CUMING, Jane

Jane Sweet was born around 1823 in Cornwall, Britain.  In 1845 she married Stephen Cuming in Truro Cornwall.

They came to Australia with their son and daughter in 1851 on the Victory bound for the Goldfields.  Jane was a broad minded thinker for her times and this is evident in the naming of her first born daughter ‘Martineau’ after Harriet Martine.  The Cumings lived in a tent at Pennyweight Hill.  After the fighting at the Eureka Stockade had subsided, Jane helped the injured Peter Lalor.  The Argus reported (1st July 18990: It was on the early morning of the Monday following the fight that Jane drew her husband’s attention to a man walking slowly between the holes on the flat and said ‘That is Peter Lalor, I feel sure of it.’  She ran down to help him.  Steve Cuming told a friend, “His face was grey and worried and he looked like a frail old man rather than a powerful young one, so greatly had pain and loss of blood during the twenty four hours weakened him.  I helped him into the hut.  As well as we could, my wife and I bandaged the wounded arm.  I knew my hut was no place for him as a reward of 200 pound had been offered for his arrest and there were many mean spirits keen to earn it."   Peter Lalor ended up being taken to the Presbytery of the local Catholic Church were he had his arm amputated.  The next night after Peter was moved the Cumings hut was searched by the Police.

Stephen Cuming died in 1898 at Pennyweight.  His widow Jane died on the 1st October 1911 aged 88 years.

Jane is buried with Stephen and her youngest daughter Edith.

Ballarat New Cemetery, Church of England A, Section 8 Grave 1