Sarah Miller

SARAH MILLER                                       Talk given by Diana Harband 1st April 2017

In my talk today I would like to concentrate on the second generation after my first fleeter, and the differences in social conditions from her parents. Ann Martin and William Miller had one daughter Sarah Miller born on Sept 4 1795. She was the 501person to be baptised in the colony. Her parents were never married and didn't stay together, with the result that Sarah was placed in care from 1801, Her mother Ann was a prostitute and died in 1806 at Parramatta. Her death was recorded by Samuel Marsden which suggests she was somehow in the care of the Female Factory.

Sarah was placed in the Orphan Institution when she was 7. This was set up by Governor King in 1801 to save the youth of the colony from destructive parents.

The Orphan Institution was a large house and gardens bounded by present day George St & Bridge St. It was managed by a committee of trustees including Reverends Richard Johnson and Samuel Marsden and in 1801 took in 49 girls from 7 to 14 years.

The children were well-fed, cared for and taught needlework, reading, spinning and a few learnt writing.

When Sarah was 11 she was sent out to the Hawkesbury to Clarendon to be a servant in the house of William Cox, formerly a soldier who became a landowner, a magistrate ,erected many

government buildings, and 1814 supervised the road built from Sydney to Bathurst over the blue Mountains.

Five years later when she was 16 she became pregnant to James Cox, William's son. James hastily married Mary Connell 8: went to live in Tasmania where he became a prominent pastoralist.

William Cox arranged for Sarah to marry Christian Sternbeck, a convict labourer at Clarendon. Christian & Sarah were married in July 1812 when the child was 4 months old. He was named James

Miller, and raised with the other Sternbeck children.

Christian Sternbeck, a ligherman in the London docks, was tried for stealing two dirty old blankets at the Old Bailey in September 1800. He was 17 years old & was sentenced to be hanged. He was committed to Newgate Prison, but in November, his sentence was commuted to transportation for life. He spent 13 months in a prison hulk in Langston 'Harbour and in December 1801 he was

transferred to the Perseus with 111 other male prisoners The Perseus set sail with the Coromandel on February 2nd 1802 and arrived in August. Christian was sent to the Hawkesbury near Windsor to work as an assigned labourer.  In 1804 he was assigned to William Cox who had settled on the banks on the Hawkesbury in July 1804. Cox was a humane employer not only in his treatment of Christian but also his treatment of Sarah. Normally girls who became pregnant by their employers or family ended up in the Female Factory at Parramatta.

At the end of 1815, Christian was pardoned and got his ticket-of -leave. In August 1815 their first daughter Ann Hannah was born and they moved away from Windsor. They became farmers at St Albans on the Macdonald River. St Albans became a river settlement and an easy place to get produce to Sydney markets via Macdonald River Christian occupied a 40 acre lot which he started to buy in 1819, He later acquired an extra 38 acres & bought an additional lot of 25 acres in 1833. During his life as a farmer he endured many floods and destruction of crops and animals. He worked very hard & became successful.

His house “Primrose Hill” still stands and is owned by a great grand daughter.

There were 4 Sternbeck children. Ann Hannah b 1815, George b.1817, William b 1819 & Elizabeth b 1823. I am descended from George. George married Jane Sophia Thompson in 1839 and their

daughter Mary Anne b 1859 was my great grand mother Sarah died in 1841 age 46 and Christian remarried in 1847 and died in Windsor in 1860 and is buried in the churchyard of St

Matthews GE