Ellen was born at Cranbrook on the 5th June 1837, the fifth child and third daughter of William and Sarah Manwaring.

She would have grown to womanhood living in the Cranbrook district where her father was working as an agricultural labourer. She attended school at Cranbrook and helped her mother in the household chores and domestic duties that were necessary at that time in a such a large family.

When she was nearly twenty years of age she left Cranbrook with her family and travelled to Southampton where she and her family boarded the "Anna Maria" to undertake the long journey to Australia along with two hundred other Government Immigrants from many varied counties in southern England. Ellen would have celebrated her twentieth birthday while on the ship only about three weeks before arriving in Sydney Harbour.

When Ellen and her family arrived in Sydney in late 1857, she and her family, under Government Immigration Rules, would have been given shelter for a time until employment could be found. We know that not long after arriving her father, mother and unmarried brothers travelled to Bungendore, her brother George and family travelled to Negoa near Muswellbrook and her brother Thomas and family stayed in Sydney where he secured employment at the Kent Brewery.

Whether Ellen travelled away from Sydney with her family to Bungendore in those first years or stayed in Sydney with her brother and family we do not know but she was working as a domestic in Macquarie Street, Sydney when she married a young carpenter from Paddington, Edward James "Ned" Gregory, at Macquarie Street Chapel on 4th July 1863. The witnesses to the marriage were Eliza Rooke and Ned's brother Dave Gregory.

Ned was the 3rd child and first son of Edward William Gregory and Mary Ann Smith and was born at Waverly on 29th May 1839. He was brought up in Paddington and went to school there. As he grew older he and his brothers acquired a fondness for the game of cricket and all developed into fine players. Ned and his two younger brothers were known as the Paddington Boys.

In 1863, the year he and Ellen were married, Ned began his first class cricket career which spanned 15 years until he retired at the end of the 1877/78 season.

Ned and Ellen's first child Helen was born in 1864 and not long after Ned was approached by the Bathurst Cricket Club who wanted to hire his services to play cricket for them in their local competition. Ned accepted this offer and not long after he and his new family moved to Bathurst where they stayed for a couple of years. While at Bathurst, their second child Louisa was born in 1865.

Ned and Ellen returned to Sydney with their two daughters sometime before 1868 so Ned could take up employment as the new Curator of the Sydney Cricket Ground, a position which he held for over thirty years.

Ned and Ellen lived in a stone cottage built beside the Cricket Ground by the soldiers of the Victorian Barracks in the early 1850's. All their other children were born there, Alice in 1865, Edward "Sydney" in 1870, Emily in 1872, Gertrude in 1875 and Charles in 1878.

Their son Charles was the first born of male twins but tragically their other son, who was un-named, died at birth. Their daughter Emily also died at the very young age of two years.

As Ellen and Ned's family grew, Ned worked hard at his job as curator of the SCG and continued his first class cricket career. In the fifteen years from 1863 to 1878 he played in 29 innings, scoring 470 runs at an average of 17.4.

Ned played in the first ever test against England in 1877 but unfortunately had the dubious honour of being the first Australian Cricketer to record a test duck. His brother Dave Gregory captained the side in this inaugural test which Australia won by 45 runs.

Ellen and Ned's children grew up at the SCG and Sydney, Charlie and their elder sisters were always at the nets after Club practice had finished. All showed very good cricketing ability with his daughters playing in the first ever womens cricket match played on the Association Ground in 1886, and Sydney and Charlie both playing first class cricket for New South Wales.

Ned only played in the one test match and he retired the next year in 1878 to concentrate on his job as curator of the new Association Ground. He was in charge of raising and levelling the playing field and laying of the new wickets. He also designed and had built the SCG's first mechanical scoreboard which was to become the basis for the design of all Australian cricket scoreboards.

Ned was a great ambassador of the game and took cricketers from visiting teams fishing on Sydney Harbour. He had a jolly manner, and was many times described as Jolly Ned or Genial Ned and is said to have developed a passion for spinning yarns as he got older.

As time went on Ellen and Ned eventually moved from the old cottage where they had lived for a long time, and in which their children were born, into a new brick cottage built at the SCG close to their old home. It is said that the walls of this brick cottage were decorated with pictures that Ned had painted which apparently showed a high degree of talent.

Ned continued in his job s curator until 1899 when he became very sick with cancer of the larynx. He apparently could not speak for months before his death and suffered terribly. The minister attending him commented that he had never known such a cruel death.

Ned died on 22nd April 1899 and was buried in Waverley Cemetery after a service at St Michaels Church, Surrey Hills. Ned's obituary read -

"The funeral was attended by an immense number of persons representing almost all shades of the community. The great esteem in which the deceased was held by all classes was abundantly evident from the gathering that assembled to pay their last tribute of respect to his memory."

Ellen lived for another 26 years after the death of Ned and died at Coogee on the 27th May 1925 at the age of 88 years.

More information on the Gregory Cricketers is documented in two publications which make interesting reading, "Pictorial History of Australian Cricket" by Jack Pollard and "The Grand Old Ground" by Phillip Derriman.

Family Chart