Gregory Family

1853

The Gregory family married into the McIllree family in 1897 when Henry McIllree’s son, Robert Gordon McIllree, married governess Laura Lindsay Milligan Gregory (1864–1934). Their marriage took place at the Toorak Road registry office, South Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 24 June that year.

Bob McIllree, an Upper Murray grazier, according to family ‘legend’, met Laura Gregory at North Weleregang station when she was a governess at her sister Blanche’s home in the 1890s. Blanche Gregory was an elder sister of Laura, who had married Irishman and grazier Colquhoun Crowe (c. 1834–1914) in Melbourne on 10 November 1886. The sisters were two of the 13 or 14 children of Robert Lindsay Milligan Gregory (1821–1901) and Mary Biddiff Euphemia Grose (c. 1825–1890).

Robert Lindsay Milligan Gregory (1821–1901)
Morrison family collection
Mary Biddiff Euphemia Gregory née Grose (c. 1825–1890)
Morrison family collection

Robert LM Gregory had been born on a Jamaican coffee plantation, Fellowship Hall, in the parish of Clarendon, County of Middlesex on 22 March 1821,[1] one of nine children born to John Gregory (c. 1790–1827) and Margaret Mary Ann Magdalena Milligan (c. 1793–1835). John and Margaret had married in Dumfries, Scotland on 30 August 1810.[2] Some of John Gregory’s relatives, according to his will and testament, available from Scotland’s People, were resident in Staffordshire, England, but the Gregorys also may have had Scottish roots.

The Milligan family had long-standing connections to Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfriesshire in Scotland. Whether John Gregory had been born in Britain or the colonies is not known for certain at this stage of research, although he was living in Jamaica as a child. John would have returned to Britain from Jamaica for his education as was the norm for many European sons of colonial entrepreneurs. In fact, his father’s will, dated 9 July 1795, specified to his executors, including his wife, Elizabeth Gregory née Sherlock, that his son John Gregory should return to Great Britain for his education as soon as possible after his father’s death.[3]

Following their 1810 marriage, John and Margaret Gregory returned to Jamaica some time before the birth of their eldest daughter, Elizabeth Sherlock Gregory, at Fellowship Hall on 25 September 1812. Four more children–Timothy (1815), John (1817), Ann (1819) and Robert (1821) were to be born to the couple in Jamaica. It was a violent, cruel, and exploitative place where Europeans were far outnumbered by slaves hijacked from Africa, most of whom laboured under the whip on sugar, coffee, and other types of plantations. The climate did not suit the slaves’ European masters. Many could not cope with the heat and humidity, died from tropical diseases, or illnesses related to excessive alcohol consumption. The abolition of slavery in 1833, followed by emancipation in 1834 and the Jamaican apprenticeship system that lasted until 1838, had an enormous effect, not only on former slaves, but on the income and lives of British colonial planters and other entrepreneurs.

On 1 August 1838, the Governor of Jamaica read a proclamation of freedom from the steps of Government House, Spanish Town. Many planters had already departed Jamaica, among them the Gregorys who had returned to Scotland c. 1822, where Robert Gregory grew up and received his education. Young Robert Gregory, a lay teacher within the Scottish Presbyterian missions, was to return to his birthplace, not quite a year after 1838, as an instructor of emancipated slaves, preparing them for baptism and the changeover to an economy in which many ex-slaves became small landholders and businesspeople in the towns, roles that required literacy.  

Some 16 years previously, the Gregory family had left Jamaica for Annan in Dumfriesshire, Scotland where John Gregory, ‘attorney’, had a house called ‘Plumdon’ built for him and the family. Daniel and Margaret Gregory were born there on 22 October 1822 and 20 May 1824 respectively. The Gregory ‘fortunes’, however, were flagging. Fellowship Hall passed into other hands and most likely was broken up into smaller holdings. Research about what happened to the plantation is ongoing.

