The year 1865 was a monumental one for Bertha Hughan Bishop in so many ways.In March she married her beloved Henry and set up house with him at Mount Rowan near Ballarat.In late October, however- a mere seven months after her wedding- Bertha found herself caring for three children after the death of her much-loved sister Jessie Mccallum.Jessie had died of pneumonia after a brief illness, caused by complications after she got her clothes soaked visiting someone who was ill and needed her help. She was only 35 years old.
With their father ill in England, the children needed a home, and it was only natural that they go to Bertha, who had helped her sister raise them from birth.The eldest, Margaret McCallum , was 12, her brother Gilbert 11 and the youngest, Ivy, was only 7.
I wonder how Henry reacted to his home being filled with children so early in his marriage? By all accounts, Bertha was a very nurturing, gentle woman who would have taken the situation in her stride.Henry, however, was made of much sterner stuff and had a very serious side to his nature.Unlike Bertha who was the youngest of nine children, Henry had only a younger brother, who had died in 1854 when aged only eight
(Henry was 13), and so had never lived with the sound of numerous children galloping around a home.Still, he must have coped, because Ivy stayed with them for many years, and was like an elder sister to Henry and Bertha's children. Margaret remained with her aunt and uncle until her marriage in 1873, and Gilbert spent time at other places as well as with the Bishops, including accompanying his Uncle Allan Hughan and family on the schooner Pilot on a pearling expedition to Western Australia in the late 1860s.

Bertha Hughan fell pregnant early in the year following her marriage, probably around the time she celebrated her 27th birthday.By the time she gave birth to her first child, she and Henry and the McCallum children were living at Mount Rowan, a small settlement just out of Ballarat.
Named Roland Oakley Bishop( the 'Oakley' was for his maternal grandmother, Hannah Oakley, although for most of his life was it spelt 'Oakleigh'),Bertha's son was born on Wednesday, October 24, 1866, at Mount Rowan, Ballarat.The doctor who delivered him was James William King ( from the Australasian Medical Directory, 1883: James William King, Ballarat, Victoria. M.R.C.S England, 1849. L.M. Anglesey Lying-In Hospital, Dublin 1846; J.P; Pub Vacc; formerly Ass. Surgeon Portlaw fact. Disp. and Res. Brixton Disp.")Henry Bishop registered Roland's birth at Ballarat on November 6, and gave the following details: Father: Henry Bishop, 26, Clerk. Born Stamford, Lincolnshire. Married March 1865, St. Kilda, to Bertha Hughan, 26, born London. He signed the informant's column with "Henry Bishop, Clerk, Mount Rowan, Ballarat, father."
The Bishop family remained at Mount Rowan, and in Autumn of 1866 Bertha fell pregnant again. This time the child was a daughter...my great-grandmother, Olive Jessie Bishop, was born at 5 a.m. on the morning of Saturday,December 19, 1868, at Mount Rowan, Ballarat, and again Dr. King attended Bertha at her delivery.
Henry Bishop registered the birth of his baby daughter on January 25, 1869, and this time gave his occupation as 'Storekeeper'.