Rome family

Matthew Sharp Rome
Snakebite antidote directions for use
Matthew Sharp Rome

Matthew Sharp Rome was born on 22 April 1827 at Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Matthew was the youngest of eleven children born to George David Rome and his wife Elizabeth Elliott Moncrieff. George David Rome was successful land and road surveyor and Elizabeth Elliott Moncrieff was the daughter of Annan’s Church of Scotland minister William Hardie Moncrieff and his wife Jane Laidlaw.

Matthew was apprenticed to druggist George Scott of Langholm by 1841. Ten years later census records show that Matthew is an assistant druggist to his brother Robert Moncrieff Rome in Langholm. Also in the household was 18 year old Dianah Richardson whom Matthew married on the 22 November 1852 at Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The couple migrated to Australia where their first child was born in 1854.

Matthew continued to work as a chemist, firstly in Beechworth and then at Yackandandah where he worked closely with Augustus Mueller, a local doctor with a side interest in wine-making. When Dr Mueller developed a ‘cure’ for snakebite based on strychnine it was Matthew Sharp Rome who prepared the remedy.

Matthew Sharp Rome’s chemist shop at Yackandandah

Matthew Sharp Rome and Dianah Richardson had seven children:

  1. Elizabeth Moncrieff Rome, born in 1854 at Merri Creek, Victoria. She died on 28 Mar 1936 in Yackandandah, Victoria, Australia. Elizabeth did not marry.
  2. George Rome, born on 27 Apr 1859 at Reids Creek, Victoria, Australia. He married Martha Jane Heath in 1883 in Victoria.
  3. William Moncrieff Rome, born on 24 Nov 1861 at Bowmans Forest, Victoria. He died on 20 May 1929 in Collaroy Beach, New South Wales. He married Alice Maude Wrench, daughter of Thomas Wrench and Asenath Nelson, in 1901 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Asenath was born on 23 March 1872 at Sofala, New South Wales and died in 1944 at Manly, New South Wales,.
  4. Jacob Richardson Rome, born in 1863 at Murmongee, VIC. He died in 1949 in Perth, Western Australia. He married Amy Perry, daughter of Joseph Perry and Ann McCoy, on 20 Jul 1904.
  5. Matthew Rome, born in 1868 at Beechworth, Victoria, Australia. He died on 13 Jan 1913 in Bulli, New South Wales.
  6. Helen Muir Rome, born in 1871 at Beechworth, Victoria, Australia. She died on 20 Apr 1943 in Yackandandah, Victoria.
  7. Thomas James Rome, born in 1873 at Beechworth, Victoria, Australia. He died in 1974 at Warrnambool, Victoria. He married Amelia Matilda Saltau, daughter of Henry Saltau and Annie McKenzie, in 1901 in Victoria. Amelia was born in 1876 at Warrnambool, Victoria and died there in 1956.

Elizabeth and Helen Rome did not marry and worked with their father in the chemist shop. Matthew’s son Matthew followed in his father’s footsteps and became a chemist and druggist. In 1897 he purchased a pharmacy business he had been managing in Victoria but things did not work out for him in that field. In 1906 he was fined for drunkeness in Wollongong and died at Bulli in 1913.

William Moncrieff Rome was a shopkeeper at Long Reef in Sydney during the 1920s. His iconic corner shop remained in the Rome family until the late 1940s. Thomas James Rome was the creator of Australia’s earliest known sound recording The Hen Convention recorded prior to 15 January 1897.

Matthew Sharp Rome died on the 8 March 1906 at Yackandandah. See his obituary here.