Louisa Roscrow: An Unfortunate Woman & Her Equally Unfortunate Acquaintances.

Things are not always as they seem, and people are not always who you think they are. That was certainly the case in the lives of the people in this story, which began as part of an account of how six members of the Cosstick family—Henry, William, John, Charles, George, and Samuel—emigrated to Victoria during the years of the 1850s goldrushes.  Henry, William, and John settled at a place, originally called Daisy Hill, but later known as the town of Amherst.

Daisy Hill happened to be on the route taken by optimistic gold-seekers coming from Adelaide in South Australia and headed towards the goldfields of Mount Alexander. However, because Daisy Hill also turned out to have gold of its own, many of the Adelaide travelers went no further, and among those who stopped at Daisy Hill were three members of the Cowley family—Albion, Joseph, and Daniel.

The Cosstick and the Cowley families inevitably got to know each other. But they also got to know many others, and, like any detective story, the investigation of who knew whom, and the circumstances of how those acquaintances came about, follows a path with many twists and turns, sometimes leading to dead-ends, and sometimes leading to unexpected revelations.

Keywords: Louisa Roskrow; Louisa Phillips; Josiah Phillips; Gotliet Keirnall; James Cowley; Mary Ann Collins; John Collins; Joseph Fisher Cowley; Albion Cowley; Alexander Tolmer.

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This article is a pre-publication draft and while the sources cited may be readily used by others, the actual text of this article is subject to the usual copyright and fair-use rules. If citing this article or quoting extracts from it please use the following citation: Douglas Wilkie, ‘Louisa Roscrow: An Unfortunate Woman & Her Equally Unfortunate Acquaintances,’ pre-publication draft article, Historia Incognita, February 2025. https://historiaincognita.net/