Thomas Chipp was a Private Marine 42^nd (Plymouth) Company.  He arrived into Sydney Cove aboard the convict ship Friendship and served there in the detachment of Watkin Tench.  At the end of his marine service Thomas decided to become a settler and left Port Jackson on 26 October 1791 by Atlantic for Norfolk Island.  He settled on 60 acres at Cascade Stream, Phillipsburg.  He was selling grain to stores in 1794, when he was listed as married to Jane Langley with three children.

Jane Langley was sentenced to 7 years at the Old Bailey on 14 September 1785 for feloniously stealing, on the 29 July, five guineas, value 51. 5s and 9s and 6d in monies numbered, being the property of Robert Robinson.  On 1 January 1787, Jane, then aged 22, was marked out of Newgate for transportation aboard Lady Penrhyn. At the Cape of Good Hope on 23 October 1787, Jane gave birth to a daughter Henrietta.   On 4 March 1790 Jane and Henrietta were sent to Norfolk Island by Sirius and lived on the Island in the home of Thomas Chipp, whom it is believed married her on 15 November 1791.  Jane had two children with Thomas before they left the Island by Daedalus for Port Jackson, where Thomas joined the NSW Corps.

In later years Thomas received several grants of land and was the father to five more children with Jane.  In January 1811 Thomas was appointed Constable 29 in the town of Sydney.  By 1822 he was working as a baker in the Sydney District.  Jane died on 18 February 1836 and is buried in the Church of England portion of the Devonshire Street cemetery.  Thomas spent the last years of his life as a Soldier Pensioner at Concord.  He died 3 July 1842 and was buried at St Johns Church of England Parramatta.

Honouring their WW1 descendant

6804 Edward Vincent Lawless
Private 6^th Battalion 22^nd Reinforcements
Transferred to 21^st Australian Infantry Battalion
Born 1895 Bombala NSW to John Francis and Elizabeth Charlotte (Lucas) Lawless Occupation Blacksmith
Enlisted Melbourne 9 September 1916 aged 21
Next-of-kin mother Elizabeth C Lawless father deceased
Embarked Melbourne 25 October 1916 aboard HMAT Ulysses A36
Disembarked Plymouth 28 December 1916
Service in France and Belgium
Killed in Action 9 October 1917 during the Battle of Poelcappelle Belgium (previously reported missing)

I knew him well.  He came with me in the 22^nd to 6^th reinforcement, and transferred at Havre to the 21^st Battalion.  He was a signaller.  He came from Orbost, Gippsland.  He was a Blacksmith in civil life.  After the hop over on October 9^th at Broodseinde, he had to go back, and repair a telephone wire.  He was in company with Signaller Frank Hussy of the 21^st Batt., D.Co. (with the Battalion now).  Lawless repaired the break, and Hussy says he was very excited, and wanted to be on the move.  He went off on his own nearer to our line to repair another break without waiting for the others.  Hussy saw him so about 20 yards, and he has never been seen since.  The mud was very thick.  The only way we can account for his disappearance was that he was killed or wounded, and sunk in the mud.  There was absolutely no chance of him being taken prisoner of war.  It was well behind our line.  He went over in place of me that day as I was sick.  I look upon him as having died instead of me and also his people replied on me to look after him, as he was much younger, so I tried to find out all I could about him.  He has been marked “Missing” in the Battalion.  I wrote to his mother, and sent her his pipe etc.

3 December 1917 – Informant: Forster R. 6764 21^st Australians B.Co. Signaller. Australian Camp, Roueller

He came over from England about last August.  Thick set, tallish, & about 22, He was killed in the second hop over at Ypres on October 9^th

17 August 1918 – Informant EP Quick 7348. 21^st Australians D.14
(Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files)

Cemetery: Passchendaele New British Cemetery, Passchendaele, Flanders, Belgium XIV.B.2