The Ratbag Encyclopedia

Family history, Western Australian history, or just history

Category: Family History

Self explanatory?

Bio: Henry Nickolls

The Master of Corra Linn

On, or just before 7 December 1837, Henry Nickolls, master of the Corra Linn estate on the Patterson Plains, was punched in the head by a newly-assigned employee and warned by him that “there was more where that came from”. Which is something of an inversion of the typical master / servant relationship.

This is only one possible interpretation that the historical record allows… but it’s how I’d like to imagine the confrontation between Nickolls and convict James Dyson played out. It makes for a more lurid opening line than “Assaulting and Threatening Violence to his Master” which is as close to an accurate translation as can be gleaned from James Dyson’s surviving Convict conduct record generated for his time in Van Diemen’s Land.

Dyson was immediately sentenced by the police magistrate at Evandale to six months hard labour on the roads at the Kings’ Meadows Convict Station (where Dyson most absolutely positively wore one very stylish hat).

A generic Convict Chain Gang. Accuracy not vouched for.

But who was Henry Nickolls, about whom Dyson made a judgement call that it was better to spend the six months in a road gang than have to endure any more than three days with him as a master?

Henry Nickolls, Esq.

Was born in Little Stukely, Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire) towards the end of the year 1793. Aged 33, he married 29 year old Charlotte Wilkins on 23 August 1826. Next month, the newly-weds sailed from London to Van Diemen’s Land on the ship Admiral Cockburn, arriving in Hobart on 14 February 1827.

Nickolls was sent out by two gentleman brothers to manage and farm on their behalf the extensive properties they had acquired in the Colony. Their names were…

JFC!

Sir John Owen (Bart) & Edward Lord

Wikipedia page for Sir John Owen (Bart)

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Edward Lord

These two “gentlemen” — a politician and soldier respectively, were brothers. Sir John changed his name so he could inherit a prosperous estate in Pembrokeshire with a baronetcy attached. This estate in Wales (the old one, not the New South one) was named Orielton. He also inherited a seat in parliament as part of the deal.

Edward Lord had once been a soldier of the officer class. He was kicking around Van Diemen’s Land since the time of the original British incursion. He had even been an acting-Governor briefly back in 1810 when his most notable act in office was burning all the incriminating documents from his predecessor’s reign. He was hated by his peers, but having a politician brother who was now a minor aristocrat meant they both wangled some of the choicest land grants in the Colony along with the worst of them.

The brother’s estate of Orielton in Van Diemen’s land, near the town of Sorrell, seems to have been run productively by Nickolls. Nickoll’s speciality was cattle and horse breeding. The issues that eventually arose between he and his employers might have been due to his one absentee boss needing more and more money to fund his political habit. (Owen was gobsmacked his constituents keep fielding alternate candidates against him at election time just because he didn’t represent their interests). Richard Lord on the other hand, was probably just being a ruthless arsehole.

Whether Nickolls was replaced voluntarily or otherwise as agent for Owen and Lord is not clear. However from 1 September 1831, it was Alexander Goldie now in charge at Orielton and the brother’s other interests, with the mandate to wring as much cash out of the cows for his employers as possible.

Alexander Goldie has his own Australian Biographical Dictionary entry.

Nickolls was also of the gentlemany class. While still working for Sir John Owen (Bart), he made successful application for land grants on his own account despite merely being a well-paid employee for Sir John. He was also appointed a Justice of the Peace by the Governor very soon after his arrival, which is a mark of some esteem from a soldier for someone who only obvious connection with soldiering was as sometimes-agent to someone no-one trusted.

Nickoll’s initial land grant was for 2000 acres in the Brighton district in 1828. He next applied for 2500 acres more in the Morven District near the South Esk River during 1833. “Corra Linn” is located by the North Esk in the same district, so if this is not a typographical error, and his application really was approved — the latter may be the land near the town of Longford where he finally resided.

His first attempt at free enterprise, after separating from Owen and Lord, was winning a tender to provide a mail service between Hobart Town and Launceston. — Entirely on horse back. He purchased six used saddles from the government for the purpose. But the gloomy prediction of one of the Launceston newspapers proved prescient —

We have already stated that Mr. Nichols has obtained the contract for the conveyance of the mail throughout the Island. It is taken at £990, ferries free, and commences on the 2nd June. We wish him success. Individuals who by any means benefit the community are justly entitled to their earnings, but we fear that the present most infamous state of the roads, and want of bridges, are more likely to ruin a contractor than to put money in his pocket. The present system of colonial government is altogether bad, and until the desired change takes place, but little good may be expected by the community.”
The Independent (Launceston, Tas. : 1831 – 1835) 12 May 1832 page 3

We can probably assume that Henry Nickolls lost his deposit.

He was in government service as the Commandant of Flinders Island between September 1834 and November 1835. He was not ruling another convict establishment, although none of the 134 or so inhabitants under his management were free to leave.

They were as many of the First Nations peoples in British occupied Van Diemen’s Land as could be captured alive after the genocidal war of conquest of their land. It was not identified as such in the terminology of the day, but Henry Nickolls was Commandant of one of the world’s first concentration camps. By the time this settlement was abandoned in 1847, only 47 Palawa still left alive.

He next turned down further government employment as a manager on the Launceston docks. When he also appeared to reject an official appointment at Circular Head with the VDL Company (where his nemesis Alexander Goldie was once employed), that government was through with him.

He had attempted to pressure the administration by name dropping all the worthies he was writing to back in Britain to lobby on his behalf. Being written to sternly by Lord Fitzwilliam and the Bishop of Chichester was not enough to sway the Colonial Secretary. The regretful notation on his letter of pleading reads-

I wish I could do something for Henry Nickolls but alas I cannot.

Instead, one year later (or by January 1837 at the latest), Henry Nickolls was in residence at Corra Linn.

Gateway to the Corra Linn Estate off Relbia Road in 2017

The road to Corra Linn 2017

Corra Linn / Corra Lynn

The land around the North Esk river known as Patterson Plains also was the location of government stockyards acquired by Lieutenant David Rose after he retired from the army in 1814. There is a waterfall and gorge on the North Esk river adjacent to the property that resembles (somewhat) one from his native Scotland.

Jacob More, c1771, The Falls of Clyde (Corra Linn), National Gallery of Scotland

Corra Linn in VDL. Very pretty, but not seeing the resemblance

Lt. Rose dropped dead in 1826, “hastened by a wound from a dog bite” according to his Australian Biographical Dictionary entry.

The heir to his estate seems have been Alexander Rose, a nephew. It must have been he, a decade later, who leased some of that land to Nickolls. The Rose family retained other portions of the inheritance to work themselves, so Henry Nickolls next did his bit for neighbourly relations by taking Alexander to court over a barn that he commissioned him to complete which did not live up to his gentlemanly expectations.

… At the instigation of Mr. Home, the witness, Gardiner, was asked how wide the spaces were between the logs, to which he answered that towards the ground they were not wider than to admit a man’s arm, but they encreased towards the top.
Mr. Home — Cannot pigs get in ?
Witness— Not unless they were to FLY !
“SUPREME COURT—CIVIL SIDE.” The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 – 1880) 13 January 1838 page 1

The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 – 1880) 25 January 1840 page 4

Henry Nickolls was out of Corra Linn by January 1840, but was still a presence in the district. Then Alexander Rose and his family departed Van Diemen’s Land for a few years and the next time Corra Linn is up for rent, a Mr Gilles of Sandhill is managing the deal.

Launceston Advertiser (Tas. : 1829 – 1846)Thu 7 May 1840 Page 1

Patterson Plains 2017

There is ‘nary a peep out of Henry Nickolls Esquire for some time until:—

Launceston Advertiser (Tas. : 1829 – 1846) 27 January 1842 page 2

There are really only two ways of interpreting the situation when the wife of a gentleman goes very suddenly into business on her own account during this era. Either she has suddenly come into some wealth that her genteel husband has no access to, OR the couple’s finances have deteriorated so badly that he had to send the missus out to work to keep cigars and cognac on the table.

Henry Nickolls, Esquire, now of the town of Longford in Norfolk Plains district, placed himself into voluntary administration for insolvency on 18 July 1842.

