Arthur Dobson’s mother, Sarah Dobson, nee, Ingles, was left destitute when her husband Edward had an accident whilst carrying a gun at Jerusalem (now Colebrook). He died in the General Hospital. Although the family name was known as Dobson, the father’s convict record was Dabson. Note was made of this on the application for three of the children to be admitted to the Queen’s Orphanage. There were four other children named on the application form – Emma, Charlotte, Georgiana and Sarah Dobson. These girls do not appear to have been admitted at a later date, but the admission/discharge register has not survived. Charlotte however, was admitted to the Girls’ Industrial School on 2 Feb 1871 for four years.

Three children, Edmund 10yrs, George 7yrs and Arthur 6yrs were admitted in November 1865. After seven years at the Queen’s Orphanage, Arthur was apprenticed to A H Finlayson, Murray Street, but he absconded in 1874 and 1875.

My mother, Muriel Shaw, daughter of Violet Dobson and Arthur Shaw, had been brought up by her Dobson grandparents, then an aunt. Her father requested her to come back, but she found they were like strangers and so she ran away at 14 years of age and got a job with a Palfreyman where she learnt housekeeping.