In 1855, Mary Philp Tom (born 1830) in company with her brother William Tom, set out to emigrate to Canada on the ship John. As the result of a faulty compass the ship was wrecked on the Manacles Rocks, off the Cornish coast, and Mary was drowned. William survived to return to England where he married his first cousin Charlotte Tom. This, their eldest child, was possibly named in memory of the drowned sister.

In 1905, after the death of her mother, Mary emigrated to Australia. There is a 1944 NSW death record for a Mary Philp Tom which shows her parents as Thomas and Miriam of Cornwall. There is also an advertisement in newspaper SMH with the same parental names. It is reasonable to assume that time and distance and lack of close relatives may have distorted the record. There is no UK record corresponding to Thomas and Miriam and no UK death record for this Mary Philp Tom. It is possible that Mary had disowned her parents. Thomas and Miriam were her uncle and aunt. Mary's executrix was Florence Eileen Webb, a grand-daughter of Parson Tom.