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Note: A great deal of the information in relation to John Little has been obtained from the book "A Lot About A Little", put together by Jim Little and John Jennings after years of research and compilation of the details obtained from various sources. With absolutely no disrespect to either Jim or John or to their sources in N.S.W. some aspects of the history of John Little created questions in my mind that had to be answered.

To start at the beginning must surely mean starting this story at John Little's birthday, but really all of our beginnings go back one step further to John's parents James Little and his wife Jane (neeBoyd), for had they not decided to take the big step of emigrating to Australia none of us would be here to read this.


From the shipping records,

 

(For a more easily read record click the above list.)

we know James and Jane with eight children, sadly one small child died during the voyage, arrived at Corio Bay, Port Phillip on the 26th November, 1841. James and Jane were Bounty Emigrants benefiting from a scheme established by the authorities of the day to encourage and pay for the voyage of new settlers to Australia, other than convicts.

John was born on the 28th August, 1843 at a small farming community called "Trawalla", close to the village of Fiery Creek, renamed Beaufort in 1857, on the Western Highway some 135 kms. from Geelong. A Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland who had come across from Tasmania in the middle 1830's had taken up Trawalla as a run five or six years previously. Mrs.Kirkland in her diary told of an eleven-day journey to travel the 135 kms. from Corio Bay,(Geelong consisted of three buildings) to their new home site at Trawalla. James Little's occupation was shown as servant on his son's baptismal certificate, and we can only assume he had been designated into their service on arrival.

From here perhaps I should go to the "book" and excerpt from it the research relating to John's early years and subsequent movements and then explain the results of my further investigations, and I quote: