John Bowman Wilson

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John Bowman Wilson was born in Tasmania on the 10th of October, 1830, and arrived in Victoria in 1857 with his wife Agnes and family, to try his luck on the Castlemaine goldfields.

John was also accompanied by his brother William Sorell Wilson and his family, who were on their way to manage ‘Truganina’, a property in Derrimut, Victoria.

By 1863, the family had moved to the Mornington Peninsula where, in 1869, John and William purchased ‘Tuerong’.  John certainly did not have much luck farming because he became insolvent in 1880 and sold ‘Tuerong’ back to his brother and his own son, Edwin.

The property is now largely subdivided into extensive vineyards, notably Red Hill Estate, Dromana Estate, Tuerong Estate and others. The freeway to Rosebud now passes through where the original property stood.

John Bowman died on the 13th of February, 1893, aged 62 and Agnes died a year later, aged 61. They are buried together in the Mornington cemetery.

With the exception of little Agnes Eliza Wilson, who is buried in the Castlemaine cemetery (died at age 2½ yrs), all of John Bowman and Agnes Eliza’s eleven children grew up and married and had their families, so that the Wilson family is today still well represented by the Victorian descendants of William Hartley Wilson and his wife Margaret (nee Bowman) - John and William's parents.

John’s ninth child, Chas, is also buried in Mornington Cemetery. John's grandson, Charles Bowman Wilson, who was born on 10 November 1903, became the Shire President of Mornington, and the C.B. Wilson Reserve on Wilsons Road in Mornington is named after him.

 

Headstone and Grave Site.