Margaret Ann Hardman – Her Life and Family

By Sonja Strathearn

Margaret Ann Blakeley was 19 years old when she left Manchester, England and travelled with her family to Mackay, Queensland, Australia. Her older brother, William Blakeley, had paved the way for the family’s arrival three years earlier, working as a builder in the sugarcane plantations.

Thousands of South Sea Islanders (called Kanakas) worked the Queensland cane fields in the latter nineteenth century. The Blakeley family arrived during this time, and were part of a wave of working-class emigrants, lured by Agent Generals sent to England from the Queensland Colony, to tempt them with the dream of a new life. Australia needed workers to develop the colony, and English cities were crowded and impoverished.  

Only three months after their arrival in Mackay in 1883, their mother, Jane Blakeley died of dysentery, leaving a large family for Margaret and her grieving father to care for. Eventually some of the family moved south to the city of Brisbane for work in the city, leaving William in Mackay. Father, James Blakeley would years later move back to England, taking his youngest daughter Alice with him.  

This biography is an attempt to weave together the stories and facts from Margaret’s descendants all over the world. Various cousins had different documents and stories, and with improved access to records, new information has surfaced about the early years of the Blakeley family before their emigration. Included are stories and photographs of Margaret’s ten children and their families. The author, Sonja Strathearn is Margaret Hardman’s great-granddaughter.