Esther Benjamin

Esther BENJAMIN was born in London in about May 1832. Her parents emigrated to Van Diemen's Land on Palamban in August that year with her brother Benjamin, grandmother Esther and two unmarried aunts. She had three more brothers born in the 1830s then a sister born in Hobart in 1843. Her father died in 1852.
In 1854 she married Abraham MYERS in Hobart. A Court case that the marriage was illegal was dismissed and may have related to the fact that he had been married with one child when convicted in London in 1844. They sailed for Sydney on Emma in April 1853.
Their first child, an un-named male, must have died at birth, but was noted on their daughter Fanny's birth certificate in 1864. They had four more sons, Joshua born in Sydney 1855, Henry in West Maitland [where her brother Morris settled] 1858, Benjamin in Melbourne 1862, and Abraham in Sydney in 1866.
They had returned to Hobart when they were married again in a Jewish ceremony at the house of Abraham Myers in October 1860. She registered as a single woman living with her mother.
Before 1861, her eldest son Joshua was taken to London by relatives and brought up by his uncle and aunt Michael Gabriel and Frances nee Myers, sister of Abraham. It would be interesting to know their circumstances at this time, as there is also a gap between the births of Henry in April 1858 and Ben in October 1862.
While living in Melbourne in 1864, Abraham was sentenced to 9 months in prison for fraudulent insolvency.
Her husband died in Sydney in 1866 not long after the last baby was born and Esther was listed in the Sydney Post Office Directories for 1867 and 1868 as a pawnbroker at South Head Road, then Riley Street.
In July 1869, Esther remarried in Melbourne to William Walter BERESFORD in a Registry Office. By 1871 the family was in London, living in Newington. William's name had changed to William Beresford WELLINGTON and he was working as a draper. Esther also had a 5 month old son, born in Walworth, Surrey. Her eldest son Joshua did not appear in the census.
By 1881, her husband was a commercial traveller and they were living in Camberwell, Surrey. The children had also changed their name to Wellington.
Her mother, step-father and older brother were also living in London, although her mother died there in 1880.
At least two of her sons returned to Australia to live in Melbourne and Sydney, and her youngest brother returned to Hobart.
Joshua was living in London in 1881 and 1891 but married in 1895 and was living in Jersey in 1901. He and his family went to Canada in 1906, then to the USA.
Her daughter Fanny married Emil Deutgen in London in 1895 but we have no further information on them.
Her son Abraham, later known as Alfred, married in London in 1891.
Esther died in London in 1913 and was buried in the family grave at Edmonton cemetery.