Elizabeth Henrietta Fitzgerald (née Rouse, 1818–1863) was born at Rouse Hill, New South Wales, the youngest daughter of colonial public servant and landowner Richard Rouse (1774–1852) and his wife Elizabeth (née Adams, 1772–1849), who’d come to Sydney as free settlers in 1801. Elizabeth was named after her mother and a sister who had died in infancy, and possibly also after Elizabeth Henrietta Macquarie, the wife of Rouse’s patron, Governor Lachlan Macquarie. Elizabeth Henrietta married landowner Robert Fitzgerald (1807–1865) in 1841. Fitzgerald was the son of ex-convict landowner and farmer Richard Fitzgerald who, like Richard Rouse, had won important government positions during the Macquarie period. In the early 1830s, Robert Fitzgerald acquired substantial amounts of land in mid-west and north-west New South Wales, and in 1840 he inherited his father’s considerable estates. Following their marriage, Elizabeth and Fitzgerald moved to Mamre, near present-day St Marys, where their seven children were born. Following his appointment to the NSW Legislative Council in 1856, Fitzgerald acquired Springfield, a villa located in what is now Potts Point. Elizabeth died at Springfield, aged 44, in March 1863.
Gift of Pamela Glasson 2009
Collected by Leila Haigh (nee Rouse)
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