THE EATHER FAMILY 

Peter and Olive have three children who all attended school in Baralaba state school, then finished their education in Rockhampton.  The eldest, Ken, joined the farm partnership with his parents when he left school.  He is currently living in Sydney doing construction work.   Daughter Barbara and her husband.  Lyn, the youngest child joined the Farm Stay Partnership in 1993.

PETER EATHER’S FAMILY
Peter Eather was born 29 January 1933 in Singleton, NSW.  Peter was the fourth of five children of Grace and Ivo Eather.  The family grew up on a wheat/sheep farm in an isolated area and Peter attended a one-teacher school.  Ivo was injured in France during WW1, at the Villers Bretonneeux on the Somme, 100km North of Paris. As a result, he spent years in hospital, then finally returned to his family at Bulga where his brothers were running farms.  He married Grace Pankhurst in 1926 and they reared 5 children on a farm called Harparary in NSW.   Ivo and his brother Arthur married sisters.

After leaving school Peter and his brothers joined a partnership and ran the property.  In 1954 the brothers were looking for more land.  They travelled North 1000km and bought a property 16km from Myella.  Peter and brother Don worked the new farm in Qld, while brother Dick and Harry continued to run the wheat/sheep farm in N.S.W.

Eventually the Eather brothers bought a farm for each other, then they ended their partnership.  The eldest, Dick, still owns the original farm in NSW and his son now runs it.

In 1964 Peter married Olive (nee Oram), a farmer’s daughter from Baralaba.  Olive was born 9 August 1943 in the Baralaba hospital.  She was the sixth of eight children of Digger and Cecilia Oram.  Olive worked on her family’s cattle property 10km from Myella.

OLIVE’S FAMILY ANCESTORS
Olive’s Great Grand parents Joseph and Elizabeth Oram married on 14th June 1865 in London and travelled to Australia on the “Bays Water” three months later.  Joseph worked for his passage as a baker on the ship and paid for his wife’s ticket.  They started a family in Central Queensland Joseph bought and worked a butcher shop in Blackwater (2hrs west of Myella).  Joseph’s son Louis had 12 children.  Louis and his son Lewis (Olive’s father) bought a property at Baralaba for 90 pounds in August 1930. This farm is still in the family.  It was given to Olive’s brother Bill.  Out of the 8 children 7 of them have been cattle farmers at one stage.  Currently 4 of them are still farmers.  Olive is the forth child on the horse.  She had to ride her horse 6.5miles to school for a few years until there was a school bus.

HOW  THE  NAME  EATHER  BEGAN
The name Eather first appeared in Australia 1797.  A man called Thomas Heather was sent to Australia as a convict. The name changed from Heather to Eather gradually.   A variety of spelling errors appeared in the records of baptisms, marriages and death certificates; but there was a low level of literacy.  Thomas Heather’s name was first printed as Thomas Eather when he received his first land grant.  Heather was spelt when he applied for his second land grant and Thomas Either was written on his will.  Soon after 1827 the name was frequently spelt 'Ether' or 'Eather'.

THOMAS HEATHER, OUR CONVICT ANCESTOR
Our ancestors Robert Heather (1710-1780) and his wife, Elizabeth were living in Bexley in Kent when their youngest son Thomas Heather (1764-1827) was born.  Thomas had no formal schooling and went through life unable to sign his own name.  At the age of 23 years Thomas Heather was working as a labourer at Chislehurst when he was arrested and charged for robbery.  Found guilty, he was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a 14yr sentence.  After a year in prison Thomas was moved to the hulks and on 19 January 1790 he sailed from England with the second fleet on the "Neptune".  The ship arrived at Sydney Cove on 28 June 1790.
The conditions under which the Second Fleet sailed were different from those of the First Fleet.  Of the 520 convicts that embarked the Neptune 31% died.  Merchants were contracted per convict,
the more deaths amongst the convicts en route, meant more surplus food left for
sale at the ports visited. The following year Elizabeth Lee (1773-1860), an 18 year old Lancashire lass arrived on the "Mary Ann".  She had worked in England as either a domestic servant or a shop assistant and pleaded guilty for stealing from her employer a grey cloak valued at six pence.   Elizabeth was sentenced to "be sent and transported to some part beyond the seas for a space of 7 years".
The ship, 'Mary Ann' left England on 16 February 1791 and arrived at Port Jackson 9 July 1791.  It was the fastest voyage out by a convict ship up to that date, only 9 convicts dying on the way.

Thomas and Elizabeth Heather married within a few months of her arrival in the colony and they had 8 children.   Land was granted to Thomas on 1 June 1797.  He still had five years of his sentence to complete, but Elizabeth had recently completed her sentence.  Thomas was granted a thirty-acre farm named "Eather Farm" situated at Windsor on the Hawkesbury River in NSW.  The conditions of the grant were: that he should live on the land for five years; that the land would be free from all taxes for ten years; and that he was to make improvements and cultivate the land deemed fit for naval purposes.  They fulfilled these requirements and, in 1803, they sold the farm for eighty-nine pounds.

In 1802, Thomas was granted his ticket-of-leave; then, in 1820, he sought another grant of land and was granted fifty acres.  Thomas was living in Windsor as a store keeper during his last years before he died, aged 63 years.  Elizabeth passed away in Richmond at the age of 88 years.  All of her children lived to at least eighty years of age. She left 157 descendants.