Edmund was born in the small town of Cranbrook situated in the rich farming land of County Kent, England on 14th January 1844. A few months later on 17th March 1844 he, like his brothers and sisters before him, was baptised in St Dunstans Parish Church at Cranbrook.

Edmund's father and older brothers worked as agricultural labourers on farms around the Cranbrook area and when he completed his schooling around the age of 12 years Edmund also went to work in this occupation. Edmund is listed in the 1851 census as a scholar and living with his parents at Golford Green near Cranbrook.

When he was just over thirteen years old he emigrated with his family to Australia aboard the Bark "Anna Maria". The family travelled from Cranbrook to the coastal port of Southampton to join over two hundred other Government Immigrants for the long journey to Australia which commenced on the 9th March 1857 and was completed 108 days later on 25th June 1857 in Sydney Harbour.

When Edmund and his family arrived in Australia, under Government rules, they would have been given food and shelter for a time until work could be found. Not long after their arrival Edmund travelled with his parents, brothers and sisters by bullock dray to the Bungendore area of New South Wales. Edmund's father William bought two town lots in Bungendore township and the family resided there while Edmund, his father and brothers worked on properties in the area as agricultural labourers and farmhands.

Edmund grew to adulthood at Bungendore and on 22nd March 1870 when he was 26 years old he married Sophia Duncan at Christchurch Queanbeyan. The ceremony was performed by the Reverend A.D. Soares and the witnesses to the marriage were Edmund's younger sister Emily and Sophia's half-brother William Harriott.

Sophia was born on 26th October 1853 at Bungendore, the first child of Charles Duncan and Grace Harriott nee McHenry.

Sophia's mother Grace arrived in the colony from England with her husband William about the year 1841 after marrying in England just prior to their embarkation. Grace was born in Ireland about 1817, the daughter of William McHenry. William and Grace Harriott had six children, all born at Bungendore. In the year 1851 at the early age of 35, William Harriott died.

Two years later Grace married Charles Duncan at Bungendore. Charles was born in London about 1815 and came to Australia about the year 1832. Charles and Grace had five children, three girls and two boys, Sophia being the oldest.

Sophia grew up in Bungendore and would have attended Bungendore Provisional School with some of the Manwaring children. She would have had a very interesting childhood with the household consisting of four brother and sisters and six half brothers and sisters with only about eighteen years between the youngest and oldest.

Sophia's father died on the 23rd January 1861 at the age of 46 from Liver Disease. The family was living at Moura Creek at this time, her father working on a property in the district. Sophia would have only been 8 years old at this time and the youngest in the family only about one year old. This would have caused the large family great hardship.

It seems that Sophia's eldest half brothers William and John helped support the family by working on farms in the Bungendore area. All the Harriott brothers eventually settled on the land, marrying into notable pioneering families of the Bungendore district. John at one time owned 160 acres at Mill Post.

Sophia was especially close to William having him as witness at her wedding to Edmund when she was only seventeen years of age.

Edmund and Sophia lived at Bungendore for a short time after their marriage and their first child William Duncan was born there in 1872 but tragically died two years later in 1874.

Around the year 1873 Edmund's older brother George travelled to the Kyron district of New South Wales, situated between Cootamundra and Jugiong, having heard that land was available for selection in that area. He returned with the news that the opportunities for selection of land was very good indeed so not long after Edmund and Sophia made the long arduous journey by bullock dray with the other members of the Manwaring family from Bungendore to the Kyron area.

When the family arrived in the Kyron area, Edmund initially selected three portions of land totalling 113 acres, Portion 69 (37 acres), Portion 70 (38 acres) and Portion 71 (38 acres). This land was situated north from where his father William and brother George had selected their land about two and a half miles closer to Cootamundra. The properties were separated by property owned by an old pioneer of the area named Patrick Jones.

Over the next decade Edmund acquired six more portions of land which made his total acreage 636 acres. He called his property "RoseDell".

When first arriving in the district Edmund would have built a crude hut as a temporary dwelling to shelter his family. Sophia would have been pregnant with their second child when first arriving at Kyron and a daughter, Rose, was born on the 20th June 1874.

Edmund and Sophia worked hard to forge a living out of their land. The property was virgin country and so densely timbered when they first arrived that when their daughter Rose wandered off from the family home when she was a very young girl she was lost for two days before the family found her. I was told that this was why the property we called "RoseDell".

The property was cleared and ploughed over the following years to transform the land into the prime farming land it is today. Life was still very harsh on the land at this time and Edmund at times worked on properties in the district to help ends meet. He used to shear at Armstrong's property at Muttama at shearing time and carry groceries and provisions home to RoseDell on his shoulders at the weekend.

Edmund and Sophia's third child Catherine was born in 1878 and four years later in 1882 Sophia gave birth to twins Grace and Edmund.

Edmund built a permanent home for his family from timber slabs mostly cut from timber growing on the property and hewn with the saw, axe and adze. The inside of the home was lined with newspaper. Flour was mixed and used to plaster the paper to the walls to prevent the cold winds from blowing through the cracks between the wooden slabs. The home was built in two parts - the front part of the house consisted of the dining room and bedrooms while the back portion was built separate with a walk way between the two.

The kitchen had a big open fireplace, the big cast steel fountain swinging by a chain and the big steel kettle sitting on the stove generally full of boiling water day and night ready to make a cup of tea when necessary for the family, friends and visitors when they called to say hello.

In the early 1800's schooling in the Kyron area was non existent with all the basic schooling being taught by parents of the children. With the district becoming more populated, Edmund, together with his brother George and three other residents of the Kyron area, Patrick Jones Michael O'Dwyer and John Mullaney petitioned the Education Department for a school to be established in the area.

It wasn't until four years after the original application was submitted that a school was eventually established on a portion of Edmunds father William's property RoseHill in 1886. Edmund and Sophia's four children, Rose, Catherine, Edmund and Grace were among the children to attend the first day of RoseHill School.

Edmund and Sophia had three more children, another set of twins, Ethel and Ernest, born in 1893 and their last child Frederick born in 1896. Their twin son Ernest tragically died at birth.

Edmund and Sophia lived the rest of their lives at RoseDell. As their children grew they helped their mother and father with the many chores needed to be carried out on the property, attended RoseHill school and enjoyed the life growing to adulthood on the family propery. They saw their daughters Rose, Catherine and Sophia marry and start families of their own and suffered through the death of their son Edmund in 1910 of Typhoid Fever.

Edmund suffered in later years from Valvular disease of the heart and passed away on 16th August 1916 at the age of 72 years. He was buried in the Church of England Cemetery at Cootamundra. Sophia lived for another ten years and died on 27th March 1926. She is buried with Edmund at Cootamundra.

Family Chart