Under the Insolvency of Mr. Henry Nickols, of Norfolk Plains, and by order of John Atkinson, Esq., Assignee.
TO BE SOLD BY PUBLIC AUCTION,
By Mr. B. Francis,
On the premises at Norfolk Plains, on THURSDAY and FRIDAY, the 15th and 16th September, at twelve o’clock precisely,
TWELVE FRENCH BEDSTEADS,
Chintz and dimity furniture
Wool mattresses
Feather beds and bedding
Rosewood, loo, telescope, and dining
tables
Cheffioniers, sofas, couches
Sets of chairs, plate, linen
China, glass
And 150 volumes of sundry books
Fourteen capital milch cows
Thirteen steers and heifers
Six working bullocks
One Hereford bull
Two useful saddle horses
One jaunting car
Sets of harness, &c.
ALSO,
All the farming implements
A strong bullock cart
One horse cart
Ploughs, harness
Dairy utensils
And numerous other effects.
The auctioneer particularly calls the attention of gentlemen and others to the above furniture, the whole being of a very superior order, and nearly new. The cattle have been selected with care, and known to be first class.
TERMS — Under £25, cash ; above that sum,
an approved endorsed bill at 3 months.
Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 – 1899), 3 September, p. 5

The Nickolls family lost their bedsteads but kept their house. Not much is heard from Henry Nickolls in the newspapers after that. He was presented to the Governor at a Levee held in Launceston during 1843. He resigned as a Justice of the Peace the same year, then tried his luck again with the Government for work, applying for a paid appointment in the Convict Department at Launceston. He also applied for a magistrates’ gig in his old stomping ground back in Sorrell in 1850.

By now, the next generation of his family were emerging into public view when his son Henry Berkeley Nickolls was appointed postmaster to Bishopsbourne, a locality east of Longford in 1849.

Henry Nickolls died at Longford 30 December 1872, aged 78.

Nickolls seems to be both the historically correct and the preferred spelling of his family name, however, every other permutation (Nickol, Nicholls, Nichols) will appear somewhere in relation to this individual or his family. Henry and Caroline did have children, a distressingly large number of then died in infancy during their years at Corra Linn.

He is not to be confused in the historical record with a Henry Nickolls, farmer of Brighton, Tasmania who died in 1885, or the convict named Henry Nickolls who arrived on the convict transport Moffatt, (but a later voyage than the one that brought James Dyson to Van Diemens’ Land!)

30 November 2022
A departure from Van Diemen’s Land

I’m a bit shocked to realise that it’s been six years since that I first posted a transcription of James Dyson’s conduct record as a convict in Van Diemen’s Land. For the past year I’ve been writing up the story of his time on the island. I think I understand now most of what happened between 1834-1840, and in the process I’ve revised that initial transcription quite considerably. As is always the case, the solutions only seem obvious with hindsight.

There is now only a single entry in the record that I have not been able to find a convincing explanation for. The context is this: At the bottom of the Convict record is a row of dates and abbreviations that indicate when, and to which authority a convict has been assigned. For example: C.P.M. would be the local Chief Police Magistrate the prisoner has been sent to. In the case of James Dyson, The Snake Banks road gang was the actual place this authority sent him to.

The place or authority our recalcitrant miscreant was sent to on 2 October 1838 probably is somewhere or someone related to the Cressy Estate around the Norfolk Plains District west of Campbelltown.

Update 15 September 2022: I think the mystery is now solved! See below…

It is something to do with the Van Diemen’s Land Establishment (also known as the Cressy Company to distinguish it from the Van Diemen’s Land Company of north western Tasmania). This we can deduce from the next record of Dyson’s misbehaviour dated only three days after he was sent there:

5/10/1838 VDL Establishment / Incorrigible idleness and using abusive language. 26 lashes & returned to Government / [ordered by] J[ames]. C[ubbiston]. S[utherland].

Sutherland was a land occupier on the Isis River who acted as a JP for those who could not get into town to see the Police Magistrate.

When he first arrived in VDL in 1834, one of Dyson’s first assignments was the completion of this wharf — these days part of Salamanca Markets

If I’ve been able to confirm nothing else about his time in Tasmania (and this is by no means an original observation) James Dyson was someone who seriously did not like authority.

James Dyson’s conduct record in Van Diemen’s Land 1834-1840

13 September 2022
Unreliable Witness

The Dyson family grave site in East Perth Cemetery.

This is a 2022 sequel (of sorts) to the article On Cemetery Hill posted June 2018

Cemetery Hill in East Perth was the home of numerous discrete burial grounds for the occupants of the Perth settlement from the time it was set aside for that purpose in 1829 until its closure to fresh burials in 1916. Each of the grounds were — in theory — managed by various Christian religious sects or the representatives of certain ethnic minorities. In practice — who buried who/what/when was a free-for-all.

By the last decade of the nineteenth century — when the population of the city was suddenly swollen by those arriving on the coat-tails of the gold seekers, the rules of supply and demand ensured the profession of funeral director suddenly became an attractive one. Those best in a position to provide this unavoidable service were coach makers, wheelwrights, and those in associated trades. Not only had they the ready-to-go transport up the sandy road to Cemetery Hill, they could knock up the the coffins as well.

The Daily News, Friday 18 March 1892 p 2

One such entrepreneur was Andrew “Drewy” Dyson, some time blacksmith, livery proprietor and coach builder. He would bury anyone, any denomination, any time,.. all for just £5. By the end of the boom he was broke…

All joking aside, by 1900, after Mrs Jane Dyson — Drewy’s mother, and the last verified family member of the Dyson family buried in East Perth — died, Drewy was verifiably down on his luck. The debts were mounting. His mourning carriage and hearse were offered for sale early in 1899, so it is a fair assumption he was no longer in the funeral trade from that time.

PERTH LOCAL COURT.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16.
(Before Mr. J. Cowan, P.M.)
[…]
APPLICATIONS, ETC.—W.A. Produce Co. v. A. Dyson, motion for committal for non-compliance of judgment order, £2 instalments due ; order to issue for seven days’ imprisonment, warrant to lie for a fortnight.”
The West Australian, 17 November 1899 p6

So how did he afford the headstone that commemorated the existence of his mother, father, and his father’s first wife? It was he who commissioned and paid for this monument, and we know this, because it says so on the inscription, and if he had not paid monumental masons Peters and Gillies for their work, the court action to recover the debt would have been in all the papers. Everything else Drewy Dyson ever said or did was reported in ridiculous detail at the time. E.g.:

Drewey Dyson, of the peculiar physical proportions, caused a commotion in Mounts’ Bay-road the other afternoon. He was swimming his horse in the river beyond the brewery, both he and the prad being in the altogether.
After the natatorial exercise; the horse was in better wind than the man, and when Drewey reached the bank he collapsed, all his efforts not availing him to assume the perpendicular. An alarm was given, and the brewery people, the old men from the depot, and the young people from Crawley quickly assembled to view what appeared in the dim religious light to be a stranded whale. When the case was accurately diagnosed, the blushes that illuminated the landscape of Crawley were such as have never previously been called up by the sight of any other kind of fish. Drewey gradually recovered.”
Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954) Sunday 26 March 1905 p4

Mirror (Perth, WA : 1921 – 1956), 7 August 1926, p. 1

Andrew “Drewy” Dyson died on 17 April 1927. He was buried in the City’s replacement burial ground of Karrakatta Cemetery. If he was broke in 1900, he was positively destitute in 1927 — so it is probable he never had a headstone for himself. Even if he did, it would not have survived. This new official cemetery was a place of memory with a policy of “renewal” whereby the plots are respectfully bulldozed and headstones dumped in a skip (or at the very least stripped of any context) a few short years after interment. Thus it is a historical irony that it it is still possible to visit Drewy’s exact resting place. The name on the current headstone is not of he, but of his son, and that is the sole reason it survives.

Question: “Who do you have to try to kill to get your grave preserved in Karrakatta Cemetery?” Answer: “Yes”

Some questions that could have been easily answered 100 years ago will, by the sheer entropy of time, be unanswerable today — Assuming that is, if there’s even enough information left to formulate a question. The quest to preserve one of the few tangible reminders of the Dyson family’s past in Western Australia would prove to be an opportunity not only to ask, but to answer some of these questions about the family grave site in East Perth. Not the the least of these questions has to be: How did it survive at all?

In the intervening 100 years or so since the East Perth Cemeteries were closed for new burials, responsibility for the maintenance of the monuments in the old burial grounds was vested in no-one. Bulldozers flattened large chunks of the site and any headstones found damaged were wilfully torn down and ground into rubble during the course of the twentieth century.

