John Waters Blewett (1825-1862)

John Waters Blewett was the eldest child of Gabriel and Ruth Blewett, and a mason like his father. He immigrated to Australia with his father and his younger brother Gabriel in 1853. The men lived and worked together in their early days in Melbourne and in 1855 John built his own home, a brick and stone cottage, in King William street, near the Shropshire Arms. This was 63 King William street. The row of three terrace houses there now, whilst nineteenth century, were likely built later. He left the family in Melbourne and returned to Cornwall in 1860 and married Anna Jane Brewer in 1861. They returned to Australia shortly thereafter. His occupation on the ship's manifest was given as trader. Their only child, a son, was born in Melbourne and delivered by Dr Richard Tracy, the co-founder of the Melbourne Lying-in Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases of Women and Children. John died nine weeks after becoming a father, at home in King William Street of double pneumonia and exhaustion. His father was present at his death. John was buried in the Wesleyan section in the Melbourne General Cemetery, in the same plot his father Gabriel would later be buried in. No headstone was ever erected over the plot of the two stonemasons.