Category: Bradfield

This is a letter sent to Myrtle Connolly (nee Keech), daughter of Jane Keech (nee McNamara), granddaughter of Elizabeth McNamara (nee Pennell) by William Pennell of Brisbane, Australia, April 1, 1973.

Brisbane–Queensland, Australia

Until near the end of 1859, the State now known as Queensland was part of New South Wales. When Charles and his wife Susan Pennell arrived in Moreton Bay in the little sailing ship “Glentanner”, it was N.S.W. they came to and not Queensland which did not then exist. The Glentanner anchored in Moreton Bay and the passengers were taken by small paddle-boat steamer up the Brisbane Ricer to a small wharf in South Brisbane, which adjoins Kangaroo Point. The only hotel in South Brisbane was the Lord Raglan. Kangaroo Point was covered with thick bush and the midst of which was a large Black’s (aborigines) camp.

There was also a building to received new settlers and Charles and Susan and Susan’s brother, William Henry Crew, were accommodated in this building from the Thursday to the following Monday awaiting the arrival from the town of Limestone (now Ipswich), 24 miles away, of John Edward and Marie Bradfield who had migrated to Australia two years earlier.

When the Bradfield’s arrived, John and his brother-in-law Charles went to the Lord Raglan Hotel to finish a game of Quoits they had commenced the day the Bradfield left London in 1859. The party left Kangaroo Point on the Monday about 21st July for Ipswich. The women went by small steamer and the men walked the 24 miles. The object in walking appears to have been the desire to see the new country at close quarters.

In another letter, William writes that Charles and Susan sailed from West India Docks, London on February 4, 1859 and went non-stop to Brisbane, Queensland, arriving at Moreton Bay, July 7, 1859 – a 153-day trip. After a few days in Moreton Bay, the ship sailed for Callard, Peru, South America and was not heard of again.

William Crew (William (the younger), Rachel, Susan, Maria and Eliza et al’s father) was a “highly successful London brickmaker for whom Bradfield, Crew and Pennell had worked. Subsequently, they went into partnership to found one of the first mechanised brickmaking businesses in Queensland.” (The Unreasonable Man: The life and works of J. J. C. Bradfield by Richard Raxworthy, page 13)

However, in a letter to Myrtle Connolly from William Pennell (grandson of Charles Pennell) dated April 2, 1969, he writes…

Bradfield thought there would be a great scope for brick making business at Ipswich, some 20,000 miles from Brisbane. They were the first to manufacture machine bricks in the country. Unfortunately, timber was too plentiful and cheap at the time, and the bricks could not compete to any real extent.

In the year 1932, the Queensland Government decided to build a modern steel bridge from Brisbane City across the Brisbane River to Kangaroo Point. The famous Queensland born Engineer, Dr. J. J. C. Bradfield was called in as a consultant and he fixed the requirements and drew up the specifications for the tenders. He and his son, Dr. Keith Bradfield were in partnership at the time as Consulting Engineers and they supervised the building of the Cantilever steel bridge, which was given the name Story.

The bridge was opened in 1940 and the roadway across it was named the Bradfield Highway. The right hand piers of the bridge start at Kangaroo Point. How interesting to remember that in the year 1859, the Pennells, Bradfields and William Crew walked around Kangaroo Point and that 81 years later, a son of John and Maria not yet born, would become Australia’s most illustrious Civil Engineer and would be Chief Engineer for the building of Queensland’s largest modern bridge with one set of its piers on Kangaroo Point. When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was officially opened in March 19832, Bradfield insisted that my father, W. J. Pennell, his cousin, should sit beside him. He said to Dad, “Wouldn’t mother [Maria nee Crew] and Aunt Susan (Pennell nee Crew) have enjoyed this occasion.”

It is interesting to note here that a search of Australian war veterans is long. Combining WWI and WWII there are 254 pages of Pennells. Thinking I could narrow the list down, I search for records up to 1920. There were over 30 pages. Bradfields were the same. So I’m leaving the war veterans research to someone else and will just say, the Pennells, Bradfields and the Crews all were warriors for freedom.

