A few years ago, I came across a blog post titled, Musings, where Neil Ennis wrote about his cycling trips around the world. One post from 2010, ‘Along The Old North Road‘, caught my attention while I was searching for information about my Franz family.^[1]

I found details about a Bed and Breakfast cottage called Mary Ann’s Cottage, which turned out to be the home of my great grandfather’s half-brother, Maurice Schneider, and his wife Mary Ann neé Westaway.

Early and current Mary Ann’s Cottage Haywood Road, Morayfield. Images from Meg, property owner.

I have previously written about my two times great grandparents, Theodore Franz and Dorothea Schneider née Weiss, who were part of a missionary group that arrived at Sydney in 1838. Dorothea’s first husband, missionary Moritz Schneider, had died from typhus at Sydney Cove Quarantine Station shortly after their arrival. Dorothea bravely continued onto Brisbane with the missionary group despite being pregnant and in a new, primitive country.

Born posthumously, Moritz Theophilus Schneider arrived on 12 September 1838. Known as Maurice, he was the second child born at the Zion Hill Mission settlement, now Nundah in Brisbane. It would not have been easy for Dorothea as a single parent, wherever she went. Not surprisingly, she soon married and her new husband was my two times great grandfather, Theodore Franz, a bachelor.

Although not his biological child, Theodore took on the role of a father to Maurice. Times were hard at the mission, and life could be dangerous. A diary entry by one of the missionaries when Maurice would have been about twelve months old, noted:

’18 September (1839): Today little Moritz Schneider fell into a hole and was found unconscious there by his mother; however after attempts at resuscitation, he showed sign of life again to the joy of his mother and the whole community. He is now quite well.’

Another journal entry from September 1845 reports:

‘Brother Franz reports that the little Moritz Schneider is growing in body and mind. He is industriously learning English and German and already, on his own initiative, from time to time he gathers together all the white and black children and conducts school with them. He gets them to pray, gives them verses or hymns or biblical texts which they have to learn by heart and tells them about the Lord Jesus and heaven and hell – all in a childlike way. While he is doing so, he holds a stick in his hand to keep law and order. At the conclusion, all of the children have to shake his hand, give a bow and say, “Thank you, Sir”. He then rewards them with potatoes. He is a promising lad of six years. It seems as though the son has compensated for what we lost through the father.’ ^[2]

Horse stud advertisement from The Moreton Bay Courier, Saturday 3 November 1855. Image from https://trove.nla.gov.au/

After the mission disbanded about 1850, the Franz family began breeding horses and cattle. Maurice was about 17 years old when his mother died in 1855 and by then Maurice was listed in an advertisement offering horses for stud.

In May 1859, at 21 years old, Maurice married Mary Ann Westaway at Wickington House, Eagle Farm, the home of Mary Ann’s father John. They may have lived with her parents for a while as the 1860 notice of their daughter’s birth was listed at Wickington House. Mary Ann had been born in Orange, her parents John Westaway and Jane Parsons Sloggett, met on their way to Australia aboard The Argyle in 1839, and married three weeks after landing in Sydney. They initially settled in Orange and then when land first became available in Brisbane in 1843, John bought a farm at Whinstanes and later added three more farms at Toombul and Eagle Farm.

In 1868, Maurice selected 320 acres near Burpengary Creek.[3] Around the same time, he and his half-brother, William, my great grandfather, also selected an adjoining 320 acres. Maurice later withdrew his interest in that selection which remained in the Franz family for many years.

Maurice and Mary Ann built a two-roomed house on their property. Selection documents noted that:

‘The whole piece of land (is) enclosed by a substantial two rail split fence, also two acres of scrub land under cultivation and grubbed and one two roomed house built on sleepers with shingled roof.’

A photo showing this two-roomed house suggests that it was about a quarter of the size of Mary Ann’s Cottage, which is in itself small by modern standards. The current cottage, believed to have been built around 1880, was not the first house built on the selection.

Mary Anns Cottage at left, the Franz house far right at rear. Image from Meg., current owner.

Maurice and MaryAnn had six children. Sadly, Maurice died of pneumonia in 1871 at the age of 33, when their youngest child was only 10 days old. Mary Ann had the property transferred to her name and it remained so until her death in 1901.

In 1903 it was transferred to her son William, then to Herbert James in 1924. My mother grew up on the Franz farm next door, and her best friend was Gladys James. The Union Trustee Co. of Aust. Ltd. held the property in 1949, possibly in Trust; Colin Richard James in 1954; and Forest Reserves in 1972. The property was subdivided and the present owner, Meg Thomas is the third owner since then. In 2010, Meg operated a bed and breakfast cottage called Mary Ann’s Cottage on some of that land near Franz Road, but it has now closed. I contacted Meg and she kindly supplied a couple of photos of the cottage shown in this story.

[1] Musings: Exploring the world with my friends, Blog of Neil Ennis, 2010.
[2] Excerpts from Missionary diaries, 28 November 1839, Lang Files, Mitchell Library, New South Wales, cited in Egan, Allan Joseph (2010) Nundah: Mission to suburb, Edited and Produced by Mavis Baxter, Noela Gibson-Wilde and Bruce Gibson-Wilde – Supported by Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor’s Suburban Initiative Fund and Kim Flesser, Northgate Ward Councillor.
[3] Queensland State Archives; Lands Department, Series: S14033; Item ID: ITM 31521 ID. PR3509415, Title, Selection file: SCHNEIDER, Maurice, digital copy;    https://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/api/download_file/DR79319