The Folk from the Wind Wound Isle > Chapter 10 : Margaret Robertson
page 45
Born 1850 - Died 1925 - Married name CHISELETT
Born at Hellister, Shetland on 14 November 1850, Margaret was the third daughter and seventh surviving child of Arthur Robertson and Margaret Henderson. She would have been named after her mother. Margaret arrived in Australia in 1867 accompanied by her sister Agnes and brother Arthur. She was sixteen years of age and her occupation is given as knitter. The new arrivals joined their family in the Lake Tooliorook / Derrinallum area of Victoria.
Margaret Robertson with two friends
Margaret is on the right >
At the age of nineteen, Margaret married George CHISELETT (1844-1894) at Tooliorook on 15 July 1870. George's family had come to Australia from Somerset, England, when George was five years old and settled in Geelong. After the death of his father in 1866, George moved to Victoria's Western district, working on sheep properties and for the Robertson family in their stone fence building activities. This would have been how he met Margaret.
< George Chiselett
Margaret and George had eleven children including two sets of twins. Only five of the children lived to full maturity. These were Arthur (1872), Selina (1876), Muriel (18823, Ruth (1885) and Willliam (1888). Margaret's third child was stillbom and the first set of twins died soon after birth in 1884. Susan Chiselett, the fourth child, was working as a domestic in Melbourne in 1899 when she contracted typhoid fever and died, during an epidemic of the disease. She was twenty years old. Barbara, the youngest child, died of rheumatic fever in 1904 at the age of thirteen. Robert Chiselett (William's twin) was accidentally killed in 1909 when he was working in a quarry not far from Port Campbell. While blasting rock one of the charges failed to detonate. Robert went to investigate, only to have the charge go off and kill him. He was one month short of his twenty-first birthday.
page 46
Ruth Chiselett's son Gordon Croft, published The Chiselett Story in 1981 1 and from this we learn much about Margaret and her family. Margaret's first child was born at Tooliorook. The family then moved to Ellerslie where Margaret’s brother James was living, and the next two children were born there. Susan was born in Melbourne, but why Margaret was in Melbourne we do not know. By this time the rest of the Robertson family had settled at Port Campbell and Margaret and George joined them there in 1880. Margaret's younger children were all born at Port Campbell.
The ChiseIett’s first home at Port Campbell was a slab hut on flat ground adjacent to the cemetery. The family lived there for seven years. 2 In 1887, when Margaret's brother Robert moved his family away from Port Campbell, the Chiseletts moved into Robert's house on high ground 2 km further north along the road to Timboon. This would appear to be Lot 7 on the Lands Department map, which is marked in the name of G Chiselett, however Gus Ward tells me that this land was not cleared until it was eventually acquired by his grandparents Mime and Chris Ward, who lived there in a house called Blackwood Bank. 3
Gus believes the Chiseletts' house, called the 'Pines' - was in fact one part of Lot 7A, which is on the other side of the present Timboon Rd. Gus has provided me with a photograph of this house. l am not sure how this fits in with other information obtained from Gus Ward who tells us that Arthur Robertson Jnr either sold or gave a section of his land to Margaret on condition that if she sold it. Arthur was to have first offer. Perhaps this was the land east of the cemetery where the Chiseletts first resided at
Chiselett House at Port Campbell in 1928
page 47
Port Campbell. In the event Margaret and Arthur had a falling out and Margaret sold the land to someone else. 4
From necessity George Chiselett spent much of his time working away from home. In 1894 he and son Arthur were working in Beulah where another Robertson brother, William Adie, was living. George suffered from asthma. While staying at Thorne’s Coffee Palace, he became ill and after a short illness he died there on 18 December. He was buried in the Beulah cemetery with the service conducted by William Adie Robertson. George's grave is unmarked.
Margaret continued living at Port . Campbell. Arthur Chislett was working away from home and by late 1900 he was married and living near Cobden. Selina and Susan left home to work as domestic servants in Melbourne. ln his book about the Chiseletts, Gordon Croft published two of Margaret's letters to her daughter Selina, at the time she was working in Melboume. Apparently unable to write herself, Margaret had to rely on others to write for her. In a letter dated 2 June 1900, she states - “I have been buying the papers for the last nine months as I could not get them from your Uncle as none of them come here, and I am not sorry. Arthur and your Uncle had a row and ordered him out of his house and so all of them is not coming.” 5 The Arthur mentioned was presumably Margaret's eldest son and we can only speculate whether the uncle mentioned was Arthur Robertson, as he was the only Robertson (apart from Margaret), still living in the area at the time. Of course the reference could have been to one of the Chiselett uncles.
George Chiselett and Margaret Robertson Chiselett >
Selina married Henry Croft in 1904 and Ruth married Richard Croft in 1905. The two Crofts were brothers. William, who was the youngest surviving child after his twin brother Robert was killed in 1909, continued to live at home until 1911, helping to run the family's small farm. Muriel found domestic work in Melbourne but after Ruth married, Muriel returned home to live with her mother and help run the farm.
In 1923 Muriel married James Dickinson and moved to Murrayville. Shortly before her death Margaret moved to Camperdown to live with Selina and Henry Croft. She died in the Camperdown hospital on 18 October 1925 in her 75th year. She is buried in the Port Campbell cemetery.
From time to time Margaret would visit relations and Gertie Grace remembers Margaret Chiselett as big, tall and upstanding. “She was a trick of a woman that one. Very forthright and she didn't choose her words nicely either sometimes. The exact opposite of Grandma [Margaret's sister Agnes]. Grandma was very sedate and very religious. One day she was up home visiting Grandma and [my] Mum was rushing around. [Margaret asked]:
‘Agnes what are you making such a fuss for today?‘
‘I've got the minister coming for breakfast.‘
‘Those dills, I hate them devils’
‘Margaret, oh Margaret, how could you say that about God's ministers’. 6page 48
Seems Margaret did not have the same religious fervour as her brothers and sister and Gertie confirms this, “She wasn't of the same ilk, she definitely wasn’t, l don't know what was wrong with her.” I have been told George Chislett was a lay preacher, however his and Margaret's names are not included in the list of members who joined the Port Campbell Baptist Church before 1900. Margaret's brothers and sister are all listed as members, as is her eldest son Arthur. Maybe the hardships and losses in her life had made Margaret more cynical than her siblings. She has been described to me as a hard, cold woman with little sympathy for others. According to her grandson, Norman Chislett, Margaret expected to be waited on and would say to his mother, ‘You know Emmy, work will never hurtya', while she herself never did much. Norm believes it was Emma rather than Margaret who nursed young Barbara when she was dying of rheumatic fever.
To her son Margaret advised, ‘Keep the reins in your own hands Arthur, keep the reins in your own hands’, and this, according to his son Norman, is certainly what he did. 8
1 G. Croft,The Chiselett Story. See also Gordon's other book Croft Family History: 1803-1974.
2 G. Croft,The Chiselett Story, p.39
3 interview and correspondence with Gus Ward
4 Interview with Gus Ward. April 2000
5 G. Croft,The Chiselett Story, p.45
6 Interview with Gertie Grace, April 2000
7 Interview with Norman Chislett at Boundary Bend, April 2000
8 This seems to me a very Robertson trait. The Robertsons, both male and female. liked to be in charge of their own destinies and seemed keener about telling others how to behave, than to do the bidding of others.
Garry Gillard | New: 15 March, 2019 | Now: 5 September, 2022