The Information on the welcome wall is nearly totally inaccurate, the real story is below.

On January 1, 1828, on a winter’s day, Mary gave birth to my great-great-grandfather, Michael Hummerston, in the same town where his father was born.
Michael was likely an only child, but there's a family myth that he emigrated from England to Australia to escape his twenty-four siblings, which there is no evidence of.
He was apprenticed to his father and became a shoemaker-cordwainer, like father, like son.
By 1845, the family had moved to White Hart Street, Kennington, London, where Michael got himself into some trouble, not for the first time. In March 1845, at the age of seventeen, he appeared at the Middlesex Court of Sessions charged with stealing a bundle of clothes belonging to Marina Gregory from a beer shop in Hackney.
He was duly found guilty and sentenced to seven years with transportation to Australia, he served fifteen months in the notorious Millbank Prison while awaiting transportation to Australia.
Meanwhile, his father George was organising a petition to have his son Michael’s sentence quashed, pleading first offence, previous good character, led astray by others, undersigned by Marina Gregory, the prosecutrix, and twenty-three inhabitants of Somers Town and district. Michael's past larceny conviction led to the petition's dismissal.
On June 22, 1846, Michael and 289 other inmates of Millbank Prison boarded the convict ship Maitland and sailed to Australia. The trip took four months and five days and docked at Williamstown, Port Phillip, in the then colony of New South Wales on October 27, 1846. The colony of Victoria was not declared until 1851.
On arrival, the prisoners were given a pardon with conditions, including not attempting to return to Britain until their sentence is served. They were referred to as exiles because mainland Australia could no longer accept convicts by law.
There was little provision for the convicts/exiles when they arrived, they had to either accept employment as a shepherd or night hut’s-man working for rural landowners or fend for themselves in Melbourne town. Michael decided to fend for himself with little money, clothing and no lodgings.
In 1849, he teamed up with William Jones, an exile from Pentonville prison; together, they held up a Bailiff of the Court, stealing money and documents from him. Both were arrested and tried for highway robbery in company, then sentenced to five years hard labour working on the roads. Prison census documents show Michael Hummerston as an inmate of Pentridge Prison in 1850.
Michael appears on the records again in 1854 when he married Charlotte Honey, aged nineteen, in St James Church, Melbourne. Presumably, he had served his sentence and was once again a free man.
He then turned his hand to gold prospecting, and his first child, Clara Ann Maria, was born in 1855 while living in Steiglitz, Victoria. A second child, Rosaline Helena, was born in 1858 but unfortunately died a few months after her birth in 1859. 1859 was also the year of his third child’s birth, Rhoda Louisa, and the year he was granted his first Publicans Licence, for the Thistle Inn, Corio Street, Geelong. This venture didn’t turn out as well as he could have hoped, and a year later, in 1861, he applied for insolvency (bankruptcy). He was made insolvent on another two occasions 1863 and 1866, suggesting that he was not a particularly good businessman.
Victualler, meaning licensed publican, became the chosen profession for Michael Hummerston; he held licences for at least eleven hotels or inns while residing in the Colony of Victoria between 1859 and 1875. The sheer number of licensed premises that he held indicates that he was a restless man, continually moving from one place to another.
Michael and Charlotte went on to have seven more children, including my great-grandfather, Henry Augustus (known as Harry), during that time. Charlotte died at the age of forty-two in 1876 and is buried in Malmsbury Cemetery, Victoria. After Charlotte’s death, Michael moved the remains of his family from Victoria to South Australia in the same year.
Upon arriving in South Australia, 1876, He gains a licence for the Dalrymple Hotel in the coastal town of Stansbury situated on the St Vincent Gulf opposite Adelaide. He stayed for three years before moving to Hamley Bridge and running the Hamley Bridge Hotel for four years.
Then moves on again, this time to Quorn and takes over the licence for the Pinkerton Hotel in 1882. In the same year, he marries for a second time, a thirty-three-year-old widow named Mary Jane McCracken, nee Owens. Mary had already given birth to seven children, of which only two had survived in her marriage to Thomas McCracken, who died the previous year in 1881. In the year following their marriage in 1883, very sadly, one of her two surviving children, Alexander, aged two years and eight months, died after falling into a tub of boiling water at the Pinkerton Hotel where they lived and worked. Later that year, Mary gave birth to a son, Michael George.
The following year, 1884, they moved to Willunga, where Michael became the licensee for the Alma Hotel. Once again, things don’t seem to have turned out well. In 1886, he applied for insolvency for the fourth time. During Insolvency Court proceedings, he is found to have concealed his true assets and is convicted of fraudulent preference for concealing assets in his estate. He is subsequently imprisoned for three months.
Upon release from prison, he becomes licensee for the Globe Hotel in Wilmington in 1887, where Mary gives birth to a second son to Michael Hummerston named William Victor. In 1888, they moved to Hamilton, where the licensee for the Farmer’s Hotel is under his wife’s name and in 1889, they moved yet again, this time to Auburn, where he is the licensee for the Rising Sun Inn. There, Mary gives birth to a third son to Michael, Robert Kingsley, who dies early in 1890 in Upper Wakefield. In 1892, Michael became the licensee of the Wirrabara Hotel, Wirrabara, South Australia.
Two years later, Michael moved to Western Australia to join my great-grandfather, Henry (Harry) August and Richard Earnest Hummerston, who had moved to Western Australia two or so years before. Henry (Harry) August transfers the licence for the Criterion Hotel, Howick Street, Perth, to his father, Michael. This arrangement only lasted one year, then Michael moved to Southern Cross and became the licensee for the Club Hotel in 1895. He moves back to the Hills area on the outskirts of Perth and continues to work in the liquor industry. His second wife, Mary Jane, died in 1900. By 1905, he was living with my great-grandfather Harry August and his wife Annie in Midland. In 1907, he died while living with his daughter Rhoda and her husband at the age of 79 years. He is buried in St Mary's Anglican Church graveyard, Yule St, Middle Swan, Perth.
To sum up, in 1846, at the age of eighteen, Michael Hummerston was a convict transported to Port Phillip, Australia. He married twice, served three prison sentences, was made insolvent four times, fathered thirteen children and held at least twenty-two hotel licences in his long life. He died in 1907 at the age of 79 in Western Australia.

Wed 28 May 2025