In December 1825, John Gregory signed over ‘Plumdon’ to his wife’s relative, Dr Edward Milligan (1786–1833), reputedly an abolitionist, who, after humble beginnings as a Kirkbean shoemaker, had graduated as a doctor from the University of Edinburgh and had become a well-known, highly respected lecturer in medical science. Dr Milligan had also accumulated wealth since becoming a doctor.[4] The Gregorys had moved to Edinburgh before the birth of Edwardina Gregory on 28 November 1825. There John Gregory was also a student of medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1826, but he died at the family home at 3 Archibald Place on 25 February 1827[5] only a few months after the birth of William MacLellan Gregory on 2 November 1826.[6]

Some Gregory family papers suggest that Robert LM Gregory attended Edinburgh High School, however, his name has not been found on any of its rolls. He may have attended a school in Edinburgh, or an academy in Dumfries or Annan before the death of his mother at Holyrood, Edinburgh on 7 April 1835.[7] Gregory was trained as a Presbyterian missionary before he was sent back to Jamaica as a catechist.[8] Eighteen-year-old Robert Gregory was ‘settled at Brownsville’, Jamaica, on 12 July 1839 where he was to remain until 23 January 1843[9] when he and his family of a wife and daughter relocated to Lamb’s River. Robert Gregory had married Mary Biddiff Grose from St Andrew’s parish on 11 January 1842.[10] Mary Grose was the daughter of Sarah Biddiff (c. 1804–??), a ‘free woman of colour’,[11] and Cornishman Nicholas Cole Grose (1794–1868). Like so many other young British men, who were not eldest sons, who had left Britain for the Caribbean or India to ‘seek their fortunes’, Nicholas Grose had gone to Jamaica, probably as a young single man, where he lived until about 1850 or 1851, although he may have returned. While resident in Jamaica, Nicholas Grose was postmaster at Chapelton and a captain in the Clarendon Militia[12] whose role was to put down slave rebellions[13] and to be on call should there be any invasion from foreign forces.

In the tradition of most European men living in Jamaica, Nicholas Grose cohabited with a local woman, but took a legal wife from among the community of European descent. On 27 May 1839, at Mount Hindmost Great House, Clarendon, he married Sarah Pattie (1815–1875), who had been born in Jamaica to Scotsman Peter Pattie (c. 1785–1831) and Lydia Thompson Pattie née Phillips (c. 1795–1826). The Grose family appears to have departed Jamaica about the middle of 1850 for Dumfries, Scotland as according to Scotlands People records, a son, John Cole Grose (1850–1860), was born there to Nicholas Grose and Sarah Pattie on 17 July 1850 and baptised on 15 August 1852. Interestingly, however, Nicholas Grose is listed as a captain in the Clarendon Militia in the 1857 Jamaica Almanac, so perhaps he returned to Jamaica for a time. John Cole Grose, recorded in the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks database as aged 8, died at Bodmin, Cornwall, England in August 1860. He was buried at Lanivet on 25 August 1860. By the time of the 1861 England Census, Nicholas Grose and Sarah Grose née Pattie and their surviving children were living at Bodmin, not far from Nicholas’s birthplace, the village of Lanivet.

Robert and Mary Gregory’s eldest daughter Amelia Thelwell Gregory (c. 1842–1942) was most likely born in 1842 while the family was still at Brownsville, Jamaica. In August 1844, Robert Gregory was transferred from Lamb’s River to Port Maria.[14] A daughter, Maria Augustus Gregory (1845–1932), was born to Robert Gregory, teacher, and Mary Gregory at Frontier Plantation, Mt Stirling, parish of St Mary on 26 December 1845.[15]

