Charles Farrow

Role: Husband of Elizabeth Hannah Telfer
Born: ~1836 (exact date unknown)
Died: 3 December 1884 — Pneumonia (aged 48)

Charles Farrow married Elizabeth Hannah Telfer (1836–1916) in 1856 (per FindAGrave). The book From the Borders to the Bush narrative records his death as 3 December 1884 from pneumonia (aged 48) — 32 years before Elizabeth's death in 1916. (The chapter header shows 1828–1876, but the narrative text is the authoritative source.)

His father was Joseph Farrow (1814–1899), confirmed by FindAGrave (Joseph Farrow (1814–1899)). His mother is not identified on the FindAGrave record — Charles was born ~1836, twelve years before his father married Mary Ellen Bayes in 1848, so his mother was likely Joseph's first wife (unknown). Charles's daughter Mary Bayes Farrow (1875–1938) was named after Joseph's known wife Mary Bayes, indicating the Bayes name runs in the family.

Together he and Elizabeth had a large family including Jane Murray, Peter, John, Charles Jr, Esther Hannah, Elizabeth, Margaret, Sarah, Edith, James, Robert, William, Eva Agnes, George Hope, and Mary Bayes Farrow.

Source: From the Borders to the Bush — Chapter on Elizabeth Hannah Telfer

Family Stories

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in From the Borders to the Bush (book pp. 59–60): Just nineteen years old, our Charles did something that even surprised the old hands. He walked into a deal with John Ridley — the very man who'd invented the stripper — and bought a hundred and fifty-two acres for three hundred and nineteen pounds. He christened the place Hope Farm. But land doesn't come with a roof, so every week he'd set out on foot from Kersbrook and trudge nearly forty-five miles to the farm, raise four days' worth of stone walls for his cottage, and then turn around and walk all the way back home — because come Sunday, he was determined to be in church.

(Anecdote only — family colour, told as the elders tell it. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in From the Borders to the Bush (book pp. 59, 61): Now here's a story that'll make you lose your nerve just hearing it. One day, coming up that long road towards Hope Farm, Charles stopped at a spring well to catch his breath — the one everyone called Tuppeny Well. And wouldn't you know it, a great bull had taken it into its head that this patch was his, and he pinned our Charles there. There wasn't a tree in sight to scramble up, so Charles did the only thing a man could — he shinned up the whip-post, the tall stockwhip pole, and sat up there while the beast glowered below. He waited up that post until full dark settled in, then dropped down and walked the last six miles to the farm with his heart in his throat the whole way.

(Anecdote only — family colour, told as the elders tell it. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in From the Borders to the Bush (book pp. 60): In March of 1865 the cottage they'd raised went up in flames — everything they'd scrimped and saved for, gone in one angry night of fire. But Charles Farrow was not a man to sit and grieve the ashes. He set to at once and built a bigger house, this time with a proper iron roof that would stand up to the weather and the years. And stand it has — that very house is still there today, sheltered and sound. When the family gathered back in Tarlee for the reunion in 1984, they all walked through it, and you could feel Charles in every stone and every beam.

(Anecdote only — family colour, told as the elders tell it. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in From the Borders to the Bush (book pp. 60, 62): If you want to know what mattered to our Charles, look no further than the church. In June of 1868 a band of folk gathered right there in the Farrow home to do something bold — to form a church of their own at Tarlee. Charles didn't just lend his parlour; he gave his whole self. For sixteen years he sat on the council as chairman and stood before the people as deacon and lay preacher, word of God on his lips till the end of his days. That Meeting you see standing in Tarlee owes its very beginning to a house on the Farrow farm.

(Anecdote only — family colour, told as the elders tell it. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)

Charles Farrow married Elizabeth Telfer and the couple settled at Finniss Point, where they were close neighbours of the Flavel uncles who looked out for the young Telfer generation. It was these same uncles who knew of the high esteem in which the Tarlee schoolmistress Caroline Masters was held, and who steered young John Telfer her way — a chain of connections that ran right through the Farrow household at Finniss Point. Charles also stood as a witness at his sister-in-law Jane's second marriage to Frederick Parker, alongside his niece Jane Farrow, at the Wesleyan Church in Kapunda on Christmas Day 1871.

(From the Borders to the Bush, pp.93, 110)

Children

• Jane Murray Farrow Stribling (1857–1934) — confirmed via FindAGrave memorial 147662212. Married Stribling, found in Tarlee area.
• George Hope Farrow (1872–1919) — confirmed via FindAGrave memorial 196572529. Died aged 47.
• Mary Bayes Farrow Lillecrapp (1875–1938) — confirmed via FindAGrave memorial 201506962. Named Mary Bayes, reinforcing the Bayes family connection.

Sources

Verified 06 Aug 2026: Charles Farrow died 3 December 1884 of pneumonia, Finniss Point, buried Tarlee Cemetery. Confirmed by two independent source groups (Find a Grave 184343881 + WikiTree citing GenSA death registration 142/330 and two contemporary newspaper notices). the book From the Borders to the Bush's chapter header "1828–1876" is a confirmed typographical error.