Louisa Sandercock was the second surviving daughter of Richard and Elizabeth, and was born at the hamlet of St. Thomas Street, Launceston, Cornwall, on 27 July, 1846. She started school in the parish of St. Thomas in 1851, as recorded in the Launceston Census for that year. She celebrated her seventh birthday on board the ‘California’, four days after the ship left one of the ports on the South Downs along the Channel. When the family had settled in at ‘Berry Hill’ there would have been plenty of things for Louisa to do in the household, especially after her mother had given birth to her two youngest children Sarah and John. When she was 21 Louisa married Henry Stoneman Bowey at ‘Berry Hill’, on 25 September, 1867. The marriage certificate records that Richard her father signed his name with an X - ‘his mark’ - because he could not write his name.

Henry Bowey was the second son of Richard and Mary Bowey, formerly of Modbury, Devon, where Henry himself was born on 11 March, 1847. The Boweys, with three sons and five daughters, had emigrated to South Australia in 1858, leaving England on the ship ‘Storm Cloud’ which arrived on 29 April in that year. Richard Bowey had been a blacksmith in Devon and was able to carry on his profession at Gumeracha. When the railway to Morgan was opened in 1874, the previously busy River Murray trade which the blacksmiths could count on for their own business dwindled considerably. Henry’s father and two brothers left Gumeracha and bought land on Yorke Peninsula; Henry himself stayed at Gumeracha and carried on a blacksmithing business for a total of 27 years. The blacksmith shop and Henry and Louisa’s house were located on one of three allotments which Henry owned - Nos. 55, 66 and 77 - Gumeracha township.

All ten of Henry and Louisa’s children were born at Gumeracha. There were four sons, one of whom died as an infant, and six daughters. The nine surviving children all married and the descendants of Louisa Bowey now number the most amongst the descendants of Richard and Elizabeth Sandercock. The seven eldest children - Emily, Edith, Annie, Lily, Arthur and John all completed or started their education at the Gumeracha school. An old photograph, which must have been taken, approximately, between the years 1877 and 1880, shows the four eldest daughters outside the Gumeracha school with their fellow pupils, 30 in all.

About the year 1886, Henry and Louisa moved from Gumeracha to Golden Grove, north of Modbury. Henry disposed of his blacksmithing business and leased a farm in the hills east of Golden Grove from a Miss Jemima Kennedy. The property, known as Royston Farm, was leased by Henry for about 20 years. The old house on the farm is now gone and nothing is left as a reminder of the Boweys’ occupation. The Burgess ‘Cyclopaedia of South Australia’, Volume 2 (1909), mentions that having ‘commenced farming operations with such good results … subsequently he (Henry) was able to acquire 177 acres of freehold property, and continued his career as an agriculturist very prosperously for 20 years’. No record of Henry’s freehold land has been found, and only the fact that he leased three sections from Miss Kennedy is known for certain.

The Boweys attended the Greenwith Methodist Church, beside the present Golden Grove Road. Three girls - Edith, Annie and Ruby - all played the organ at Greenwith at various times. The church was some distance from the Bowey farm, and one can imagine a very laden horse and cart coming down from the hills when the Boweys arrived for Church! The younger members of the family - John, Frederick, Ruby and Daisy, and possibly Arthur for a while - attended the Golden Grove School for some or all of their education. A photograph taken about 1890 shows four of the Bowey children among the 32 pupils at the school.

In 1905 Henry and Louisa retired to a house at Modbury which they named ‘Fairview’. It was situated next to the Modbury Primary school, behind the Modbury Institute and on the opposite side of the road to where the modern complex of Tea Tree Plaza stands. By 1909 all their children were married and by 1912 there were 22 grandchildren for grandmother Louisa to fuss over when her children called, and birthdays to remember correctly. By this time she and Henry had moved closer to Adelaide and were living at Loch Street, St. Peters. Here Louisa died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 5 January, 1912. She had been making a bed in the morning of that day when she collapsed. After nine hours, she died that evening, at the age of 65 years, and was buried at the Payneham cemetery where her younger sister Emily Cossey had been laid to rest almost exactly 17 years before.

It is a pity that the lives of our pioneer women folk were not covered in as much detail as that of their husbands. There must have been much to tell about Louisa Bowey, though only 11 grandchildren are living today. Her oldest grandchild still living is Sydney Wynne Warner, born in 1896, second son of Louisa’s second child Edith Warner. The blow to Louisa and Henry Bowey of losing their first son Alfred Henry at the age of six weeks in 1875 must have been a hard one, after four daughters had been born well. Yet the eldest child Emily Jane died in 1894 at the young age of 26 years. She was married with two young sons. Gwenn Bird, nee Warner, a granddaughter of Louisa, has two dainty painted cups and saucers which belonged to her grandmother and given to Gwen after Louisa died.

The Cyclopaedia of South Australia mentions that Henry served two years on the District Council of Tea Tree Gully. This interest in the affairs of local government has been shared by at least two of Henry’s descendants, Harry Bowey and John Tilley junior, both of whom have served terms as the mayor of their area. Henry was associated with the independent Order of Oddfellows since the age of 18, and passed through all the chains of office of that body. After the death of Louisa, Henry lived on his own at St. Peters for a while, until his house was burgled. He then went to live with his eldest surviving daughter Edith, Mrs Herbert Warner, at her home in Main North Road, Enfield. There he died on 14 August, 1917, at the age of 70 years. He was buried with Louisa at Payneham.

The family Bible in which Louisa and Henry recorded all the dates of birth of their children is now in the possession of a grand-daughter-in-law. it is about 110 years old.