Simon Fraser (1832 - 1919)

Born 21 Aug 1832 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada

Ancestors

Husband of Margaret (Bolger) Fraser — married 1861 (to 1880) in Victoria, Australia

Husband of Anne Bertha (Collins) Fraser — married 26 May 1885 in Queensland, Australia

Descendants

Died 30 Jul 1919 at age 86 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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Biography

Simon Fraser was the grandfather of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.

Born at Big Brook (now Lorne) in Nova Scotia in 1832, Simon Fraser had left home after hearing of the Victorian Gold Rush, arriving in Melbourne in 1852 with next to nothing to call his own. At home he had worked on a farm, owned by Archibald McLeod which his father, William Fraser Junior, had occupied from 1811, and in a sawmill owned by William's brother Archibald. They claimed descent from Lord Lovar but there would seem to be no connection with the last Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser, who was executed for treason in 1747 and died without issue.

William Fraser Junior had departed this life unexpectedly. He had been working in the saw mill when a belt flew from pulley and struck him in the head. Simon, seven at the time and the youngest surviving son, had been brought up thereafter by his mother Jane.

With money made on the Bendigo goldfiels, Simon quickly set up in Melbourne as a horse trader and contractor, including the Bendigo-Echuca railway in 1864 and the Deniliquin-Moama railway in the 1870s. With other investors, he founded the Squatting Investment Company.

In 1874, he was elected a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, and topped the top for the first Senate election from Victoria in 1901. For the next twelve years in the Senate, he advocated liberal free trade policies, and opposed Irish Catholicism and socialism.

He married 17-year old Margaret Bolger (died 1880), an Irish Catholic, in 1861, by whom he had three daughters: Mary, Kate and Ethel. He then married Annie Bertha Collins in 1886 by whom he had three sons: Simon (who died of influenza in May 1919), Douglas Martin (who took up properties in Queensland) and John Neville, who inherited the rest in Riverina and Victoria).

Name: Anna Bertha Collins

Marriage Date: 26 May 1885

Marriage Place: Queensland

Registration Date: 1885

Registration Place: Queensland, Australia

Spouse: Simon Fraser

Registration Number: 001029

Page Number: 2832 ^[1]

Father=William Fraser

Research Notes

The use of the word Lovat is a reference to the Fraser Clan Lovat, of which in 2022 there is a sitting Clan Chief. it indicates that the family 'hails' from Inverness the Highland Fraser Clan as opposed to the Frasers of the Scottish lowlands and the border. Simons father William is from Inverness which means the family is legitimately using the Clan name in their middle name.

Sources

• Wikipedia Clan Fraser of Lovatt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Fraser_of_Lovat
• Clan Fraser of Lovat website managed by the Clan Chief: http://clanfraser.org/

1. ↑ Ancestry.com. Australia, Marriage Index, 1788-1950 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

See also:

• http://exhibitions.senate.gov.au/pogg/members/fraser.htm
• Australian Dictionary of Biography
• Wikipedia
• Philip Ayres 1987 "Malcolm Fraser: A biography" Heinemann
• About Malcolm Fraser