Back to Bertha's story...

We find Bertha as an eleven year old girl in her newly adopted country, fresh off the ship and in new accommodation in Melbourne with her mother Hannah and sisters Marion and Jessie.Her brother-in-law Arthur Paton, who travelled with them on the Culloden, would have been very keen to reunite with his wife Laura Hughan Paton, having only spent a short week with her after their marriage, prior to her boarding the ship Tasman in 1849 and sailing off to Melbourne. It had been more than a year since Arthur and the Hughans had seen Laura, so I imagine that the reunion was an emotional one.
When Laura had sailed out on the Tasman, her occupation had been stated as 'nursery maid', and I believe that this was her employment in Victoria upon her arrival. She may even have been employed in London as a nursery maid for a family travelling out to the Colonies, to assist them on the ship, and could have remained with them until her husband arrived.
I think that her sisters Marion and Jessie may have wanted to follow the same employment path. In a letter written by the Bishop of Melbourne and quoted in a London newspaper, he wrote:
" The testimony of all who have visited the Immigrant Depot, where they were received on landing, concurred in representing them as by far the most promising company of females which had yet been landed here. The fact that all, with the exception of two out of three sisters wishing for places as nursery governesses, have been hired within 2 days of their arrival, shows them also to have been well chosen with respect to the wants of the colony."
The only groups of three sisters to travel on the Culloden were the Hughan girls and the Burney sisters- Eliza, Esther and Margaret.The latter were all employed at the highest wages offered to any of the Culloden women-twenty five pounds each per year- but unfortunately only one of the three employers of the sisters was given.
It is not known how long Bertha and her family remained in Melbourne. Laura and Arthur quickly settled in the Geelong district, and Hannah Hughan lived there in the 1850s as well. Both Jessie and Marion ended up living at Kyneton, and Jessie was still there when she married Alexander McCallum in Melbourne in July of 1851.
Marion married a Kyneton storekeeper named Henry Aulert Edmiston, who had sailed out to Victoria from England the previous year on the same ship as Laura Hughan. Kyneton was a relatively new town in 1850, but growth was booming as it had become a supply town to those passing through on their way to the goldfields.Henry Edmiston asked Marion to marry him, and although they married in the Presbyterian Church in Melbourne in January 1852, they were both living at Kyneton at the time.
I imagine that young Bertha would have spent most of her time with her mother, whether that had been at Melbourne, Geelong or Kyneton. It is known that she spent a great deal of time with her sister Jessie who lived on a very remote sheep station on the Murray River near Swan Hill.Bertha would have provided much welcomed company for her sister, as well as being a help when her niece and nephew, Margaret and Gilbert McCallum, arrived in 1853 and 1854 respectively.
When the McCallums went to England for a brief trip in 1855-56, Bertha remained in Victoria, but when they went again in 1858, she went with them on board the ship 'Royal Charter'. Aged 19, Bertha would have been of great assistance in occupying Gilbert and Margaret, especially as Jessie was more than half way through her third pregnancy whilst on the voyage.The baby, Ivy Jessie Mccallum, was born on board the Royal Charter whilst she was crossing the Irish Sea