James Nash

(1836 - 1921)

and his wife Mary Ann Drayton

Blacksmith of Windsor, Penrith, Hartley and Rylstone NSW

James Nash was born in 1836 at the farm of his parents George Nash and Mary Lees in the Parish of Londonderry, north-east of Castlereagh NSW.  He relocated to Windsor with his family in the late 1840’s where he was apparently apprenticed to a blacksmith.  In 1860 he married Mary Ann Drayton (c1841-1922) at Windsor.  Mary Ann Drayton was the daughter of William Drayton and his wife Harriet Winter of Barrington parish, County Somerset, England.  The Drayton family had emigrated to NSW on board the Bolton in 1853 and settled in Richmond.

James and Mary Ann Nash settled initially at South Creek [St Mary's] near Penrith where James' brothers, George and Samuel, were also residing.  In 1861 they travelled across the Blue Mountains to Hartley where other members of the Nash family had settled.  In the mid-1860’s they relocated to Rylstone near Mudgee where they remained until their deaths in the early 1920's  

Surviving records indicate that James worked as a blacksmith throughout these years., although he was also recorded as a coachbuilder on his death certificate.  He purchased numerous properties in Rylstone and the cottage he built on one of these properties was later to become the well-known "Show Cottage".

James died at Rylstone in 1921.  His widow Mary Ann moved to Sydney shortly afterwards where she died in 1922.  Both were buried in Rylstone Cemetery.   

This is a brief summary of the chapter relating to James Nash and Mary Ann Drayton published in Nash: First Fleeters and Founding Families - A Three Generational Biographical History.  

Copyright 2004 - Carol Baxter

The family of James Nash and Mary Ann Drayton*

1. George William Nash  (1861 - 1861) 

2. James Rowland Nash  (1862 - 1937) md Mary Carruthers in 1893. 

3. Edwin Henry Nash  (1864 - 1938) md Clara Batten in 1893. 

4. William Charles Nash  (1866 - 1944) md Eleanor Elizabeth Jennings in 1887. 

5. George Nash  (1868 - 1933) md 1. Lucy Lloyd in 1896 and 2. Alice Pitt in 1898. 

6. Maude Mary Nash  (1871 - >1921) md William Byng Hardy in 1894. 

7. Ada Maria Nash  (1874 - >1921) md Albert H. Hardy in 1896.

8. Ernest Richmond Nash  (1877 - 1878) 

9. John Horace Nash  (1879 - >1923) 

10. Ethel Gertrude Nash  (1882 - 1913) unmarried. 

* Many of these dates come from registrations of births, deaths and marriages.  In some cases the event itself will have occurred late in the previous year.    

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