The degradation continued until the National Trust of Western Australia were finally permitted to assume control of what was left by the year 1994. Hundreds — if not thousands — of grave stones had by then been lost, and mediocre record keeping back when it was an active burial ground will ensure that many who lie in the entities of what is now collectively known as the East Perth Cemeteries will lie in anonymity for ever more.

Nevertheless, the Dyson family plot is one of the rare survivors. Maybe it is mostly intact because there was no one in authority to order its destruction.

Plot 75

East Perth Cemeteries Plot 75 (in 2018)

During the second decade of the twenty-first century, a number of descendents of those who lay in what had once been the Wesleyan Cemetery in East Perth — independently came to the realisation that one of the few physical reminders that their ancestors walked the earth was dissolving back into the earth at an accelerating pace. Photographs of the headstone taken over the past forty years illustrated a worrying trend.

1982

2013

2018

The National Trust WA’s website tells the story of what happened next:

Dyson grave restoration at East Perth Cemeteries

Progress in 2020

This photo courtesy of the National Trust WA 2021.

These photos by Alan Thompson 2020-2021

Postscript

A profound thanks to Kerri Rose for her generous financial support without which this project could never have been completed.

11 March 2022
Perth City Council Minutes 1858-1875

This article assumes you know what the Perth City Council is, what Minutes of a Council Meeting are, and why these records dating from 1858-1975 might be useful for a historian to be able to easily refer to.

Volume 1
10 December 1858 – 3 January 1863
(1 MB PDF)

Volume 2
16 January 1863 – 20 June 1870
(1.3 MB PDF)

Volume 3
1 July 1870 – 7 January 1876
(1.7 MB PDF)

These are complete text transcriptions of the meetings held by the Perth City Council from the time when Perth was declared a City, up until the beginning of the year 1876 and the first meeting of a new City council elected in December of the preceding year. Sourced from photographs taken of first three original minute books held by the State Record Office of WA in Perth, WA, these transcriptions were made for personal research purposes for two main reasons: 1) the photos I took of the sources way back when, varied in quality from excellent to blurry mess, 2) the hands of the handwritten minutes varied in legibility from superlative to effectively unreadable. I figured if I was going to have to spend time deciphering these documents, I might as well write them down as I was going along. Its taken about five years.

These files are presented as is — solely as a guide to what is in the actual source documents. There is no guarantee whatsoever that my translations are accurate, particularly in relation to names, numbers or spellings as interpreted or typed by me. No liability will be accepted for any damage caused by any one stupid enough not to cross reference these transcriptions with the originals held in the Archive.

page 3/124 : A representative nightmare

The reference numbers for the originals in the SRO are:

item 1
1858-12-10 – 1863-01-05 (Accumulation)
Reference code: AU WA S287- cons2826 001
item 2
1863-01-16 – 1870-05-27 (Accumulation)
Reference code: AU WA S287- cons2826 002
item 3
1870-07-01 – 1878-08-02 (Accumulation)
Reference code: AU WA S287- cons2826 003

The final part of item three has not been transcribed as it was outside the range of my interest area, which can probably be guessed at from the date of entries that I have transcribed. The pages of the minute books were not numbered, so I have invented my own numbering scheme: e.g.: 1/200 is the 200th page in volume 1.

Addendum

Since this was posted in 2021, the SRO have digitized the full collection of Perth City Council Minutes and these are now freely accessible for download through their web portal linked to the reference numbers above.

The page numbers in the new PDFs are quite different to the system I devised, as there are roughly two pages from the original manuscripts on each individual page in the new PDFs. To convert between the two systems, multiply their page number by two, but expect to have to scroll between 4 or five pages forward or back depending on how many loose or blank pages from the original books have been included in the copying process.

I will rework my transcriptions at some stage so their numberings conform with the new standard. When I do, this page will be updated.

13 December 2021
Tales of the Moffatt

The names of all the convicts are known, and the record of one particular convict on this voyage called James Dyson reports that he was in good heath and his conduct was “good”.

In neither of the additional accounts now uncovered, is Dyson mentioned at all. This was not unexpected. Neither narrative was ever going to mention the name of a common sailor, servant, or soldier on board ship, much less the name of convict — unless they had done something dramatic, criminal or terminal — preferably all three.

Of these two primary sources, the first is the Medical and Surgical Journal kept by T. B. Wilson, M.D., Ship’s surgeon and Superintendent of the convicts on this voyage. Both the medical notes he took, and the summary of the entire journey for his masters back in England, he recorded in Latin — apparently for no other reason that he was a pretentious wanker. An extremely rough translation of the “General Remarks” part of this report reinforces my opinion of his character — an opinion increasingly shared by the author of the other detailed account of the voyage — G.T.W.B. Boyes.

from Boyes’ journal

Boyes was a bureaucrat returning to his office in VDL. Apparently he had known Wilson well when they had last been in the Colony together and had even been friends. However they may not have been confined on the same ship before, and Boyes may never have seen Wilson in action in his role as Superintendent. Boyes’ day by day journal records his increasing misgivings as to how Wilson performed his duties. At the beginning of the voyage he refers to the activity of “Wilson,” by the end, he he just referred to as “the Surgeon”.

Boyes records events that are barely touched upon in Wilson’s journal, such as the unofficial trial conducted by the convicts when one of their number was caught stealing food — they had no faith justice would be done if they reported it to the superintendent— nor were the brawls among the convicts in the days afterwards. Six convicts did not survive the passage to Van Diemen’s Land. Not mentioned in the official account is that one of those drowned after falling overboard. Whether it was an accident, suicide, or he was given a push remains an open question. A seventh prisoner is sometimes referred to in other documents as having been “unloaded” before the voyage began. This is cute way of saying he jumped overboard, then either swam to shore or to an awaiting boat near Plymouth. Either way, he was not bound for Van Diemen’s Land.

The sections of Boyes’ handwritten diary concerned with the voyage of the Moffatt between 22 October 1833 ’til 9 May 1834 now exist in the form of a transcription produced by me. I would reproduce it here on this site in its entirety so others need not re-invent the wheel next time, but the copyright notice on the blurry PDF scans of the diary so far made publicly available clearly states:—

You may not develop a derivative version of the material.
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/licence.html

So I won’t, and you will have to refer back to the source, like I had to:—

Boyes, George Thomas William Blamey 1835 , Diary of G.T.W.B. Boyes, Van Diemen’s Land, February 28th, 1833 – June 1st, 1835 , University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection, Australia.

In regards to the Surgeon’s Journal, a transcription has been made of the five pages of the “General Remarks” that conclude the report, and these have been transcribed into Latin. A crude machine translation of this text into English is laughably bad, but enough of the gist of it is comprehensible, in that specific events referred to, can be cross referenced with Boyes’ diary entries, and that Wilson is using ridiculously grandiose language to describe both himself and his actions.

Scans of the original journal can be seen here.

My translation into English shall never be published while I still live. A representative paragraph is reproduced below to demonstrate WHY this shal be so:—

Although during the course of time, some people human beings are now and again tempted by disease, still ship health first name until the twelfth of May, when Scurvy he provided himself as a companion; and at once made an ambush among the exiles. It is known that the scurvy fall into other prone diseases else; for this reason various diseases of the various diseases rushed forward; among whom diarrhea has been cured
he rejoiced.”
Google Translate

However, my transcription IN LATIN of the Surgeon’s general remarks can be read below, or downloaded here (PDF). I cannot read or write Latin, but I make this available for anyone else who would like to try themselves.—

GENERAL REMARKS

Page 1

Hiqus navis quadringentos exulum ab oris Anglicae pro legibus
fractis, as Tasmanian usque deportatinuae decimo quinto kalendas
Novembra, Chirungus Constitutus sum. Pridie Nonas qustem
Mensis illam in fluno Tamesi prope “Deptford” jacentem conscende –
Pridicque Idiis Militum trigintor, e legione qurm quorg es unmor exuled
Custoditun navin conscenderment.

