THE NUGENT FAMILY
AND EARLY DAYS AT MIEPOLL

Notes on discussion with Renee Nugent Burns, then of 84 Edgecliff Road, Bondi Junction, at one of the reunions in the late 1970s (at the Sutherland Police Boys Club)

Renee Nugent was born in Miepoll on 23/09/1889 as the second child and eldest daughter of Edward Nugent and Margaret Kerr Nugent. Her maternal grandmother was Margaret McCloskey Kerr, a sister of Ellen McCloskey Broderick.

Molly Ainsworth od 1/14 Hayes St, Neutral Bay is a great-grand daughter of Mary McCloskey Mullins, of Tylden Victoria, , also a sister of Ellen McCloskey Broderick.

Paddy McCloskey also owned the hotel just out of Arcadia, the hotel being situated on his farm.
(It was common practice in those days for hopeful settlers to select their 640-acre blocks and then set up a shanty, in the hope that the station owner, from whose land the selection was made, would get fed up with the unruly patrons of such establishments and buy the place out and burn the shanty.)

Dick Condon recalls that there was a McCloskey mentioned (not favouyrably) in Christopher Koch's "Ned Kelly" who also came from the Euroa district. That book gives a good idea of how people in that area lived in those days.

The Kerr family

Samuel and Margaret McCloskey Kerr selected a farm near Arcadia onm the Goulburn River n a few miles upstream of Shepparton. Samuel Kerr came from Ireland (Stuart Town in Co. Tyrone), born of Protestant parents. He came out to Australia on the "Lightning, landing in Australia at Geelong. He went to Moonee Ponds and took a job as a stable boy. Margaret McCloskey worked on the same property as a servant, Samuel Kerr and Margaret McCloskey
were married in St.Francis’ Church in Lonsdale St. Melbourne, and went to live in Kyneton.

Jim Kerr was born at Kyneton and was killed in a mining accident at Valhalla. He had been working in the mines at Broken Hill and was visiting friends at valhalla, and agreed to take another miner’s shift to help him out. He and another miner and an inspector were killed while they were investigating an unexploded charge.

The Nugent family

Ellen Kerr (daughter of Margaret McCloskey Kerr) married Edward Nugent at Nagambie I 1886. They had selected a farm at Karamomus near Euroa about 1885 when the Goulburn Valley was being opened up for settlement. Edward Nugent had come from the Clarendon district, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Ballarat on the Geelong Rd.

Renee Nugent Burns was presumably a daughter of Ellen and Edward Kerr, the issue from that marriage being as follows :--

The Nugents lived on the farm at Miepoll, Renee starting the small public school there. Later they moved in to Miepool to be nearer the larger state school at Euroa where she proceeded to sixth class. In the move they took over Grandpa Nugent’s house, Moffat’s Farm, when the old folks went back to Clarendon. This was a large weatherboard house.

Aster leaving school, Renee went to work in her father’s office, he being the Shire Secretary at Violet Town, later moving to Junee (NSW) to become the Shire Clerk there. Junee became the famly home for many years and Renee married James Burns, a railway officer. Father Syd Nugent ( son of Renee’s brother Jack -- born 1929) became the Provincial of the Marist Brothers in Japan.

Renee had two children

• Kathryn (Sister Kathleen of the Sisters of Mercy, died in her 20s at Parramatta
• Gerald Burns ( 21 Hunter St, Bathurst.)

• Eileen -- born 1920 -- Sr Philomena of the Sisters of Mercy at Young Hosptal
• Jim -- born 1925 -- Shire Engineer Moree Plains
• Mary -- Mrs. om Pattison “Loretta” Marrar
• S yd -- born 1929 -- see above.
  

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