Waltzing Matilda

When my mum's cousin Kevin emigrated to Australia in the late 1970s, a few of the older members of the family commented that a relative had gone to Australia many years earlier,  had not been heard of since, and .."had probably died in a bush fire"...  A little bit of research and we can now guess why nothing was heard from the original emigrant:

David Harrison, son of Thomas Harrison and Mary Magdelene Hoggarth was born in Egton on 6th Dec 1875. He started out as a shoemaker, following his father's trade.

[David - possibly stood next to his father.  Picture c.1892, Glaisdale]

 However at some point he left shoemaking and like so many men of his generation he found work in the growing railway industry, and in the 1901 census we find him boarding in York and employed as a railway policeman. In 1904 he married his second cousin, Violet Isabel Davison, and they settled in Darlington where we find them living at 1 Brinkburn Road in 1911. David is now a fish fryer. At this stage they have one child - Hilda, born in 1908. There appears to have been another child who died. They  subsequently had a son called Ronald, possibly born in 1913. By 1915 the family are living in Sydney, Australia. We know this from David's divorce petition, the details of which were published in the local papers:

“You can get!”
 Adding insult to injury.
 Two co-respondents .

 David Harrison petitioned Mr Justice Gordon in the Divorce court today, for a dissolution of his marriage with Violet Isabel Harrison on the ground of her adultery with Percy Christopher Anderton and Charles Bryant, both of whom were joined as co-respondents. The parties were married at Darlington, Co Durham, England in August 1904 and came to Australia some years later. In September 1915 Mrs Harrison went for a trip to America on the Steamer Niagara. The co-respondent Anderton, who was a friend of the family, was also a passenger. Mrs Harrison returned in May 1916 and in the following June a child was born of which she told her husband Anderton was the father. Petitioner provided a home for his wife and children, but in December 1918 he found her living at McDonaldtown with Anderton. “I have the man I love” she said when her husband remonstrated with her, “and you can ‘get’ “ In March 1919 petitioner said his wife was living with the co-respondent, Bryant, at Elizabeth Street, Croydon. His Honor found the misconduct proven as against Bryant, and made a Decree Nisi, returnable in six months. Mr Toose (instructed by Mr J W Abigail) appeared for the petitioner.
 Evening News (Sydney) Friday 3 December 1920

Violet married Charles Bryant in 1921, having given birth to a son, also called Charles, a year earlier. Her daughter by Percy Anderton, Violet Winifred, was adopted by a family called Foster.  Violet died in 1958.
David disappears from the records after the divorce.