Category: Family History

Self explanatory?

Astley 1: Orphans of a Perfect Storm

I started writing this story for posting about the time of Valentine’s Day but only now that it’s St Patrick’s Day do I find myself completing it. This is not altogether inappropriate as ultimately this is a love story from Ireland. It was difficult to complete for all the usual reasons all family history can be difficult to write: There is always the hope that some new fact will come to light, but when it does every thing you thought you knew has to change. But also:— this is a love story with a happy ending, and religion plays a positive role in the couple’s happy ending even as it compounded the inexpressible misery and horror of events swirling around them. All these facts are as confronting to my worldview as it would be to discover proof positive unicorns are real.

Potato blight is a form of water borne mould.

First: some backstory. In the year 1845, the island of Ireland stood on the brink of disaster. Two out of every five people depended solely on the potato crop for their survival. That year the potato crop failed. Seven is a nice apocalyptical number and that is roughly the number of years the great famine endured. At the end of that time one in every four man, woman or child who was in Ireland in 1845 was no longer. Over one million were in their graves, the rest were over the seas, some in the colonies of Australia; such was the fate of two young orphans: George Astley and Mary Chapman.

Being orphans, they were without family protection. Mary’s parents had died when she was an infant. She was never taught their names. George was in the care of an uncle for a while, but he too may have been gone before his time. His uncle’s family name was either Astley or Fulton. Whether he was the brother of George’s father, named George or his mother, Mary, is not known. George Astley, junior, also had a sister, and by her record we also have a good idea that George’s uncle was dead or no longer in a position to look after his nephew and niece by the middle years of the famine.

1908 map of Carlow

Mary Anne Astley died in the poor house of Carlow town, County Carlow and was buried in an unmarked grave at the institution’s burial ground on 14 March 1848. She was only twenty years old. George Astley and Mary Chapman were both about the same age, perhaps a year older. Whether they were also in the poor house, also known as the workhouse, is not yet uncovered. To be in such a place was the last resort for those with no other hope. Yet George and Mary did have hope, and the vehicle for that hope was part of the same mechanism that had bogged Ireland and the two young orphans in the slough of despair that currently engulfed it: British misrule and the Protestant church.

Carlow castle in the eighteenth century. There is much less of it now.

Young Mary and George would have known well the ruins of an ancient castle that dominated the centre of Carlow town. It had been mostly demolished some years before they were born (Irrelevant aside: blown up in an abortive attempt to turn it into a lunatic asylum) yet it remained a symbol of foreign domination of Irish culture and politics by a foreign power as it had been for centuries. Construction of the castle was attributed to the famous Anglo-Norman head-kicker William the Marshal in the twelfth century CE, but let us forward four hundred-odd years to the reign of the English Monarch Henry VIII. He is an easy scapegoat as any to blame for the mess Ireland was in at the time of the famine, or for that matter, our time in 2018.

Henry the pig-face is the perfect illustration of how you can have all the historical tides of sociological, cultural and political inevitability you like indicating change in a certain direction, but it the end it can all boil down to one human and one decision to change the course of history. In this instance it was Henry’s decision to make himself the head of the Christian Church in England in place of the Bishop of Rome.

anti-pope

In any other century this might not have been such a big deal, after all, it was not so long ago there had been more than one Pope (some times as many as three). As far as Roman Catholic unity went, it was also not long since that the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked Rome and imprisoned the then current Pope Clement VII. But Henry’s new Church of England (and its Irish equivalent, the Church of Ireland) could never quite extirpate the old loyalties to Rome, the fault line amid the population widened as the doctrinal differences evolved between the adherents to Roman Catholic Church and those who identified themselves as Protestant. All this because Henry wanted to shag a girl he wasn’t married to…

Clement VII or Henry VIII, you choose (Hint: what ever you choose the other one is going to kill you)

Three hundred year after the break from Rome, there was not much point in trying to make the case who had the better moral argument to survive. Both sides had gained the upper hand politically at various occasions, at which point they would persecute without mercy whoever happened to be the underdog. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, this was the situation in Ireland: The population was roughly three quarters Roman Catholic with the remainder being adherents of the Church of Ireland or Scots Presbyterian. However, members of the Church of Ireland had the monopoly on political and economic power. When Ireland was formally absorbed by Great Britain into the United Kingdom and its native parliament abolished in the year 1800, this signalled, paradoxically, the beginning of the end of this era of unrestrained power (and the abuse thereof) exercised by the Church of Ireland on behalf of its followers, during what was self-explicably described as the Protestant Ascendancy. Over this period Catholics (and Presbyterians too) were denied the franchise and just about every other conceivable human right. But the pendulum of power was swinging slowly in the other direction: during the nineteenth century the Church of Ireland was slowly stripped of its secular power: Tithes were scaled back and finally abolished, eventually the Church was abandoned by the state and disestablished towards the later half of that century. By 1845 Protestants in Ireland, although they then still had total control over the law of the land, ownership of the same, and all the civil apparatus of government, must have seen that their days of unfettered control slipping as Catholics slowly regained their right to vote, own property, educate their people, and be employed by the very government itself.

So who were these Protestants? They were concentrated mostly in the north of Ireland, which contained the few counties where they were (and still are) a majority. They were immigrants from Scotland and England, but many families had lived in Ireland for generations, some dating back to the Norman invasion. Some Anglo-Irish families could be indistinguishable from the native Irish in language and custom. It’s foolish to talk about pure Irish, or pure anyone. I know nearly half of my own ancestors originated from the far north of Scotland and had been there for uncounted centuries: They are Scots. Yet according to science nearly half of my DNA indicates an original homeland in Ireland. There were certainly many Protestants who were native Irish, but the fact remained that the Catholic religion remained a majority in the country if for no other reason than as a reaction to British rule.

Wrong choice.

The Protestants did themselves no historical favours. When in 1798 Ireland erupted into full rebellion against the British Crown and the Irish parliament in Dublin, the revolt was violently suppressed. Because the majority of the rebels were Catholic even as the United Irishmen themselves had Protestant leaders, zealots could choose to present it as a sectarian conflict and did. One of the set-piece battles took place in the town of Carlow on 25 May 1798, where prior to the bloodbath, relations between the Catholic and Protestant inhabitants of Carlow had been characterised as “friendly”. Without a single casualty on their side, the British Army killed about 500 civilians and rebels (No distinction was made). Another 150 were summarily executed in the aftermath. Wading though the blood were such characters as the Reverend Robert Rochford, known as the ‘slashing parson’.

