On this day, 24 July 1900, Sir Neville Reginald Howse (pictured above) became the first soldier in Australian services to be awarded a Victoria Cross medal - Britain’s highest award for valour “in the face of the enemy”.

Born in Somerset, England, in 1863, Howse studied medicine in London before migrating to Australia. He served in the Second Boer War with the NSW Army Medical Corps. 

On 24 July 1900, under heavy cross-fire he went to rescue a fallen trumpeter. When his horse was shot beneath him, he continued on foot and on reaching the casualty, dressed his wound and carried him to safety.

Howse died in September 1930, aged 66.

You can have a look at the names, gravesites and other details for the recipients of the Victoria Cross in our UK, Victoria Cross Medals, 1857 - 2007 collection.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on this day, 21 July in 1899 in Chicago, USA, to Clarence Edmond and Grace Hall Hemingway.

After high school, Hemingway left for the Italian front, enlisting with the World War 1 ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. He is shown in the 1920 US Census above, with his occupation was listed as “none”.

Hemingway went on to marry 4 times, published 7 novels and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He died in July 1961, aged 61.

Captain Matthew Flinders died on this day, 19^th July, in 1814.

Born in England in 1774, Flinders was the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent.

He is shown above in the NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Papers in 1798 on a list of grants and leases of land registered in the Colonial Secretary’s Office.

On his return to England in 1803, Flinders was held captive in Mauritius for 6 years. It was during this time that he started his famous book and atlas, A Voyage to Terra Australis.

There are numerous places in Australia that have been named after Matthew Flinders – the most famous being Flinders Island in Bass Strait. 

The UK, Victoria Cross Medals, 1857-2007 collection lists the recipients of the Victoria Cross (VC), Britain’s highest award for valour “in the face of the enemy”.

On 15 July 1942, two New Zealanders distinguished themselves and were recognised with the Victoria Cross.

Sergeant Keith Elliot (pictured above) was awarded the Victoria Cross after he led a bayonet charge, despite being wounded, which resulted in the capture of four enemy machine-gun posts, an anti-tank gun and fifty prisoners. He refused medical aid until he had reformed his men and handed over the prisoners, which amounted to over 130.

Captain Charles Upham (pictured above) is the only combat soldier, and the third ever, to have been awarded a second Victoria Cross medal, the first being in 1941. In July 1942, he personally destroyed a German tank, several guns and vehicles, despite a broken arm.

Charles Upham died in Christchurch in 1994, aged 86. 

You can view names, photos, grave sites and other details of the recipients of the VC in the Victoria Cross Medals, 1857-2007 collection.

On this day, 13th July, in 1945, Ben Chifley became the 16th Australian Prime Minister.

Joseph Benedict Chifley was born on 22 September 1885 in Bathurst, NSW. He was an engine driver for many years before becoming Prime Minister after the death of John Curtin in 1945.

He is shown above in a 1930 Australian Electoral Roll with his wife Elizabeth.

Ben Chifley was Prime Minister until December 1949 and died in June 1951, aged 65.

We recently added over 67,000 prisoner records and mug-shots of Victorian criminals with the Dorset, England Prison Admission and Discharge Registers 1782-1901 and Dorset, England, Calendar of Prisoners, 1854-1904.

These records provide a vivid glimpse into the world of Victorian crime with the prisoners included convicted for a variety of offences.

Those convicted of minor crimes such as petty theft and drunkenness were forced to face the wrath of the Victorian judicial service - crimes which today would likely receive a far lesser sentence. Examples include -

• Samuel Baker ­– aged 73, Samuel Baker was sentenced to nine months’ hard labour after breaking into a house to steal two brushes, some vests, and a pair of stockings in 1893.
   
• Charles Wood – this unemployed local drunk was sentenced to one month in prison for ‘refusing to quit the beer-house’, in 1872.
   
• George Pill (shown above)– aged just 18, soldier George Pill stole a donkey from neighbour in 1894, resulting in a punishment of six weeks’ hard labour.

