LORD, Simeon (1771-1840)

Simeon was born in Todmorden, Yorkshire, England on 28th January 1771. His parents were Simeon LORD and Ann FIELDEN.

In 1790 he was charged with the theft of some cloth, although he protested his innocence, was convicted 22nd April 1790. He was sentenced to 7 years transportation and landed in Sydney 20th August 1791 aboard the “Atlantic”, a ship of the Third Fleet. The “Atlantic” was the first ship to sail from Portsmouth to Rio de Janeiro, nonstop.

Simeon was assigned to Captain Thomas ROWLEY who encouraged him to invest some of the funds he had bought with him (convicts able to bring funds with them) and by 1798 when he was a free man he began his career.

On 27th October 1814 Simeon married Mary HYDE; they already had 5 children and went on to have 3 more children. Mary already had 2 children, Mary Anne BLACK and John Henry BLACK from her relationship with John BLACK who was lost at sea in 1802. Also living with the family were Simeon’s adopted daughter Johanna and Simeon was also the guardian of Louisa SKINNER. (14 persons total)

Simeon’s business interests included, importing and selling of goods, although at one stage he was not popular with Governor KING for dealing with the French, purchasing and selling property, owned ships used for trade, rope making industry, iron ore mining in Van Diemen’s Land for a while, owned large amounts of land, but most successful was his clothing mills in Botany where he created the Mill Pond for use in his factories and lived with his family at “Banks House”.

In the mid 1800’s when the city needed more clean drinking water as the Tank Stream and the Busby’s Bore were becoming polluted Lord’s flour mill and the adjacent sandstone brick building were used to pump clean water to the Crown Street Reservoir for household use.

In 1976 when work was being done at St Matthews Church Botany the Simeon Lord vault was opened by an undertaker under the direction of the health Commissioner and the remains of 8 persons were found inside, wrapped in linen cloth and the phenol that had been used for preservation could still be smelt. Correct procedure had to be followed so the remains were cremated on 30th June 1976 and were placed inside the vault.

A brass tablet with the names of the occupants was placed on the vault and painted with black paint for security reasons.

The cost was born by the Fairfax family (newspaper Family) as they are descendants of Simeon Lord and Warwick Fairfax had the original stone taken to the Fairfax property and arranged for a replica to be placed on vault.

Children of Simeon Lord and Mary Hyde:

• Sarah Ann (Ramsey) 1806-1889
• Louisa 1808-1896
• Simeon Lord (Jnr) 1810-1892
• Francis Lord 1812-1897
• Edmund Lord 1814-1884
• Thomas Lord 1816-1876
• George Lord 1818-1880
• Robert Charles 1821-1857

Sources: National Library of Australia – Trove, ancestry.com.au, State Records NSW, Botany Pioneer Memorial Park headstone transcription