“In a very short space of time, Orangeism, Protestantism and oppression became synonymous concepts in the minds of the Catholic population.”
Shay Kinsella, The ‘slashing parson’ of ’98, History Ireland, Jan/Feb 2014

In 1845, when the great famine began, the end (however remote) may have been in sight for Protestant domination of (most of) Ireland, but direct rule from London had brought with it new institutions such as the Poor Laws, and the Workhouse—run exclusively by Protestants. Most Catholics would rather have starved than enter the Workhouse, and that was the point. Being poor, without a home, or starving was practically a criminal offence and workhouses were the gaols. During the peak of the famine the workhouses became concentration camps for those evicted from their homes for being unable to pay their rents due to the failure of the harvest; for those who could not afford to pay for what food there was, as the Laissez-faire policies of the Government saw food shipped out of the country because that was where the profit was. But Laissez-faire ideology stretched only so far: for fear it might hurt the bottom line of the local magnates and land owners, imports of food to Ireland were barred by the government. Mediocre food and poor accommodation in the workhouse bred the inevitable result: disease.

When the food ran out there was no choice left. [Wikmedia commons]

In Carlow, the poorhouse building has been long demolished, but on the site of the burial ground where Mary Anne Astley lies, there is a monument to the over three thousand men, women and children buried there who were “victims of poverty, famine, cholera and injustice” (according to the inscription). If you were Roman Catholic in Ireland, you were given no good reason to love your Protestant neighbour; he was probably your landlord or on the board of governors for that local poorhouse. But here was a twist: the late Mary Anne, her brother and his sweetheart too; all three were Protestants, all members of the Church of Ireland. Both Chapman and Astley are names of English origin, but how long their families had been in Ireland cannot be known. In 1848, none of them had a family. Ultimately, a Protestant could starve to death in the workhouse just as well as a Catholic, so how did George Astley and Mary Chapman survive?

In Australia.

The former shire office for Huntly in 2017. It is now the offices of the local history society.

Huntly is a small town in rural Victoria several kilometres north of the mining metropolis of Bendigo. Huntly was also a mining region in its own right back during the gold rushes of the late nineteenth century. It was here that George Astley and Mary Chapman made their final life together. George was a local government contractor, which meant that he must have been able to turn his hand to just about anything. They were married for thirty years until George’s death in 1885 at the age of only 58. Mary outlived him by nine years and they were finally re-united at the White Hills Cemetery outside Bendigo. This is quite a puzzle as George had been involved with a Cemetery Board for Huntly. Why were the couple not laid to rest there? The site of their grave at White Hills has been lost, but that is a rant for another article.

Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 – 1918) Monday 13 April 1885 p2

Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 – 1918) Saturday 1 December 1894 p5

White Hills Public Cemetery, visited 2017

The couple were both deeply invested in the civic life of the Huntly community; the meeting about the above-mentioned local cemetery was but one example. George was on the local School committee, and involved in local government politics, but it was as parishioners and members of the board of the local Church of England parish that they and their family were most committed (It is worth observing that the local school was an Anglican-run institution at the time of his membership on its board). Their strong connection with this church is documented in the numerous mentions of family names in the contemporary newspapers in connection with High Church business, often concerning quite absurd personal disputes that thankfully, they seemed to remain on the periphery of.

George Alexander Astley in 1957. He lived to the age of 93.

One of their sons, George Alexander, and a daughter, Rebecca Edith, were both recorded being awarded prizes at the anniversary celebrations for the Church of England Sunday School during 1879. It is thanks to this son, one of seven out of ten children George and Mary had together who lived to adulthood, that we have some clue as to how his parents survived Ireland, and indeed met in the first place.

According to a letter written by George, preserved in the archives of the Huntly Districts Historical Society (without whose kind and generous cooperation this article could never have been composed), his parents met at school back in Ireland and there became lovers. That is their son’s own word for their relationship.

Which school?

A gazetteer for Carlow in the year 1839 describes the following:—

“A Parochial School is aided by an annual donation from the Rector of £10. There are two National Schools and an Infant School — a Ladies’ Association, for bettering the condition of the Female Peasantry — a Protestant Orphan Society, where the children are clothed, dieted, lodged, and educated — a Cloathing [sic] Fund Society, and a Fever Hospital. The District Lunatic Asylum for the counties of Carlow, Kildare, Wexford, Kilkenny, and the County of the City of Kilkenny, is situated in this Town, and was built in 1831 at an expence of £22,552, 10s. 4d.;- it is under excellent regulations, and is calculated to accommodate 104 Lunatics.”
Shearman’s Directory New Commercial Directory for the Town Carlow

One day it may be possible to investigate the records of these institutions located in Ireland, but for the moment only the calculation of probabilities says that this is where they met, and where they obtained their rudimentary education—for it is a documented fact that while George Astley and Mary Chapman could both read, neither could write. Maybe that was sufficient to ensure their survival. They could read about the opportunities to get out Ireland, about schemes of sponsored immigration to such places as North America, or the distant colonies of Australia. That was a chance denied to most Irish Catholics. All the Carlow institutions mentioned in the gazetteer above had one thing in common; they were restricted in access to the Protestant minority, desperate to maintain their separate identity within an overwhelmingly Catholic majority—a majority who day by day they were giving more reasons to hate their guts.

George and Mary would get out of Ireland, but they were not yet married and the transit to the other side of the world would test their commitment to each other as much as anything they may have endured in Ireland, in the workhouse or beyond. When they set sail, they would never see Ireland again. But would their love survive the oceans?

…continued.

17 March 2018
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 of his many, many children (with one notable exception that possibly explains the rule), no images appear to have survived.

The veracity of the sole written description that comes down to us of his appearance depends whether you accept (as I do) that he was a Van Diemen’s Land convict, in which case we have this documentation:

CON18/1/15

Now, it is possible to feed these details into an identikit program to generate an impression of what Prisoner 901 looked like. Best of all, there is such a program exactly for Australian Convict records, and when you run that program, you get this:—

© Roar Film 2012 – 18

(The only parameter I had to change was the eye colour that the program kept trying to make brown rather than the stated grey.) Try it for yourself!

