Charles Rossiter Forwood
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Charles Rossiter Forwood was born on 12 October, 1826 in Tiverton, Devon. The sixth child of Capt Thomas Forwood and Mary Ann Rossiter, of Warncombe House, Newte's Hill Road, Tiverton, Devon. He enrolled at Blundell's School, Tiverton on the 15 August, 1835 aged 8 years and completed his studies on the 14 September, 1837.
After leaving school he was employed in a Manchester Warehouse and in 1840 he started employment with Charles Robert Colman Esq., Ship Owner and Wharfinger in London, where he lived with his step aunt from his Grandfather's, Thomas Rossiter's second marriage.
On the 17 June, 1849, at the age of 23, he married Esther De Young in Lambeth, Surrey. Esther was the daughter of John De Young a Spanish Merchant from Gibraltar and Ann Harris (Irish ancestry) from Lisbon, Portugal. They had five children, Catherine Esther (b:1850) Charles Henry (b:1852) William Phillip (b:1854) Walter Weech (b:1855) and Marian Nancy (b:1857).
At the age of 27, in late 1853, Charles Rossiter and Esther, accompanied with their first two children, Catherine Ester (b:1850) and Charles Henry (b:1852), left Portsmouth, England bound for Australia. They arrived in Melbourne, Victoria on Christmas Eve, the 25 December, 1853 and were met by Charles’s mother Mary Ann Forwood, his brother William Henry and sister Emma Catherine who had completed the voyage earlier in the same year.
Charles Rossiter Forwood established a Law practice in Melbourne, Victoria on his arrival in 1853 and becomes a successful Barrister of Law in the state of Victoria. During this time the family lives at Nerrena (renamed Kinnoull) Sorrett Aveune, Marlven, Victoria.
In September, 1857 his wife Esther passed away and was buried on the 15 September, 1857 in St Kilda Cemetery, Melbourne, Victoria.
Eighteen months later, aged 36, on the 21 August, 1861 Charles Rossiter married Prudence Winch De La Fontaine in Melbourne, Victoria. They had four children, Frank Owen (b:1862) Edward William (b:1864) Florence De La Fontaine (b:1865) Alfred Ernest Albert (b:1867).
In mid 1871, aged 45, Charles Rossiter was elected to the board of the Polynesia Company and sailed to Suva, Fiji aboard the SS Baclutha on the 4 October, 1871. He arrived in Suva, Fiji on the 18 of October, 1871. Whilst in Fiji he served as a Judge and was appointed Attorney General to Fiji in 1872, a position he served in for two years.
Charles Rossiter spent a number of years in Wellington, New Zealand where he practiced law. In 1888 he returned to Melbourne, via Sydney where he was in poor health.
On the 31 July, 1888, Prudence Winch died and was buried in St. Kilda Cemetery, Melbourne, Victoria.
It was during a protracted illness in 1889 that Charles Rossiter wrote his autobiography “An account of an English Country family since 1700” which he completed in Melbourne on the 31 July, 1889, plus a subsequent addition to the original “An account of the Settlement of Fiji”, completed on the 31 October, 1889.
On the 2 February, 1890, in Melbourne, Victoria, Charles died, aged 63 years. He was buried at St. Kilda Cemetery, Melbourne beside his first and second wives Esther and Prudence, his mother Mary Ann Forwood and the following children Alice, Ellen Marion and Florence M.