A new Presbyterian mission station opened at Victoria Town, St Mary parish, in 1847. Robert Gregory was transferred there as a catechist on 13 May that year.[16] Eliza Sarah Gregory was born in 1848 when the family would have been living at Victoria Town. Mary Grose Gregory (1851–1924) was born to Robert and Mary Gregory on 22 January 1851 as cholera was soon to rage across the island.[17] This outbreak was part of the second Asiatic cholera epidemic that occurred between 1829 and 1851. During the epidemic, 10 per cent of Jamaica’s population died–40,000 deaths out of a population of 400,000. The disease struck first at Port Royal and quickly spread to Kingston, affecting 6,000 of its 40,000 population. The first fatal case at Kingston occurred on 11 October 1851. Cholera reached all Jamaican parishes except Manchester in the centre and the western and north-western parishes of Westmoreland and Hanover. The Gregorys, then stationed at Victoria Town in Manchester parish, were lucky to escape the disease. Amelia Gregory, many years later when living at Warracknabeal, Victoria as a teacher, recalled that one of the reasons the Gregorys migrated to the colony of Victoria was for their ‘health’.[18]

Whether RLM Gregory stayed on as a catechist after his resignation from the Presbyterian missions in February 1852[19] and where he worked until the family’s departure from Jamaica is not known. The Glentanner, chartered by the British Government to bring ‘failed planters’ and other Jamaicans to the colony of Victoria, departed Kingston on 10 April 1853, via Bermuda, Bahia and Algoa Bay, for Melbourne with 251 passengers. Late in the evening of Tuesday 27 September 1853, the vessel anchored at Port Melbourne in a squall.[20] On board were Robert Gregory 30, his wife Mary 26, and their four surviving daughters, Amelia 11, Maria 7, Eliza 5, and Mary 3.[21] A daughter Mary Elizabeth and a son Robert are believed to have died in Jamaica in 1844 and 1852 respectively.[22] Also on board the Glentanner was the Gregory’s maid, Mary Ann Ritchie, aged 18. What happened to Mary Ann is also subject to further research.

Charles Norton, View of Melbourne, 1853. State Library of Victoria, Australia
Shows the city of Melbourne from Eastern Hill, including Mount Macedon in the distance. A number of small cottages can be seen on what is now the land between Albert Street and Victoria Parade. A small stone building with gothic windows, in the course of construction, is the Baptist Chapel designed by John Gill in 1853. This building was incorporated into the Baptist Church erected on the site in Albert Street in 1858/9 by Thomas Watts.

The lives of the Gregory immigrants were about to change dramatically. Not long after their arrival in Melbourne, Robert Gregory was appointed as the first Headmaster, and Mary Gregory as the first Head Mistress, of the National School, Gisborne, north-west of Melbourne, taking up duty in October 1853. Robert and Mary set up the school, now the Gisborne Primary School in a tent until a building was finished. An official opening was held on 26 December 1853, even though the construction of the school was not yet completed.

It was at Gisborne, that John Grose Gregory (1852–1921), the first of the Gregorys born on Victorian soil, came into the world.[23] Seven more children were to be born to Robert and Mary between 1856 and 1869, while the couple taught at schools across Victoria, until they retired from teaching and Robert took up other pursuits.

Mary Biddiff Euphemia Gregory died at the Gregory home in Cowper Street, St Kilda, Melbourne on 6 September 1890.[24] In 1892 Robert Gregory, at the age of 71, remarried. His marriage to widow Ellen Richardson apparently lasted until his death at Albert Park, Melbourne on 13 August 1901. Mary and Robert Gregory are both buried in the St Kilda Cemetery where other Gregorys and relatives are interred. Research into Ellen Richardson’s story remains unfinished (2022).

The stories of Robert and Mary’s involvement in the Victorian education system and those of their children still need to be completed. Among their immediate descendants were governesses and teachers. Later generations of descendants have produced several teachers for State government and private education systems.


[1] FamilySearch, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664–1880

[2] Find My Past, British Newspapers, The Scots Magazine, 1 September 1810, Marriages, p. 717; Aberdeen Press and Journal, 19 September 1810, p.3: “At Dumfries, John Gregory, Esq. from Jamaica, to Margaret, eldest daughter of John Milligan, Esq. late of Charlestown.” Perthshire Courier, 10 September 1810, MARRIED. “At Dumfries, on 30th August, John Gregory, Esq. from Jamaica, to Margaret, eldest daughter of John Milligan, Esq., late of Charlestown.” No record of John and Margaret’s marriage has been located on Scotlands People, other than in John Gregory’s will and testament.

