Thomas Dyson: The Canny one
When Thomas Dyson was a young boy, he shot the son of his father’s main business rival in the head. After that, his fortunes could only improve.
Category Archives: Dyson
The antecedents, life and times, and descendants of James Dyson (1810-1888)
The Fate of The First Wife, Part III
Fanny Dyson’s end was horrible and no-one comes out of this event looking good. Part 3 Post Mortem As a rule, I’m not a huge fan of conspiracy theories. I believe it’s a mistake to attribute to planning what can just as easily be explained by laziness, apathy or plain forgetfulness. In the case of the death of Fanny Dyson, James Dyson’s first wife, I make an exception; there has been a calculated attempt to cover up the true circumstances of her death, and the…
The Fate of the First Wife, Part II
The new evidence
The Fate of the First Wife, Part I
This is a reconstruction of the last years of the life of Mrs Frances (Fanny) Dyson, the first wife of James Dyson, and mother to his first four children. This is a very different narrative to the one that which has heretofore been told, and has been accepted as the truth for nigh on one hundred and twenty years.
On Cemetery Hill
A visit to the Old East Perth Cemetery, where generations of Colonial Western Australians have been laid to uneasy rest, including all too many Dysons. There is no formal burial register for the aggregation of denominational Christian cemeteries that make up Old East Perth Cemetery. There has been a lot of research into who actually might be buried in the ground, but there are certainly many gaps in our knowledge.
Educated guesses are just that—guesses—there is always the possibility of being proved gloriously and magnificently wrong.
Who indeed?
18 second mark. No more to be said.
Recognise this face?
Consider this a sequel to the article The Stranger in the Mirror where I bemoaned the lack of available images of the earliest generations of the Dyson family in colonial Western Australia. Of the patriarch, James Dyson—at best, we have an identikit image based on his alleged convict record. Of his two wives, and the vast majority of his twenty-two children (his own and the one he inherited), we have little or nothing. It unlikely there ever will be any images to be found of…
The Stranger In the Mirror
There is currently no known authentic likeness that exists of James Dyson. He was a prominent man of his time— merchant, land owner, Perth City Councillor—he was present at certain key events in the history of the city: He was definitely present at the opening of the Perth Town Hall, he was most likely present at the opening of the Perth Railway Station, The Wesleyan Church, Royal visit, parades… All these events were photographed, but there is no currently identified photograph of James Dyson. Even…
An Anthemic Ancestor
Television and photo-plays have theme tunes. Nation-states have theme tunes which they call National Anthems. For most of Australia’s past two centuries, the national theme tune has been “God Save the [Queen/King]” (which does say quite a lot about the mentality of those who made that choice). Outside show-business identities and fictional characters, real people tend not have their own personal theme tune which plays whenever they make an entrance in to a room. (The President of the United States’s personal theme music pretty much…
The Smoking Gun
Today is a red-letter day.
Today I found the smoking gun.