Mary Penfold

Mary Holt, born 1820 in Edmonton, London, was the only daughter of a London medical practitioner, Dr Thomas Holt.

On 26 Mary 1835, Mary Holt married Christopher Rawson Penfold and they settled in Brighton, England.

At the age of 24, Mary emigrated to Australia with her husband who was a physician, their young daughter Georgina, and their employee Ellen Timbrell, who is recorded to have served not only as the family's maid and Georgina's nurse but also as assistant winemaker. They arrived in the colony of South Australia on 18 June 1844 on board the barque Taglioni in the first decade of the colony's establishment.

Christopher and Mary Penfold purchased 500 acres of land at Magill, then known as Mackgill, for £1,200. When they arrived at their property in August 1844, they built a small timber shack which was replaced a year later with a stone cottage called The Grange. They named the cottage after Mary's former home in England. They established a surgery in the dining room of the cottage. Around their home they farmed large quantities of grain, and planted a vineyard with vine cuttings that they brought with them from France.