John Skynner Egerton Bishop

Just what was TLM-P's relationship with John Bishop is unclear, though likely to be a cousin on his mother's side as later in his diary TLM-P refers to 'my Aunt Bishop'(13 July 1882). TLM-P recorded that John (b. 1816) had married Emily Davenport Hunter, daughter of Christopher Hunter MD (as usual, there is no mention of the mother). They had 7 children and their addresses in 1882 says much about the purpose served by the British Empire to employ ambitious sons. The one daughter, Alice Maria Bishop, had married the Rev. T.W. Taylor and lived relatively close at Maidstone, Kent. The youngest son, Arthur Stanley Bishop, was still a law student, but the other 5 sons had made their way in the world. Two (Rev. John Hunter Bishop and Dr Sydney Clive Bishop) were in India; another son Henry Davenish Bishop lived in Lyons, France; while Ernest Prior Bishop was noted as being a 2nd officer in the P.O. service and married.¹⁾

The remaining son had migrated to Brisbane where he must have known TLM-P, especially as he was noted by TLM-P, the former Postmaster-General, as being in the 'Telegraph Dept. Queensland'²⁾. He was presumably known as Herbert as TLM-P wrote his name as Herbert Orlebar Bishop, but according to the Queensland marriage records, his full name was Henry Herbert Orlebar Bishop. He was born in 1852 and married Amelia Annie Cowan (1857-1919) in 1876.³⁾ The eminent physiologist Peter Orlebar Bishop (1917-2012) was likely a descendent (grandson?) of theirs, given that Orlebar is another family name on TLM-P's mother's side.