Although he was a bit shorter than today’s average, a number of his sons were noted for their height… and width. (Given that the family were involved in both the butchering and baking trades, it’s a fair bet that improved diet had much to do with this).

Always classy: Drewy Dyson

Going to the extreme (as always) was Andrew Dyson. Drewy achieved his greatest fame at the end of the nineteenth century for being the fattest man in Western Australia. He is (I guess, inevitably) the only child of James for who original likenesses exists*, and being Drewy, they exist in excess: many photographs, written descriptions and even cartoons.

*[Edit: no longer true]

Drewy Dyson also provides us with a very good idea of what his elder brother Thomas looked like. One day in May 1897 Thomas Dyson was hauled into Court to face Mr. Cowan, the Police Magistrate:—

The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Friday 14 May 1897 p3

Traces of James might be seen in a scattering of images of his grandchildren. George Henry “Harry” Dyson (left) was Thomas’s eldest son and clearly shows shows the family similarity to his famous uncle if not also his grandfather.

Ellen Christina Edwards is sometimes considered to be James Dyson’s daughter although in all probability she actually was the daughter of Jane Devling (Dyson’s second wife) and her first husband Richard Edwards.

This image of one of her own daughters is interesting to compare how much of Jane and how much of James there might be in the many children they did have together. While we might have some sort of image for James now, for his wives we have less than nothing.

Including Ellen, Dyson had twenty-two children, nine of who would go on to produce offspring of their own — of those nine there would be only one surviving grandchild from the children of his first wife. (This happens to be the branch of the tree that I am descended from). Recently the existence of some earlier family photos of my Dyson family have become known to me and some of the blanks of a visual map that ties me to this family were filled in, but there is still so much missing. The appearance of Joseph Dyson, James’s eldest son remains a complete mystery to me.

What do you see when you see a family photo?

About ten years ago I started researching my own family history. As a graphic designer, it was perhaps inevitable that I would start by collecting and restoring family photos… Isn’t there a saying: “When your only tool is a hammer, every solution starts resembling a nail”?

Scanning and cleaning up the old photo albums was to make connections with how grandparents looked like their grandchildren, children like their parents… or not, as was my case. Then my siblings started families of their own, and in the faces of my beautiful nieces and nephews I saw the their parents, and grandparents, and back through the generations as far as the visual record stretched. What I didn’t see is me. When I looked in a mirror I didn’t see family, only a stranger stared back.

For until that time the only family I had ever known was my adoptive family.

To be utterly clear, they are and always will be my family. And 100% of the time me being adopted has been a non-issue. It had never been a secret; just a matter of fact— like the sky being blue, or that pineapple on a pizza is an abomination. —But there was something missing that until I found it I could not define.

The Dysons are part of my biological family. My maternal grandmother was born a Dyson. In 2009 we finally made contact. In 2017 she was 88 years young.

My grandmother and me, 2017.

There is no one reason why I began my family history search, or why I continue with it—I refuse to differentiate between my adoptive and biological family trees — They are both integral to who I am, and that is possibly one of the answers, I feel a sense of completeness in myself that I had never felt before—that and the ability to channel the inner bastard that I know now to be integral to my heritage.

When I look in the mirror I no longer see a stranger.

Now where the hell is that photo of James Dyson I know must exist?

8 January 2018
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 confirms my previous observation.)

Thus, it is pretty damn special that I can now confirm that James Dyson (1810-1888) convict, entrepreneur, ratbag and most glorious ancestor of them all, also had his very own theme tune that the band struck up when he rose to his feet.

A theme tune isn’t like a personal favourite song,— the recipient doesn’t have to like it— whether Old Man Dyson appreciated his choice we can never know, but if he did understand the full significance of what was assigned to him, I would like to think he would have smiled, if only ironically. Then, as now, and probably throughout all of musical history, the smash-hits and ear-worms of contemporary musical culture were adopted and championed by those who assigned a meaning and significance to the music exactly opposite to that intended by the musician creator.

So it was or could have been for Dyson’s very own theme tune “A Grand Old English Gentleman,” delivered by the ensemble of the “Free” Templar Band on the occasion of the thirty-ninth anniversary dinner of the foundation of the “Sons of Australia Benefit Society”.

Mr. M. STOKES proposed the next toast, that of the Treasurer of the Society, Mr. Jas. Dyson, speaking in eulogistic terms of that officer’s services. The toast was enthusiastically received, the Band playing “The Fine Old English Gentleman.”

Mr. DYSON, in responding, thanked the meeting for the hearty manner in which they had disposed of the toast of his health.
The Western Australian Times (Perth, WA : 1874 – 1879) Tuesday 27 February 1877 p2

I would guess that is was only the melody of the chorus line “Like a fine old English gentleman, All of the olden time.” that was played by the band, that would have been enough to get the idea across. As with any assembly of nineteenth-century men in self-congratulatory mode, it is impossible to tell whether they were mocking or deadly serious in their appreciation of what was, by 1877, already a hoary old chestnut, although, in its original form, it had only been composed back in 1835;

I’ll sing you an old ballad
That was made by an old pate,
Of a poor old English Gentleman
Who had an old estate,
He kept a brave old mansion
At a bountiful old rate
With a good old porter to relieve
The old poor at his gate
Like a fine old English gentleman,
All of the olden time.
original lyrics and melody by Henry Russell.

In 1835, James Dyson had been a year in Van Diemen’s Land, and a convict for twice that time. It may have been a longer time before that when he had last known the protection of a family home in the old country of Lancashire. The family James Dyson left behind certainly had no “brave old mansion“, and it was not until 1861 when his older brother Andrew became master of the decrepit manor house, Birchen Bower, complete with ghost story, legend of buried gold, and Chartists drilling in the neighbouring fields, that the Lancashire Dysons had substantial property. James Dyson had been a land owner at least since 1848 when he bought a lot on the corner of Murray and King Street in the city Perth. He also owned a swamp. If Dyson though about this at all at that time, he had a reason to smile.

A song has to get really popular first before it can be successfully parodied, so “A Fine Old English Gentleman” had been parodied many times indeed— even by 1877. The most famous example was penned as early as 1841 by no less than the most famous English author of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens. The melody, on the other hand, was nicked about a decade later by Sir Arthur Sullivan, the respectable half of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical team, and used in their production of the “Mikado” (1885) in the opening of the number “Behold the Lord High Executioner”—

Understanding where this motif comes from adds another layer to the comedy and demonstrates that W. S. Gilbert was not the only subversive one of the pair.