Decmo quanto
Kalendus Decembras, Omnibus ad Navxgationem long ano peratis
iter inceptum est, et sub vesperam ejusdem dieu, juxta Navale
apund “Woolwich”, in situ idoneo, naevim posuimus ; ibmque tridunum
in ueupiendis contum et octogenta exulum Moratin sumns. –
Eo facto iter fluvratile capiamus, ad portum prope Insulam
Tolapionis (vernacule “Sheerness” appellatum) centurn et quinguajuta
exulum ibi loci recepturn. —

Quarto Kalendas Decembras,
Exulibus conscensis, anchor soluta est, et veha fecimus, solliciti
portum Damnonium, Plymouth Anglice nurcupatum, attingeie uti
septuagenta exulum navim conscendere designate, adventurm
nostriuan expectabantum. — attamen, ob ventis infaustis stationem
adversnus Cantinm promontorium, “Margate” anglice dictam, non
sine multo bidum detenti sumus. —

Pridie Kalend. Decembris
–procella nonmihie sedata iter factum est, ad stationem Downs
anglica dictam, ibique loci, situ commado, ut ventus ex occidente
perflaret, anchor os jeeimuus —

Quarto Nones Decembras,
qucamuis caelum minunre serenum est nee ventus secundus,
tamin pertasi morae anchor as solvimes below venbus exparte
adversis dedimuius, vrannguim anchor tem lentammus. Sed, tridnd
consumpto in bane contentione cum procellis adversis, portum
numis fistinantir ielictum repetere coacti sumus. Atque illic

page 2

sex dus ingratiis ad anchor as statum est.—

Pridie Idus Decembra
Vento pacato et ealo aspectu propiore, cequor undosum iteravimus ;
et cursum obliguamus per fictum Anglicanum, atque post aliguot
dies nune or as galliae nunc Angliae legents, justatique spumantubus
equries undis, Vindelim attiginus ; yinsque portu potiri strenui
nitebumur ; sed non comotes voti, turbine inimica, vi magna saevunte.
Quin der causir et non potentes cum mari irato dintinus certare, utio
Dravigamus ad sepugium petemdum in stationem, inter insulam
Victim et Hautoniam sitam, Nomine Spithead longi latique Notam ;
im quam brevi, belis plenis, deferimur.—

Octavo Kalendar Januarius.
Nucti ventum idoncums, Anchoris solutis, atgue carbasis expansis
Aquiloni, sine mora “liqurmus portum pelagoque volannus.” —
Postridie antem refugunm petre in sinum dictum Torbay, coacti
sumus ; quppe “horrida tempertas calum contraxit”, et procella
adversa magno furore fieniebatur.— tandem, die nempe quanto Kal. Jans.
post conamina iterata, et caelo, et vento et mairn invitus, descoleratum
portum attigimus.—

Kalendis Januarius, Septuagenta
exerlum im havim reciptc sunt ; nune igitum recepta sunt ;
sed, ob ventis adversis saevintibus, cum vati procellosi fatigati
posuere, et Aquilo leniter spiravit; Re ita se habente, nos male
tolerantes morans, anchoris solintis uclisque pansis, “Rovehimun portu
tenæque urbesgre vecdent”

Vix autem a covspectu
Darnmoniorius telluris deccsseranmus, quurm nubes pluviouxce
calum obduceic inipicbant, et Ventus unfauste spiraie
nihilominus, nollintibus cursum retio tenere gnavitei
pugmatum est; et littoribus periculosis Cassiteri Sum ivitatis
necnor, haus sune quadane diffecnbtate præternavigatis, Oceano
Atlantico potiti surmis — Yandentesqure, ad plagas Austrinas
liguidum iter prosequimur; pancisque in dicbus, regionibus
procellarum pluvi amroque relictus mare acceptum legebamus. —

Decimo quarto Kelendas Marties Tropicum Canceri —
Quinto Nonas Sincam Æqunoctiaem — Decimo Sexto Kalendas Aprilis,

page 3

Tropicum Capricorni — Sexto Kalend. longites dinem Grenovre in —
Prideque honas gusdem Mensis, Promontorumn Bonae Sper
ventis plerumque secundis — pace terivinmus. Demque
Nonis nenper Maiis, hora octava matuterna Neptunis arvis
immensis aratis, Sublimica tellu, is Tasmaniæ in Conspectum
venicbant bidneque decinde exacto, via long a feliciter,
celeriterque peracta, Portum intravimus læti optaturm.—

Hoc de itinere : nune quædam dicere de morbis qui sub ejus
decursu obviam iverrnmut, transcundurm est.—

Imprimus mentioneni faceie oportet, tantos exerluim
navim unam numquam antehac conscendisse; ob camque causam
Calum serenum et Venti secumdi maxime desiderander; quirppe
que ad Aortim æquam experimento præbendamus hand parum prodessent.
Res autem lonhe aliter sise habueriment, ut suprascriptis comperturm sit
Igiturque Land mirermdum nonmublos Nautaruns et militurn,
plunimosque epulumn, Objectos ex rei necessitate din siutuis qune,
Aeri mutabilis, procellis hybernis, pluvusque frigidis morbis acuties,
præsertum pulmonum Corripimsse;— Lumat autem scire,
Morbos istas omnes (duobus exceptis, quorum historiæ in ephemeride
scriptæ sunt) remedus adhibitis succubuisse.—

Brevi post decessionem ab oris Angliæ, Ventum est, in
regiones et salutiferas et Amænas; eodemgue tempore, Cohors
morborum, ex causis Jam Memoratis Ortæ, in fingam se Vertebat,
et socirtate Hygcia suavi inter oras longum Mansura refecti
Sumus et accreati

Etsi inter decursum vice, Nonnulli
hominum, nunc et iterum morbo tentarentur, tamen Navis salubus
appelleretum ad usque duodecimumus Kalendarum Maii, quum Scorbutus
comitem se præbebat; atque extemplo, inter exules insidiosw grassabatur.—

Notum est, Scorbuticos incidere in alias morbos proclivos
else; ob eam rem, varii morbi in medium sese proferebaut;
inter quos Diarrhoea sanatum obifficimes prima acii
gaudebat.

Quadraginstæ hominum auplusque
scmel et sinme male se habuerment;— Eo tempore, ut
facile credatun, sategi rcrum; Nihilo tamen secius, præmumun
mihi pergratum est, Methodum Medendi plurimun belinsses;

page 4

omnesque ita affectas (uno excepto) salutem aut recuperifse aut
ucuperaturas efse, quo tempore in portum Tasmania vernicbamus.—
atque summo officirbar gaudio, homines tantas, tamdum tot us
valetudini Secundæ ininuicas pass os (tribus ex toto numero as hosoconupion
Missis) san os et, ubus supra dictis Cognitis atgue spectatis validos
terram tetegisse; quod. accidit decimo septo Kalendarum Maii.—

Quad attinet ad nationem Æportantes tractan Si, — ex
ephemieridemetipsu, in qua omnes casus lethaliter finientes narrare
curavi, discendum est.—

Hæ de morbis, — nune non alienum sit perpansa, de more meo
solito, us gestuendi in navim exules vehentem dicere; qupope que (rerum
scilicet administratio) etsi non duecti ad onedice officium spectet, tamen,
ut ad morbos præfutum, nee sine jure, sibi vindicat.—

Haud ita multo post conscensionem exulem, quam commodissune
distribute sunt atique in locis statutis collocati. Nonnulli, bene moratis,
quibus quadam Auctontas ad alios intuendos concedenden selectisent;—hone
securitas, Inpundities et decentia morum, facilius consererentus.—

Quod attinet ad cibum eorum et potum; — ambobus liberie suppedit antum, et
semper curaturm est, ut cibana bene cocta sint, et idoneis temporibus
distributa. Sex libræ interque legiones tropicas Congius Agnæ, sime ullen
deductione, quotidie, unicuique conceduntum. etiamque omnis exul
fubet, singulis diebus, by orthum vini, succi limonumun, et Saecham a in 3
cum libra Aquæ Mixton — Ciyius portus salutiferi et grati, partem demodtatum, hors
undecimis ante mundum altheramque horis quartis post meudiem coramne
presente vice sua quisque bibit. Hoe in modo omnes exulum bis undu
sigillatim, sub menm Conspectum benuent us Land levis Momenti
natione facile perspicienda.—

Inter toturn itineris cursum, attentio summer ad muniditiem
et corporusm et vestimentorum exulum, etiamque as vertilationem navis
idoneum, quesque pumficatronerm, semper perseduli adhibetur —

Cursu pelago inito, terraque relietea, exullum omines e
catenis liberare consuctus sum ; illisque bene se germtibus, ad
libitum, forum superiorem perambulare, ab orient solis ad occasuns
usque, libertatem Concedeie; talique libertate concesson exiles abesos afer
numguamn obsirn ern, e contrauio, est anihi voluptati profan,

page 5

necessitindinem quern quam unum pumende nun quam ortam ifse ; Etsi
auten de ea re haud decet gloriari; tarnen, multitundine et genere hominum
perpensis, liceat administrationem talem rerum, quadam laudes dignam
else, arbitrari.

