James Bennett (1872-1914)

#52ancestors

James Bennett is the first of the great grandparents that I’ll be writing about this year. He is the son of Francis Bennett and Ann Pattinson.

James was born in Sebastopol, a working class town south of Ballarat, Victoria. Most of the men in the district were miners, working at the many, rich gold mines in the area. The population was six and a half thousand when James was born.

By the time my grandfather was born in 1896, mining in Sebastopol was declining rapidly. The little family (James, his wife, Isabella, and their son, Walter Henry) went to Western Australia to try their luck at the new goldfields around Kalgoorlie, 1700 miles away.

James died there in 1914 and is buried in the Boulder Cemetery. My brother visited the grave recently.

Gravesite of James Bennett, Boulder Cemetery, Western Australia