John Pearson Rowe and family in Australia

The information on this page is from many sources. I have done a lot of research myself, especially searching through old British, Australian and New Zealand newspapers and BDM records, and communicating with members of the extended family in various parts of the world. This has built on the extensive research conducted over many years by other family members, especially my late aunt Winifred Keogh, my cousin Teresa Pagliaro, and my cousin Elizabeth Rennick who compiled and edited 'A Family Portfolio', published 1996. More recently cousin Kim Dixon has served as a focal point for getting some of us Rowe descendants communicating with each other to share information and resources.

Please contact me if you have additions, corrections or questions, and particularly if you are related to our branch of the Rowe family. I am generous about sharing my work to further collective research, but please do not copy information and pictures from this site and publish them elsewhere, e.g. on Ancestry, without attribution and without contacting me first.

For more Rowe family history and photos, you can visit cousin Kim Dixon's site:
This is not a hyperlink, so you will have to type it into your web browser.

Rowe

The Rowes were an old Lancashire family from the Wigan area. Their ancestry can be traced back to the 1600s.

My maternal great-great-great grandparents were James Francis Rowe, gentleman and surveyor of taxes, and his wife Jane née Barker. They had married on 17 November 1808 in St John the Baptist, Chester, Cheshire, England. They lived in the Greater Liverpool area and had 9 children:

