The Enterprising Mrs Bilney

Mary Ann Brown was born about 1824 in England. The daughter of carpenter John Brown, she married Mark Bilney, son of Daniel Bilney, at the age of 22 in the Parish Church of Emneth, Norfolk, England in 1847. Both Mark and Mary Ann signed their names on the church register with a mark rather than a signature.

At the age of 23 she left her home in Cambridge and immigrated to South Australia in 1849 with Mark, and one-year-old son George Edmund Bilney (born 4 June 1848) on the ship the Duke of Wellington. The Bilney’s appear to have made the journey from their homeland with members of their extended family, including George Bilney, his wife Ann and their five children. It was not an easy voyage for those making the nearly four month long journey to South Australia. There was one birth and seven deaths on the passage, six of them infants from diarrhoea, whooping cough and pneumonia.

Mary Ann and her family settled in Adelaide and took up market gardening beneath Black Hill in Athelstone. They became one of the first stallholders in the Adelaide East-End Markets. The Bilney’s worked 33 acres of prime farming land, 10 of which were devoted to hay and wheat and around 7 acres to gardens. Located on either side of Coulls Road and beyond the Athelstone Road, these gardens produced apples, loquats, oranges, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms and most famously cayenne pepper. The Athelstone property was said to have offered “a beautiful and comprehensive view of the Adelaide plains, the metropolis of South Australia, and the Gulf beyond”.

The Bilney family of Athelstone are described in the book From the River to the Hills as an “ill-starred family”. Despite their market gardening successes, the couple had several children upon arrival in Australia, all dying at young ages:

• Maria born 13 February 1851 near Dry Creek, died 21 April 1854 aged 3 at Darley in Paradise
• Mary Jane born 10 October 1853, died 1854
• Emma born 6 April 1855 at Mt Barker Road, died 17 April 1855 at 10 days old
• Andrew born 10 December 1857 at Athelstone, died 1864 aged 7

In the 1860s and 70s, Mary Ann began to concentrate her efforts wholeheartedly on the market garden and its produce, and she began to produce canned and bottled sauces and spices for sale. By 1874 around 100 pounds (45kg) of cayenne pepper was reportedly produced in a single year. In same period, no less than 16,000 bottles of the tomato sauce were turned out of the factory and 1,000 pint bottles of Mushroom catsup. Mary Ann's sauces and spices received a gold medal at the London Exhibition 1873-4, the first prize at the Melbourne (Philadelphia) Exhibition, and four first and two second prizes at the Shows of the South Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society. In 1881, Mark Bilney transferred the Athelstone property (Lots 17 & 36 Athelstone) to Mary Anne ‘for her safe and separate use’.

The Bilney’s garden and factory operation was comprised of three parts – the produce gardens, the mill for grinding the peppers into cayenne pepper & the factory where the cooking and bottling of sauces took place.  The gardens were reportedly irrigated with rainwater and water drawn from the Torrens using a horse drawn whim. Before the advent of electric power, whims were used as means of raising water or materials from rivers and mine shafts. The mill for grinding the peppers was located a short distance away in a separate house, the whole operation being surrounded by market and produce gardens.

“At the bottom or the garden is a horse-whim used for raising water from the Torrens. On  the "water lift," which rises to a height of 20 feet—just sufficient for the water to flow all over the garden when conducted through oiled calico pipes—are nineteen galvanized iron buckets, each capable of holding about one gallon. By means of this water supply the garden is thoroughly irrigated throughout the year, and to that fact is no doubt due much of the fertility of the soil there.” - 1876 South Australian Industries.

The buckets and oiled calico pipes, described above would have formed a gravity fed dripper system to the garden beds. By 1893, a steam pump had replaced the horse-whim.

