CHAPTER 01 · 1807–1821

Marriage and Family in England

John Presnell and Eleanor Skelton exchange vows at St Mary’s, Islington, in 1807. The wedding scene is a reconstruction, and the inset shows the original parish entry announcing their marriage banns.

Eleanor Skelton and John Presnell married by banns on 21 September 1807. Over the next thirteen years they raised a family in London. Christiana was born in 1808, followed by John in 1814, Frederick in 1817 and Eleanor Elizabeth in 1819. Their youngest daughter was still a toddler when Eleanor and John left England with their family aboard the Midas. They reached Hobart in January 1821.

CHAPTER 02 · 1821–1831

A New Life in Van Diemen’s Land

In 1830, John Presnell advertised the White Hart at Antill Ponds on the new road to Launceston.

Eleanor and John made their home in the Tasmanian Midlands, where John kept the White Hart at Sorell Springs. As the family settled into life in the colony, their daughter Christiana married Thomas Presnell Jr at New Norfolk in 1826, bringing two branches of the Presnell family together.

When the main road to Launceston was realigned through St Peter’s Pass, the inn business moved to Antill Ponds. Travellers could find refreshments there, along with stabling for their horses and paddocks for their stock. John died on 20 May 1831, leaving Eleanor with a family to support and an inn to keep.

That same year, Eleanor and John’s son William was born in Van Diemen’s Land.

CHAPTER 03 · 1831–1834

Keeping the White Hart

In this reconstruction, Eleanor Presnell writes her January 1832 appeal for more land at the White Hart Inn. The upper inset shows why her family depended on its livestock. The lower inset shows the refusal written on the back of her petition on 30 January 1832.

When John died on 20 May 1831, Eleanor carried on the White Hart Inn at Antill Ponds. She also took up the application for more land that John had been pursuing since the 1820s. In June she told Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur that the order for John to appear before the Land Board had arrived after his death. Left with five young children, she asked that any land John would have been granted be granted to her. By September, the publican’s licence for the White Hart had been renewed in her name.

An Appeal for More Land

When John received 300 acres at Sorell Springs, a settler could obtain land from the Crown without paying a purchase price. By 1828, officials assessed what applicants could bring to the land. Livestock and farm implements counted as capital, and settlers seeking more acreage had to show what they had spent improving their existing land and what means they still had to develop another holding. That is why John’s applications read like inventories of the family’s work, listing buildings, fencing, cultivation and stock. This system extended British settlement across lands taken from Aboriginal Tasmanians.

In 1831, Britain directed the colony to sell Crown land by public auction. The starting price was generally five shillings an acre. At that rate, 500 acres would cost at least £125 before any competing bids. Under the old rules, improvements and livestock could help a settler qualify for a grant. At auction, the successful bidder had to pay for the land.

Eleanor’s application came before the Land Board as the rules were changing. In November 1831, her eldest son, also named John, told the Board that his mother was still running the White Hart. Taking into account the young family she had to support, the Board recommended 500 acres under the 1828 regulations. Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur refused the grant.

Eleanor asked him to reconsider in January 1832. John had made his improvements in reliance on the old rules, she argued. Without more land, she would have to reduce the livestock she called “the chief support of her family.” She added that she kept “an orderly house.” Ten days after she dated her petition, the decision was written on the back. “Additional Land cannot be granted.”

Eleanor was still listed among the publicans issued licences in Buckinghamshire in December 1833. By 21 February 1834, a newspaper notice referring to her family’s grant at Sorell Springs called her the “late Widow Presnell.”

CHAPTER 04 · 2026

A View From My Beer

An imagined conversation with my fourth great-grandmother, Eleanor Skelton, over sherry and a beer at the White Hart Inn, Antill Ponds, c. 1832.

If I could sit down with Eleanor, I’d do it at the White Hart. A sherry for her, a beer for me. I’d wait until the last traveller had been seen to and ask her to sit down for a while. I’d bring her a copy of the letter she sent to George Arthur. I can read what she told him about the livestock and what the clerk wrote on the back. What I’d really like to hear is what she did the next morning. Did she talk it over with Christiana? Had she already worked out how to get by with the land they had? And before I left, I’d ask her to tell me a story about Christiana as a girl. I know the dates that connect us. I’d love to hear the story Eleanor would have told across the table.