John Hamp

  Noted events in his life were:

• Emigration. Departed London on 12 Apr 1838, aboard Duke of Roxburgh, arriving in Adelaide, South Australia

• Fact 1. The popular history is that Elliston was the name chosen by Governor Jervois in 1878, after Miss Ellen Liston, a writer from England, who was the governess to the children of a local pioneering a Mr John Hamp & his family. The town was originally known as Ellie's town.

• Death. Much controversy has been expressed regarding the story that in Elliston a tribe of aborigines were rounded up en mass and driven over the cliffs near the bay.
Some suggest that this is where the Bay derives its name ... Many of the old settlers and their descendants still speak of this however and it is generally agreed that the story is basicly correct although generally not accepted by Historians due to lack of documented evidence. The scene of the massacre is supposed to be the cliffs south west of the Bay.
About 150 white men drove 260 aborigines over the cliffs near Elliston after several local murders particularly one of JOHN HAMP whose head was reputedly found in an oven. John Hamp was murdered by two Aboriginals named Mingalta & Malgata.

• Early Days in Australia. John and Sarah had 8 children, the last one being born after their arrival in South Australia in 1839. They were brought out as servants of the Wilson? family. Sarah died just after just three years in Australia. The family had
a pretty tough life after that.

Two years later, John Hamp's whole crop and possessions were sold to pay his rent, and his sons bullocks were seized. His eldest child at that stage was 19 and his youngest was only 4. He applied for relief from the SA Govenment, but was turned down, and advised to apply to the Philanthropic Society.

His younger son, William, was fostered out to George and Elizabeth Haines, a family of Quakers, and he inherited their property in Lyndoch Valley.

When John was murdered by aborigines in 1848, his eldest child was 24, and his youngest was seven.

John married Sarah Emily Chipp, daughter of Henry Chipp and Sarah, on 9 Aug 1823 in Rotherfield, Peppard, Oxford, England. (Sarah Emily Chipp was born on 21 Dec 1804 in Henley on Thames, Oxford, England, died on 25 Nov 1841 in South Australia, Australia and was buried on 27 Nov 1841 in West Tce Cemetary, Adelaide, South Australia.)