Deborah Lundbech's photos with the keyword: Edwin Maximilian Hellyer

My Great Great Grandfather, Edwin Maximilian Hellyer's indenture certificate - 1835. He was to eventually become a Master Mariner, and then die in 1853 in Australia, leaving a wife and unborn baby son back in England.

In 1853, my GG Grandfather Edwin Maximillian Hellyer left his pregnant wife Catherine (Sandicombe) Hellyer and son-to-be Sydney Thompson Hellyer, in England, for Australia. We don't know why he went - he appears to have been a ship's Captain but he died away from the ocean near the gold fields. We can't find out how he died although my Australian cousin has devoted enormous amounts of time to trying to discover how it happened. (Update - he died from a sickness.) After the two of us tried to find out what happened to him, with no success, I just decided to try Google - and typed his name in. A photo of this came up as a holding in a small museum in Castlemaine in Australia and eventually it was located there, in the basement. My cousin visited a few years later and was able to take this photo and pictures of the area where it had been once nailed to a large tree. When the area burned, it was taken down and rescued. It appears that Mr. Coghill was a landowner and "Christian" refers to the way Edwin was cared for - as in "goodhearted Mr. Coghill." We still have had no luck with many of the questions we have about him, but have found much about his (large) family from Devon and Cornwall. And I'm sure his life will continue to be revealed. Another update. My cousin Erin has done a fantastic job of researching this whole story - and presented Castlemaine Museum with all the information to accompany this plaque.