On 20 March 1918 Richard Thackeray married Mary Hope Rutherford at her parent’s property ‘Kooroongal’ near Young. Her parents were Gideon and Isabella Rutherford. The donation form for this buggy states that it was 'last used by Mr and Mrs Richard Thackeray on honeymoon. Confetti still remaining in buggy.’ It was donated to the Young Historical Museum in 1965 by Thackeray from the ‘Rutherford Estate’. The donation form also states that the buggy was made by John Rogan Junior in 1909. He made this buggy with a piano box body, a common design from the mid-1800s onwards. The buggy was driven by the owner who controlled two horses harnessed to the central shaft at the front. Rogan Junior worked alongside his father John Rogan Senior, at his coachworks and took over the business when his father turned 60 in 1899. He closed the coachworks in June 1930. According to the Museum’s file on Rogan’s coachworks, Charles Ford was persuaded to come to Young in about 1908 to work with Rogan as a coach trimmer. He likely upholstered this buggy. He is mentioned in the Burrangong Argus as working for Rogan in 1911. Ford was born at Goulburn in 1883 to Thomas Ford and Mary Ann (née Ireland) and married Mary Ellen Mayoh at Young in 1918. He entered local and Sydney shows ‘for which he carried off many prizes for upholstered sulkies and buggies.’ As cars replaced horse drawn vehicles, he adapted to upholstering them, working at R. Laxen’s Motor Garage in 1916 before opening his own business by 1921. Gideon Rutherford was born in at Whitelee, Northumberland, England in 1852, migrating first to Victoria and then NSW. In 1879 he married Isabella Todd Affleck at Milong and they had six children, one of whom was Mary Hope Rutherford who was born on 12 July 1894. Gideon acquired a number of properties including Kooroongal and the Green Gully where he lived until his death in August 1918. The buggy remained with his estate as it passed through the hands of his widow Isabella, his sons, Walter and Alexander, and then to his son-in-law, Richard. Richard Hutchinson (Dick) Thackeray was born in 1889 to Herbert George Makepeace Thackeray and his wife Minna Augusta née Roberts who lived at the properties of ‘Clifton’ and ‘Wootoona’. He was a wheat farmer in the Young district and was a councillor on the Burrangong Shire Council from 1937 to 1956, being Shire President from 1945 to 1948. He died on 25 July 1965. Mary played a supporting role while her husband was a councillor, for instance, cutting the ribbon at the opening of the bridge over the Bland Creek in June 1934. Mary died on 10 February 1974.
