Mary Ann Wagg (1858 to 1861) - The third child of William (Bill) and Sarah Wagg

Mary Ann Wagg was the third child of William and Sarah Wagg.  Mary was certainly named after her maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Turner (nee Hand)  and, if our current research is accurate, her paternal grandmother, Mary Ann (Ann) Wagg (nee Clark), as well!

On 22 August 1858, Mary Ann was born at "Sugar Works, North Shore, District of St Leonards".  Mary Ann's birth was registered by Sarah of "Sugar Works" and shows the father as William Wagg, labourer, aged 29 from Yarmouth England and the mother as Sarah Turner, aged 24 from Sydney.  

Plan of the Sugar Works Estate (part of the Crows Nest Estate) situated at the North Shore near Sydney - The property of R. M. Robey Esq.
Robey's Sugar Works first opened in 1857 on a land situated on the current Wollstonecraft Bay.  It was taken over by the Colonial Sugar Refinery Co.  In the late 1860s, the Australian Mineral Oil Co. established a kerosene works on the site to treat kerosene shale and handle imported cases of oil.  The family had moved from Redfern to the North Shore between 1856 and 1858.  It seems likely that William was working at the sugar works at the time of Mary Ann's birth and the family were living on the adjacent estate.


Wollstonecraft Bay formerly knows as Oyster, Kerosene or Table Bay
Mary Ann was baptised at St Thomas Church of England, North Sydney on 30 January 1859.  The baptism transcript shows the family living at Oyster Bay and William's occupation as "boatman".  The sugar works and later kerosene works were located on a bay originally called Oyster Bay by the First Fleeters and later Kerosene Bay when the kerosene works replaced the sugar works.  It was also know as Table Bay and is currently Wollstonecraft Bay.

On 21 August 1861, the day before her third birthday, Mary Ann died from "pertussis" (whooping cough) and convulsions.  William is the informant on Mary Ann's death registration and, for the first time, he records his name as "William Webb Wagg".  Mary Ann's name is recorded only as Wagg.  

Mary Ann was buried at "The Burial Grounds Willoughby" on 23 August 1861.  As the Gore Hill Cemetery was not opened for another 5 years, I'm unsure of the exact location of Mary Ann's burial.  

I've just requested the birth and death transcripts for Adelaide Wagg - William and Sarah's fourth child.  The NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages shows that Adelaide was born in 1860 and died in 1861, the same year as Mary Ann.  At some time in 1861, William and Sarah had seen three of their four children die as infants.  Sarah Jane, their second and surviving child, was 5 years old.


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