Hac sunt que scriptu necessarius opinatus sum,—
hunc nihu nuhi restat, hisi aveie, mithodum meurn munus perficiendir
Archiatro nostio approbatum iri.—

So there!

7 November 2021
Researching a Convict Ship

Moffatt (1) 1834

York Castle in 2015

James Dyson (1810-1888), civic leader and businessman of Perth, Western Australia had also been a convicted criminal in a former life. Sentenced to seven years transportation beyond the seas in July 1833, he spent the first few weeks of his sentence imprisoned in York Castle, then four months on the prison hulk Justitia anchored off Woolwich near London on the river Thames.

Representative image of a hulk.

On 20 November 1833 he was bundled on to the merchantman Moffatt at Woolwich, but the formal date of sailing from England to Van Diemen’s Land was not until 6 January 1834. The port of departure was Plymouth. One hundred days later the Moffatt arrived at Hobart town in the convict colony. It was a record speed for a crossing and the vessel carried a record number of convicts within its Indian teak hull.

Of the four hundred prisoners loaded on board, 393 made it to their destination alive. Given that I would not be writing this if he had not made it — Dyson survived the voyage. Still, I would like to know more about this part of his life than what is regularly regurgitated in the standard sources.

Claim a convict: Moffatt (1834)

convictrecords.com.au: Moffatt (1834)

Moffatt hauled convicts to Australia four times — Three to Van Diemen’s Land, and one to New South Wales. Convicts were categorised by which ship and voyage they arrived on, so James Dyson was linked to Moffatt (1).

History of the Moffatt on wikipedia

This was the Moffatt’s first time as a convict transport. Prior to that, she was an East India Company ship (The British cartel that owned India for the moment) and her master for her last voyage for the EIC who also commanded her first as prison transport was a young man named James Cromarty (also spelt Cromartie). He was 28 when he became master of the Moffatt in 1832.

A brief biography of him here would be a lot more published about him than I have so far found written: — Cromarty was born on South Ronaldsay amid the Orkney islands north of the Scottish mainland. Up until the captaincy of the Moffatt for the EIC in 1832, I know nothing about him. It may have been his first command but researching this point has been inconclusive so far. Then, between 1836-1840, he captained the sailing ship James Pattison until she was lost at sea due to fire. He and all his crew were rescued. He was then master of the Chieftain (1841) and then the Equestrian (1844-1847). He married a Miss Charlotte Kelly in Sydney back in 1836. Their home was in London and they had at least two sons together. Charlotte Cromarty disappears from the record after 1847 and by census time 1851, James Cromarty has retired from the sea and taken up farming near his birthplace on South Ronaldsay. He dropped dead 13 July 1882. He was 78 years old.

Petrus Cornelis Weyts – ‘James Pattison of London’, reverse painting on glass, signed and dated 1837

Whether deliberately or by chance, Cromarty was master of many immigration voyages to the Australian colonies. Whether his passengers were free or unfree, one thing both types of voyage shared in common was the presence of a surgeon to ensure that as many of the cargo got to their destination alive as possible. After many years of trial (and mostly) error, the best way found to achieve this outcome was to ensure that neither of these parties got paid unless either gave the other a good report and the cargo arrived mostly intact. Convict ships had surgeons from the Royal Navy. On board the Moffatt during 1834, this was Thomas Braidwood Wilson, RN (1792-1843).

Thomas Braidwood Wilson in the Australian Dictionary of Biography

Unlike that for Captain Cromarty, Surgeon T. B. Wilson’s official log of the 1834 voyage of the Moffatt survives. Further more, images of the original pages are now easily available for study. Just one little problem — This tosser wrote most of his journal in Latin — a dead language only specialist scholars can now read.

You. berk.

Marvel at the handwriting in the Journal images on Trove

Unfortunately learning the language of the ancient Romans and the medieval church is somewhat outside my capabilities. There are some broad summaries of what the journal contains in the index of the archive where the originals are stored. The name of James Dyson is not mentioned, as far as I can decipher.

National Archives, United Kingdom

There are no convict diaries for the Moffatt. Those that I have perused date a few years earlier or later on different ships, and all describe very different conditions on every separate journey. It is very frustrating not even being able to generalise on the experience. I could not even be sure exactly what was the route the Moffatt took. However, the one useful bit I could glean from the journal was this table:—

This is actually useful.

From which I was able to generate the following map:—

Then I learnt a bit more about Surgeon T. B. Wilson. It turns out he had quite the career as an explorer — In Western Australia he named Mount Barker in the South West of the colony after his colleague Captain Collett Barker. In return, Wilson’s Inlet, near the town of Denmark on the south coast is named after him. Further more, this bastard who could not be bothered to write his official report in anything other than a language most — even then — could not read, then published a book of his travels in 1835.

Note the date: Narrative of a Voyage Round the World by T. B. Wilson was published in London only a year after he sailed on the Moffatt, and lo! There is an appendix to this tome intituled: —

Remarks on Transportation &c., &c.

AS the subject may not be unacceptable to some of my readers, I shall make a few observations relative to convict ships,—the management of prisoners during the voyage, and their disposal and treatment in New South Wales, and Van Dieman’s Land.

He then goes on to describe the same in meticulous detail, there is even a footnote in the manuscript relating to the troops guarding the prisoners on the voyage..

* Last year (1834), I had charge of 400 prisoners (the greatest number sent in one ship), without any additional guard.

Best of all, his entire publication is available on Project Guttenburg as a free ebook.

Huzzar! Now if only there were any other passengers on the Moffatt who might have written… I don’t know… a diary perhaps?

The Colonist and Van Diemen’s Land Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1832 – 1834) Tue 13 May 1834
Page 2

So, who was this Deputy Assistant Commissary General Boyes when he was at home?

George Thomas William Blamey Boyes (1787-1853): Australian Dictionary of Biography entry.

So it turns out this dude was a diarist, and further more, his diaries have been transcribed and published — Oh wait, just Volume I: 1820-1832 — Thats… Oh bugger!

Fortunately for me, the rest of his oeuvre is available for download on the website of the University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection. The downside is that the dates I require have not been transcribed and the pdf that contains the images has been compressed almost beyond the borders of illegibility. However, now I have a complete account of sailing ship Moffatt’s 100 days at sea in 1834. All that remains for me now to translate G. T. W. B. Boyes’ thoroughly indifferent handwriting. However, at least its not in Latin.

Segment of a diary page by G. T. W. B. Boyes. Was this just a passing vessel or is it a portrait of the Moffat herself?

Continued: More tales of the Moffatt!

30 October 2021
Are you … kidding me?

Star Wars… there’s an appropriate quote for any situation.

When I started writing my book on the Dyson family, very little was known about James Dyson’s first wife Fanny nee Hoffingham. They married in 1842, they had four children, the last of whom was an infant daughter who died in 1849, a year before Fanny herself (supposedly) died. The best guess as to the cause of death being complications arising from that last birth. There is no official death certificate.

Of her origins before their marriage there was no information whatsoever. The life and death of Mrs Fanny (or Frances) Dyson seemed set to be a sad paragraph in-between her husband’s convict past and his turbulent and drama rich second marriage to Mrs Jane Edwards, nee Devling. Her sole legacy might have been a trace of DNA passed on through the only one of her children to have a family of his own. Her life was anonymous. Only her passing was noted.

We have her tomb stone, but can we trust it?

About a year after a television programme went to air in Australia stating that the first Mrs Dyson probably died (anonymously) of puerperal fever or some other common disease of the time, I was doing some research in the State Records Office in Perth, probing the police records in the hope of uncovering a bit more context to the frequent run-ins with the law a supposedly grieving widower Dyson was embroiled in during the early years of the 1850’s.

Who Do You Think You Are S9 E6 (2015) featuring Todd McKenney (Fanny’s GGGgrandson) and some fat git with a bald spot.

What I found left me stunned. Fanny Dyson was very much alive after the year 1850. She had left the family home and was incarcerated for a time in the Perth Lunatic Asylum. Her husband was being taken to court, for – among other matters – refusal to pay for her upkeep while in government custody. She in turn, refused to return to him while that seventeen-year-old girl who would eventually be his second wife was living under the same roof as her husband. It was a ghastly situation to which there might have been only one inevitable outcome: At some time in mid 1854, Fanny Dyson took her own life.

The Fate of the First Wife

But the question as to who the former Fanny Hoffingham had been remained.

