Doug Hinton's Page

INTRODUCTION
We temper our understanding of past cultures by our perceptions of ourselves in our own time envelope. When my mother died in 1992, I began to look back into the past of the Hinton family. Initially, my efforts were haphazard, lacking structure, with little direction. However, as I started to fit the family puzzle together, I found a richness of culture not only in the Hinton family but related families. My journey started with an idea, “Who am I?” and where did my family come from. In answering the second question first, genealogical research draws together the English origins of those Hinton ancestors from the Oxfordshire area and their Australian descendents. There are also many directly interconnected families in the Hinton story, each with a tapestry of triumphs and loss. Some include the Appleton mine accident at Ipswich; loss of children at sea, but also romantic stories like Sarah Simmond’s affair with a sea captain or the mystery disappearance of Mary Harding Harris. The Hinton story is a story of many Australian families. My early work brought together two factors. Hinton’s lived much of their life in the area of Mt Coot-tha. As a boy, my friends and I spent many hours wondering Mt Coot-tha. It is fitting that I tell the Hinton story against the background of Mt Coot-tha. Other families who also settled in the Mt Coot-tha area had connections with the Hinton family, such as the Woolfe, Randal, Simmons, Collins and Wood families.
Writing this book gave me purpose, but more importantly, it gave me a sense of belonging. Some critics thought I displayed symptoms of obsessive, compulsive behaviour. I have uncovered a richness of life that has helped mould me into a patient, tolerant human being capable of expressing my thoughts into a format for those generations to follow. There are those who argue that the past is dead, why drag up the dead. To me, that is too simplistic in trying to understand who I am. I believe I am the sum of the lives of my forebears. To deny that is to deny one’s present existence. Taken from a different point of view, we all carry genes of our forebears. I believe it is fitting to express our genetic history relative to the present.
Broadly speaking, stories have a beginning, middle and an end. In this story, the beginning is 1711. The middle is a continuum and there is no end because future generations will have their tale to tell, perhaps built on works like this.
To better understand the way in which I see the Hinton family and its development through the ages, I need to paint a brief word picture of life in England in the period 1711-1875.
In the period 1600-1750 the general standard of living in England was relatively low, techniques of agriculture inefficient and communication cumbersome compared to the post- 1850 period. There appear to have been few health and medical services, consequently infant and adult mortality was high. In some years, severe weather conditions, combined with these factors and outbreaks of epidemic diseases, increased death rates of both infants and elderly. Consequently, net population growth was suppressed.
Conditions in England between 1860 and 1870 were one of prosperity driven by technological and social advancement. Examples cited include the building of the first underground railway in 1863; electric lighting in 1875; the bicycle in 1870; the Reform Bill of 1832; voting franchise for males; introduction of the Education Act of 1870 and the demolition of slums. This, against a background of the depression of 1873-1896 was a marvel but, unfortunately only for certain social classes. Many living in poverty such as the Hintons of Cuddesdon, were shunned by both the industrial unions and higher social classes. The perception of the poor and illiterate in England, Europe and later in Australia was that they were a burden on society because they were not fit as humans and interfered with the natural processes of society. Consequently, there appears to have been a strong movement against the granting of any social assistance to this sub-class.
The Royal Commission on Population in England estimated the growth in population in the period 1086 to 1700 to be not as rapid as in the period 1700 to 1947. Population growth in the Eighteenth Century was of the order of 50%. By comparison, post-Eighteenth Century population growth was rapid. Contributing factors to this shift in population trend included a decline in mortality rates rather than a rise in birth rates. This may have been brought about by improved nutrition and clothing, better sanitation, cleaner water supply and improvement in medical services.
England’s population multiplied 3.5 times between 1801 and 1901, driving up consumer demand, thereby increasing pressure on both agricultural and industrial production. Linked to this cycle was the need for technological improvement and a growth in capital investment. Much of this capital investment found its way into growth industries such as mills, shipbuilding and steel. England also needed to secure its colonial acquisitions by lifting investment in offshore colonies such as Australia. It could be argued that without such growth, emigration by our ancestors may not have been a consideration.
Conditions up to the depression of 1875 were such that families could afford to increase in size, proportionate to income and wealth levels. However, unskilled labourers were not in a position to grow. The hierarchy of landowners, clergy and professional men together with fringe elements of farmers, locked unskilled labourers out of wealth. This class would be subject to rental conditions that ensured their ongoing place in English society. The agricultural revolution, through amalgamation of small farmlets, draining and ditching along with mechanisation contributed to pushing unskilled labour further into poverty or migration to urban centres. “Official reporters and morally-agitated observers reported that rural labouring-class housing conditions remained generally dismal until at least the Seventies”. In 1851, 20.9% of the population of England and Wales found in agriculture. However, by 1871 this level had fallen to 14.2% and by 1881 to 11.5%.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed to 22.1% of national income in 1841 declining to 14.2% by 1871. The converse occurred with mining, manufacturing and building. These factors strengthened the gulf between the haves and have-nots, the capitalists and the workers. Such gulfs permeated English institutions and may be observed by comparing the genealogical history of the upper and lower classes.
Most, but not all, ancestors of the present day Hintons and related families came from working class stock. The Gottschalks of Eschede, Germany were wheelwrights and cabinetmakers. The Hintons and Appletons who settled in Queensland were members of this sub-class in England. Most were unskilled labourers either working in agriculture or mines. Although conditions, relative to the present generation, were harsh, the standard of living improved between 1866 and 1898. For instance, a farm labourer could earn 14 shillings per week or coal miners 21 to 23 shillings per week. Today, a labourer may receive $20.00-$24.00 per hour.
This outline of general conditions in England paints a background to family life for the Hintons, Appletons and the interrelated families. These notes and the accompanying genealogical data may be likened to the structure of the human body. Genealogical data represents the backbone and rib cage of the body while the history, personalities, culture and anecdotal stories of families make up the flesh, skin and muscle.

I am the son of Ida and Ernest Hinton and the 5th Great Grandson of Thomas Hinton (1711-1796) of Cuddesdon, England. My parents were hard working and thrifty. As a baby boomer, my early life was full of adventure and simple pleasures. My family entertainment included the radio and local picture theatres. Television or computers were not in common. My sister Pam and I created our own fun through imagination. I left school at 15 to commence work with the Weather Bureau. I married my first wife, Cheryl, in 1969. After having two children together, we divorced in 1998.

We stayed in Canberra until 1986 when we moved to Mollymook after buying a small business. Peter and Melinda graduated from Wollongong University. Fortune smiled on me when I married Jane Haddock (nee Harris) in 2001. I moved back to Canberra where I now work for the Public Service.

One may ask why include background history of local Aboriginal tribes into a story of Hinton family history. The reason is that Hinton family history did not happen in a vacuum. Indigenous families inhabited Mt Coot-tha and the Guinea long before the Hintons and Collamores arrived. Their footprint, so to speak, was already there. I needed to demonstrate that tribes were pushed out of the area to be replaced by the Hintons and other families just as the Hintons were squeezed out of England.

22 August 2008