Henry PATISON

                   Born 1824 in London - went to S. Australia in 1835 at age 11 - Emma J. Clare in 1852 at Redruth, SA - 1954 miner in Adelaide Directory _ Bonnie B. Ruff

(Van Dieman's Land) Tasmania, Australia

(Emma and her possible husband George W. Warren, an American seaman appear in the 1870 Census, Ward 9 Pg. 46.)  - not possible according to obit

«b»San Francisco Call, Volume 74, Number 41, 11 July 1893
Undue Influence
«/b»The Protestant Episcopal Old Ladies Home filed answer in the Probate Court yesterday, it being a general denial of the statements made by Emma J. Patison in her petition for revocation of probate of the will of Hannah Birrell, deceased.  By her will Mrs. Birrell left an estate valued at $50,000 made the Little Sisters' Infant Shelter and the Protestant Episcopal Old Ladies' Home residuary legatees.  Testatrix's daughter, Mrs. Emma Patison, seeks to upset the will on the ground of undue influence.  George H. Mastick, the attorney, is a beneficiary under the will.

«b»San Francisco Chronicle, 22 September 1892. (Proquest Historical Newspapers: San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922)
«/b»Mrs. Birrell's Death: the Curtain Drops on Life's Drama - Ann Old-time Famous Actress Passes Away - Years of Successes Follow'd by a Prolonged Period of Peaceful Enjoyment

The body of Mrs. Hannah Birrell rested for a few hours in the Stanford mortuary chapel of Trinity church yesterday, and was then interred in a family plot at Odd Fellow's Cemetery.  Perhaps a dozen sorrowing relativesand friends gathered in the chapel to pay the last sad honors to the dead.  They were persons who remembered what fame attached to the name of Mrs. Birrell in the early history of San Francisco.  They recalled the days of Mrs. Birrell's triumphs, when to live in California, and not to know of her was be be ignorant indeed.  Those were the days when the then famous actress was Booth's first Ophelia, and when the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House and the old California Theatre knew no better art than hers.

Reverend Hobart Chetwood stood at the head of the bier and read the prescribed service of the Episcopal Church.  Among those who stood with bowed heads and listened to him was but one person who had known Mrs. Birrell in the theatrical life of the old days.  That one was Mrs. E.N. Thayer, who husband, Ned Thayer, was a celebrity in the fifties and early sixties.  Others were not there because kept at home by the infirmities of old age.  Many others who acted with Mrs. Birrell are long since dead - indeed, the number of those that remain is very small, and of the few not more than four or five live in California.

The little band of mourners went with the body to the cemetery and watched while the coffin was lowered into the grave that had been dug beside the last resting place of Mrs. Birrell's husband, Andrew Birrell, who was for many years the treasurer of the Metropolitan andd who occupied that position when the old theater building was torn down to make way for Montgomery Avenue.

The story of Mrs. Birrell's life can be briefly told.  She was born in England in 1817 and consequently died at the age of 74, or in her seventy-fifth year.  When quite a young woman she married Captain Claire, the master of a British ship who took her to New Zealand.  While she lived at Auckland, Captain Claire went on another voyage and was lost at sea.  The widow a year or two later married Andrew Birrell, who was then a brewer and quite well to do.  In 1850, when the California gold excitement was at its height, Birrell and his wife caught the fever, and in March of that year landed in San Francisco.

Birrell lost all his money in a few short months and Mrs. Birrell gave recognition to her manifest talent for accting and singing by going on the stage at Robinson and Eorard's museum on California Street.  She first took a soubrette part, but later acted in dramas and comedies.  She had wonderful success in the profession and for years was recognized as the one actress in San Francisco capable of acting comic or serious parts with equal credit.  She was on at the Metropolitan and the California Theater, and played with Booth, Walter Leman, Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Judah William Hamilton and many other celebrities.  She played last in the part of the old maid aunt in "Uncle Tom's Cabin: when that play was at the pinnacle of its success.  Mrs. Birrell finally retired from the stage early in the sixties.

After Mrs. Birrell's retirement her husband made several theatrical ventures with success.  He took to Austraqlia the first American company that ever played there, and on that trip his wife accompanied him, in spite of his protest.

After Mr. Birrell's deaqth,k the widow lived for some years on Fifteenth Street in East Oakland.  She has also been with relatives here and in Ogden, and died in the latter city on 14 september.  She was stricken with appoplexy one afternoon while sitting in a rocking chair and passed peacefully away within a few hours.  During all her later years, Mrs. Birrell loved to gather her grandchildren about her and tell stories of the old days.  to the last she was able to recite nearly the whole of the plays of Shakespeare, in which she had taken various parts.  Mrs. Birrell leaves a daughter and two sons and nine grandchildren.

(Research):Check 1870 San Francisco Census, Ward 9, Pg. 46