Bunn Family History
Bunn/Smiley family link
On 26 August 1894, Marion Harley Bunn, daughter of Henry Alfred and Margaret (Wilson) Bunn of St Kilda, married Thomas Alexander Ward Smiley, son of Shepherd Parkman and Margaret Phoebe (Ward) Smiley. This part of the Smiley family website explores a little of the Bunn family story from ancestors in England in the late 1600s down to the Australian generation of Marion Harley Bunn.
Margaret Mabel Bunn, later Down 1872-1958
Family line:
John Bunn ca1680 → James Bunn 1703 → James Bunn 1737 → William Bunn 1765 → George Bunn 1789 → Henry Alfred Bunn 1827-1905 → Margaret Mabel Bunn 1872-1958.
Margaret Mabel Bunn, born on 24 October 1872 at St Kilda, Victoria, was the 9th of the 12 children of Henry Alfred and Margaret (Wilson) Bunn.
In 1891 when she was aged 19, she along with her two sisters Isabella and Marion were among the 30,000 women who signed the Women's Suffrage Petition which argued that women should have the same voting rights as men.
On 6 April 1898 at her Argyle Street, St Kilda home, Margaret (aged 26) married Henry 'Harry' James Down, son of John and Mary Anne (Crute) Down. He was born at Eldorado in northeast Victoria in 1873 and described himself as a gas employee. They initially lived in St Kilda but later in life moved to Armadale.
Harry Down died at Royal Park, Melbourne, on 15 April 1949 at the age of 76; Mabel (the name she used as an adult) died at Box Hill, Melbourne, on 30 September 1958 at the age of 85.
Children:
- Winifred Margaret Down (1899-1982), married (1) 1920 James Valentine Carnie (1882-1964), (2) Herbert Stoneham
- Marjorie Baden Powell Down (1900-1998) married 1921 Carl August Opperman (1896-1965)
- Olive Mabel Down (1902-?) married 1930 Arthur De Figueiredo (1903-1955)
- Florence Marion Down (1903-1989) married 1923 Stanley Hodgens (1896-1973)
- Alec James Down (1908-1978) married 1936 Maida Amy Davies (1904-1995)
Further information
Siblings of Margaret Mabel Bunn.