The servant class of early Western Australian colonial history were simply not talked about unless they did something dramatic (and/or illegal) to draw attention to themselves. They would not necessarily be mentioned by name, or at all, on the manifests of the ships they arrived on, being considered merely as baggage for their masters – or husbands.

I considered whether Fanny could have been one of the teenage orphan immigrants sent to Western Australia to fill the dearth of female domestic servants by The Children’s Friend Society at about the right time in the colony’s history. In the person of Frances Massingham, I though I might have found a match, but it did not take too much further research to disprove that theory. It was a fun theory while it lasted.

Too outrageous a Coincidence?

Then I discovered the existence of James Dyson’s outrageous fellow convict, granted her freedom the very same day in Launceston as he: The one-eyed former sex-worker with a conduct record that made Dyson seem worthy of a sainthood by comparison – Fanny Dewhirst. Also the man she was married to at the same time she married James – fellow convict Lorenzo Johnstone.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I dared not believe I had uncovered James Dyson’s first spouse’s true identity for a long time. Eighteen months of research later, I had the one thing I don’t have even for James Dyson’s convict past (Which now seems to be accepted by most as a proven fact.) – Two documents that independently connect the VDL convict with the Western Australian colonist. In common is the name “Overton”. As a name, it is found in relation to Fanny in a transcription of a Dyson family bible. There is no context for this. There is, however, a village in west Yorkshire called Overton. It is located within the Yorkshire parish of Wakefield. Wakefield just happens to be place the convict Dewhirst said she was from when interviewed on arrival in Van Diemen’s Land. This for me, was one coincidence after many that convinced me I had found the correct person.

There was also a faint trail of DNA connecting Fanny Dyson’s GGGG grandson to a branch of the Dewhirst family located in the right part of the world and from right time period. I personally distrust DNA matches extrapolated this far into the past, but it holds the hope of something approaching scientific certainty might still be arrived at, someday.

I’ve continued looking for that one fact that would conclusively prove Fanny Dewhirst was not Fanny Dyson. I’ve always known it would only take one piece of firm evidence to demolish the whole baroque structure of her story as I’ve reconstructed it. I was always prepared to be proven wrong. I still am, even after the following finally was made aware to me.–

Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians Volume II (1987) p 1499

Now, this might be true. If this claim can be proven, I’ll regard the Dewhirst hypothesis in the same light as the Massingham one. Yes, I’ll be annoyed at the book chapters I’ll have to re-write yet again, but I will regret nothing of the journey that left me much smarter than when I started it.

At this precise moment, as with my previous theory, I can neither conclusively prove nor disprove that the widow of a young soldier from Cheshire who was stationed in VDL as a prison guard before sailing to Western Australia, is the first wife of James Dyson either. The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australia’s claim is not correlated in any documentation I have had access to so far.

To date, my instinct is that this is not James Dyson’s future first wife and I got it right the ~~first~~ second time. My perverse justification for this opinion is that while a number of falsifications on existing documents are needed to accept the Dewhirst/Dyson union as a viable proposition, the prospect of a charge of bigamy is a good an incentive as anything else. On the other hand, no good reason has so far emerged for a widow of Private Richard Hofton (or Hoofton, as his military record sometimes has it) to claim she was a Spinster on her marriage certificate when she was not.

The mark of Fanny Hoffington alongside her “condition” at the time of her marriage described as “Spinster”. Why is is not “Widow”?

Also when Hofton’s death was recorded in his Regiment’s pay book, the only next-of-kin in line to receive the balance of his salary was his father, also named Richard, thought to be living in Warrington, Cheshire. No mention at all of him being married, which I find suspicious.

I remain prepared to be proven completely, utterly, and majestically wrong about this, and everything else.

P.S.

In the course of the ongoing research into Richard Hofton, I stumbled onto this quite wonderful website concerning the first soldiers based in Western Australia. Unlike a certain highly esteemed reference book, it actually contains references.

Redcoat Settlers in Western Australia 1826-1869

P.P.S.

Expect my book to be delayed by at least another year..

P.P.P.S.

According to wikipedia, the first volume of what became the Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australia was developed from a card index catalogue developed by the mother of the person who happens to be the one who says on television that Fanny Dyson probably died of puerperal fever. F.F.S.

3 July 2021
Bio: Richard Edwards (jr)

Henley Park house: built by Richard Edwards snr & jr [SLWA]

Baptismal record for Richard Edwards in the village of English Bicknor

He was born about 1807, probably in the village of English Bicknor, part of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, an ancient western county of England near the border with Wales. He died… well that’s one of the many facts up for debate about his life. The best guess is that he snuffed it in Bendigo hospital on the goldfields of the Australian Colony of Victoria on 11 July 1869.

Death certificate for a Richard Edwards born c 1808 issued in Victoria

The issue is that he had already been declared dead for moral purposes before 25 February 1861, when his “widow” married her second husband in the 2^nd Wesleyan Chapel, Perth, Western Australia. Edwards had first married the then heavily pregnant Jane Devling back on 6 August 1850. The marriage of the 42 year old Edwards to the teenaged Devling also provides the only evidence so far that Richard Edwards had married before and that first wife was now dead. The identity of his first marriage, or if there were any children (living or dead) produced during the union has yet to be uncovered.

Richard Edwards’ father (also named Richard Edwards), his mother Elizabeth nee Tumlins, and five of his siblings: George, Samuel, Dinah, Joshua and Matthew, were sent to Western Australia as part of the immigration plans of Thomas Peel and former Sydney convict (unknown to Peel) Solomon Levy. They arrived in the Hooghly on 12 February 1830 and were among the many who went hungry on the beach at Clarence (Woodman Point, south of Fremantle) while Peel had his nervous breakdown back on ship. Freed from their employment contracts with Peel by the colonial government before any more of them died, Richard senior eventually found himself employed by Captain Frederick Irwin and his relative William Mackie to manage and farm their lands in Upper Swan issued to them by dint of being well connected members of the Colonial ruling clique.

Edwards’ background back in Gloucestershire was as a Yeoman farmer and brickmaker, a trade carried on by his eldest son Josiah, who remained in Britain, as did another daughter, and Richard junior, for a time. As builder, Richard Edwards senior would construct many well regarded houses in the Swan Valley for both the colony’s gentry, and later on, himself. Few of these survive, but one structure that does endure is the church of All Saints in Upper Swan commenced in 1838. Both the elder Richard Edward and his wife are buried in the grounds of this church.

All Saints Church, Henley Brook 2014

Richard Edwards (the junior) arrived in the Swan River Colony a year after the bulk of his family, arriving in Fremantle on the Atwick on 25 April 1831. He was 23 years old. His trade is consistently described as that of a carpenter, but from this date onwards it becomes quite difficult to identify if the sources are referring to Richard the father, or the son.

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 22 Jun 1833, Page 97

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal 7 Mar 1835, p. 454

On 19 June 1833, it is presumed to be Richard Edwards — the son— who applied to leave the Swan River Colony. Whether he did, or not, is not recorded. The WA Bicentennial Dictionary then suggests that it is the father who is requesting to leave the colony during 1835. However, It was Richard Edwards, carpenter, who departs Western Australia bound for Mauritius on a ship called the Caroline on 13 March 1835.

Edwards junior was returned to Western Australia well before 1850, but exactly (or even roughly) when remains a mystery. While it is possible his first marriage happened before 1831, between 1835 and 1850 seems more likely. Something else also occurred during the intervening period. — Father and son may have had a falling out. Richard Edward (senior’s) 1848 will left the considerable rural portfolio he had accumulated to his wife and other sons with no mention in it of Richard junior.

About the same time a family property named Goodwood “formerly occupied by Richard Edwards” was offered up for lease. Was this occupied by the father or the son?

On 6 July 1849, sixteen year old Jane Devling from London arrived in Western Australia to be employed as a domestic servant. Who her employers were prior to her marriage to Richard is yet another of the many mysteries of this era.

During the Australian summer of 1850, a bushfire tore through the Upper Swan Valley. The fire started on Edwards family property. Colonel Irwin’s neighbouring estate of Henley Park was scorched, but the homestead there built by Edwards was saved. The Edwards lost everything on their own estate, bar the bed that the now sickly Richard Edwards senior had to be carried out of his burning house upon. Were it not for the fact that his clan were now owners of many farms in multiple locations, their ruin might have been complete.

At some date between 3 February 1850 and 19 March of that year, the date Richard Edwards’ father finally succumbed to his long illness, Jane Devling fell pregnant, inseminated by an unidentified male. Four months later Edwards married her.

