I am the great, great granddaughter of James Dumbrell. I have actually just arrived home from the Adelaide Market where I walked past the Blackeby's sweet shop - Dumbrell's name is still shown there on an old photograph.
I thought that James followed the Ransleys from Brighton, but I notice from one of the entries that they apparently traveled together from England. I presume he was apprenticed to Thomas Ransley. I believe he was supposed to marry one of the Ransley daughters, but she married someone else. So he married the widow Ransley instead! She was 20 years older than he was (a window of opportunity?)! The two daughters they had, Jessie, and Louisa Mathilda (my grandmother), were named after his siblings in England - Jesse, a brother, and Louisa, and Mathilda, 2 sisters.
Louisa (Rogers), his daughter, was my grandmother. My mother, Elsie Louisa, is still alive and well at 93.
James does have a headstone in the West Terrace Cemetery. I photographed it last year.
I live part of the year in Adelaide, and part in the UK. I was recently in the Scaynes Hill district north of Brighton, where Thomas Dumbrell, James's grandfather, was a blacksmith.
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My mother, Elsie, nee Rogers, granddaughter of James and Mercy, remembers them both well. Mercy was always beautifully groomed - perhaps her enduring looks attracted her much younger husband, James. After she died, James Dumbrell stated that he was 'glad the old girl went before him, so that she wasn't left to cope on her own'.
The confectionery business was very successful, and the Dumbrell family owned quite a bit of Adelaide real estate. Their large, main house was on the corner of Mercy Street (named after Mercy), and Grote St. Mercy St has since been renamed Blenheim St, although the southern end of it was always called thus.
The factory was situated just behind the house, and they also owned a large number of terrace houses in the street.
When my mother was a child, she remembers being taken, along with siblings, with Mercy to Charles Burke's store (now David Jones). The manager would greet them in the foyer, and anything Mrs Dumbrell wished to see - to buy for her children/grandchildren - would be brought to her for her inspection. She didn't have to search around the store.
