Mary Jane Paynter

Stub entry filled from primary sources, 24 Aug 2026. See Sources below.

Lifespan

Born: 30 June 1861 — Koppio, South Australia
Died: 14 July 1945 — Preston, Victoria
Buried: Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne, Victoria

Family

• Father: Richard Paynter (1838–1869) — school teacher at St Kitt's Creek
• Mother: Jean Telfer (1840–1892)
• Spouse: John Watson (1851–1929) — m. 1 March 1882

Life Summary

Mary Jane was the second child of Richard Paynter and Jean Telfer, born at Koppio, South Australia in June 1861. She married John Watson on 1 March 1882. She died on 14 July 1945 at Preston, Victoria and is buried at Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne. (Death year 1945 matches the existing tree data.)

Sources

Note on the FLAVELL field: a death record's "mother's family name at birth" is supplied by the informant and can name a grandmother rather than the mother when the mother's own maiden name is uncertain. Here it is consistent either way — Jean Telfer's mother was Dinah Flavel — so the field corroborates the maternal line without altering it.

Family Stories

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in A Telfer Family Tree (Supplement 2008), pp.98–103:

Mary Jane Paynter, born at Koppio in 1861, married into the Watson family and had ten children; she died in Preston, Victoria, in 1945. Two of her grandsons — John Hobart "Jack" Watson and Richard Lancelot Watson — would both be lost in the Pacific war.

(Anecdote only — family colour. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)