On 26th April 1838, Tom & Sarah Brown arrived in Australia from England, with his brother William “Bill” Brown, and their friend, Rev John Wheatley, to “evangelise the colony”. Initially, they settled at Cowpastures, near Cobbity, in the now south-western suburbs of Sydney. Then they moved out to Jarrawa Creek, which soon became known as “Wesley Vale”, 30 minutes’ drive NE of Yass near Canberra, where they established a Wesleyan Church amongst cattle thieves and social outcasts. Later this town was renamed Dalton.

In 1938, their family held a centenary celebration at Dalton and produced a booklet called “Old Tom Brown of Wesley Vale“, which contains Tom & Sarah Brown’s family tree – over one thousand descendants in 100 years!

Please take a look at the family tree online Excel document to see if your Grandparents, Great-grandparents, or great-uncle/aunt’s names are there:

On the weekend of the 26th April 2038, we are planning to hold a bicentennial family reunion (fondly referred to as “TB200”), possibly at Cobbity (south-western Sydney), so we are on the hunt for as many of the descendants of Old Tom Brown as we can find!!

Three Questions:

1. Are you (or do you know) a descendant of Old Tom Brown? Surnames of his descendants listed in the Old Tom Brown of Wesley Vale Book include:

2. Are you (or do you know) a descendant of Tom’s brother William “Bill” Brown?

3. Or are you (or do you know) a descendant of the men who helped Old Tom establish the Wesley Vale Methodist, now known as Dalton Uniting Church? All these men would have been born in the early 1800s:

• Rev John Wheatley
• James Holgate
• Thomas Southwell
• William Carnall
• Mr Starr
• Mr Bush
• Mr Friend
• The Roots Brothers
• Silas Gill
• Rev James Colwell

If you know anyone with any of the surnames above, please forward this link to them www.OldTomBrown.org and ask them to contact us.

If you are related, please contact us via email: OldTomBrown38 (at) g mail dot com

Thank you for helping us to find the thousands of descendants so we can add them to our book and invite them to our bicentenary celebration!

——anything below this point has nothing to do with the Tom Brown 200—–