Then there were the straight re-writes of the lyrics to the same tune, Here is one from a Queensland newspaper of 1899, by an anonymous someone with no sense of humour whatsoever:

[…]
Now surely this is better far
Than all the new parade
Of theatres and fancy balls,
‘At home’ and masquerade :
And much more economical,
For all his bills were paid.
Then leave your new vagaries quite,
And take up the old trade
Of a fine old English gentleman
All of the olden time.
Warwick Argus (Qld. : 1879 – 1901) Sat 1 Jul 1899 Page 3

The piss was asking to be taken, and us Australians did it as early as 1860 in a version entitled “The Fine Old Border Squatter“.

But here is the final twist, the song lives on today, stripped of it original lyrics, and according to the performers of this latest 20th century iteration:—

The original, a bourgeois pop song of the eighteenth century, gives a sycophantic picture of a rich old port-wine and roast-beef character, lolling on his estate and being kind to the poor at Christmas time. The present version gives the old song the ‘alienation’ treatment, by substituting a lower class hero, firmly non-conforming in habits. The Tinkers say: it was taught to us by John Howarth’s stepfather when we were barely of drinking age, and we’ve since heard it in many a pub: in fact, it’s quite a favourite taproom song in Oldham.
The Official Oldham Tinkers Website

Oldham was James Dyson’s home town in Lancashire, but you knew that by now, didn’t you?

The suburb of Mumps in the city of Oldham, Lancashire, 2015.

26 December 2017
The Smoking Gun

Today is a red-letter day.

Today I found the smoking gun.

Then they shot him.

My pet peeve is the way certain of my ancestors have been air-brushed out of history just as blatantly as a Soviet apparatchik on one of Stalin’s bad days…

Dyson, the Perth marine-store dealer of Falstaffian brawn, is connected with the Groperopolis Wesleyan Church. Leastways his father built it. Old man Dyson, the yarn rues, had to wait a deuce of a time for his money.
Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954) Sunday 13 December 1903 p8

This Dyson, is of course, Drewy, and the church his father James was supposed to have built is the Wesleyan Church on the corner of Hay and William Street. Completed in 1870, it is one of the earliest surviving buildings in Perth.

Wesley Church this very day, Perth, Western Australia

Aged nine in 1867, Drewy claimed to have worked on the build himself:—

“Drewey Dyson’s dad built the present Wesleyan Church.
[…]
Anno Domini 1867, when Dyson, sen, was building the present Wesleyan Church, at the corner of Hay and William-street, the present Drewey Dyson, of West Perth, was billy-boy on the job, and used to make the tea at midday, run messages, and generally make himself useful in a small-boy way.”
Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954) Sunday 18 May 1919 p17

Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954) Sunday 2 July 1922 p7

Then there was the famous article and photograph of Drewy and “Lemonade Joe” Moor from 1922 which mentioned how the two assisted a Mr Carson to build the weather-cock on the Church steeple.

That seemed to be enough evidence:— James Dyson had built the Wesley Church, where his son Joseph would later be a Sunday School teacher and another son would be convicted of throwing eggs at the parishioners…

… Then I read all the official Wesley Church histories I could find… There have been quite a few over the years, mostly by pastors past and present, and the tale they tell is of progress ever upwards (but never quite explaining the utter irrelevance of their movement by the later half of the twentieth century and beyond). The most recent of these, however, was not written by a cleric, so was refreshingly open about some of the less than saintly shenanigans surrounding the institution. In Thea Shipley’s Full Circle: A History of Wesley Church Perth, published in 2003, there was a whole chapter devoted to the construction of the church building. Because I felt I could trust this author not to sugar-coat the history, and because there was absolutely no mention of any of the Dysons in any of the earlier histories either, I was forced to the conclusion that James Dyson’s role in the construction of the church was yet another Drewy Dyson fantasy. Benjamin Mason, Dyson’s rival in the timber trade was definitely recorded as having provided timber, and William Buggins, a well known builder of the time (and also connected to Joseph Dyson’s in-laws’ family) was mentioned to have overseen construction, that clinched it for me.

The front of the original St George’s Cathedral in the late 1860’s

It was not impossible that Drewy had miss-remembered which church his old dad had worked on. Construction on the first St George’s Church commenced a few years before James Dyson arrived in the colony. By March 1842, progress was still crawling as the iron roof ordered from England failed to arrive. As was noted in a later history:—

“It was then decided to make a wooden roof locally and the sawyers in the Colony combined to raise the price of timber for the purpose.”
[T. G. Heydon, “The Early Church in Western Australia”, The Western Australian Historical Society (Inc) Journal and proceedings Vol II. Part XI p1]

James Dyson was on the ground by now, and this sounds exactly what I would have expected him to do…

Even if he did not contribute to this initial phase, he was certainly involved in a later extension to the church in 1862. (It is important to note that this is not the same Cathedral building that stands today, which dates to the last years of the nineteenth century)

The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wednesday 2 July 1862 p2

Also involved in this extension is the same Mr Buggins previously referred to. Given that both he and Dyson are mentioned together for this project and Buggins alone is mentioned in the Wesleyan histories, it begins to look like Drewy’s memories might have been at fault.

Stereographic view of the back of St George’s Cathedral, for which James Dyson provided timber flooring.

The work on the original St George’s Church was famously slow and ill-funded and the story that Dyson did not get paid for a very long time rang true for his involvement with that project. On the other hand, the Wesley Church of 1870 (the second of its name), was begun in 1867 and was largely funded by the Shenton family, in particular, their patriarch, George Shenton (senior). When Shenton died suddenly and unexpectedly at sea in 1870, shortly before the building was opened, the outstanding sums were allegedly paid out by his family as a tribute his memory. This was the same Shenton Dyson bought his swamp from, and whose son, who would have paid the final bills for the church, would buy it back from Dyson some years later. Shenton senior had gifted to Dyson a family bible on the occasion of his (eventual) marriage to Mrs Jane Edwards. Given this history, it did not sound right to me that the Shentons would not pay their bills on time.

