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John Bisdee (1796 - 1862) , the eldest of thirteen children of Thomas and Elizabeth Bisdee of Oldmixton Manor, Somerset, England eloped to marry his wife Anne (nee Green) in 1819. They migrated to Van Diemen's Land via South Africa, arriving in Hobart on the ship 'Westmorland' in May 1821. He received a grant of land which he eventually took up at 'Hutton Park', Spring Hill. He also held public office in Hobart as governor of the goal and poundkeeper. He had two sons and four daughters (Elizabeth Anne, Mary, Sarah, Emma, Thomas and John). Anne died in 1848. He then married Henrietta Charlotte (nee Miller) - (1829 - 1909) by whom he had three daughters (Constance, Sarah, Rose) and a son Edward who died in infancy on 20 March 1860.
John Bisdee persuaded his four brothers Edward, George, Isaac and Alfred Henry to also migrate. Edward (baptised 1802) owned 'Lovely Banks' at Melton Mowbay and 'Sandhill', Jericho. When he returned to England his younger brother inherited 'Sandhill'. Edward built 'Hutton Court' in Somerset, where memebers of the Bisdee family lived for another eighty years. He died in England in 1870 aged 68. His wife was Rose (nee Axford). George (baptised 1811) farmed at 'Woodspring' and 'Heston' in the Bagdad valley. He died in England in 1863 aged 51. Isaac (baptised 1813) farmed 'Lovely Banks' after Edward. He married Eliza Rose Kemp in 1862 and died in Tasmania. His son Edward O. Bisdee married Lilian Davies and they had several children. Alfred Henry married Sarah Butler (the daughter of Gamaliel Butler of 'Stowell' Battery Point and they had Sarah (born 1850), Thomas Gamaliel (born 1852) and Alfred James (born 1855). Alfred Henry died in England in 1898.
John Bisdee also returned to England, where he died on the 18 November 1862. His son John Bisdee, born in 1831, inherited 'Hutton Park'. He married Ellen Butler and their nine children were: Winchester Munn Bisdee, who married Eva Dorinda Wright at St Paul's Church of England, Glenorchy on 15 Jan 1883 and had children Athol (born 1885), Bernard (born 1886), Stephen (born 1888) and Dorothy (born 1889); lived at 'Tedworth', 'Llanberis' and 'Heston'. Harold, unmarried, lived at Melton Mowbray. Lucy and Bessie both unmarried, Edith Mary, Reginald, E. Ina (born in 1878), Amy E. and John Hutton Bisdee.
John Hutton Bisdee was born at 'Hutton Park' on 28 September 1869. In 1904 he married Georgina Theodosia Hale (9/12/1861 - 25/12/1926), the daughter of Bishop Hale of Brisbane. They had no children. He was the first Tasmanian to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his services in the Boer War. He attained the rank of Colonel in World War I and received an O.B.E. in June 1919. His diaries (and other Bisdee papers) passed into the possession of his great-niece Annie Bisdee (Mrs John Roderick Wayn), who was the daughter of Stephen Bisdee and his wife Beatrice Shaw, and granddaughter of Winchester Bisdee.
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