Hi James, pleased to meet you, cousin!
Since 2011 I have done a lot of work on these Musgroves and had some help here and there as well. I've visited Richard William and Matilda Musgrove (nee Plant)'s graves in the Melbourne General Cemetery - will go there again shortly and post some pics when I do.
There is indeed a lot of info about RW Musgrove and the Ballarat Rifles (which later became the Light Horse Brigade in WW1). My understanding is that he was partially responsible for its formation. Harry Augustus Musgrove had 15 children to two different women. The first woman was Emma Smith, daughter of Richard William's colleague from the Rifles, Joseph Smith. I have some digital photographs of all three of them, not Joseph though. Harry Augustus and Emma Smith were married when she was 16 years old and Emma died when she was 25 after giving birth to a child every two years (a total of 4). Three months after Emma passed away Harry married a lady of German descent from Adelaide, Florence Matilda Henning. Florence Henning had also given birth to a baby who died either during or shortly after birth around a year or two before they were married. I am uncertain whether or not there was an affair involved but the father was listed as "unknown". Trips to Adelaide were frequent because of cousins who sang Opera (Sophia I and Mabel I have had write-ups in the Adelaide newspapers about their beautiful singing.) and often went on tour there. I have seen photographs of our Great Great Grandmother, however they have unfortunately been either lost or destroyed. Florence and Harry had a further 12 children, whom included your great grandfather (1908) and also my great grandfather, with whom I was lucky enough to have been acquainted (Prince Albert Edward Musgrove, 1901). Harry passed away in Heidelberg, Victoria, in 1938. Florence Henning's family are also very interesting. They were among the colonising German settlers of South Australia and one of them was in parliament. Florence was second or third generation German immigrant from memory. Her family came from the Alsace-Lorraine region bordering France & Germany, at the time known as Prussia, which means records are very difficult to locate because a) language; and b) you never know who was in charge of the records, France or Germany. Prussia, as you may or may not be aware, is absolutely massive with non-differentiated borders that moved every couple of years over two centuries, so there is a lot of actual ground and also paper ground in between us and finding out the actual story. I can't imagine it would have been a terribly pleasant place to live, although you would think they would get used to the constant governmental reshuffling because it happened so often. If you would like to have more conversation James I am more than happy to exchange emails with you and I'll send you what I've got.
Great to hear from you!
Kind regards,
Bec