Foreword


My mother, Lilian Florence Eleanor was born a "Punch".  Her father was Frederick Laban Punch.  I barely knew this grandfather.  My only memories are that I saw him on the occasions that Mum went to Oakleigh to visit her mother, Florence Ruby.  We were living at Bungaree in country Victoria and I was between 10 and 14 years old.  In those days, Fred spent his entire life in bed.  I used to go into his room and chat with him.  He was friendly and I think glad to see me but he only lived in that room.

Apparently this had gone on for many years and continued until he died.  Because of this negative early impression of him, I had not spent much time on my Punch family.  It was not until a cousin of mine, Sue Punch, mentioned an interest and I realised I had almost nothing.  I have since been working on this family and found many persons for the family tree and discovered that they originated in Dorset, England and much of the next generation lived in the Docklands area of London.  Some emigrated to Australia to try their hand at gold mining in the Bendigo area.  Bendigo and surrounding districts and as far as Kerang and Swan Hill had a substantial number of Punch residents.  Fred's family moved to Melbourne and so he met my grandmother.

The earliest Punch I have traced was Thomas Punch, a Shipwright who was baptised in Dorset, England and married Ann Brown in 1824.  They moved to the London Docklands with their first child (my great-great grandfather) and they had 11 more children.  Some of these children emigrated to Australia, some stayed in England.  My great-great grandfather was one of the emigrants.