Mary Rowe (born 24 August 1809, baptised 27 August 1809 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 2 Jan 1834 of consumption after a long illness, age 24)
James Rowe (baptised 9 May 1811 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 01 Sep 1894 at Leyfield Grange, West Derby, Lancashire.)
Married widow Mary Griffiths née Banks in 1865 and had 2 children:
     Adrian James Rowe (1868-1937); baptised Adrianus Jacobus Rowe 23 Sep 1868 Sacred Heart Parish; sponsers Alfredus Bankes & Joanna Bridges;
         he was a student at his father's Alma Mater, Stoneyhurst and then became a solicitor, like his father and brother. He married three times.
         (1) he married in 1896 in Liverpool to Ellen [Nellie] Higgins (c1866-1904); they had two children:
              Hilda Rowe (1897-1994) married Stephen Richard Hugh C Tussaud.
              Kathleen Rowe (1899-1898) married Gabriel Philip Tussaud.
         (2) after Ellen's death, Adrian married Sarah Margaret Coghlin (1871-?) in 1905 in West Derby; there were no children from this marriage
         (3) by 1909 Adrian was living with Mary Jane Sealby, although they did not marry until 1928, in West Derby; they had 5 children:
              Helen Rowe (1910-1992) married David Aubrey.
              Gladys S Rowe (1913-2003) married Albert Weaver.
              Jessie Rowe (1915-1953) married Thomas Bryan.
              Florence Rowe (1919-?) married John A Urquhart.
              James Edward Rowe (1931-1971) married Dorthy Whiting.
      James Edward Rowe (1869-1902); baptised Jacobus Ed. Rowe 13 Jan 1870 Sacred Heart Parish; sponsers Alfredus Bankes & Helena Bankes;
            he was a solicitor, but died in 1902 at age 32, after a long period as a patient in a private hospital in Mt Pleasant, Liverpool; he did not marry.
John Pearson Rowe (born 25 January 1813 in Aintree, Lancashire and baptised 31 January 1813 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 16 May 1878)
My great-great-grandfather; see family details below.
Francis Xavier (Frank) Rowe (born 1 September 1814, baptised 27 September 1814 at St Swithin's, Liverpool; probably died in Canada)
Married in 1839 Frances Wells (c1820-1887) and they had 4 children:
     Mary Ellen Rowe (1841-?); did not marry.
     George Gardner Rowe (1844-1928); did not marry, no issue.
     Francis Xavier Rowe (1846-1928); married Edna Clarke Bates in c1870; they had 4 children: Arthur Rowe, Lena Rowe, May Rowe and Frank Rowe.
     Alice Wells Rowe (1847-1934); married Alfred Constantine (1844-1881) and they had 4 children:
             Alice Constantine, Frances Katherine Constantine, Alfred Kingsley Constantine and Edith May Constantine.
Frank Rowe was an accountant and is thought to have gone to Canada sometime between 1851 and 1861, possibly with his wife. The children stayed in England and were all living together in the 1861 census with 17-year-old George as the head of the household.
Jane Rowe (born c1816; died January 1906 in Paddington, Greater London)
Married Emile Bridges and lived in Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium: they had 3 children:
     James Emile Bridges (1835-1922); married Marianne Roskell (1860-1925); they had 6 children (the first 3 were born in Burma and the last 2 were
             born in Paddington, Greater London):
            George Emile Bridges, Winifred Bridges, Dorothy Bridges, Francis Bridges, Elyse Emily Bridges and Jeanne Josephine Bridges.
     Elisabeth (Elise) Charlotte Bridges (c1855-1928); married James Grieve in c1883; they had two children:
             Lillian Sylvester Grieve (c1885-1961); married Aymar Bertram Cater in 1908 and they had at least 2 children.
             Mary Violet Grieve (1888-?); married Horace Anwyl Hilton in 1911.
     Jeanne Bridges (c1859-?); married Walter Hak; in her old age, Jeanne lived with her sister Elise and family.
Eliza Rowe (born 25 September 1818, baptised 1 October 1818 at St Peter's Priory, Liverpool; died 6 July 1909 in St Asaph, Wales)
Did not marry. Worked as a teacher/governess in Rouen, France. In her old age lived with her unmarried younger sisters in Pen-y-bont, St Asaph, Wales.
George Rowe (born 12 February 1820, baptised 23 October 1820 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 23 October 1852 in Melbourne)
Did not marry. Came to join his brother John in Hobart in the early 1840s. Occupation was "Chemist and druggist". Went to San Francisco in 1850 and returned to Melbourne in 1852. Soon after he returned, he was fatally shot in a hotel room after a card game. He was buried at the Old Melbourne Cemetery, but when it was closed to extend the Victoria Markets in the early 1830s, his grave and headstone were relocated to the Pioneer Section of Fawkner Cemetery.
Ellen (Helen) Rowe (born 17 November 1822, baptised 29 December 1822 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 31 October 1910 in St Asaph, Wales)
Did not marry. Tiny woman, weighed 70 lbs. Lived in Rhyl, Wales with her sister Fanny and later West Derby with her brother James.
Frances (Fanny) Gertrude Rowe (born 8 July 1824, baptised 15 July 1824 at the French Chapel in Liverpool; died 16 May 1906 in St Asaph, Wales)
Did not marry. Tiny woman, weighed 84 lbs. Lived in Rhyl, Wales with her sister Helen.

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John Pearson Rowe

My maternal great-great grandfather, John Pearson Rowe (1813-1878), was born in Aintree, Lancashire on 25 January 1813. He was baptised on 31 January 1813 at the Catholic French Chapel in Liverpool (now St Anthony's Church) by the Reverend Jean Baptiste Antoinet Gerardot, an émigré from the French Revolution of 1789. John and his brother James were tutored at home before attending Stonyhurst, a Jesuit Catholic College in Lancashire, from 9 September 1824 to 26 Oct. 1827. He then served an apprenticeship as an apothecary surgeon in Liverpool and on 27 December 1831 sailed on the Marianne, as the ship's surgeon, from Liverpool, via the Cape, to Sydney and then Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). She was carrying with merchandise, and a number of pensioners (military pensioners coming for service as guards) and other settlers, for New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, together with several cabin passengers. The Marianne arrived in Sydney on 30 May 1832, before proceding to Hobart. The passengers on the voyage from Liverpool to Sydney had the following notice inserted in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser on 12 Jun 1832:

WE, the Passengers of the Brig
Marianne, beg leave publicly to express our
approbation of and gratitude to Captain Kenneth
M'Kenzie, for his uniform good and seaman-like
conduct, in navigating the vessel during our voyage
from England. We also particularly have to return
our most heartfelt thanks to Mr. John Pearson
Rowe, Surgeon, for his zealous and kind attention
to the wants of the very frequent sick, publicly
express our good opinion of his professional talent,
and wish we were able to reward him better than
now our humble means afford.-Yours.
Given on board the Marianne,
THOMAS COLEMAN, Secretary

From at least the time Rowe was taken on as a ship's surgeon in late 1831, he consistently gave his date of birth as 25 January 1810 (not the actual date of 25 January 1813). It is only since finding his baptism record (which includes his real date of birth) that we know he was three years younger than the age that he stated for the rest of his life. The most likely explanation for this discrepency is that he was an advanced student for his years, who was indentured as a surgeon/apothecary at a much younger age (14¾ years) than usual, and completed it in 1831 when he was not yet 19 years old. Under the Apothecaries Act of 1815, they were apprenticed as skilled tradesman for a minimum of five years, and there was an age requirement of twenty-one years before they could be admitted to the Society of Apothecaries. Once admitted, they were able to provide medical advice and prescribe drugs. We know from a letter written December 1827 by his father to Stonyhurst (about school fees that were still outstanding), that John and his older brother James were both indentured after they left school in 1827. Whether his age was falsified by his father at the time he was indentured, or he added three years to his age in 1831 to obtain the job as a ship's surgeon, he was probably unable or not willing to falsify his age for formal admission to the Society of Apothecaries. The position of ship's surgeon appears not to have required him to already be admitted (registered) and the return trip to Van Diemen's Land would have been a good way to earn some money and bide his time until his 21st birthday.

Rowe arrived in Hobart 10 July 1832 as a ship’s surgeon, contracted for the return voyage. However, the ship was sold for whaling: "Mr. Hewitt has purchased the Brig Marianne, and intends immediately to fit her out for the Sperm Whaling"(The Colonist and Van Diemen's Land Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser, 24 Aug 1832). As a return passage could not be arranged, Rowe was eventually paid off and remained in Hobart. With Dr William Crowther, he set up a much needed medical clinic for the poor, providing consultations, treatments and medicines. Active in public affairs and not afraid to speak out, Rowe left his mark on colonial Hobart.

In 1835 John Pearson Rowe arranged to marry Mary Lowe (1819-1914), the oldest surviving daughter of emancipated convicts, George Lowe and Honora Ahern. Lowe had become a successful businessman and had arranged the marriage of his not quite 16-year-old daughter to this most eligible bachelor. Family tradition has that Mary was told by a maid "If you peep around the parlour door, you'll see your father talking with the man you are going to marry". One of George Lowe's conditions of the marriage is said to be that Rowe would give his daughter an education, which he did.They were married on 8 September 1835 by the recently arrived Father James Cotham, who Rowe knew from Stonyhurst. It was a long and apparently happy marriage.

Mary Rowe née Lowe with daughter Nellie c1865

John and Mary Rowe had 13 children over a 30 year period, 8 of whom survived to adulthood:

Mary Agnes Rowe (born 6 September 1836; died 10 April 1913)
Sent to a Catholic boarding school in England for 10 years; sailed Hobart to London aged 6 on the Janet Izat under at care of Capt. Goldsmith, departing Hobart 15 Feb 1843; met by her Rowe grandfather. By the time she returned, none of her siblings knew her. She had a sad and difficult life.
Mary married Edward Joseph Murphy (1828-1875) in 1856; they had 10 children (but no grandchildren):
     Mary (Minnie) Murphy(1857-?); Sacred Heart nun
     Edward (Eddie) Murphy (1859-1861); died age 14 months
     Octavia (Octa) Murphy (1861-1941); did not marry, no issue
     Arthur Edward Murphy (1863-1901); killed in action in the Boer War, Drivelfontein, South Africa
     Frances M Murphy (1864-1957); did not marry, no issue
     Edward (Teddie) Joseph Murphy (1865-1871); died age 5½ years
     Charles Robert Murphy (1867-1941); married Margaret Ann Hall (1857-1946), no issue
     Robert John Murphy (1868-1870); died age 2 years
     Maud Isabel Murphy (1872-1936); did not marry, no issue
     Helen Mary Gertrude (1873-1957); did not marry, no issue
Andrew George Rowe (born 27 November 1838; died 3 March 1839)
His mother recorded that he died aged 3 months and 6 days.
John Louis Pearson Rowe (born 16 March 1840; died 18 March 1924)
Married Constance Maude Naylor (1862-1929) in 1881; they had 7 children:
     Ellen Rowe (1882-1868); married Reginald John Forster (1879-1942), they had 5 children.
     John (Jack) Elwood Rowe (1883-1901); died of enteric fever in the Boer War, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
     George Lawrence Rowe (1885-1934); married Mary Young, they had 2 children.
     Patrick (Paddy) Ignatius Rowe (1887-1865); married Letitia Hundy (1889-1958), they had 8 children.
     Justin Louis Rowe (1888-1950); married Classie Mooy (1888-1923), they had 3 children;
         then married Muriel Irene Greenwood, they had one child.
     Casimir Freeman Rowe (1891-1925); married Evelyn May Bignell (1892-1970); they had 5 children.
     Arthur Bernard Rowe (1894-1963); married Crystal Lavinia McManis Booth (1881-1958), they had 2 children;
         then had a relationship with Ivy Pamela Mary Meaker and had one daughter (both went to NZ)
         then had a relationship, and later married, Theresa Iris Elliott (1911-1999), they had 2 children.
Casimir Francis Rowe (born 4 March 1842, died 28 November 1915)
Married Matilda Louisa Ireland (1843-1927) in 1873; they had 7 daughters:
     Mary (Mol) Sophie Rowe (1873-1955); did not marry, no issue.
     Katherine (Kitty) Augusta Rowe (1875-1926); did not marry, no issue.
     Cecil Frances Rowe (1877-1961); married widower Alfred W Hay (1846-1918), they had 6 children.
     Winifred Matilda Rowe (1879-1961); married Eustace Julian Keogh (1865-1925), they had 10 children.
     Constance Mary Rowe (1881-1973); married Graham Rhind Johnson (1876-1938), they had 12 children.
     Dorothy Selina Rowe (1883-1965); married William Lionel Hay (1878-1965), they had 5 children.
     Amy Agnes Rowe (1885-1885); died at age 22 days.
Cas and Tilly Rowe are buried in St Kilda Cemetery.
Edward Ignatius Rowe (born 14 October 1844; died 28 March 1853)
Died age 8 in a scarlet fever & diphtheria epidemic in Melbourne; buried with his uncle George, now in the Pioneer section of Fawkner Cemetery.
Frances Jane Rowe (born 15 October 1846; died Nov 1941)
Married Denis Charles MacCarthy-O'Leary (1841-1886) in 1873; they had 7 children:
     Arthur John MacCarthy-O'Leary (1874-1940); married Olive Nettleton (c1894-1976), they had no children
     Amy Frances Jane MacCarthy-O'Leary (1877-1920); did not marry, no issue
     Maurice Cecil MacCarthy-O'Leary (1879-1958); married Dorothy Talbot, they had no children
     Leonora Helen MacCarthy-O'Leary (1880-1938); married Edward Ryan (1860-1939), they had 8 children
     Florence Mary MacCarthy-O'Leary (1882-1920); married Thomas Francis Brennan (1873-1954), they had 1 child
     Denis (Donough) Charles MacCarthy-O'Leary (1884-1906); taken by a crocodile in the Ganges, India at age 22 years
     Denise Delores MacCarthy-O'Leary (1886-1959); did not marry, no issue
Ignatius Stephen Rowe (born 4 January 1849; died 5 April 1853)
Died age 4 in a scarlet fever & diphtheria epidemic in Melbourne; buried with his uncle George, now in the Pioneer section of Fawkner Cemetery.
George Andrew Rowe (born 29 February 1852; died 28 March 1853)
Died age 2 in a scarlet fever & diphtheria epidemic in Melbourne; buried with his uncle George, now in the Pioneer section of Fawkner Cemetery.
Cecily Aimee (Cecil) Rowe (born 26 June 1853; died 8 August 1925)
Did not marry, no children; cared for her mother in her old age.
Blanche Jane (Janey) Rowe (born 29 September 1855; died 22 December 1919)
Married (late in life) Alexander Townshend Dunsmuir (1858-1924); they had no children.
Francis Xavier Rowe (born 23 June 1857; died 10 January 1933)
Married Emily Selina Naylor (1865-1929) in 1882; they had 11 children:
     John (Jack) Pearson Rowe (1883-1941); did not marry, no issue.
     Gertrude Maude Rowe (1884-1972); married James Joseph Hoy (1883-1946), they had 6 children.
     Emmie Frances Rowe (1886-1961); married Norman Forster Bowen (1886-1967), they had 3 children.
     Lorna Emma Rowe (1888-1926); did not marry, no issue.
     Marguerite [Mardi] Aime Rowe (1893-1985); married John Harold Lee (1881-1963), they had 1 child.
     Valentine Emile Francis Rowe (1897-1985); married Ida May Face (1895-1950), they had 4 children.
     Lenore Agnes Rowe (1900-1971); married Alfred Payton Taylor (1892-1948), they had 2 children.
     Rupert Joseph Rowe (1901-1961); married Lucy Carty (?-1962), they had 2 children.
     Nona Helen Rowe (1902-1977); one child, then married Alfred Frank Jones (1909-1967), they had 2 children.
     Dermot (Billy) Paul Rowe (1904-1971); married Margaret Phoebe Reeves, they had no children.
     Mary (Meg) Violet Rowe (1905-?); married Benjamin Wade (1904-1958), they had 3 children.
Helen Lucy (Nellie) Rowe (born 31 March 1861; died 30 July 1942)
Did not marry, no children. Buried inMaidenhead Cemetery, outside London.
Marguerite Annie Rowe (born February 1865; died 22 November 1865)
Died of whooping cough age 9 months. Buried in St Kilda Cemetery.