Here my investigations might have ended with the the conclusion that:—No, James Dyson didn’t build the Wesleyan Church, but his kids might have watched with interest, given that the family only lived a few houses down on Murray Street…

Then the trail led me to William Traylen, Methodist Pastor in Western Australia. He arrived in the colony only days after the death of Shenton, and was one of the first speakers from the pulpit of the newly consecrated church. He was involved in the temperance movement, and his name had arisen in conjunction with Joseph Dyson’s activities in the same sphere as was mentioned in the article concerning the mystery of Dyson’s Hotel. While researching further, I learned he kept a diary, some of which survived and has been published.

I tracked down this book (compiled by one of his ancestors), and found something that none of the official histories of the Wesley Church, Perth, had deigned to share with us*— It was a reproduction of an 1867 ledger during the construction phase of the church, and it revealed what the public record had tried so hard to obscure—

*(I do not include Thea Shipley in this complaint. Her manuscript was published posthumously and who knows what was cut out, or never written.)

Buggins, Mason, and James Dyson — all together on the ledger — all paid by the building committee of the Wesleyan Church. Dyson supplied both Bricks AND Timber and was paid £672, 7s and 10d. Yes, he built the Wesley Church; No, Drewy was not lying… for a change.

Today was a good day….

…So here are some more of my great-great-great-great grandfather’s bricks:

14 December 2017
Happy Gunpowder Treason Day

Bristol, England at dusk on an evening in November 2015. The pops and bangs were very loud and seemed to be right outside of the tiny bedroom I was staying in. It was right outside my window and I was bemused on investigation to find that a collection of children and their parents were setting off full-blown fireworks in the lane-way outside.

5 November 2015

Fireworks Day, or Guy Fawkes Day, or (as it was initially celebrated as a public holiday after 1605), Gunpowder Treason Day, has not been a feature of Western Australian life for at least a generation, and really has passed out the common memory here. I can not ever remember a time when personal fireworks have been legal, and nor should they be. In the dry heat of an Australian November spring, it would be like saying personal nuclear weapons are perfectly safe and socially acceptable.

Knowing a little bit about the history of Guy Fawkes also made me wonder why this was still an event in England, even with the rebranding to Fireworks Day. Elsewhere in that country would still have been bonfires burning, and on many of the pyres the effigy of the eponymous Fawkes would still be combusting.

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 – 1847) Sat 27 Apr 1833 Page 66

For centuries, November the fifth was the official “We all hate the Catholics” day within the British Empire. If you doubt this, look at the calendar of public holidays gazetted in the then newly formed Colony of Western Australia back in 1833. Jesse Hammond recollects back fondly on his school days in Perth in the 1860’s when the Government School boys would fight running battles in the streets with the boys from the Catholic school. On one occasion the local magistrate intervened: He offered three shillings for the winner of that particular brawl…

Hammond reckoned it was all good clean fun, and no-one got hurt—apart from those who did, I suppose.

The original Guy, or Guido, Faulkes had indeed been part of a conspiracy to blow up the English houses of parliament in 1605. There can be no real doubt of his involvement, he was captured in the cellar under the building guarding an enormous cache of gunpowder. Nevertheless he was privately tortured in the Tower of London for some time afterwards to obtain the properly signed and sealed confession that was felt to be necessary before he could be publicly tortured to death. Here are his famous signatures pre and post-interrogation:

Fawkes cheated the executioner’s meat hooks by falling off the scaffold and (accidentally?) breaking his neck, just prior to his legal strangling on the 31 January 1606. But he was destined to be burnt in effigy in perpetuity, every November for the rest of history. Burning had been the preferred method of dispatching heretics (ie: non Catholics) during the reign of the last Catholic monarch England had known prior to the reign of James I (who Fawkes had planned to detonate). If Fawkes and his conspirators had succeeded, the whole of the English ruling class would have been gone overnight. The ramifications of what would have ensued are pretty much impossible to calculate. I suspect the civil wars that would tear England, Scotland and Ireland apart thirty years later and cost the head of James’ useless son Charles, would have commenced a generation earlier. It was by no means certain that the Catholic restoration that the gunpowder conspirators desired would have been the final outcome.

But the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the very nick of time was a propaganda coup for the administration of the new-ish monarch of England, James, who prior to inheriting this throne in 1603, was (and continued to be) King James VI of Scotland (His own father had been assassinated in a bombing when the future monarch was only 8 months old). The newly proclaimed national holiday was initially celebrated by pope-burning in effigy, but eventually Faulkes would top the pyre on most occasions. In Northern Ireland, the Orange-men could parade through the streets in a “fuck-you” to their next-door neighbours, glorying in how they had stripped them of their political, property and economic rights in the name of religion (then be appalled when stones, and then bombs were thrown back), but for the rest of the British Empire, there was Guy Faulkes.

So it was, in the most loyal British Colony of Western Australia, in Perth, on the 5th November 1900 that my great-grandfather was born, and in memory of a day established to remind everyone of the Protestant supremacy over a hated and persecuted Roman Catholic minority, his parents named their first-born child after a religious extremist, convicted terrorist and would-be-mass murderer.

Bless!

Leslie Guy Dyson (5 November 1900 – 16 September 1974)

12 December 2017

Dyson’s Hotel

Part 2 of the Dyson’s Corner Story.

Do I have any primary source for life in Western Australia in the 1870’s-1880’s more infuriating than the work of Mr Jesse Elijah Hammond (1856-1940)?(Probably, yes— but one should never let the truth get in the way of a good rant…)

He was on the ground when it all dramatically happened for the Dyson family. He even lived next door to the Sons of Australia Benefit Society Club house on Murray Street, so it is inconceivable he was not personally acquainted with them even if he did not count them as as friends.

Their mentions in the text of his 1936 memoir “Western Pioneers: The Battle Well Fought” (the most pompous book title in all of history)? nil.

Only the map that he drew from memory of central Perth for the year 1870 did the name “Dyson” appear. It’s fair enough that that it was not Joseph Dyson’s bakery on the corner of Murray and William Street as it was not established until 1873 and that site is listed under it’s owner’s name: Williams. But on the south and east side of Murray and King streets, where the general dealership and family compound of James Dyson and family had been long established, was a strange label: “Dyson’s Hotel”.

Here is where the land use records provide no help at all. Here is what’s listed in the official record:—

Early Owners of Perth Town Lot G14 (and later part of G15):

9 June 1840	Granted to Charles Brown (pays £3 2s.)
from 1842	Purchased by person(s) unknown, (finally owned by someone called John)
1848	Purchased by James Dyson (pays £12)
6 April 1874	Mortgaged to the Western Australian Bank for £500
19 August 1878	Purchased by George Shenton
24 August 1878	Purchased by John Joseph Elsegood

The only other mention of Dyson’s Hotel is in the map published in Stannage’s “The People of Perth” (1979), but that is just a re-drawing of Hammond’s map.

