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| George Buck |
George was born in 1835, the last of seven children to Daniel Buck and Elizabeth Poulter in Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, England. Sadly George's father died the same year he was born.
George's grandparents, George Buck and Elizabeth Gaylor, had married around the turn of the century and gave birth to eleven children, the majority dying young. Census records show that when they were aged in their late 70’s they were living with their daughter Sarah Flitton in the parish of Ickleton.
George is listed in the 1841 Census living with his mother and older sister Ann. In the 1851 Census he is living with his mother and working as a labourer at the age of sixteen. His mother is listed as pauper.
Ann married William Ashby in December 1853 and immigrated to Australia within the month, settling in Camberwell Victoria. George followed them in June 1854; leaving Southhampton England on the ‘Tantivy’ at the age of 19. George and Ann’s eldest brother Edward was their sole living sibling who remained in Cambridgshire.
Emigration records has him listed as a Church of England farm labourer from Cambridgeshire who emigrated in June 1854 arriving in Sydney in September and able to both read and write.
George worked as a drover and farmer in the Maitland area of Australia and was a miner at Rocky River. He helped make roads and made money at the Mudgee diggings. He selected 1,000 acres of freehold land on the Coonamble Road four miles from Dubbo near Troy and called his property ‘Rose Hill’. Part of this land was leased and the remainder grazed. George bred high class draught horses and owned a splendid stallion called Jack the Lad.
He married Mary Gilroy in 1862. Mary was the eldest child of Francis and Anne Gilroy who emigrated from Ireland in 1840.
Death claimed George on 5th December 1913 from gastroenteritis over four days, he was aged 79. His occupation at death was listed as farmer; witnesses were his son-in-law Thomas Arthur Lesslie and S Piper. The informant was his son Daniel Buck, Rosehill, Dubbo.
George’s son, Hugh Alfred Buck, cabdriver, passed away and was laid to rest next to his father two days after his father’s burial in the Old Dubbo Cemetery.