While I have been able to access the Ancestry Library Edition from home, I’ve been concentrating on the branches of my family from the UK, US, and Canada for the last few months. I felt I had been neglecting the Australian branches of my family, so I decided to work on my 3x Great grandfather John Harley’s branch, as they all came out to Australia. I was researching his daughter Elizabeth’s family, and came across this article for her daughter Agnes’s husband, John Porteus. Since I haven’t written a Trove Tuesday post for a while, I decided to share it.
“65 YEARS’ SERVICE WITH FIRM
Death of Mr. J. Porteus
Mr. John Porteus, of Glenora, Rose Park, who died recently, was born at Wexford, Ireland, in 1847, and came to South Australia in the sailing ship Neptune in 1852. He retired in 1925 after 65 years of service with Sands and McDougall Pty. Ltd., printers and stationers, formerly Sands & Kenny.
He made many business trips in behalf of the firm to other States and abroad and became manager of the Adelaide factory and editor of the South Australian Directory.
He was a member for more than 21 years of the artillery section of the Victorian Volunteer Military Forces (Emerald Hill Battery), and resigned with the rank of battery sergeant-major, holding the 15 and 21 years’ long service decorations.
Mr. Porteus was a member of the Minerva (South Melbourne) Lodge of the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows, holding the office of district secretary for many years.
From 1883, when he took up residence in Adelaide, Mr. Porteus was an active member of the Presbyterian Church, being closely connected with St. Giles’, Norwood, as an elder, manager, and committeeman of the Adelaide Presbytery.”
Although the article doesn’t mention his wife’s name, the other details match the details I have for him – his marriage certificate for Agnes Wynd shows that he was born in Wexford, Ireland, and Agnes and John were married in South Melbourne. It’s not surprising that his wife isn’t mentioned, because she died in 1907. I was interested to read that he worked for Sands & McDougall, as I have used their directories a lot in my genealogy research.
I wrote about Agnes Wynd in my post 52 Ancestors 2019 #2 Agnes Wynd. My relationship to John is:
Lois Willis - Genealogy and Family History 