The only explanation I can give is part of a much larger story I have not got my head around yet. Joseph Dyson, James’s eldest son had quite a few traits not shared by the rest of his clan. For the first he was highly religious (atheists tend not to be called to teach at Methodist Sunday schools), secondly he was interested in the temperance movement (for those who know their Dyson history, no sniggering please).

In July 1877, two months after the original Dyson’s Corner was advertised for sale, he was elected to the committee of the City Temperance League. The League was stacked with fellow members of the Methodist church and chaired by their pastor, the Reverend Lowe. At that precise moment the League was trying to arbitrate a dispute between two other alcohol-hating quasi-religious organisations, the Rechabites and the Good Templars.

In March 1878, the (as yet) unidentified promoters of a “Temperance Hotel” published a prospectus. (A Temperance Hotel would serve beverages that were not alcoholic.) The proposed site of this establishment was to be here:—

The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wednesday 6 March 1878 p 1S

Five hundred Pounds… now where have I heard that sum before? Oh yes, the amount of the mortgage that James Dyson and his wife took out on the property back in 1874… what a coincidence! About this same time, George Towton came into his inheritance and took over the lease of the No Place Inn. (I’m sure he was also thrilled by this plan.)

The Western Australian Times (Perth, WA : 1874 – 1879) Friday 9 August 1878 p2

…someone plaintively asked about the time George Shenton (junior), M.L.C., Merchant, acquired the property in August. The amount he paid for it is not recorded on the deed, but it does say that there were no “encumberances” on the property. ie: The mortgage was gone. He also bought Dyson’s Swamp, which was henceforth to be known (up to the end of the the 20th century) as “Shenton Lake”. He was also an extremely pious benefactor of the Wesleyan Church in Perth (as had been his late father) But I’m not sure this was a factor in his dealings on this occasion, for less than a week after his name had been affixed to the title deed, he had sold the property to John Joseph Elsegood, a Perth builder.

A year later, after extensive renovations, Elsegood applied for a hotellier’s licence for his property on King and Murray street, to be known as the “City Hotel”. His application was opposed (predictably, I suppose) by the rival establishment across the street, The No Place Inn. However, when the pastors representing the temperance movement swanned out of the court after successfully thwarting the application of the first petitioner of the day, Elsegood got his licence, although one of the judges commented:

Mr. Loftie—after consulting with the other two magistrates—said the majority were in favor of granting the application, and that therefore a certificate would issue to the applicant. Personally he might say he was opposed to it, and for this reason—while admitting the necessity for increased hotel accommodation (by which he meant board and lodging accommodation) he thought such might be provided without at the same time increasing the facilities already afforded—and which were ample—for the sale of intoxicating drinks.”
The Western Australian Times (Perth, WA : 1874 – 1879) Fri 7 Mar 1879 Page 2

The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 26 Feb 1879 Page 4

Not only was the idea of a Temperance Hotel dead (at this location), the temperance movement, and in particular the voluble Reverend Traylen, had dropped the ball in blocking the establishment of another legal boosery in town. Traylen had blocked the application and closed an established pub on Barrack Street, the “Commercial Hotel”, on a legal technically (It escaped the attention of precisely no-one that this anti-drink campaigner also owned a property next to the Commercial). That he failed to oppose Elsegood was also noted.

Traylen was furious and responded:

Had I supposed that my leaving the court would be construed into tacit approval of Mr. Elsegood’s application I should have sat to the “bitter end.” If your readers think that consistency demands that I should oppose every applicant, all I can say is, that, circumstances permitting, every new speculator must consider the gauntlet before him.”
The Western Australian Times (Perth, WA : 1874 – 1879) Fri 7 Mar 1879 Page 2

Traylen’s credibility would have been higher if what would have been commonly known back then was as completely forgotten as it is today…

…. Joseph Dyson, son of the former owner of “The City Hotel” land and present active member of the City Temperance League also happened to be John Joseph Elsegood’s brother-in-law.

So Dyson’s Hotel?… I’m just saying.

The City Hotel remained in the Elsegood Family’s hands until the end of the nineteenth century. The site was completely rebuilt in the early twentieth, and this building, now rebranded “The Belgian Beer Cafe” is what exists on the site of the old Dyson’s Corner today.

But the Dyson connection with Murray Street was far from over.

9 December 2017

Dyson’s Corner (the First)

As a would-be historian, I am always torn between my desire to share the information I have collected and the desire to find that one final piece of the puzzle that will complete the story I want to tell. Most of the time, that final piece is not— and may never be— there, but what to do then? Should I hoard away what I have so far, or publish and be damned?

If this is not your first reading of this page and what you are reading is different to what you recall, it means I have found some new evidence and re-written accordingly. It is why I chose a weblog to write up my material in the first place.

If the original Dyson family in Western Australia was associated with any one place in Western Australia (other than the eponymous swamp in present-day Shenton Park) it was with Dyson’s Corner, in the town of Perth. One slight problem: there were two Dyson’s Corners, and the only element they possessed in common (apart from the residency of a family called Dyson) was that they were both located (but on different street-corners) in Murray Street, on the unfashionable northern side of the town.

The first Dyson’s Corner from an old title deed. The measurement numbers are in “chains.”

The first Dyson’s Corner was a parcel of land on the south side of Murray Street and the east of King street.

James Dyson, sawyer and timber merchant, finally came into formal ownership of the land on 24 January 1848, but he might have been in occupation much earlier than this, as a renter, possibly since his arrival in the colony back in 1841.

The first European “owner” of this land was a mysterious figure called Charles Brown. He was allocated these blocks in 1840, but only the following year he announced he was planning to leave the colony. As I can find nothing further about him (other than that he was possibly a member of the Methodist congregation, was known for his fruit trees, and owned other parcels of land in the city) I assume he left some time after that.

Inquirer (Perth, WA : 1840 – 1855) Wednesday 24 November 1841 p2

James Dyson paid the sum of £12 for the property in 1848. His neighbours were William Ward, a brick-maker, (and foundation member of the Sons of Australia Benefit Society) also John Chipper, the town bailiff. The deed of transfer was witnessed by the colonial chaplain, the Rev. F. B. Wittenoom, who was also Justice of the Peace. But who did he buy the property from? There in lies the question.

