Biographical notes:
Query place of birth - 1851 census gives Lindfield, SSX.
Migrated from ENG, after father's death, to SA, AUS with mother & siblings in the Utopia arriving at Port Adelaide on 9 Jul 1858.
Lived first at Hilton & later moved to North Adelaide. (His mother was living in Margaret Street in 1863.)
Met Mary Cooper while delivering wood & ice in North Adelaide.
Became a bricklayer & scaffolder. Worked on Parliament House, North Terrace, Adelaide.
Unemployed during the depression of the 1890s.
Became one of the original settlers of Lyrup on the River Murray in 1894 with wife, 7 daughters & 1 son. The settlers were landed with materials to build houses & a pumping plant to water the orchards. Lyrup was run as a community settlement but the scheme did not work well & by 1897 most had left so that the Downers were a sizeable part of the remnant. Resided in Lyrup for remainder of his life but died in North Adelaide.
Taught his son Harry (Henry Ernest) bricklaying. This was useful for building the hot dips required for scalding raisins.
Reference documents:
1843 birth registration index record (reg Cuckfield).
1851 census return (Henry Downer sen).
1858 passenger list.
1871 marriage registration index record.
ca 1900 - photograph with Mary.
1912 death registration index record.
"Lyrup Village, A Century of Association, 1894-1994", Alan Jones.