The Viccars Family

The Viccars family "tricked" us for a long time. We had a wedding certificate stating that Alfred Viccars was from Bromley. Naturally, from this distance in Australia, we assumed that meant Bromley Kent, particularly as one of his reputed occupations had been yeast merchant. For some time the search in Kent went on unsuccessfully. And then, on one occasion when searching London census records I noticed that there had been a minor census area in a place called Bromley-at-Bow. Suddenly things fell into place and the "bells began to ring" so to speak. An aunt had once told us that the Viccars family had "lived within the sound of Bow Bells". We had thought this was just a romantic exaggeration because Bromley Kent, though not far from London, could not possibly be favoured by the bells even with the strongest southerly blowing.

I have now established that there were indeed Viccars people living in this district in the 1880's and 1890's and have yet to follow them right back to the fifties. There were also brewers in the 1891 family so the chances of identifying with this group seem good. The hunt for confirmation continues apace.

The Viccars settled in the Geelong area of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia.

I believe that Alfred Viccars may have first come to Australia in 1848 on the ship Labuan. There was certainly a man of that name on board and a search of Victorian records does not report a marriage or death of such a person in this era or later. Now, we know that Alfred Viccars has married Ann Stewart in London, and we find next that "Mr Viccars and family", together with "Mr Stewart and family" are reported in the Argus passenger lists of 28 Feb and 1 March 1852, as passengers on the ship Athenian. The future of the Viccarsfamily can be fairly easily traced from this time down. However the Stewart people are more problematic. Some of the family went to New Zealand and stayed there. The death of the father of the family, Duncan Stewart, has never been positively identified either in Australia or New Zealand. His wife, Janet (nee Adam) was one of those who went to New Zealand, but she returned to Australia and her death is recorded here. return toFAMILY

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