Our mariner ancestors

OUR MYSTERIOUS GREAT GRANDFATHERS

Barbara Romeril, November 2013

Our father’s grandfathers are exotic and mysterious figures in our family history. Both came from the other side of the world, earned their livings on the sea as merchant seamen and disappeared before our father was born. Dad’s paternal grandfather ran away when his son was only 2 years old and was never heard from again; and his maternal grandfather died tragically when his daughter was only 11. So my father never knew either grandfather and grew up on a slim diet of family stories about these mysterious men. Some of these stories are quite dramatic and beg the question of how much the facts have been embroidered over the generations to enhance the reputation of men who are long gone. But our genealogy research has unearthed solid evidence that many of these stories are in fact true – including an unfaithful wife and a tragic suicide on the other side of the continent.

THE SAD STORY OF JOHAN MAGNUS BRUDUS

Swedish mariner, Australian husband and father, absent grandfather

(Based on extensive research gathered over decades by many family members, but most significantly, by my cousin Sandra Reid – thank you for bringing our lost great grandfather to life.)

Where did Johan Magnus Brudus come from?

My grandmother’s father, Johan Magnus Brudus[i] was born in Sweden in 1852 in the small holiday resort city of Borgholm on the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. He was the 10^th child of Carl Magnus Brudus and the 7^th child with Carl’s second wife Stina (Christina) Maria Kresus.

Carl was a shoemaker, factory owner and tanner. He had had 3 children with his first wife, one stillborn. He remarried at the age of 40 and quickly had 3 more children but then tragedy struck; their fourth child died at the age of only 18 months and was followed by two more stillbirths. So when Stina’s 7^th child was born alive he was given the same name as the older brother who had died 5 years earlier - Johan Magnus. And his birth marked the end of the bad luck for Carl and Stina with two more live births completing their family.

But bad luck returned 9 years later when Carl went bankrupt at the age of 68 and died 3 years later.

Johan was 15 when his father went bankrupt and nearly 18 when his father died. Within 3 years all three of Carl’s surviving sons from his second marriage had emigrated from Sweden – Karl went to China 15 months after his father died and 10 days later Johan went to Australia. 3 years later Nils emigrated to USA.

Johan was only 19 years of age when he left Sweden from Lilla Horn to emigrate presumably to London[ii] in 1871. His older sister Melusina was married and settled with a young family and he left his mother with two younger sisters aged 15 and 17. Perhaps the brothers dispersed around the globe to earn money to send home to support their mother and sisters.

Johan’s Early Years in Australia

To date we have not found a record of Johan’s arrival in Australia. His naturalization papers from 1899 who that he arrived in NSW in 1872 aboard the ship Barcoo, landing in Sydney. This may have been his arrival in Australia.

The earliest available records confirm the family story that Johan was a seaman – from 1883 to 1891 he worked on a number of merchant vessels plying the eastern seaboard from Sydney to Queensland as far north as Rockhampton and south to Melbourne. We have located him on crew lists for the steamships Conference, the Kielawarra, the Maranoa and the Barcoo, often working one or more voyages a week up to the time of his marriage in 1887.

Kielawarra built 1875, sank spectacularly after a collision with a steam launch the Ant in Fitzroy River in Queensland (from  www.wrecksite.eu downloaded 23.11.13)

Married Life in Sydney

Johan was living at 27 Day Street in Sydney in April 1887 when he married Ada Jane Nixon at her home ‘Liskeard’ in Paddington Street Paddington in Sydney in a ceremony according to the Presbyterian rites. The marriage was witnessed by Ada’s father William Henry Nixon and an Agnes Arrowsmith.

A month later, in May Johan resumed his regular voyages on the Barcoo, up and down the coast to Brisbane, Cooktown and Melbourne. These voyages were not interrupted by the birth of their first child Mildred in 1889 in Sydney’s Balmain North (in 1890 the Brudus family were listed as residing at 6 Adolphus Lane Balmain).

Early in 1890 Johan transferred to the Arawatta and continued his relentless routine of voyages at least monthly up and down the eastern coast of Australia. Sometimes his family travelled with him - In February 1890 Ada Brudus and ‘infant’ travelled on the Arawatta from Melbourne to Sydney.

Further records of Johan’s maritime career after the middle of 1891 are yet to be found.

