 4 acres (1.6 ha), part of the grounds of St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Newtown, built 1871-1874, but the cemetery originally occupied an area of more than 12 acres (4.8 ha), bounded by Church, Federation, Australia and Lennox Streets, Newtown. Around 8 acres (3.2 ha) of the original burial ground was resumed for use as a public park by legislation enacted in May 1948, and further amended in May 1950. The 4 acre area retained for church and cemetery purposes by the 1948-1950 Act was enclosed within a stone wall. Headstones removed from the resumed area were mostly relocated along the inner face of the wall.[11] 
























 

























































































On the night of 20 August 1857 the full-rigged ship Dunbar, with 63 passengers and 59 crew, struck the rocks broadside on near the Gap, just north of outer South Head of Sydney Harbour. In a gale force wind and pounding seas, the ship was rapidly broken up. Of the 122 people on board, only one survived, a young able seaman named James Johnson. A few of the dead were identified and their bodies buried in private graves in Camperdown Cemetery and other Sydney cemeteries. The remains of some of the unidentified dead were buried at Camperdown, at government expense in a common grave, and a memorial was erected to commemorate the tragedy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 






[1] https://myplace.edu.au/decades_timeline/1800/decade_landing_20.html?tabRank=1
[2] file:///C:/Users/VivCSH/Documents/the-police-of-sydney-1788-1862.pdf
[3] Op cit page 42.
[4] https://nswaol.library.usyd.edu.au/data/pdfs/13026_ID_Burritt1980OldSydneyGaolRescueExcavRpt.pdf p 7
[5] file:///C:/Users/VivCSH/Documents/the-police-of-sydney-1788-1862.pdf page 43
[6] https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/free-settlement-in-colonial-Australia/629315
[7] https://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/history-7-macquarie.html
[8] https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/religion-church-and-missions-australia/parishes-and-people
[9] op cit.
[10] https://dictionaryofsydney.org/place/camperdown_cemetery
[11]] file:///F:/family%20archives/Smith/John%20aka%20Richard%20Smith%20and%20Frances%20Green/Frances%20green/Frances%20and%20Charles%20Henry/CamperdownCemetery.pdf