Esplin descendants gather as tribute to one of Hay’s earliest sons
Three generations of Esplin descendants gathered at Short’s Hotel where a print of the former Tattersal’s Hotel proudly hangs (from left) Maddison Homewood Jennifer and Michelle Kok and Jacqueline, Toby and Owen Johnston (front) John (cousin of the late Gavin Johnston) and Mark Johnston.
By Mark Johnston.
Descendants of one of Hay’s earliest sons, George Thomas Esplin, gathered by his grave in Melbourne Cemetery on April 8 to commemorate the 145th anniversary of his death in 1878 at just 40 years of age. George, along with his partner, Jane (Mowat), immigrated from Scotland as a couple in their early 20s in 1859. They married in Hay in 1869, and that year bought the Bush Inn.
The first of their four children, George Tempest, was born in 1871. Later that year they acquired Tattersall’s Hotel, built in 1867, in Lachlan Street, which was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the Cobb Inlander Hotel. George and Jane welcomed three more children, Isabella May (Campbell) 1873, Donald Tempest 1874 and Jane Pitcairn (Johnston) 1878, arriving just two months before George’s passing.
The name George Esplin was prominently displayed over Lachlan St on Tattersall’s Hotel until the mid-1920s. Jane would earn a more permanent memorial for her contribution to the town with a stained-glass window in her honour in the Presbyterian Church. Of George and Jane’s four children, all but one settled away from Hay.
Their youngest, Jane remained to become the mother of Gavin Johnston Snr, the second generation of Johnstons to own The Grazier. Despite the impact George, Jane and their descendants had in Hay, the name Esplin appears only once in Hay cemetery; George and Jane’s infant grandson, George, the son of their first-born. The last of their descendants to be buried in Hay was their greatgrandson, Gavin Johnston Jnr in 1995, the former owner and editor of The Grazier.
George’s untimely death occurred at Short’s Hotel, now McMahon’s Hotel, 575 Spencer Street in North Melbourne. He was in Melbourne due to his poor health and was with Jane when he passed away. It is testament to the high regard in which he was held that his death notice reported in Wagga Wagga’s Daily Advertiser said ‘it falls to the lot of few men to be so universally liked as the late Mr. Esplin’.
George and Jane, together with Jane’s second husband, Thomas Patterson of Ulonga Station north of Hay, share a display at the Hay Gaol Museum. George and Jane’s three generations of descendants gathering by George’s grave, and later at Short’s Hotel, are all descendants of his youngest daughter, Jane.
