Various people here have put in major contributions to this ongoing mystery of a couple having an affair in 1905 in the UK who ran away to NZ. I have a lot of information about what they were up to, the divorce case, trying to sell properties and so on. There are various long threads here which are findable with the names Christiana I'Anson/Whitfield or Isaiah Oldbury. Pretty scandalous stuff at the time!
But it seems, to try to avoid the Divorce case and the huge monetary awards which were likely to come from that, they put their properties in NZ up for sale and ran away to Tasmania whilst things died down. At least one of the properties didn't sell immediately and sometime around 1909/1911 the couple split anyway, he going back to his farm in NZ and she disappearing to Sea Lake in Victoria.
But at the moment I'm struggling to find anything about their short stay in Tasmania (likely to have been little more than 18 months). I have no locations, the information came from an article written long after the event by a family member and is almost certainly true as she would have spoken to Christiana's children, who would have been taken there. The story is that there was a fire at the Tasmania property and it was burnt to the ground. I think the date would have been in 1911 or just prior. Does anyone have any suggestions about where to start looking? The problem is that the couple often used fake names. For instance they may have used North in Tasmania. I know Isaiah Oldbury returned to the UK in 1919 and used the name John Wilson and carried on doing so once he was back, right up to his death. So he has a death certificate in one name and his Probate in another... She seems to have used Whitfield, I'Anson & Oldbury. She also used the name Maydwell but I think this may only have come into play after she left Tasmania.
Any pointers in the right direction would be hugely appreciated!