Examples of dangerous criminals in the records guilty of crimes such as arson and murder include:

• James Seal – in 1858, labourer James Seal was found guilty of the wilful murder of Sarah Ann Guppy. He received the death penalty for his crime, and was sentenced to be hanged.
  
   

• William Parsons (shown above)– this labourer was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1891 for committing arson, after he ‘maliciously and feloniously’ set fire to a neighbour’s barn. 

These records are of particular value to family historians as they pre-date Civil Registration so you can delve deeper into the past than other historical records allow.

Let us know if you uncover a convict ancestor on our Facebook wall!

David Brown, along with his mother, brothers and sisters, decided to emigrate from Dundee in Scotland to Perth, Western Australia in 1929. They had been working in Dundee within the jute industry, but the industry was on the decline, and the Australian Government was encouraging migrants to settle in Australia by paying most of their fare.

David Brown was only 19 when he left Scotland, but he was already engaged to be married to Madge MacKenzie. Madge’s father had emigrated to Perth as well, and the plan was for Madge to follow her father and fiance the next year.

However, the Great Depression hit in 1929 and the assisted immigration scheme shut down. Madge was stranded in Dundee. Her family in Australia tried to save enough money to get her out, but the depression made this difficult. It took seven years for Madge to make it to Perth where she eventually married her fiance, David, in 1838. 

The story was not such a happy one for David’s older brother Thomas who had also emigrated to Perth. He also left behind a loved one. Tom had married Jane Ogilvie, who was 4 months pregnant, just before he left for Australia. Jane stayed in Dundee to look after her sick father and, although Tom kept trying to get her over to Australia, by the time they could manage it, too many years had passed and they divorced. Their daughter grew up in Dundee, and died in 2009, having never known her father.

Thanks to Ancestry.com.au, David Brown’s grandson, David, has recently contacted Tom’s grand-daughter in Scotland, and David has been sharing family memories and photos of Tom.

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was born on this day, 25 June in 1903 in India. 

He moved to England at the age of one and is shown below on the 1911 England and Wales Census, aged 7, with his mother  Ida, sister Avril and 2 servants.

Eric Blair went on to become a renowned author and journalist, best known for his novels Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, which together sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th century author.

He died in January 1950, aged 46. 

We have recently added the 1940 US Federal Census to Ancestry.com.au with the states of New York, Washington DC, Delaware, Maine and Nevada currently searchable by name.

Here are just a handful of recognizable names we’ve discovered in Washington DC and New York. 

Washington DC

Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

President Franklin Roosevelt and wife Eleanor are in the White House, just where you’d expect them.

Marvin Gaye  

The census taker arrived at the Gay family residence on Marvin’s first birthday April 2, where Marvin was enumerated along with his father Marvin Sr., who was a preacher, his mother, Alberta, and one brother and one sister. 

J. Edgar Hoover 

Living alone at 413 Seward Square in Washington, D.C., Hoover, the FBI director, had been leading the bureau (formerly the Bureau of Investigation) since he was appointed director in 1924 by Calvin Coolidge, and he would continue in that role until his death in 1972.

New York

Katherine Hepburn  

“The Great Kate” was in New York acting in the stage version of The Philadelphia Story, which had closed its year-long run at the Shubert Theater just a few days before the census was taken. She wouldn’t be in New York for long though, as she needed to be back in Hollywood where the movie version of The Philadelphia Story began filming in July of that year. 

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The philanthropist and iconic businessman had driven “The Last Rivet” in the final original building in Rockefeller Center the previous year and was basking in the success of his now-thriving “city within a city.” 

Billie [Elnora] Holiday 

Born Eleanora Harris, Billie lists her occupation as a singer in a night club, and is living with her mother, Sadie, and friend and fellow musician, Irene Wilson. 

The 1940 US Census is free to search on Ancestry.com.au. Let us know on Facebook if you make any discoveries!