The marriage of Richard Edwards and Jane Devling

Ellen Christina Edwards was born 11 January 1851 and Richard was stated to be her father on the registration of birth. The place of registration was Fremantle, but where Richard Edwards and his new family lived there not been identifiable.

Mrs Jane Edwards had left her husband within eighteen months of the birth of her daughter. Presumably Ellen accompanied her to her new home in Perth on the corner of Murray and King Streets. — As with so much of this period, the reason of her change of address is not explained. She may have resumed the one profession listed officially on her CV: Domestic servant. If so, she was soon to run foul of the mistress of the house. The oddity of the way this conflict played out was that it was not the servant girl summarily dismissed for being too friendly with the master of the house, it was the mistress who departed after an acrimonious fight with her husband. It was probably when she discovered that Jane was four months pregnant and that the father was her own husband, that she decided to leave.

Mrs Fanny Dyson was committed to the Perth Lunatic Asylum while the authorities desperately tried to work out how to resolve the situation. By 6 January 1853 the Colonial Surgeon, Dr Ferguson, had met with Edwards who had agreed in principle to take his wife back into his home (wherever that may have been) so Mrs Dyson could then return to hers, but by now it was far too late. Four weeks later, Jane’s second child was born. Although his birth name was registered as Edwards, he would later assume the name of the only man he would ever know as a father. James Dyson (junior) was born on 25 January 1853.

The very last record of Richard Edwards in Western Australia dates to 6 May 1853 and takes the form of a newspaper article in the local Perth Gazette. It reports he and James Dyson (father of his wife’s latest child) were fined 10 shillings for brawling in the street. He most likely left the colony between then and February 1854. The later date is a feasible cut-off point, for it is seven years later exactly that Mrs Jane Edwards and Mr James Dyson of Perth, both by then describing themselves as widowers, finally married. Seven years was length of time it took a missing person to be declared dead.

If Edwards did make his way across to the other side of Australia, to meet his destiny as one more anonymous gold miner on the Victorian goldfields, how he got there is but one more missing story.

Richard Edward’s House, Henley Brook.

9810 West Swan Road, Henley Brook

It’s fairly well attested that the Edwards’ family home burnt down in 1850. But there is still a property in the Swan Valley named Richard Edwards’ house. It was built close to the one that burnt down for the Edwards family’s mother to reside in after her husband’s death. Was Richard Edwards junior, ever welcome there?

Are you a descendent of the Edwards family?

The author of this site is currently working on a book on the Dyson family in Western Australia who Richard Edwards so catastrophically found himself entwined. I’d love to hear from anyone who has any more insights into his life and story.

17 May 2021
How 2020 ended…

This has not been a good year.

But think of how it will be remembered two hundred years from now. How much remains within the collective imagination of the events of the year 1820 CE? How many people are now thinking about what happened only one hundred years ago, if we had not just lived through this particular year?

The book on the Dyson family progresses — but slowly. Sections on the early years in Lancashire, their life in Western Australia up till the time of the coming of convicts is done. The slow boat to Van Diemen’s Land has started. Bits and pieces of the rest exist as copious notes in various states of legibility, but there is still a long way to go.

However

There is a social media meme going around where two images are posted.. “How [Individual] started the year… How, [Individual] going now”. In deference to the sociologists of future eras, I’m not going to explain what the significance of this is.

However, I also find myself in the possibly unique position of being able to subvert this meme and at the same time totally kill the black humour that is the sole point of it…

This is what James Dyson’s gravestone looked like at the beginning of 2020…

Photograph by a disgruntled family relative…

This is what (part of it) it looks like now…

Image courtesy of Colgan Industries, supplied by the National Trust of Western Australia.

Image courtesy of Colgan Industries, supplied by the National Trust of Western Australia.

This happened only through the support of numerous family members and friends, and an incredibly generous individual who got us over the fund raising line at the beginning of the year.

Restoration of the Dyson Grave in East Perth Cemetery has begun.

[…] The builder was able to collect the headstone from East Perth Cemeteries earlier in the year and has taken it to their workshop where it has undergone a full JOS clean (hot gentle pressure wash). […] The lead lettering has been replaced by an experienced specialist tradesperson who used this as an opportunity to teach an apprentice in this traditional heritage skill. We are also still working on the repining and repair works required, […] It is a slow but steady process.
National Trust of WA

Supervised by the National Trust of WA, the pieces of the headstone were raised at some time during the middle of the year by the sub-contractors performing the restoration work. To be honest, I was very disappointed I could not be present on site when the broken slabs were lifted. Knowing what I now know about our lot, I was fully prepared to see something like this when the stones were removed:—

Larrikin trapped under fallen headstone (simulation only).

Restoration work is being done by Colgan Industries, and it is nice for a change to be able to say completely unironically:

Great work everyone, and thank you!

Postscript

Everyone involved in this project and all the future generations to come owe Kerri Rose a profound debt of gratitude for her generous financial support without which this project could ever have been completed.

22 December 2020
A little bit of war profiteering

Sam Dyson was in Egypt at the time. He was among the first to sign up for the Great War and was among the first quota of Western Australians in the AIF. He has been identified in the famous photograph of the ANZACs posing on the side of the Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau.

Group portrait of all the original officers and men of the 11th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, AIF

Sam would be one of the first on the beach at ANZAC cove, and would survive for his Dad to tell that story.

His father was Andrew “Drewy” Dyson and it’s important to remember that any story mentioning Drewy will always end up being about Drewy.

The following is from a Perth newspaper called “The Truth” published 27 March 1915:

Defendant Drewy Dyson.

Clashes with the Board of Health And makes some Noise in Court.

Some amusement was caused at the Perth Police Court on Wednesday during the very first opening stages of a case in which Andrew Dyson was charged with allowing an accumulation of offensive matter on his premises, situated at 999 Charles-street, Perth. Incidentally, the place was also named “Ararat,” and it had some significance, as will be seen later.

Messrs. W. J. Holmes and W. A. Grenike, J’s.P., were occupying the Bench in solemn state when the charge was called by the police orderly. The day being a little sultry indoors, all the court doors were left open so that a little air could be induced to travel through the No. 3 Court, which is situated right in the centre of the building. “Andrew Dyson,” called the orderly. “Here,” came the answer in
A BELLOW FROM DYSON as he lifted up his bulky frame and came forward. Those who know “Drewy” Dyson will fully appreciate the definition of “bulky.”

An inspector whose name nobody heard, entered the box to give evidence. He did little more than make an entrance when Dyson took charge. He rapidly did that by telling the Bench, in tones that drowned all other noises, that he was neither the owner nor the occupier of 999 Charles-street. In dulcet tones the inspector proceeded to say something. “Shout it out,” roared Dyson, “I’ve got a bit deaf since all these cannons went off.”

Everybody paused and gasped for breath at the noise the obese gent was making. “Come here,” said lawyer Hale, soothingly, “and sit closer to the witness.” “With pleasure,” replied Dyson in an extravagantly polite manner. He was given a seat at the lawyers’ table, and grabbing a pencil and heap of paper he started, only just started, to make notes. The Inspector then managed to say his name was Joseph Dunn, when Dyson emitted a weird, subterranean, sort of growl. “Be quiet, now, you can ask questions afterwards,” soothingly assured Mr. Hale, who was appearing for the Board of Health.

“You’re NOT IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY now,” shouted Dyson, “I won’t be quiet.” As Mr. Hale has never so far fallen from grace as to belong to the Assembly, the reply was enigmatic, but it transpired later that Dyson mistook him for Mr. Walter Dwyer. Comparative silence being restored, Mr. Holmes remarked to Dyson, “I know you of old. Don’t make so much noise.” “Well, they say I live at 999 Charles-street,” said Dyson. “I don’t. Let “em prove it. I put the number on, and called it Ararat. Do you know what Ararat means? Well, It is the partition between heaven and hell. That’s scripture for you. Have a look in the dictionary. I don’t live there. I live in the bush.” All this was given forth in a loud tone.

When the noise stopped, Mr. Holmes said, “If you talk so much we will have to take extraordinary measures with you.” Dyson, with a wink at the press table, “Don’t make it too hot.” The inspector, summing up courage, “The place was in an INDESCRIBABLE STATE OF FILTH“—

Dyson, bawling in tones that made the windows rattle and shut up everybody else, “I don’t admit I’m the defendant. D’ye hear me?” Only, dead people could not have heard him. Drew.y has a remarkably fine voice, although it may sadly heed musical training. Continuing, in the same terrific bawl he said, “Andrew Dyson is summoned. I’m Andrew Dyson The place belongs to Andrew Samuel Dyson, and he’s in Egypt. What about it now? To Mr. Hale: Look here, Mr. Dwyer, that man (the inspector) never saw me at all I ask for an ADJOURNMENT TO GET A SOLICITOR.”