Rowe's house Loyola at Devil's River (sketch by Eugene van Guerard).

In 1846, 14 years after his arrival in Hobart, Rowe left Van Diemen’s Land to become a pastoralist in Victoria. He first took out a lease of a 38,000-acre station on the Devil's River (now Delatite River)near Mansfield, a wild area remote from white settlement. He renamed it Loyola and built a slab house which he lined and papered to make it comfortable for the family, who arrived by bullock dray with all the furniture and the piano. He bought the best sheep, from the best breeders in Europe and the colonies. But within 5 years gold was found and the workforce fled. Rowe had befriended the local aborigines and taught them to tend and even shear the sheep.

Restdown Plains homestead c1878 (by Mrs K H Boadle); Restdown Plains old homestead in 2010; Plaque about John Pearson Rowe in the main street of Rochester.

In 1853, Rowe moved to Restdown Plains, south of Echuca, and grew meat as well as wool – both much in demand. He expanded the house, but it was close to the Campaspe which often overflowed and came up to the doors. Restdown was on one of the busiest routes in the colony and to meet the travellers’ demand for accommodation, Rowe built a hotel nearby. A store and blacksmith also opened, and the small community became known as Rowechester (latin for Rowe’s settlement), later modified to Rochester. There is a plaque about John Pearson Rowe in the main street.

Rowe later divided and sold half of Restdown Plains to take up land at Terrick Terrick, about 16km away. The loam and clay plains might have seemed a strange choice over the fertile plains around Restdown, but Rowe knew they would retain water and would be covered in grass after even light rain. He also built a bluestone dam over the Bendigo creek, providing a system of irrigation and enough water for stock in the dry season. The Terricks held a higher ratio of sheep than Restdown and one year they sheared 50,000 sheep.

