Stinker’s History: The Blanch family

FROM the earliest arrivals Edward and Maria, the Blanch family grew in 1839 with the arrival, on board “Cornwall”, of their sons from Kent England, John, George, Stephen and Edward.

The Blanch family are truly remarkable: hard working, highly respected and many in number.

So extensive in fact that I am unable to write a fair report of their great contribution to the area between Salt Ash and Anna Bay.

The area, which includes Marsh Road, was impacted by numerous members of the Blanch family, whether it be through  farming, drain digging, postal delivery, oyster farming, general bushwork, boat building and road construction.

The family was also involved in all sporting and social events.

Much of the story of the Blanch family can be gathered from the obituary of Mrs Eliza Blanch which was written in 1951.

Eliza Blanch (nee Eagleton) was born at Wallalong in 1856.

A member of the local community for over 75 years, she lived until the bright old age of 95.

“The Blanch family at Anna Bay devoted their lives to farming, principally dairying, and market gardening, and as the order of her early years, most of the daylight was occupied in hard, strenuous labour,” the obituary read.

“There were no roads, only sand ones, and the transport from Anna Bay to Newcastle was done on horseback, and this had to be endured for long and weary years.

“Spring carts were used for market gardening, and it was from midnight to midnight to make the journey to Newcastle and back where the produce was disposed of, and the weekly supply of provisions obtained.

“Mrs Blanch shared in all the hardships of the pioneers and had a wonderful fund of experiences to relate of those early days.

“She lived to see the results of their labour and that of their neighbours’ gradually resolved into easier and more comfortable conditions.

“By degrees the sand roads gave way to partly improved surfaces, at least from Salt Ash to Stockton, but from Salt Ash to Anna Bay the road remained for some years a sand stretch which called for endurance and determination.

“Over this type of road Mrs Blanch and her neighbours had to travel and it is these early settlers the country today can applaud for its later progress.

“They laid the foundation by faith in their future, by striving untiringly through long hours and by energy that was determined to see their work done.

“They earned more than the gratitude of those who followed them, and to their ever-living memory should be extended an appreciation higher than that bestowed on those whose generations trod more easy pathways, but often take the guilt that belongs to an earlier and nobler labour.”

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE