Dadswell Family History

Generation 7
Charles Dadswell (1817-1852) and Elizabeth Hoessner

On this page:
Ancestors of Charles Dadswell
Charles Dadswell's story
Key family dates
Further information

Ancestors of Charles Dadswell

Robert Doudeswell 1560 > Robert Doudeswell 1606 > Edward Dodswell 1659 > Edward Dodswell 1679 > Robert Dadswell 1711 > Robert Dadswell 1773 > Charles Dadswell 1817

Charles Dadswell's story

Charles Dadswell, the seventh son of Robert and Mary (Finch) Dadswell, was born at Rotherfield, Sussex on 14 January 1817.

On 10 June 1845, he married a widow, Elizabeth Hoessner (nee Broadfield) at Kidderminster, Worcestershire on 10 June 1845. Elizabeth was a daughter of boat builder Thomas James Broadfield and his wife Sarah (Smith) Broadfield. She had married Frederick Ludwig Hoessner in 1842 but he had died the following year. In her marriage to Charles Dadswell, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, Charles Frederick, in 1847.

Following the death of Elizabeth (probably in 1849), Charles and their son planned to migrate to Australia where one of Charles' brothers, Thomas Ovenden Dadswell, was already living. However Charles became seriously ill during the 1852 voyage to Australia aboard the sailing ship General Hewett.

This was a three masted, fully rigged ship of 973 tonnes built in Bengal in 1812 for the East India Company and used as a transport for mahogany logs. The ship was also once used as a convict transport to New South Wales and possibly Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), from 1814. It usually had a crew of around 80 and made a number of journeys to Sydney via Adelaide and Port Phillip (Melbourne) in the 1850s.

On this occasion the General Hewett was carrying merchandise and 185 passengers from England. An extract from 'Eliza's Diary 1852' (written by a passenger, whose surname is not known) records the ship left London docks on August 14th, sailed to Plymouth, then resumed the voyage, 'crossing the line' (the equator) on October 13th and nearing the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, on November 12th.

She then tells of the death of a fellow passenger on November 22nd, and went on to write "Saturday [November 27th] Mr Dadswell died." So there is a record that Charles Dadswell died on 27 November 1852 while aboard the General Hewett although the exact location is not recorded. According to NSW shipping records, three passengers died during this voyage - two from dysentery and one from fever.

While the NSW passenger list for this trip gives the names of cabin passengers, it does not record the names of steerage passengers (those travelling in the cheaper accommodation sometimes used for cargo).

The Dadswell name does not appear among cabin passenger names but it appears that Charles and his four-year-old son Charles Frederick Dadswell (born 1847 in London) were on board - the younger Charles continued onto Australia and when the ship arrived in Sydney almost a month later, on 24 December 1852, he was taken into the care of one of his uncles, Thomas Ovenden Dadswell, (1802-1880) a bootmaker living at 34 King Street, Sydney.

Key family dates

Child -

1. Charles Frederick Dadswell born 1 May 1847 - died NSW 8 August 1928

[Charles Frederick, an ancestor of Sydney Dadswells including sculptor Lyndon Dadswell and forester Eric Dadswell, migrated to Sydney in 1852].

Further information

Robert and Mary Dadswell (generation 6, parents of Charles Dadswell)