When I began researching my family history in the 1980’s, the Pennell and Crew lineage were the first surnames where information was readily available. My Aunt Edna (Ollivier nee Smith) had been gathering information about her maternal heritage for years, before personal computers, printers and photocopiers and the internet, when researching involved a pen and a family group sheet. I visited her several times where she shared copies documents and letters, memories and family gossip. Those visits were great.

However, she only shared what was “respectable” and kept silent on anything that would disparage the family’s reputation. As they say, history is written by the victors, so rarely the complete truth.

With that in mind and in retrospect, it was no surprize that Aunt Edna stuck with Pennell line and the Crew line. Although she had a lot of information about the Smiths, it was all from her memory and she didn’t research the Smiths. I made the assumption that the paternal line was boring while the maternal line was more exotic, taking her to England and Australia.

Aunt Edna even invited an English couple to visit Canada when I was in my teens. She brought them all the way north to Porcupine, where we lived at the time, for an overnight visit. While I sat in the dining room listening to them talk, I had to keep asking my Mom what they were saying – I didn’t understand a word, their cockney accent was so thick. I can’t say for sure who they were, but they must have been George March and Margaret March (nee Sweetlove), as they sent Christmas cards and pictures to my parents for years after, and their daughter, Sandra Tongeman (nee March), corresponds with my sister, Carol. Margaret March’s grandmother was Ann Charlotte Crew, sister of my Great-grandmother, Rachel Sarah Crew.

The story of the Pennells and the Crews is interesting, and I cannot relay the whole story without also adding in two more surnames – Hone and Bradfield.

In the late 1800’s, the patriarchs of all four of these families were brick makers in London, England. As a matter of fact William Crew (Rachel, Susan, Maria and Eliza’s father) was a “highly successful London brickmaker for whom Bradfield, Crew and Pennell had worked.” (The Unreasonable Man: The life and works of J. J. C. Bradfield by Richard Raxworthy, page 13)

Canada – Pennell and Hone and Crew

What we know as fact…

Alice Maria Pennell was my grandmother and her parents were…

Richard William Pennell (b. Apr 2, 1834, Northfleet, Kent, England) was my great-grandfather.

Rachel Sarah Crew (b. Nov 3, 1834, Barnet, Hertfordshire, England) was my great-grandmother.

They were both buried at St. Margaret’s cemetery in Rutherglen, Ontario, in 1916.

Richard was from a large family of about 10 children. Of particular note was Richard’s brother Charles who married Rachel’s sister Susan.

So, of Rachel’s siblings, three sisters are of interest here. Susan who married Charles Pennell, Eliza who married James Hone and Maria who married John Bradfield.

In 1857, John and Maria Bradfield set sail for Australia on the S. S. New Great Britain. Two years later, in 1859, William Henry Crew (Susan’s brother) and Charles & Susan Pennell, escorting William’s 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth, followed the Bradfields on the S. S. Glentanner.

On May 11, 1871, Richard and Rachel Pennell, along with Eliza and James Hone, boarded the S. S. Niger departing Liverpool, and sailed to Quebec City, arriving May 29, 1871.

These families had the same dream – to use their skills and build brickmaking businesses.

Myrtle Connolly writes about the Pennell and Hone families coming to Canada…

They settled in Carleton Place, Ontario, where they established a brickyard. Lumber being the main source of building material and available, therefore was not a demand for brick. The settlers homes were mostly constructed with log timbers, this forcing the Pennells and Hones to take up farming at Rutherglen, where they obtained crown land.

Australia – Pennell and Bradfield and Crew

While being exceptionally innovative, William Crew, Charles Pennell and John Bradfield suffered the same fate. According to The Unreasonable Man: The life and works of J. J. C. Bradfield by Richard Raxworthy (page 13)…

Subsequently, they [Pennell and Bradfield and Crew] went into partnership to found one of the first mechanised brickmaking businesses in Queensland.

And William Pennell writes in 1969 to Myrtle Connolly…

Bradfield thought there would be a great scope for brick making business at Ipswich, some 20,000 miles from Brisbane. They were the first to manufacture machine bricks in the country. Unfortunately, timber was too plentiful and cheap at the time, and the bricks could not compete to any real extent.