Mark & Mary Ann is only surviving son, George was also employed in the family business. He married Louisa Lomman, daughter of Henry Lomman, at the Bilney Residence in 1876. Louisa and George had two children together, Elsie May in 1877 and Andrew Alexander in 1878. However, tragedy was soon to strike the Bilney family again and sadly, Andrew died aged 1 year 5 months in 1880 followed shortly by his father George. Aged just 33, George passed away at his residence in Athelstone after a long and painful illness of the stomach. Widowed, and with a young daughter to care for, Louisa remarried Michael Driscoll of Dublin, South Australia in 1883. Sadly, Louisa had to also endure the death of her daughter, Elsie Bilney, on 12th January 1891 at the Adelaide Hospital of diphtheria at the age of 13 years 4 months. Louisa went on to have three children with Michael Driscoll and died in 1938.

In 1890 Mark Bilney suffered a paralytic stroke and became bed-bound. He was eventually placed in the Home for Incurables in Fullarton around 1895. Mary Ann continued to run her business and the market garden until her sudden death on 6th February 1898 at her residence in Athelstone. She was 74 years old. Mary Ann is buried in the Athelstone Primitive Methodist Cemetery (now known as the Athelstone Pioneer Cemetery) on Lymn Avenue, Athelstone. Mark Bilney died in December 1898, 10 months after Mary Ann aged 77. He is buried alongside Mary Ann, son George, grandson Andrew and granddaughter Elsie.

Mary Ann’s Athelstone estate of the land, dwelling and their contents, outbuildings, tools horses and irrigation plant was sold at auction in April 1898 to Henry Kimber, a vigneron of Athelstone for £1,000. This also included the plant, tools, market gardener’s van, three horses, harnesses, household furniture.

A year after her death, her good friend and neighbour placed the following notice in The Advertiser newspaper:

In loving memory of my dearly loved friend, Mary Ann Bilney, who died at Athelstone on the 6th February, 1898; also Mark Bilney, the beloved husband of the above, who died on the 29th November, 1898. Far beyond this world of changes, Far beyond this world of care, We shall find our missing loved ones In our Father's mansion fair. —Inserted by their loving friend, F. J. Hutchinson.

Bilney Drive located at the top of Athelstone, off the Dress Circle, has been named after the enterprising Mary Ann Bilney and her market garden and factory.

Researched and compiled by Alison Hall, Digital Literacy Officer at Campbelltown Library for the “Digital Diggers” group.

If you have any comments or questions regarding the information in this local history article, please contact the Local History officer on 8366 9357 or hthiselton@campbelltown.sa.gov.au

REFERENCES

1876 'SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIES.', Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1912), 23 March, p. 3. (SECOND EDITION), viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197689284

1880 'Family Notices',South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), 14 August, p. 4. , viewed 15 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43146543

1883 'Family Notices',The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922), 8 May, p. 2. (SECOND EDITION), viewed 15 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article208337559

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1898 'LAND SALES.', Adelaide Observer (SA : 1843 - 1904), 23 April, p. 22. , viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162321189

1898 'Advertising',Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1912), 27 April, p. 4. (ONE O'CLOCK EDITION), viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199931068

1898 'Advertising',South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), 6 April, p. 8. , viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article54547289

1893 'THE TOILERS OF THE HILLS.',South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), 22 July, p. 6., viewed 15 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article53618232

1899 'Family Notices', The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922), 6 February, p. 2. (ONE O'CLOCK EDITION.), viewed 15 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article209523474

1898 'Family Notices', Adelaide Observer (SA : 1843 - 1904), 12 February, p. 24. , viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162388889

1898 'SPECIAL NOTICE.', South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), 1 December, p. 4. , viewed 14 Oct 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56539028

Swiggum (2018). Passenger List - Duke of Wellington, London & Plymouth to Adelaide, 1849. [online] Theshipslist.com. Available at: http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/dukeofwellington1849.shtml [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].

Warburton, Elizabeth & Campbelltown (S.A.). Corporation 1986, From the river to the hills : Campbelltown, 150 years, Corporation of the City of Campbelltown, [Campbelltown, S. Aust.] p126