Bunn Family History
Bunn/Smiley family link
On 26 August 1894, Marion Harley Bunn, daughter of Henry Alfred and Margaret (Wilson) Bunn of St Kilda, married Thomas Alexander Ward Smiley, son of Shepherd Parkman and Margaret Phoebe (Ward) Smiley. This part of the Smiley family website explores a little of the Bunn family story from ancestors in England in the late 1600s down to the Australian generation of Marion Harley Bunn.
Henry (Harry) Bunn 1861-1926
Family line:
John Bunn ca1680 → James Bunn 1703 → James Bunn 1737 → William Bunn 1765 → George Bunn 1789 → Henry Alfred Bunn 1827-1905 → Henry (Harry) Bunn 1861-1926.
Henry (Harry) Bunn, born on 15 February 1861 at St Kilda, Victoria, was the 1st of the 12 children of Henry Alfred and Margaret (Wilson) Bunn. He was a carpenter by trade but also a member of St Kilda Volunteer Fire Brigade from about 1884. When the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MMFB) replaced volunteer fire brigades, he transferred to the MMFB and became a full-time fireman.
On 26 August 1887 at Carlton, he married Emily Charlotte Rutherford who was born at St Luke, Middlesex, on 11 April 1861. As a 4-year-old child, Emily was brought to Australia aboard the sailing ship Ocean Empress to join her grandmother, Mary Ann (Stevens) Porter and her family. Following their marriage, Harry and Emily Bunn had 8 children but two died at an early age.
Harry became second in charge of Prahran Fire District in 1906 but about that time moved to take charge of the South Melbourne station. He rose to become a superintendent (district officer) in the MMFB and was also the grand treasurer of the Freemasons United Grand Masonic Lodge of Victoria.
About 1920 he fell through a hatch cover on board a ship and subsequently suffered serious health problems. He left the fire brigade on 31 December 1922 and died just four years later, on 7 January 1926 when aged 64. Emily died at Brighton on 31 October 1943 when aged 82.
Children:
- Margaret Millicent Bunn (1888-1960) married 1912 Frank Bengrey Denton (1887-1961)
- Emily Dorothy Bunn (1890-1959) married 1915 Frederick Charles Sides (1888-1968)
- Phyllis Marion Bunn (1892-1946) married 1915 Stanley John Powell (1891-1945)
- Mabel Florence Bunn (1894-1882) married 1920 Charles Henry Tuckett (1893-1981)
- Clarice Marjorie Bunn (1896-1980)
- Harry Gilbert Bunn (1898-1911)
- Lillian Ada Bunn (1900-1912) - died from injuries received in a traffic accident
- Kenneth Rutherford Bunn (1905-1973) married (1) 1936 Joy Kennedy (1911-1994) and (2) 1955 Eileen (Topsy) Jones (1915-2005)
More information
1940 Letter written by Emily (Rutherford) Bunn about her grandmother, Mary Ann Porter.
Siblings of Henry (Harry) Bunn.
