After William married Ruth Lord in 1851 in Haslington in Lancashire they moved further East to Yorkshire. Their 1st child John James was born in 1852 in Sheffield. Their 2nd moved was to Bradford in Yorkshire where William's father John Johnson was working as a Merchant in Bradford, where Ellison was born in 1854. William probably worked as a carpenter & joiner, by the time they set sail from South Hampton they had given their address as Middlesex, the area around London.
After they arrived at Port Fairy, Melbourne in 1857 they made the long journey to Mortlake to live, Ruth was 5mths pregnant. There 3rd child William was born May 1857.
They settled in Mortdale for a couple of years & the Johnson family increased, Alice in 1859, Clara in 1861, & Mary in 1863, although Alice died. About that time William & Ruth & family moved to Hexham, which is only a few kilometers to the west of Mortlake, where Ruth was born in 1865 & died in 1866.
In 1871 William & Ruth moved to a house in High St, Koroit with a "garden" where George was born in 1866, but he died in 1867, then Martha, Emma, & Louis Henry called Harry was born.
As the family grew up they probably went to Tower Hill Lake National School in Koroit. William kept working as a carpenter & joiner, but it was about this time that his skills as a wood turner became obvious. He carved the alter in Koroit Catholic Church, & his skills at wood turning can be seen in the household furniture he carved in the form of chairs & flower pedestals that he made.
In 1874 William & Ruth & the younger children moved to Woolsthorpe, & rented 68 acres a little to the west of the town, but by 1880 he eventually bought this block of land., but the family couldn't remember a house being on this land. In 1877 Ruth Ellen was born in Woolsthorpe, & in 1878 their 1st grandchild was born to Ellison & Martha.