In 1892 their second child Annie Christine was born in Sydney, her middle name presumably a tribute to Johan’s mother Christina. But then something happened – possibly a family breakdown and definitely a tragic death.

Life in Melbourne

After 22 years based in Sydney, Johan spent the final 13 years of his life in Melbourne; his naturalization papers who he lived in Victoria from 1893.

The records show A. Brudus residing in South Melbourne at 15 Northumberland Street in 1893. Records at this time list the male householder so it seems that perhaps Ada had established a separate residence from Johan, before he arrived from Sydney. And then the following year Annie Christine died in South Melbourne at only 2[iii] years of age.

But with tragedy came family reunification; two years later on 10 January 1896 our grandmother Josephine Annie was born in South Melbourne and from this time the family is listed under the name J. Brudus living at 6 Market Street South Melbourne.

The family story is that during these years in Melbourne Johan worked on pilot boats piloting ships into Port Phillip Bay. We continue to search for crew records for these pilot boats.

In February 1899 Johan was naturalized while still living at 6 Market Street South Melbourne.  A month later his mother Stina died in Sweden.

Family folklore includes some disturbing stories of emotional cruelty in the family; Josephine told of estrangement between her parents and a court case for her custody as a little girl. She told of feeling much closer to her father than her mother who she found cold and unloving; her mother told her she must stand up in court and say which parent she wanted to live with but she should beware of choosing her father because he would give her away to strangers. So Josephine went against her feelings and nominated her mother, who then arranged for her to live with family friends in the same street, precisely the unhappy outcome her mother had accused her father of planning.

After the breakup, Johan travelled to Perth on the Coolgardie where he committed suicide by drowning in the Swan River on 17 January 1906. As a strong swimmer he took the precaution of tying heavy weights around his neck before jumping into the water - a tragic end to an unhappy life. He was just short of his 54^th birthday and left a difficult wife and two daughters aged 11 and 17 years.

One family story is that Johan was broken hearted at losing his family and was trying to get a job on a ship returning to Sweden but his age and arthritis made him unemployable in his profession and he killed himself out of despair. But a witness at the coronial inquiry gave an account that suggests he despaired after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile with Ada:

SUICIDE IN THE WEST

Perth, Wednesday

The adjourned inquest on the body of Joseph Brudus, which was found in the river on January 19, was held yesterday. Evidence was given that deceased had worked his passage from Melbourne on the steamer Coolgardie. He expected to find his wife in Perth and was greatly upset when he found she had gone back to Melbourne. He threatened to commit suicide, but a few days later said he had telegraphed for his wife to return. He then seemed to be in his proper state of mind. The jury returned a verdict that deceased committee suicide whilst temporarily insane.

Barrier Miner, Wednesday 24 January 1906 p.2 (from trove.nla.giva.au downloaded 23.11.13)

We may never know the full circumstances but what we do know is that 3 days after his death Johan was buried in Perth, reportedly in a pauper’s grave, far away from his birth family in Sweden and his descendants on the eastern seaboard; and that his grandsons never met him.

What is clear is that Ada had moved on; only 3 months after Johan’s death she remarried, this time a man two thirds her age, with whom she was sharing a home at 15 Emerald Street South Melbourne. She lived to the age of 60 and is buried in Coburg Cemetery with her daughter Josephine Annie and a granddaughter Marie who died as an infant.

But his descendants have not forgotten him; his great granddaughters have recently placed a plaque in the general area of Johan’s grave, with the words:

JOHAN MAGNUS BRUDUS Mariner b. Sweden 1852 Father of Mildred, Annie & Josephine Annie

In despair drowned himself in Swan River 17.1.1906

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[i] Brudus is the local pronunciation of Brutus, a soldier’s name. Most people have patronymics ie names ending in –son or –daughter (dotter), denoting their father’s first name. Soldiers were given proper family names by their commanding officers when they enlisted. Sometimes these names followed in later generations, sometimes not. Solder’s names could be derived from their homes, from personal attributes or from classical sources. (Source: Mats Lonengren, In charge of research requests, Genealogical Society of Sweden to Sandra Reid 24.5.2012)

[ii] We are advised that most young Swedes who emigrated at this time went first to the UK

[iii] Precise age to be confirmed