The Orr Family

Eliza Jane Orr married William John Davis. They had three children, Roy, Ethel and Lucy, my paternal grandmother. Lucy was born after her father died and Eliza remarried after the children had grown. I knew her as Granny Carter and she died at the age of 96, sometime in my first six months at Wagga Wagga.

Her father, William Orr came from Toronto, Canada. According to the book ‘Centenary of Schooling at Palmers Island, 1866 – 1966’, my source for much of this story, he was an engineer on the first steamship to enter Sydney Harbour. I doubt this claim as it seems to be contradicted by other data I have read. He married Sarah Avis Hutchins, a native of Somersetshire, England, in Ulmarra on October 3rd, 1867 and they had 10 children. Eliza and her eldest sister Mary were born at Coldstream before the family moved to Palmers Island where they rented a farm and had six other children. One brother was born in Grafton and another in Fiji.

In 1882 the family moved to Fiji for a few years where they settled on the Vite Sugar Plantation on the Rewa River. They took two overseers and two draught horses with them. My father told me once that he had heard these were the first two horses taken to Fiji but there may be as much truth in that as the above claim re. the first steam ship. On the plantation they had their own store, hospital with nurses to care for the sick, and employed over 200 workers. On their return to Palmers Island they purchased a farm.

I remember one story of William Orr. It seems that one day he was arrested for being drunk in Maclean. While still inebriated he urinated on the policeman through the bars.