Posted at 8:16 pm by heneker52, on February 6, 2015
This advertisement appeared in The Bunyip – The Local paper for Gawler on 24 February 1866. As Thomas Henniker Senior died in 1867 I am not sure if the Thomas Heneker to apply to is Snr or Jnr who was also living in the Gawler area at the time. Note that in this advertisement, the Heneker name is spelt how is appeared to be spelled once they became more settled in South Australia, whereas when in the United Kingdom and on the Ship Manifest of the Hooghly on emigration it is also spelt Henniker. However, this cannot verify whether it is the elder Thomas or his son. Is Thomas selling the family cottage? or is the younger Thomas selling a cottage, or is he selling his father’s cottage as his father is very ill by this time? On further checking the SALIS (SA Land titles office) I can find no mention Thomas Henniker/Heneker or any other spelling being the owner of a property in 1858-1866. The records do not go back any later than 1858.
NOTICE. TO BE SOLD, in the Township of Willaston, a HALF-ACRE ALLOT* MENT of land, No. 57, with a two-roomed COTTAGE, and Out House, also a WELL of SPLENDID WATER thereon. Apply for particulars to Mr. Thomas Heneker, on the Allotment. Price Fifty Pounds. £50.
24 Feb 1866 from The Bunyip (local paper of Gawler area)
The map below is a layout of the township of Willaston provided by the Gawler Heritage Survey, 1998. According the advertisement for the sale of the property of Thomas Heneker, the land was lot no. 57 and states it is in the “Township of Willaston”.
This heritage survey map of the township of Willaston, is provided by data.environment.sa.gov.au/Content/heritage-surveys/s-Gawler Heritage study
I previously worked as a Library Technician at the State Library of South Australia and then Noarlunga Library Services. I was lucky enough to work at the State Library in the Archives department, which is now a separate entity and housed at a suburban site. I've always loved English and Australian history, and began my Heneker family history in about 1980, before the advent of the internet, and now o with so many digitised records online there is a treasure chest of information out there, and it just keeps growing. One of the most wonderful treasures we have here in Australia is the Trove website, the free digitised newspapers of nearly every place in Australia, provided for free by the National Library of Australia. This has opened up so much day to day information for people searching for further information about their ancestors. I chose to write a blog as a way for me to put down a lot of information I had that wasn't necessarily easy to slot into a "family tree" as such. And I wanted to record some of the stories of the Heneker clan, and especially James Heneker (1826-1917) who arrived in South Australia as a 12 year old boy with his family. Like most of us in the genealogy community I have become obsessed and this is a never ending story. The community of bloggers, and also Facebook specialist pages has allowed me and many of us to learn from each other, and to use some of the many amazing tools that are out there now for us to use and enhance our research. My one wish?? dad Neville Laurence Heneker 1929 - 1987, this is for you, for all the things you told me, and the stories you related, often when we were up north in the Flinders Ranges, at Beltana, Hawker, Blinman and many other amazing places. I wish you were here, so I could share all this new information that has come to light. And of course for you Pa (Laurence Douglas Heneker), your stories were incredible and watching you sleep out under the stars at Arkaroola with a rock for your pillow is an image I will never forget. Oh if only we had digital cameras back then...I think of you both every time I write my words and read my books. I love you both.
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” ~ Alexander Graham Bell
Heneker - a Pioneering family from Kent to South Australia 