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ROUSE (née KNIGHT), Jean Muriel – emigrated 1949

Jean Muriel Rouse (1920-1997), née Knight, emigrated to Tasmania with her husband and two young daughters at the end of 1949.

Jean was the youngest of four children of Thomas and Fanny Knight and was born on Willersey Road, Badsey, on 26th June 1920.  She attended Badsey Council School (where her mother had been a teacher before marriage) from 1924-1930 then, after brief spells at schools in Ilmington and Forest Row, Sussex, she returned to Badsey.  Her father had died at Ilmington in July 1930.  Back at Badsey, Jean was one of around 50 children who submitted a letter in 1933 to Sir John Russell, of Rothamsted Experimental Station, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. This was a project set up by Mr Frank Amos, the Headmaster, whereby the pupils wrote describing their life in a market gardening district. Young Jean wrote from the woman's perspective as her father had died some three years earlier, she described what her mother did in market gardening terms rather than what a man did.

During the Second World War, Jean joined the ATS.  On 2nd October 1941 she married Arthur Cyril Rouse who was originally from Bretforton and was in the RAF.  For a couple of years after the war had ended they lived with Jean’s mother, Fanny, on Willersey Road, then moved to 3 Recreation Ground, South Littleton.

On 3rd December 1949, Jean, Cyril and their two young daughters, left London on P&O ship Ranchi.  They arrived in Melbourne on 1st January 1950 bound for Legana West Tamar, Tasmania.  An Australian electoral roll for 1972 shows that they were still living in Legana; Cyril was described as an orchadist.

Cyril died in December 1993 in Tasmania and Jean in November 1997.  They are both buried at Supply River Anglican Cemetery, Beaconsfield, Launceston, Tasmania.