1754 – Thomas Rose born in England
On 1754, Thomas Rose was born at Blandford, Dorset, England. He became a farmer.
1779 – Thomas Rose married Jane Top
On 8 August 1779 at Sturminster Newton, Thomas Rose married Jane Topp.
Births of the Children of Thomas Rose and Jane Topp
(The Connecting Ancestor Richard Rose is Highlighted)
| Child No. | First Name(s) | Year | Registration Number | Father’s Stated Given Name(s) | Mother’s Stated Given Name(s) | District |
| 1 | Thomas (Junior) | 23 November 1779 | | | | Dorset, England |
| 2 | Mary Ann | 19 March 1782 | | | | Sturminster Newton, Dorset, England |
| 3 | Joshua | 1784 | | | | Lydlinch, Dorset, England |
| 4 | John | 1788 | Dorset, England | |||
| 5 | Richard | 1789 | Sturminster Newton, Dorset, England | |||
| 6 | John | 4 July 1793 | 226/1793 V1793226 4 | Thomas | Jane | Liberty Plains, NSW, Australia |
| 7 | Sarah | 24 July 1795 | Liberty Plains, NSW, Australia | |||
| 8 | Henry | 26 July 1797 | 488/1797 V1797488 4 | Thomas | Sarah | Liberty Plains, NSW, Australia |
1788 – Captain Arthur Phillip Requested English Farmers Travel to Australia
On 9 July 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip wrote to Evan Nepean, Under Secretary of the Home Department. “If fifty farmers were sent out with their families, they would do more in one year in rendering this colony independent of the mother country, as to provisions, than a thousand convicts.”
1792 – Thomas, Jane and 4 Children Traveled to Australia
On 8 August 1792, Thomas, Jane, and their children Thomas (Junior), Mary, Joshua and Richard departed Gravesend, England onboard the ship The Bellona. John had died as a baby, which is why only four children sailed with them.
On 18 October 1792, the Bellona arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1793 – Thomas, Jane and 4 Children Arrived in Sydney, Australia
This Australian Dictionary of Biography states this was “as the result of repeated requests by Governor Arthur Phillip for the dispatch of intelligent and experienced farmers, Thomas Rose and his family together with four other free settlers sailed in the Bellona for New South Wales. Rose and his companions were the first free and independent settlers to reach Australia. They arrived in Sydney on 16 January 1793, when David Collins noted that Rose was ‘the most respectable of these people, and apparently the best calculated for a bona-fide settler’.”
In 1796, the European population of Sydney was 2,953.
David Collins in the 1798 text ‘An Account of the English Colony in NSW’ wrote:
“The settlers who came out in the Bellona having fixed on a situation at the upper part of the harbour above the Flats, and on the south side, their different allotments were surveyed and marked out; and early in this month they took possession of their grounds. Being all free people, one convict excepted, who was allowed to settle with them, they gave the appellation of ‘ Liberty Plain’ to the district in which their farms were situated. The most respectable of these people, and apparently the best calculated for a bonifide settler, was Thomas Rose, a farmer from Dorsetshire, who came out with his family, consisting of his wife and four children. An allotment of one hundred and twenty acres was marked out for him.”
1809 – Thomas Bought Land at Wilberforce, NSW
In 1809, Thomas bought land at Wilberforce, and around 1811 he built ‘Rose cottage’, Australia’s oldest known timber slab house in it’s original location. “Quiet, homely, unassuming and industrious, Thomas Rose belonged to that humble band of men who, in a rough and licentious age, helped to lay the foundations of ordered social life in a new country.”
All of Cicely’s descendants are thus also part of the Thomas Rose Family, which has over 30,000 descendants!!
1811 – Thomas and Jane built Rose Cottage
In 1811, Thomas and Jane built the house which is known today as “Rose Cottage” in Wilberforce. This is recognised as Australia’s oldest timber slab house at its original location.
The Thomas and Jane Rose Family Society Inc.
Thomas and Jane have tens of thousands of descendants. In 1975, the Thomas and Jane Rose Family Society Inc. was established and now has the following goals:
- Conservation of Rose Cottage
- Publication of the family’s history
- Open Rose Cottage as a Museum depicting early colonial life
- Envisage maintaining a Resource Centre for the display of donated descendants memorabilia, research and meeting place for the Society
In 1993, the Society published an 800+ page book “The Rose Family of the Bellona” which at the time listed over 30,000 descendants!!!
Kitty of the Warmuli Clan of the Dharug people & Joseph Budworth 