Henry Harrison Briscoe Junior was the fourth of five children and the third son of Henry Harrison Senior and Elizabeth (nee Osborne).
At the age of 13 years Henry appeared in the 1851 census in Kent, England as a student in a Preparatory Military Academy in Eltham. Among his classmates were boys from British India and Australia.
1851 Census record extract for Kent.
The area of India (and modern day Pakistan) where Henry served with the 81st Regiment during the Indian Mutiny
Henry's Service Record
His Early Life in Australia
The young married couple, Henry Harrison and Ann Alice Briscoe, arrived in Melbourne in about March 1865.
Annie was already ill with a disease of the lungs and died the following January and was bueied in the Melbourne General Cemetery.
Death Notice. The Argus (Melbourne) Wednesday 3 January 1866, Page 4 (Trove)
After the death of Annie Alice, Henry spent the next 17 years in the outback. During this time he variously leased property, took shares in mining ventures and worked at a number of stations droving sheep around the country and to market.
The next record of Henry was in the 1869-70 census when he was residing at langawirra, NSW.
Langawirra station is one of the westernmost homesteads in New South Wales. The closest capital city is Adelaide in South Australia about 510km to the southwest with Sydney about 890km away to the east-southeast.
Map showing a number of properties where Henry worked in the 1870s.
Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney) Sat 5 Dec 1874, Page 16 (Trove)
The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser Thu 22 Feb 1877, Page 7 (Trove)
Messrs. Middleton and Rogers ran the station Mena Mertie.
During this period Henry met the explorer William Ernest Powell Giles who travels the area west of the Darling River and north towards the Queensland border in search of land suitable for pastoral use. Between 1872 and 1876 Giles made three major expeditions into Australia's unknown western interior and in his book Geographic Travels in Central Australia from 1872 to 1874, he wrote:
"Friday, 15th November [1872]. — I rested the horses at this place to-day and did not move the camp. I walked to the top of the tent-hill, and from there saw, that the creek went through another pass a little to the N.E. of our camp. In the afternoon I rode over to this pass, and found some ponds of water a little to the west of it; a bullock, whose tracks I had seen on the creek, had got bogged here, and was now left high and dry. I called these ponds and pass "Briscoe's-Pass" and " Briscoe's-Ponds," and the little tent hill I have named "Briscoe's-Tent," after Mr. H. H. Briscoe, of the Darling-River, who was living with my two friends, Messrs. Middleton and Rogers, when I last saw him."
Ernest Giles' Map showing the locations named for Henry Harrison Briscoe
Chambers Pillar, Central Australia (https://www.australias.guide)
His Family Life
Henry Harrison and Elizabeth Briscoe and family photographed while living at The Rock near Wagga Wagga. (Photo courtesy of Dorothy Bail, WA)
(Click person for their Details Page)
Life at The Rock
Wagga Wagga Advertiser, Tue 20 Mar 1894, Page 2 (Trove)
Henry finally remarried in 1883 to Elizabeth Warren who lived in northern Victoria. Elizabeth was 24 years old at the time and Henry was 45. Their first two children were born in Melbourne and then the family moved back to NSW as Henry took up the role as Caretaker of Government bores at 64 Mile Tank Cobar, The Rock near Wagga Wagga and lastly Tooloora Bore near Walgett. During theose 20 years in western NSW six more children were added to the family, although Arthur dying as an infant at The Rock, before moving to Sydney in about 1905.
Arthur's Roadside Grave, The Rock, at the site of the proposed cemetery.
Arthur William Boultree Tottance Briscoe (1892-1893)
Briscoes in Bankstown
Records show that the family lived at various addresses before Henry finally acquiringa 13 acre property in Tower Street East Hills near Bankstown by 1908.
The Briscoe "Beaconsfield" property in Tower Street East Hills
Tower Street East Hills, c. 1920
When Henry died in 1912, aged 75 years, he was buried at the St. Saviour's Chuchyard in Canterbury Road Punchbowl.
The widowed Elizabeth and the family lived on at Tower Street few a few more years until moving to Leonard Street in Bankstown. Elizabeth died in 1917 and was buried not far from her husband at St. Saviour's.
St. Saviours Churchyard, Punchbowl, NSW
St. Saviours Churchyard, Punchbowl, NSW
St. Saviours Churchyard, Punchbowl, NSW