Mr Holmes: All right, we’ll adjourn it. Dyson: I have two doctors and an inspector to say this inspector is a liar. Mr. Holmes: if you don’t behave yourself you will be dealt with for contempt of court. Dyson (with respectful air): Do it, your Worship, do it. Mr. Holmes: We adjourn the case until Friday. Dyson: All right, your Worship.

He started to leave the court, when he commenced to have another go at the inspector. He was pushed outside, and the door was banged violently behind him. Peace and a beautiful calm was restored. The court had hardly got going on other business when Dyson unexpectedly appeared at another open door

“May I ask,” he said in deafening tones, “that the evidence that man (the inspector) is going to give shall be impounded.” Mr. Holmes: You go away. How can we impound any evidence especially when it has not been given? Go out. Dyson: The OTHER INSPECTOR IS A GENTLEMAN, but this one”— The Court Orderly: Get out!

Under persuasion Dyson went out, and another door was banged upon his exit. Then the court settled down to business again, but above all that was done could be heard the strident tones of Dyson as he delivered himself to some people who had gathered in the pasage with wonder at the fearful noise that had attracted them. Gradually the sounds died away, and things resumed a normal state, the silence being tomb like in comparison with the previous noise.
“Defendant Drewy Dyson.” Truth (Perth, WA : 1903 – 1931) 27 March 1915: 1. Web. 8 Jul 2024 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article209404021>.

~

A few days later Drewy was back in court and was fined £3 anyway. It may have been his son’s home, but Drewy owned the property and it was his livestock currently in occupation.

Health inspectors who visited the premises, stated that they found in the yard goats, fowls, cats, dogs, and pigeons. The yard itself was in “an indescribable state of filth, and fowl and goat excreta were all over the place.”
The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Wednesday 31 March 1915 p8

999 Charles Street is located near the intersection where Charles Street transforms into Wanneroo road. For fairly obvious reasons there is nothing remaining of “Ararat” today.

Drewy went on to have the the letter his son sent him on the Galipoli landings published in the local paper:

WITH THE AUSTRALIANS.
PERTH SOLDIER’S NARRATIVE.
EPISODES AFTER THE LANDING.
An interesting sketch of the landing of the Australian troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the early fighting, is given in a letter received by Mr. A. Dyson, of West Perth, from his son, who at the date of writing was lying at a hospital in Heliopolis, recovering from the effects of drinking water poisoned by the Turks Mr. Dyson, junr. writing on May 10, and speaking of the events after the arrival of the Australians at Lemnos, from Mena Camp in Egypt, says:—

Troopships began to arrive again, until there were about 100 in harbour. One day our colonel called the battalion together on the ship, and told us that we would very shortly be going aboard the battleship — as a covering force for the rest of the army. He said it was a great honour for us. It turned out that A and C Companies of each of the four battalions in our 3rd Brigade had to go as advance guard to the covering force, and the other two companies were to come along on destroyers about an hour later. At 2 o’clock we left the Suffolk on destroyers, and from the destroyers we went on board the warship mentioned, and an hour or so later we steamed out of the harbour. We could hear the rest of the transports cheering us until we got outside. The blue jackets would give us anything, and they loaded us up with tobacco and ribbons of their caps and I do believe they would have given us the ship if we had wanted it. A big bowl of tea was served to us at 4.30 p.m., and at 5.30 p.m. we had our proper tea, another big bowl of tea, and an apple pie. We did not half touch the pie! We had not seen anything like it for months. After tea we had a smoke and a chat, and we were were then told to turn in, and get a little sleep, as we had to be up at 12.30. All this time the four British battleships with the half of our brigade were steaming round and about, waiting for the time of landing. It is only a two or three hours’ run to the Dardanelles from Lemnos.

At one o’clock, on Sunday morning, April 25, we had a meal, a big sea pie and a basin of cocoa, and we then fell in on the quarter deck, to receive our last instructions which were to fix bayonets as soon as we touched the beach, and not to load our rifles. At 3 o’clock in the morning we got over the side in the small cutters, and they started to tow us about, while the battleships moved closer in to the land. When the ships were drawing up in battle order we started for the shore, about 12 pinnaces in all. We could not see anything, or hear anything, and, by the way, I might tell you that I was in charge of a box of ammunition, and that I was perched in the
Bow of the Boat,
head and shoulders above everybody else, except the steersman. We saw a big hill loom up in front of us, and we were about in the middle of it. You could just see the dawn breaking at the back of it, and at this time we were about 200 yards off. All of a sudden two shots ran out, and two bullets pinged over our head. They must have been from the Turkish sentries. It all happened quicker than I can write it. After the two shots there was about one minute’s dreadful suspense, and then, my God, machine guns and rifles started, and I was perched in the bow of the boat. The steam pinnace cut us loose, and told us to row for our lives to the beach. Then we found we were 100 yards out of our course, and we had to row that distance along the beach under that awful fire. By this time I had taken what cover I could behind the ammunition box. The boat grated on the beach, and I was the first to get out, and I went in up to my neck in water. The language was awful, I can only say that. I fixed my bayonet and charged up the hill, and I do not know what I did or anything that happened until we formed upon the ridge, about a mile and a half inland, at 9 o’clock. They say that between 20,000 and 30,000 Turks were holding the hill, and 2,000 of the 3rd Brigade took it and another ridge at the point of the bayonet. I do believe that we would have gone right across the peninsula if we had not struck the Turkish supports and been forced to retire to a position on the ridge. We entrenched ourselves there, and
The Devil Himself
will not be able to shift us. The other troops are landing every day. Our wounded to date number 6,000, and it is reported from Turkey that their wounded number 30,000. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Turks kept counter-attacking continually, but they could not shift us. We have ‘dug-outs’ in the trenches, so that we can get out of the road when the shrapnel begins to fly. It is funny. We will perhaps be sitting down in the bottom of the trench when somebody, it may be one of the officers, will yell out, ‘Bob down, you’re spotted,’ and then there will be one dive for these holes, and I can tell you that we don’t waste much time getting down. It is natural to bob and swear when one misses you. Snipers are very bad here. A man walks down the gullies, and he has a good chance of catching a bullet in the back of the head, and when a sniper hits you he either kills you outright or else gives you a serious wound. On going with others one day to reinforce one of the flanks, I had nearly reached the top, when they started to
Pour the Shrapnel Into Us.
A staff officer and myself had to lie down in a bit of a gully, and I was flat up against the side, clinging on by a couple of roots about 2in. long. About 6in. above my head was a little bramble, about 18in. high, and along came a shrapnel shell and took the whole of that bramble away. The staff officer remarked that it was getting a little hot, and I agreed with him. At daybreak one morning the Turks attacked us, and we gave it to them hot. We could see them coming up, and each man would pick his mark, and you could see the poor devil spring in the air, throw up his hands, and then drop like a stone. It did not need more than one bullet per man. They will not face the bayonet in daytime. They advance on us trying to get us to come out and meet them, but we never have any of it. Their idea is to get us to come out, and then they would open out to each flank and turn machine guns on us. Instead, we let them get
Within 50 Yards Or So,
and we turn machine guns and rifles on them. Things get very busy at night time. One of our chaps caught a sniper and shot and bayoneted him. I didn’t think my life was worth sixpence on the Sunday and Monday. We had a good view of our ‘Queen Lizzy’ dropping her 15-inch shells among the Turks. When they would land among the ‘Turks we could see pieces of humanity flying hundreds of feet in the air. I was in the trenches for eight days, and then came down to the beach to get a drink of water. Coming down the gully, I saw a pool of water and had a drink. That was the end of me. I was in the hospital the next day and in a few days afterwards I was sent aboard the hospital ship and brought back to Cairo.
The Turks had Poisoned the Water.
Two chaps died of it on the trip, but in another week I will be back and at it again. One night a German officer was leading a charge against us and he yelled out to us, ‘Come along, you kangaroo hopping ——. We will give you all the fight you want.’ He did not speak an other word, and when we found him he had thirty or forty bullets in him. I could tell you hundreds of things like this, but I must leave them till later on.”
[…]
The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 – 1954) Monday 21 June 1915 p8

16 September 2020