HISTORY AND POETRY
More detailed information about the property’s history can be found at our property website www.godolphin.net.au. Here we provide a brief summary and a link to some poetry the property has inspired.
HISTORY
In Cornwall, Richard Glasson (1813-1892) grew up on the family farm ‘Tremearne’. He later managed the property of Emma Mitchell, who subsequently became his wife after her first husband died. Richard and Emma, with her two young daughters Emma and Lydia emigrated to Australia to start a new life in the early 1830s.
They arrived in Australia on the 9th of December 1838 as free settlers on assisted passage on the trading ship SS James Pattison. They immediately joined the community known as The Cornish Settlement (later called Byng) near Orange in New South Wales. They subsequently settled on land at nearby Guyong, which they renamed ‘Godolphin’ after Godolphin House in Cornwall. They had several more children together, three of whom are buried next to their parents in the property’s cemetery on the hill behind the homestead and The Dairy Cottage.
In 1908 the family name changed to Gordon when David W Thomas (Tom) Gordon married Edith Glasson, the grand-daughter of Richard Glasson. The wedding was held on 15 April 1908 at the Guyong Methodist Church with the reception at the Godolphin homestead, a tradition which has continued down through the years. Since then, the Gordon family have continued to live and operate the property.
HISTORIC LINKS
- Former Folk of Godolphin
- Ancestors of Richard Glasson
- Ancestors of Emma Glasson
- Personalities from the Past
POETRY
Not only has Godolphin and the surrounding Byng area inspired poems during the last 150 or so years, some of the property’s former residents, descendants and friends have been moved to compose several odes.
- Left Behind – by Gustavus Glasson, 1873
- Lewis Ponds Creek and the Discovery of Gold – by Samuel Hill
- Ode to Godolphin – by Australian bush poet, Kevin Pye
- Today, Tomorrow – by Bill Glasson, 1990