Our accounts suggest that the old squire, Thomas, must have been quite a character.  He favoured young Henry Slade considerably and felt the hurt when he left for Swan River.  Doubtless he had anticipated the young man marrying his granddaughter, Anne.  Henry had much more courage than any of the Fuller boys, he thought. Later on, however, he starts to see Australia as an evil and corrupting place.  He also took rather a jaundiced view of his daughter’s behaviour.  At one point he opines that she should not have use of pen and ink because she upsets people so much with her letters.  According to Mrs Fuller herself, she tended to tone down her tantrums when in front of her mother, so perhaps her father stood no nonsense from his daughter either.  He tended not to let physical problems get in his way.  Early in the letters we hear of his suffering a bilious attack, but soon he gets back in the saddle, literally, and carries on.  His death in 1843 left a chasm, as his daughter puts it, in the village and in the Meeting.  She gives a moving description of his last months. 

He had gradually lost strength for the last year and the frequent return of his bilious attacks weakened him.  Still he rallied, rode on horseback, drove us out in the chaise, gave out the hymns without spectacles and entered into everything as usual.  In August the weather became very unusually hot.  This prostrated him completely for a time.  He rallied a little, went once or twice to Meeting, rode on horseback and in October drove himself to Wallingford.  He took cold and fever, again rallied.  He was first confined to his room for three weeks and then to his bed.  Water on the chest rendering respiration so difficult, it was indeed distressing to witness his agonies for ten weeks.  With no hope of recovery he could not desire his life… his hopes were fixed on another world and his desire was to depart.

We can perhaps understand from this description how his loss would have made a substantial impact on both villages.  The old man had reached eighty-six years of age.  His daughter, Elizabeth, braced herself for the quick demise of her mother, but she lived on for almost another ten years.