Fanny Nicholson

     NOTE: The information on this page is my research to date and is subject to change as I become better informed. I very much welcome any corrections or additional info you might have - my email address is at the bottom of this page. Whilst historical facts are not copyright, my writing about these facts are. If you wish to use any text from this site on Ancestry or on any other website, please ask me first - Tim Hill.


Fanny Nicholson was born in 1805 at the Parish of Assynt, Sutherland, Scotland.³ She was the daughter of Donald Nicholson and Mary Margaret MacDougall.^1,2 Fanny Nicholson was baptised on Saturday, 22 June 1805 at the Parish of Assynt, Sutherland.^2,1 She may have been born on 1 March 1808 at Sutherland, Scotland.⁴

In 1829, sisters Anne and Fanny both married local house carpenters.

She married Thomas MacKenzie, a house carpenter, son of James MacKenzie and Margaret Aird, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at Manse on Tuesday, 20 October 1829 at Culag, the Parish of Assynt, Sutherland, Scotland. It was the first marriage in the Parish for more than 3 months..⁵

However, younger sister Fanny and her husband Thomas decided to emmigrate to New South Wales, leaving Anne and her husband.

Thomas and Fanny, having decided to resettle in the Colonies took their young family back to the Ross family seat at Ardchronie, the Parish of Edderton, Ross-shire, Scotland, a journey of 50 miles (80 km) cross Scotland. they stayed there for a week or longer, returning with Thomas' sister Grace.⁶ Fanny could read and write.⁴ Fanny Nicholson was a house servant.⁴

Fanny and her husband Thomas emigrated with their children and Fanny's brother Donald. from Lochinver, the parish of Assynt, Sutherland, Scotland, on 21 October 1838 on the James Moran a 600 ton bark. The James Moran, largely carried those subject to the Highland clearances, and came via Rev. John Dunmore Lang's bounty scheme.^7,6 After a voyage of 113 days (almost four months) Fanny and her husband Thomas arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales, on 11 February 1839 with their family. However, their young son Malcolm, less than a year old, died on the voyage.. The vessel called at the Cape of Good Hope from late December to the 2nd of January 1839. Whilst there, some of the passengers wrote a letter to the Commissioner of Emigration in Scotland, complimenting the food, the Surgeon and the Master, and expressing a hope that their comments would relieve "a dread of the hardships they may be made to endure on the passage". At the Cape they picked up 20 survivors from the wreck of the Dunlop and conveyed them to Port Jackson.^7,6


She almost certainly attended the wedding of her brother in the marriage of Donald Nicholson and Margaret Brown in a Presbyterian ceremony at Free Presbyterian Church in Pitt Street on Friday, 19 March 1841 at Sydney. It isn't known how they met but perhaps it was through Donald's work. After their marriage Donald and Margaret lived in Parramatta at least until the start of the new year. Together they were to go on to have 10 children over 18 years.⁸

Thomas was mentioned in a book written 38 years after his death:



Fanny wrote a letter to her sister Anne on 4 July 1860:

This was '"the last letter received in the old country from any of the family."⁶

Fanny died in 1898 at the Sydney suburb of Balmain North.⁹