Warning: This story contains details of domestic violence.

Milbah Charlotte Cavillon probably closed the door quietly behind her as she left her Parramatta home on the 5th of November 1839. If her husband Nicholas was sleeping, she would not have wanted to wake him. She wasn’t the first woman in her family to be impacted by the actions of their husband, but she probably hoped she would be the last.

Milbah’s mother and grandmother had more in common than their Christian names, Frances Sarah; both were married to convicts. Milbah’s mother, Frances Sarah Taber, married James Harrex (Horrex) in 1807, when she was seventeen and James was forty. James Harrex, Milbah’s father, had arrived on the Ganges ten years earlier, transported for fourteen years for stealing a sheep.

Married to a Convict

Frances Sarah Medhurst was married to Thomas Tabor, transported for life as a felon. When Thomas embarked with James Harrex and other convicts on the Ganges in August 1796, his wife Frances was also onboard as a free settler. These significant women in Milbah’s life remained loyal to their husbands, despite their husband’s convict status. Milbah’s marriage was very different to theirs, and not just because she had married a successful free settler, and not a convict.

One month after the death of her mother in 1829, Milbah Harrex and Nicholas Cavillon were married in Parramatta by Samuel Marsden.  At the time, Nicholas was a respectable baker in the colony. Public reports of shady land-acquisitions emerged later and would no doubt have caused problems in the Cavillon household.

Things went from bad to worse, until there was no other option for Milbah than the action she was about to take. Women were considered feme covert under British law, which meant Milbah had no means of support without her husband’s income, nor could she remarry while he was alive, but the dangerous situation Milbah was in could not be sustained (Donati, 2019).

Justice System

Milbah stepped into the Parramatta Police Office and stood before the Bench.  The words she uttered were of little consequence, as her face seemingly painted a more accurate picture of the nature of her visit. A few days later the local press (despite reporting her as Amelia Cavillion rather than Milbah Cavillon) noted that Milbah was “one of the greatest frights that ever came before this Bench.” If the report was correct, there was not a feature of Milbah’s beaten face that was discernible, and her body was no different (Commercial Journal and Advertiser, 13 Nov 1839, page 3, Parramatta).

Milbah’s request was reasonable; she wanted her husband locked up for her protection. Despite her extensive injuries, and the obvious threat to her life, Milbah became a victim of the failings of the justice system that day. 

The judicial system in 1838 was in a state of disarray, due to a lack of police and an increased population, as well as the suspension of the first Police Magistrate for impropriety (Swanton, 1984).

Regardless of the reason, Nicholas was released on a security of one hundred pounds to keep the peace, and publicans were instructed to withhold his access to liquor, assuming that was all it would take to keep Nicholas sober and Milbah safe.

Perhaps things settled down for a while, but not for long. On the 26th of February 1840, the press reported that Nicholas was before the Bench again for a vicious assault. In a state of intoxication Nicholas had taken a knife and almost severed Milbah’s ear from her head. Fearing trouble when discovered, Nicholas attempted to sew the ear back on. When he was brought to justice, he was sentenced to gaol for three years.

Milbah’s Estate

There is limited information about Milbah’s life following that assault, but she died at the home of her son-in-law in Redfern in May 1875 (NSWBDM). A notice in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 29th of June 1875 indicated that Milbah had assets to be distributed, seemingly from land she inherited from her father’s estate. Since Nicholas Cavillon died in 1869, Milbah would have had full ownership of the land in her own right.

The names Frances and Frances Sarah were passed down through family generations, and there were nineteen Milbah’s recorded in New South Wales between 1788 and 1920 (NSWBDM). Milbah is an Aboriginal name that was given to the daughter of Richard Johnson in 1790, the Chaplain from the First Fleet. Milbah Cavillon (nee Harrex) was born in 1809, and Milbah’s granddaughter, Milbah Cavillon, was born in 1866 (NSWBDM). The Johnson and Taber/Harrex families were intwined through Thomas Taber (Tabor), who was assigned to Johnson in 1797. The recorded ‘Milbahs’‘ are likely to have descended from the Harrex line, given that Richard Johnson returned to England prior to 1805.

While it is hoped descendants of Milbah Cavillon have not experienced violence as Milbah did at the hands of her abusive husband, it seems Milbah and Nicholas’ son, Joseph, followed his father’s footsteps into insolvency, but not necessarily through abuse of alcohol.

References:

Cable, K.J., Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, 1967, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/johnson-richard-2275, accessed 3 Dec, 2021.

Cameron, Michaela Ann, Nicholas Cavillon: A Hardened Villain, St. John’s Online, (2021), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/nicholas-cavillon accessed 23 Nov 2021.

Convict Records, James Harrex, State Library of Queensland,  https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/harrex/james/70102, accessed 2 Dec 2021.

Donati, Laura, Free Wives of Convicts: The Really Forgotten Women of Botany Bay, 2019, p.12.

Macquarie University, ‘Journeys in Time 1809-1822’, James Harrex, https://www.mq.edu.au/macquarie-archive/journeys/people/peopleg_k.html, accessed 3 Dec 2021.

National Library of Australia, ‘Case No. 849’, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12867213, accessed 3 Dec 2021.

NSWBDM: Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales.

Sydney Living Museums, ‘Bread in the Early Colony’, https://youtu.be/cm1uuGWT3fY, accessed 1 Dec 2021.

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Read more of my blogs at: Maureen Durney; Grandfather Berg: Family History Vault.

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