George Preece Burn and Mary Price

George Preece (G.P) Burn 

William Hone's great grandson, George Preece Burn was born at Omeo, Victoria in 1857 and died in Killarney, near Warwick in Queensland in 1908. 

In 1884 George married Mary Price. Mary was born in Wales and died in Newmerella in 1904. Mary's mother Elizabeth re-married to a Mr Thomas and they were the owners of the Commercial Hotel in Bairnsdale.  Mary's sister Eliza was married to William Street of Orbost, Victoria.

In the majority of news articles George is referred to as G. P Burn, but for the purpose of this website, we will refer to him as George. 

George was a farmer in Newmerella, just outside of Orbost. It appears that he and his family lived on the low lands surrounding the Snowy River as he filed for bankruptcy in 1894 and lists flooding as one of the reasons.  You can read more about the 1894 floods in this newspaper article. At this stage I do not know if he farmed the same 230 acres his father Allan Burn owned in Newmerella. A number of newspaper articles mention him in reference to applying for land grants.

George often acted as a Steward at the 1888 Orbost races. Interestingly George's daughter Ivy would marry George Hill, nephew of the horse trainer (Carbine and 3 other Melbourne Cup winners) Walter Hickenbotham. As with the community-minded tradition of the family, George was instrumental in getting a new bridge, the Orbost Suspension Bridge, built in 1893. A newspaper article about this can be viewed here. George was also a representative on the Tambo Shire Council for 1888 and 1889.

After searching for a long time, I finally found George's death notice in Queensland under the list of George Morgan. It appears he had been suffering from influenza but died from a heart attack at Killarney Railway Station. He was 50. I'm not sure why George was using an alias (the Morgan comes from his mother Joyce Morgan) but there were many Morgan relatives in the area at the time. George was buried in the Church of England section of the the Killarney Cemetery. Killarney is a small township near Warwick.

Thank you to Toni Dean for allowing me to reproduce the photo of George Preece Burn and Louis Burn and to Evelyn Hawkins for the photos of Ivy Burn. 

George Preece Burn and Mary Price had four children.

1. Ivy Elizabeth Joyce Burn (1886 - 1967). She married George Henry Hill in 1905 and they moved to the Bathurst region of New South Wales. They had 8 children in Bathurst. They then moved to the little village of Lidsdale, near Lithgow, NSW.

 2. Louis Hone Burn (1888 - 1918). Louis married Isabella Roberts in Bega in 1909. They had one son, Alfred Henry Burn (1910 - 1958). Louis Burn (service no 4891) enlisted in the 30th Infantry Battalion, 13th and 14th reinforcements. He embarked on January 24, 1917 in Sydney on the HMAT Anchises. He was killed in France on October 6, 1818. Louis is buried at Tincourt, New British Cemetery, Picardie, France. Picture of Louis, not sure of date.

3. Ormond Stanley Burn (1890 - 1937) married Muriel Olive Hughes (? - 1970) in Lithgow, NSW. They had Alfred (1929 - 1930) and Francis George, known as Bill (1933 - 1976). Both boys were born in Orbost. Bill died in Port Melbourne and is buried at Fawkner Memorial Park. His wife Josephine died in 2017. Ormond Stanley (known as Stan) died in Orbost in 1937.

4. Alfred Oswald (1892 - 1892).