best web site maker

Buck Family Late 1800's

Anna Maria and William's life together

By Gary Buck, November 2016

A brief recap - William seems to have arrived in Sydney in mid 1884 as a 20 year old seaman.  Anna Maria  was born in Brunswick, Melbourne in 1859.  For her 1884 was the year her father, John Daykin died.


The following year, a 26 year old Anna Maria, married a 21 year old William in Melbourne.  It seems some times Anna was Hannah,  not sure if it was intentional or transcription errors?  On the marriage information the offical records show her as Hannah Maria Daykin.


The had two daughters, Alice May Buck was born in 1889 and Vera Clarence in 1892, both in Brunswick. Brunswick around that time had a population of about 15000 people.  This article says "By 1891 there were as well as the brickworks, nail and rope factories, two banks, three schools, two newspapers, five railway stations, a Mechanics Institute and three fire brigades!"


The next record of the family is when Frank Leslie Buck (my grandfather) was born in 1898 in Fremantle, Western Australia.




I cannot see exactly why they moved, but some details of her family around those years give some clues.

  • Anna's mother Ann, lived in Brunswick until her death in 1900.  
  • Anna's eldest sister, Sarah Alice married William Grimster in 1871, had 2 sons before her husband died in 1875.  She remarried in 1880, had 3 more children in Melbourne before moving to Brisbane in 1884/5.
  • Anna's sister Jane Ellen, married in Melbourne in 1888, had three children in Melbourne before her fourth was born in Coolgardie in 1897.
  • Anna's sister Mary Ada, never married and lived in Brunswick her entire life, until her death in 1959 at 95.

So it seems that perhaps Jane Ellen, her husband Donald Melville Leslie and three children, headed west around the same time as Anna Maria, William with Alice and Vera.


Tragedy struck in May 1901 when William died in a cycling accident in Fremantle.  The article below has a full report but he collided head on with another cyclist.  The report indicates that William was clearly at fault..


Tragically it means that young Frank has lost his father at the age of just 3, Anna Maria was 45 years old.  Five years later in 1910, she married Alfred Francis Howard in Perth.


Alice married Arthur Pether in 1908 in Perth


Vera married Herbert Stainer back in Melbourne in 1914.