[3] Jamaica, LOS Will Vol 60, folio 195, Gregory, Timothy, Proved, July 17th 1796, Jamaica Is.

[4] Dr Edward Milligan’s will and testament, available from Scotland’s People, provides evidence of his wealth at the time of his death in 1833.

[5] Scotlands People, GREGORY, JOHN (O.P.R. Deaths 685/1 1000 0074 EDINBURGH)

[6] Scotlands People, 02/11/1826 GREGORY, William MacLellan (Old Parish Registers Births 685/1 1000 0074 EDINBURGH). This record also refers to William’s father, John Gregory, as a ‘student of medicine’ and to the birth of Edwardina Gregory on 28 November 1825.

[7] Scotlands People, 07/04/1835 MILLIGAN, MARGARET (Old Parish Registers Deaths 685/1 500 490 Edinburgh). John and Margaret Gregory are both buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh.

[8] A member of the laity, who is a teacher of Christian principles using the Bible, often as a preparation for baptism. (Meaning compiled by the author in August 2022 from various online dictionary definitions).

[9] Missions of the United Presbyterian Church, Jamaica, Old Calabah, Kaffraria, Rajputana Manchuria, Offices of United Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh, 1896, Appendix, p. 120, p. 121

[10] Ancestry, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664–1880

[11] Evidence of Sarah Biddiff’s ethnicity comes from her 1809 baptism record, available on Ancestry, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664–1879 and on FamilySearch, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664–1880. Sarah, aged 5, was baptised on 2 August 1809 at Clarendon, Jamaica. Her father, planter John Biddiff, refers in his will to Sarah Biddiff as ‘my reputed daughter and daughter of the said Elizabeth Davis’ to whom he refers to as ‘a free woman of colour’. (Draft Transcript Probate [?], dated 2 December 1822 of the Will of John Biddiff dated 8 December 1819. Copy of probate document obtained by a relative on a visit to Jamaica and transcribed by Jane Morrison, 9 March 2021).

[12] Jamaican Family Search: http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/a/alm1857_08.htm

[13] See, for example the Wikipedia entry on Jamaica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jamaica that describes some of the ‘skirmishes’ between English colonial militia and slaves from the 17th century onwards.

[14] Missions, Appendix p. 121

[15] Family Search, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664–1880 (includes scan of the original entry) (St Mary parish)

[16] Missions, Appendix, p. 122 (Victoria Town, St Mary parish)

[17] Missions, Appendix, p. 123; Eulalee Thompson, “Jamaica’s 1851 cholera outbreak,” The Gleaner, 3 November 2010: https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101103/health/health1.html

[18] Amelia Gregory gave interviews to the Warracknabeal Herald, Victoria, Australia in the 1900s. In one of these interviews, she mentioned ‘health’ as one of the reasons why the Gregorys came to Australia.

[19] Missions, Appendix, p. 123

[20] Shipping Gazette and General Sydney Trade List, Monday 10 October 1853, p. 304

[21] Genealogical Data: http://www.brandis.com.au/genealogy/readers/bev001.html
Trove: (search “Glentanner” (Jan–Sept 1853)–251 passengers from Kingston, Jamaica via Bermuda, Bahia and Algoa Bay; The Argus, Melbourne, Wednesday 28 September 1853, p. 4, Shipping Intelligence: September 27: Glentanner, ship, 610 tons … “Mr. R. Gregory, lady, four children and servant.”

[22] The births and deaths of these children need to be confirmed.

[23] VIC BDM Births 518/1854; The Argus, Monday 27 February 1854, p. 5

[24] VIC BDM Deaths 14008/1890. The surname “Biddiff” has been recorded as “Biddulph”. Research into the origin of the Biddiff/Biddulph name is ongoing. Mary’s father’s first name was “Nicholas” not John as shown on her death record.