People Australia

Sarah and Ted Barrett, n.d.

Sarah Poultney (1847-1924) the third daughter of William Poultney and Margaret Robertson was born on 30 September 1847 at Hamilton, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

Poultney was orphaned aged 8 when her father and mother died in 1854 & 1855, respectively. She and her siblings, Janet & William, lived with their newly married sister Mary Ann who married Alfred Griffith in 1857 at Bothwell. Mary Ann was only 16 when she married, perhaps to keep the family together.

Sarah registered the birth of her first child, Edith Rachael Hesketh, in 1868. She was unmarried and the father (Alfred Hesketh) denied any association with Sarah. By 1871, she had had her first child (Margaret Louisa) with Edward (Ted) Barrett, a waterman. In 1873 she was pregnant with her second child (George Edward) with Ted and had placed Edith in the Queens Orphanage at Ted’s request.

Aged 28 and giving her occupation as a servant, she married 24-year-old Edward Barrett, now a sailor, on 13 September 1873 at the Church of St Joseph, Hobart.

Sarah and Edith were reunited in 1874. Edith was raised with her half-siblings and known as Edith Rachael Barrett. The couple had two more children, Esther Ellen/Elinor (b.1876) and William John (b.1882), making five in total (including Edith).

The family relocated to Margate in the mid 1880s and established the little hamlet known as Barretta just south of Margate.

Sarah Barrett died at her residence at Margate, Tasmania, on 4 September 1924.