Thanks Blaine
Yes, Ellen's mother was "Ellen Scott" according to the details registered at Inglewood after she died there on 28 July 1860 aged 33 (registration number 9429). It's not clear whether "Father's name not known" means that she never knew him or that Daniel couldn't remember when asked. Childbirth was given as the cause of death, and the duration of her illness was one week. I don't have copies of her twins' birth or death entries but the LDS Church's Australian Vital Records Index (AVRI) shows that they too died at Inglewood in 1860, Daniel Gobbett (birth reg. no 17016; death 12214) apparently surviving their mother a little longer than his brother David (birth 17017; death 9449).
On 22 July 1862, widower Daniel Gobbett (aged "33", a sawyer of Sebastopol Forest, Glenlyon) married sempstress Martha Jane Smythe (27, of Seven Mile forest, Glenlyon) in the priest's residence at Daylesford, Victoria, witnessed by W. ?Carleton and Mary ?Hurdley. Daniel was then a Roman Catholic, while Martha Jane belonged to the Church of England, although she was born in the City of Cork, Ireland, a daughter of solicitor John James Smythe and Jane Anne Howard. Or so we are led to believe by marriage registration entry 2756, which states that Daniel's former wife had died on 15 Jan. 1861, having given him five children, of whom three were still living in July 1862. I've seen no other indication that there may have been three wives. Perhaps Daniel had an unmarried partner for a few months, or perhaps he was just not good with dates.
I'm currently awaiting photocopies of entries recording the births of the two children known to have been born in Van Diemen's Land (VDL): a boy in 1852 ("GARBETT" in the AVRI) and a girl in 1854. No forenames were registered with the civil authorities but one has been found among the baptisms at St Joseph's Catholic Church in Hobart (AOT: NS1052/1/8 p.181): John, son of Daniel Gobbett and Ellen Scott, was born on 20 Sept. and baptized on 17 Dec. 1852. The godparents were Henry W(h)ithers and Charlott(e) Ferriman, almost certainly the couple indexed in the AVRI as Henry Withers (21) and Charlotte Ferryman (32) who married in "Tasmania" [VDL] in 1853. However, the AVRI also has the birth of Henry Ferriman in 1854, son of Charlotte Ferriman and an unspecified father. Shoemaker Henry Withers from Bath, Somerset, was transported at the age of 13 in 1843 for theft and discharged to freedom in Hobart in June 1849 (AOT: CON33/1/42 image 186).
During that period, Henry is unlikely to have met fellow convict Daniel Gobbett, who arrived in Nov. 1848 and was promptly appointed as a constable, possibly because of his previous experience in the army, although he had been prosecuted for desertion and highway robbery! Daniel's online records are indexed by AOT under "Gobbelt" (
http://portal.archives.tas.gov.au/menu.aspx?detail=1&typ...): CON14/1/40 images 36 & 37; CON33/1/91 image 90; and CON18/1/50 image 28.
At present, I have no more information about John or his siblings. If they were in Victoria, their destiny was probably guided by step-mother Martha Jane Gobbett, who can't be blamed for keeping them safely away from their father after he attacked her in 1866. As yet undetected in later years, she may well have changed her surname - and the children's - even if she was unable to remarry while Daniel was alive. An Ararat Asylum casebook in the Public Record Office Victoria at Melbourne (VPRS 7403/P1 unit 4, ff.11v. & 12) reveals that he was transferred in 1868 from Melbourne Gaol to Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum and 19 years later from there to Ararat, where he died of pneumonia on 2 Dec. 1887 at 11.55 a.m. His family was unknown.
David