Plaque erected on the 150th anniversary of the Burke and Wills Expedition; the original Terrick Terrick house in 2010; bluestone dam and wash built by Rowe.

In 1860, the Burke and Wills Expedition camped for 2 nights at Rowe's station on the foot of the Terricks, and made observations in their journals about the property, house and the dam on the creek and the aboriginals. The Expedition's artist, Ludwig Becker, did sketches and paintings of the Terricks area and wrote in his journal:

Thursday, 30 August 1860.
. . . We arrived 4 p.m. at Dr Rowe's station on the foot of the Terricks.

Friday, 31 August 1860.
A day of rest and fine weather allowed me to finish Sketches 2 and 3 and to make some general observations. The Bendigo Creek, on whose banks the station is built, is here named Picanini Creek, and further to the North it is called Mount Hope Cr. The water is still a yellow coloured, floating mud, the effect of the washings at Bendigo. Dr Rowe dammed the water and by this process is enabled to support a greater number of sheep during the hot seasons, than it was possible before this damming system of the different waters in these plains was introduced. In the afternoon 4 natives, among them a lubra, went their Stepps slowly towards the camp. With eyes and mouths wide open, speechless they stared at the Bunjibs, our camels, but refused to go nearer than a spears-throw. Although no strangers at Dr Rowe's station, and notwithstanding our assurance that the camels were only harmless 'big sheep', they turned their back towards them and squatted soon round a far off camp fire of their own, conversing in their native tongue; probably about the character of these illustrious strangers. If this first interview between natives and camels might be used as a criterion when coming in contact with the blacks in the course of our future journeys, then, surely, we might spare the gunpowder as long as the mesmeric power of our Bunjibs remain with them. The Terrick Hills are composed of a fine granit, not very hard, and a more compact, coarse one; both kinds are used by Dr Rowe for building purposes. The brick-walls of the houses are lined with them. The Terrick plains are free from any stone, and consist of a ferruginous loam and sometimes of clay intermixed with small bits of calcareous or limestone (?) concrete. During the dry season these plaines are bare of grass and hard like bricks, after a fall of rain they become muddy and soon after are covered with a fine verdure. We passed several skeletons of bullocks, said to have been killed by lightning, a common occurrence in these plains.

Saturday, 1 September 1860.
Dr Rowe's kind and extremely hospitable reception made us feel almost unwilling to leave that fine camping place; however, at 8 ¾ a.m. we once more steered the 'ships of the dessert' through the green ocean towards Mt Hope, which point we reached at half past two p.m. . . .

Unfortunately Rowe's wife Mary, who always said she was “southern born”, found the Terricks too hot in summer and refused to stay there, retreating to a house they had bought in Heyington Place, Toorak, Melbourne or a cottage her father owned in Hobart. But she loved the clear bright sunshine of the Terrick winters and they would drive out every day with a quiet horse while Mary read to the children.

In 1858, Rowe was appointed to the council of the University of Melbourne, serving on the council and various committees till his death 20 years later. From 1860-67 he served on the subcommittee to set up the medical school. Rowe’s medical/apothecary bag is now in the university’s medical museum.

In the 1860s the Rowes moved again – back to the Mansfield district where JP Rowe bought the 25,000 acre property of Mt Battery. Rowe sold Terrick Terrick but settled his son John on nearby Burnewang on the Campaspe. In 1866, shortly after the proclamation of the shire of Mansfield, Rowe was made shire president and oversaw the building the small community into a thriving town.

Bushrangers: Harry Power and a young Ned Kelly

The bushranger Harry Power and his young accomplice Ned Kelly tried to steal horses from Mt Battery. Rowe and his son Cas stalked them and chased them off the property, firing as they went. After an exchange of gunfire it is thought that Power and Kelly ran out of anmmunition. Years later, Mary Rowe noted in her journal the day Kelly was hanged, no doubt remembering how dangerously close he had been to killing her husband while she hid in the house with the younger children.

