My great-grandfather, aged 38, married a schoolteacher aged 19 in July 1865, and their first child - my grandfather - was born on December 14, 1865.
When I discovered this, I was, how should I put it, somewhat surprised.
Indeed, my grandfather was born on the same day as me. It is possible we were both accidents.
My parents had been married for almost 17 years, rather than five months, when I was born.
I was about 11 years younger than the youngest of my three siblings, the late Jill Tainsh.
My initial reaction was judgemental, but then I started researching the frequency of pregnant brides.
In the United States - from 1700 to 1950, 250 years - about 20 per cent of brides were pregnant on their wedding day.
That 20 per cent is for a period when a pre-marital conception was widely considered a shameful condition, and one to be concealed (Career & Family, Claudia Goldin. 2021, page 114).
The only data I have found for Australia relates to Tasmania in the period 1860-90, where the percentage was similar, in the range 15 to 22 per cent (Australia’s Fertility Transition, Helen Moyle, 2020, page 150). One in five gave me some comfort.
An analysis of the demography of the Victorian gold rush era explains why I am no longer surprised that my great-grandfather married a woman half his age.
My Henderson forebears arrived in Melbourne in 1853, including my great-grandfather and five brothers, all bachelors.
They emigrated from Scotland where, in 1861, for every 100 unmarried females there were only 70 unmarried males. What were they thinking?
In Victoria in 1854, for every 100 unmarried females, there were more than 500 unmarried males!
Economic prospects were bright, but the prospect of marriage was dismal.
James Bonwick observed in 1852 that “ladies are now at a premium … the jumper of the lucky digger produces the same flutter in the female circle, which the red coat of the soldier used to do”.
In the absence of luck on the goldfields, the Henderson boys required more time to generate a “flutter in the female circle”, selecting land in the 1860s ballots.
Four of the six Henderson boys married, at an average age of 48 and, on average, 17 years older than their wives.
Turning to my great-grandfather’s puzzling trip to New Zealand.
An obituary in Echuca’s Riverine Herald, stated that in mid-1884 my great-grandfather had visited “New Zealand for the benefit of his health”.
With no disrespect to bleak, windy NZ, if you live on the northern plains of Victoria, less than 100km from Deniliquin as the crow flies, why would a man suffering from tuberculosis cross the ditch for the benefit of his health?
I found the answer in an article by a New Zealand historian of science, Linda Bryder, who explained that for most of the second half of the 19th century, the belief that New Zealand was a “health resort for consumptives … had not only been condoned in New Zealand but had been actively encouraged”.
My great-grandfather also might have been encouraged by others advocating “… the curative influence of comfortable sea travel on all sorts of diseases, tuberculosis included”.
As it happened, some experts were recommending Victoria as an ideal location for the rehabilitation of tuberculosis sufferers.
However, my great-grandfather may not have been convinced because some members of the Victorian medical profession, with good reason as it transpired, were sceptical of the curative effects of climate.
Prolonged public disputation ensued, filling many column inches of Victorian newspapers.
The obituary stated that my great-grandfather’s “trip to the other colony resuscitated his health and he returned in full vigor”, but the relief proved temporary.
Encouraged by the authorities, John Henderson had made a desperate, futile trip to NZ in the final year of his life.
I will make one concession, much of the scenery in NZ is superior to the northern plains of Victoria.
A final twist in this saga is that a few years after my great-grandfather’s death in August 1885, a consumptive sanatorium was established in association with the Echuca District Hospital because: “Echuca’s climate was considered … to be beneficial for victims of tuberculosis”.
The Victorian Sanatorium for Consumptives at Echuca accepted its first patients in May 1889 and operated until 1908.
The development and introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s and early 1950s contributed to a very substantial reduction in the prevalence of tuberculosis in Australia.
There has been no comparable reduction in the prevalence of births out of wedlock.