Tracing early title deeds in Western Australia is difficult and expensive. Far be it for me to begrudge a professional historian being paid a very large sum of money to look up a private database for five minutes, but the resultant digital copies you receive, also at great cost for each document you request, were obviously made years ago on very sub-standard equipment. Here is the name of the person Dyson bought the “corner” from as it appears in my document:

Can you decipher this name?

John ? was a sawyer, as was Dyson. Were they business partners? When did John ? buy the property, was it from good ole Charlie Brown? Is that surname Stafford, Hollands, Hutton, or something else entirely?

Its not Stanton, which is a shame, as John Stanton (1797-1877), an early councillor on the Perth town trust, a prominent papist, retired soldier, policeman and barrel-maker would have a documented altercation with Dyson in a couple of years time.

The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News (WA : 1848-1864) Friday 30 September 1853

It would be nice to know exactly what the argument was about. Stanton grazed cattle within the Perth jurisdiction. Dyson provided pasturage and water for the Perth herd on his property at Dyson’s Swamp.

A year before Dyson threatened Stanton, on the night of 2nd August 1852— a Monday evening— Dyson created some sort of disturbance in the street that also ended up in court. A month later, his neighbours right across the road, Stephen Hyde and wife Hannah decided to sell up. If the two events are linked, this was a sad ending to a long association. This couple had been witnesses at Dyson’s marriage ten years before. Maybe they did not approve of how he was treating his first wife now? Just to add a little spice to the mix, in September, Mrs Hyde was convicted and fined for assaulting a Mrs Staunton. Was this Staunton the mis-spelled wife of John? When John Stanton died in 1877, Dyson’s probable business rival Benjamin Mason (whose son had been shot by Dyson’s son) was one of his executors.

Hyde (then a bricklayer) had tried to sell up previously in September 1850 (not long after the first convicts arrived). Changing his mind, he instead applied for the licence to turn his premises into a tavern, which he named “The Vine“. Hyde eventually sold up to a man named Henry Alexander Towton, a former Parkhurst boy (forerunner to the convicts) who had well and truly made good. After the Hyde family had departed for South Australia in early October, Towton re-named the establishment the “No-Place Inn“.

This is the No Place Inn, as seen from across the road from Dyson’s Corner [SLWA Collection]

Towton’s son was born there the very same month. George Towton grew to be a famous horse trainer in the colony. He was present when one of Dyson’s own grand-children was killed in a racing accident in 1901. After George Towton died in 1906, Dyson’s son Septimus married his widow, but it was not a successful union.

“Perth looking west from the town hall tower, 1885”BA1116/45 State Library of Western Australia

There are no images of Dyson’s Corner from the time the family were in occupancy. The only known vision of the site is a part of a panorama from the top of the Town Hall dated to approximately 1885. The main house on Dyson’s corner is coloured red. On the other side of the road is the No-Place Inn in orange. A description of the corner from a few years earlier:—

A first class 2-storey House, containing Shop and good Cellerage, Bakehouse and Oven ; also a 4-roomed Cottage, good Stable and Kitchen, and Shed to stable 4 horses ; fine Well of Water and a trellis.”
The Western Australian Times (Perth, WA : 1874-1879) Tuesday 27 March 1877 page 3

The four-roomed cottage had come with some additional land adjacent to Dyson’s corner that was purchased at some stage after 1869.

In 1874 the whole property was mortgaged for the sum of £500 advanced to him by members of the Stone family through the Western Australian Bank. What ever the scheme this money was required for did not pay off, so the Corner and most of his other assets, including Dyson’s Swamp, had to be sold three years later.

The location of Joseph Dyson’s Bakery, also known as the 2nd Dyson’s Corner.

By 1883 James Dyson’s second marriage to Mrs Jane Edwards was well and truly over, and he had to move into the residence of his eldest surviving son Joseph, located on the corner of Murray Street and William Street. This was the second Dyson’s Corner. Whether James cast out Jane, or her step-son refused to receive her in his home, or Jane herself desired to be rid of the lot of them is not clear, but she went to work for John Liddelow, a general dealer and butcher as a housekeeper in his premises just a bit further down the road on the corner of Murray Street and Barrack Street. Liddelow was a social acquaintance, if not a friend, of her former husband, and might have thought he was doing someone a favour giving her a job. It would be a decision he would regret.

Liddelow’s Corner {image: SLWA]

The original Dyson’s Corner on the corner of Murray and King Street, post-Dyson ownership — continued a strange intersection with its former occupier’s fortunes. That will be the subject of part two.

…continue.

7 December 2017
Winterbottom’s End

Joseph Winterbottom was the old bastard pursued by Oldham police across the border from Lancashire into the West Riding of Yorkshire in the summer of 1833. Arrested by the Halifax Constabulary, he was immediately identified by visiting Oldham bloodhound Heywood as a known rogue and vagabond, and proceeded to squeal like a pig, identifying the four men who were his accomplices in robbing a local Halifax man on the road that previous night.

But when the case went to trial, Winterbottom was not among those in the dock. Instead he was a witness for the prosecution against those four much younger men for whom he was probably the leader of this most DESPERATE GANG OF ROBBERS™. For this base treachery, his sometime associates were sentenced to seven years in Van Diemen’s Land. Winterbottom, walked free, at least for a time.

When they finally got him, it was for stealing “five fowls, commonly called hens” in 1837, and was sentenced to fourteen years transportation. He was forty-four years old by then, so he was nearly twice the age of the associates when his evidence had sent them out before him. He was born about 1791 in Oldham and was quite literally a bastard. When he was baptized in St Mary’s Church, Oldham on 2 June 1793, his mother Hannah was still a spinster (i.e. unmarried) and his father was identified as one John Collinson.

There had been at least two convictions before his final one, he served three years in Salford Gaol from 1815 for a crime I can’t quite interpret from the record, and another for stealing calico and thread; a very Lancashire crime! Once in Van Diemen’s Land, he was convicted for stealing potatoes, but still, he received his Conditional Pardon on 7 July 1846 and full freedom on 5 April the next year. But not for him a return to England or a new life in the other colonies; the next year he was dead, in the district of Brighton, in what was yet to be re-named Tasmania.

Did his path ever cross any of those he betrayed? Unknown.