A keen gardener, Rowe established gardens wherever he lived and won prizes at agricultural shows for his flower arrangements and pot plants as well as his stock. He planted selected flowers among his fruit trees and vineyards to control insect pests.

At Mt Battery, Rowe turned to his medical training to address the two most costly diseases in sheep, scab and liver fluke. In Liverpool, he had seen sulphur dissolved in lime being used to treat scabies in humans, so in 1865 he tried it for dipping sheep and discovered it was an inexpensive and effective treatment which did not discolour the wool like the previously used tobacco and sulphur dip. He insisted he did not want to make money from this, that the recipe and instructions should be free to all. By 1869 Rowe’s lime-sulphur remedy was recommended by the Chief Inspector for Sheep and the following year it was specified under the Scab Act as one of the prescribed treatments. Rowe also studied the life cycle of the liver fluke, which was prevalent in that area. He advised graziers to get rid of all infected sheep, burn the grass on which they had grazed, and spell the paddocks. The flocks were safe to be sold for human consumption because the fluke was confined to the liver in the early and middle stages of infection.

In 1871 there was a shortage of oats, grain and hay in north-eastern Victoria, so Rowe opened up 4000 acres of Mt Battery for tenant farming of grain at low rates. It was a resounding success, supplying Alexandra, Jamieson and Woods Point with flour, bran and pollard. Mt Battery was described as a model pastoral run.

Rowe sold Mt Battery to take his family on a world tour in 1874-75, leaving all his affairs in the hands of a son-in-law who used it to speculate in mining shares. Unaware that his money was tied up in this way, Rowe committed by cable from England to buy Seven Creeks station in Euroa. His son-in-law realised what he had done and committed suicide - when Rowe was told he commented "Poor Eddie, I would have forgiven him". Unable to get out of the contract to buy Seven Creeks, Rowe was left with heavy mortgages and little cash; he had to start all over again.

Seven Creeks homestead after the second story added; Seven Creeks homestead in 2009; the garden is still much as the Rowes would have enjoyed it

Three years later, on 16 May 1878, John Pearson Rowe died after falling from his horse while out riding alone. A cross still marks the spot on Seven Creeks Estate and he is buried in Euroa cemetery. His wife Mary settled in East Melbourne, cared for by two of her unmarried daughters. Mary Rowe née Lowe died on 23 Nov 1914 at her home in East Melbourne, age 95. She is buried in St Kilda Cemetery.

John Pearson Rowe's marker on Seven Creek's Estate; his grave in Euroa Cemetery; the plaque on Mary Rowe's grave in St Kilda Cemetery.

The Rowe family were prolific letter and journal writers. Many of the family papers are now archived in collections in the Victorian State Library and can be accessed on request.

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Casimir Frances Rowe

My maternal great grandfather, Casimir Francis Rowe was born 4 March 1842 in Hobart, Tasmania, and died 28 November 1915 in Melbourne, Victoria.

Stonyhurst, a Jesuit Catholic College in Lancashire, from 9 September 1824 to 26 Oct. 1827.

Casimir Francis Rowe (born 4 March 1842, died 28 November 1915)
Married Matilda Louisa Ireland (1843-1927) in 1873; they had 7 daughters:
     Mary (Mol) Sophie Rowe (1873-1955); did not marry, no issue.
     Katherine (Kitty) Augusta Rowe (1875-1926); did not marry, no issue.
     Cecil Frances Rowe (1877-1961); married widower Alfred W Hay (1846-1918), they had 6 children.
     Winifred Matilda Rowe (1879-1961); married Eustace Julian Keogh (1865-1925), they had 10 children.
     Constance Mary Rowe (1881-1973); married Graham Rhind Johnson (1876-1938), they had 12 children.
     Dorothy Selina Rowe (1883-1965); married William Lionel Hay (1878-1965), they had 5 children.
     Amy Agnes Rowe (1885-1885); died at age 22 days.
Cas and Tilly Rowe are buried in St Kilda Cemetery.