Debbage Memorial at St Mary the Virgin, Martham
I wonder how many people have looked at the small memorial that is inscribed in black and red on an oak panel that provides a screen at the front of the church organ? It has been there getting on for 100 years but who are the people involved?
The dedication reads:-
Hope Sabine Debbage was the daughter of Joseph & Annie Debbage but who exactly were they? The Debbage name is well known in Martham and this branch of the family can trace its roots in the village back to the late 18th century. Joseph Debbage was born in the village in 1869 to parents William & Elizabeth, nee Daniels. When he was 21, he married Annie Elizabeth Smith at St Mary’s on 22nd October 1890 but Annie was not Martham born or even English as she was born in Victoria, Australia in 1859 after her parents had emigrated there in 1853. Her parents were originally from Suffolk and did not stay in Australia but had returned to Martham by 1871. They made their home here where they eventually died and both are buried at St Mary the Virgin.
Both Joseph, his brother Horace and their father, William, had been corn and flour merchants in Martham since around the 1890’s. Joseph & Annie had two daughters one of which sadly died as an infant. The second was Hope who had the memorial made to her parents. Hope was born in Damgate in 1900 and in 1905 the family moved to a cottage on the south side of the entrance to what was once the Mushroom Farm and is now Persimmon Gardens and they named it Sabine Cottage after their daughter.
Hope’s father died in 1918 and was buried at St Mary the Virgin. His cross shaped gravestone is shown on the right. Three years later, in 1921, Hope had become an elementary school teacher and still lived at Sabine Cottage with her widowed mother.
On 7th September 1924 Hope and her mother emigrated to Australia, so that Annie returned to the land of her birth. Hope continued to be a school teacher there. They travelled on the ‘S S Ormonde’ and arrived at Melbourne on 6th October before settling at Tongala, Victoria which is a rural town about 140 miles north of Melbourne.
Annie died at Melbourne on 19th July 1928 and was buried at Fawkner Memorial Park which is in a suburb of Melbourne. Hope continued to live out her life in Australia and by 1958 had moved to the small coastal community of Kennedy in Queensland where she had become a missionary. She died at Brisbane in 1968 but had made arrangements for her ashes to be scattered at St Mary’s graveyard at Martham. Her dedication of the panel at the church the year after her mother died ensured that her parents, Joseph & Annie are remembered forever.