But on the record of death was a simple two line item:

Cause of Death:
Died by the Visitation of God.

2 November 2017
The Sons of Australia: Foundation and Foulkes
Sometimes its just a name that piques your interest. Sometimes names are all you have. The Sons of Australia Benefit Society was formed in January 1837 and it’s final meeting was held in August 1897. For sixty years it seemed to be an ever-present feature in the social fabric of Perth, Western Australia— and then it was gone.

Swan River Guardian (WA : 1836 – 1838) Thursday 16 November 1837 p250

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 – 1847) Saturday 20 January 1838 p10

Most of what there is to know about the society comes from the contemporary press. There was no mention of it in the Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, supposed paper of record in the colony, until it’s first anniversary (and then it was a snide one). This was certainly due to the rivalry between that rag and the editor of the Swan River Guardian, William Nairne Clark. It had not always been that way— back in 1833 the Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal had written in similarly approving terms of a benefit society newly established, named the Western Australian Union Society, but that same issue, it reported that W. N. Clark had resigned as secretary of the same. It does not seemed to have long survived his departure.

Nairne Clark should not be confused with Mr William Nairn, one of the society’s first trustees, nor should Mr William Nairn, blacksmith by trade, be confused with Major William Nairn, a prominent soldier/land owner in the colony’s earlier days. Mr Nairn’s son James was also a foundation member and both were members of the society’s cricket team that defeated an XI comprising the Gentlemen of Perth in a memorable match on 18 June 1850, despite the weather and the poor condition of the cricket ground. The umpire on that occasion was Alfred Hawes Stone. If Stone himself had been on a team it would have been with the Gentlemen, I suspect. He was a solicitor and Registrar of the Supreme Court. His younger brother, George Frederick Stone, if he had been playing, would probably have been on the Sons of Australia team, as in addition to being an up-and-coming lawyer and former Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, he was also active behind the scenes in the formation of the society back in 1837.

It might be asked why did he interest himself in a similar manner. The answer was very simple, He felt it to be his duty. When only a child he was witness to an accident which befell a poor, honest, hard-working man, who, falling from a three-storey ladder, broke his leg. This man was helping to build the house in which he (the chairman) was destined for many years to live, and the poor fellow had in his rough but pleasant way always displayed a liking for him as a child. When the poor man was taken to the Dispensary close by I went also, and being anxious to know what the poor man would do for a living while he was unable to work, I inquired from one and the other till I found that he belonged to a Club, the members of which all put by something per week into a bag, while they were in work, for the benefit of themselves bye and bye, when they should be sick or out of work.
I was so struck with this, and so relieved at the thought that my honest hard-working friend would not want while he was laid up, that as soon as I was old enough, I became an honorary member of the same society, and to this hour I believe my name still remains upon the books of the Society. (Loud cheers). From that time I have been always interested in the prosperity of similar institutions. I was at the formation of the society called “the Sons of Australia,” which in its infancy was thought to be a political society, and was regarded with an evil eye, but time has shown the vast amount of good that has been done by it, and it is now the wealthiest society in the colony. Like all other kindred endeavours for the public good, it had met with many discouragements, but he had done what little he could in conjunction with one or two others, and it was now a most flourishing society.
G. F. Stone, quoted in The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 29 Jul 1868 Page 3

John Burdett Wittenoom

Stone alluded to distrust from the authorities in the earliest days and I would like to find more examples of this concern. The society was formed in the last miserable years of Governor Sir James Stirling’s administration. Although his noisiest critic (said W. Nairne Clarke, and the Swan River Guardian) were pretty well suppressed by 1838, it is extremely notable that the colonial chaplain, J. B. Wittenoom, was an early and public supporter of the new organisation. I think I have mentioned before that on the surface, Wittenoom should represent everything I detest about the early establishment in Western Australia. He was the only representative of the officially sanctioned state religion of England in Western Australia in the early colonial years, yet he seemed to spend as much, or more, time as a magistrate and school teacher, and yet more energy on social activities or looking after his family’s interests. When pressed, he had a petty streak that manifested itself when challenged by Wesleyan Methodists and the Evangelical factions in the Colony of his own Church of England— That said, his challengers were pretty damn insufferable themselves. Wittenoom had no reason to like W Nairne Clark or his paper, but neither did he have any reason to love the cronies around Stirling’s administration, who barely concealed their contempt for him even as they appreciated his geniality. In short, Wittenoom was no man of the people, but within his limitations he tried to do what was best for those within his remit, and for a supposed religious leader was refreshingly free of religious fervour.

It’s hard to find anyone find anyone with a bad word to say about G. F. Stone, chairman of the Sons of Australia in its first year — even Nairne Clarke is mild in his criticism, and by rights, being both in the legal profession and a government appointee to boot, he should have been a prime target for an all-out assault (Not being virulently attacked in the Swan River Guardian is about the highest praise you can get). But G. F. Stone was part of the ruling class and the whole purpose of Sons of Australia was self-help for the artisan class. Stone himself, modestly concedes he was only one of the founders. The others were probably:—

Swan River Guardian (WA : 1836 – 1838) Thu 14 Sep 1837 Page 215

Charles Foulkes, a painter and glazier; William Nairn, a blacksmith; John Robert Thomson/Thompson/Tomson (no relation), a carpenter and joiner, William Rogers the Elder, a storekeeper. These four, along side Stone, were the first recorded managers of business for the Sons of Australia.

Charles Foulkes came to Western Australia in February 1830 on the Protector, a widower with an eight-year-old daughter. In 1837 he was forty-one and in addition to being the inaugural secretary of the Sons of Australia, was also secretary of a mysterious organisation called LODGE 1: The Philanthropic Society of 40 Friends. Now, its possible that this is what the Sons of Australia Benefit Society was called in it’s first year. There is no mention of it in the papers before or after 1837. A LODGE 2 spin-off was attempted in Fremantle the same year but vanished without trace.
- Now confirmed: Lodge 1 & The Sons of Australia are one and the same.
The fourth anniversary meeting of the “Sons of Australia Benefit Society” took place on Tuesday, 19th instant, and we were well pleased to observe the unanimity and good feeling manifested on the occasion. The members, to the number of about forty, moved in procession to the Church, accompanied by the Rev. the Colonial Chaplain, who delivered an eloquent and appropriate lecture, illustrative of the benefits and objects of the Society. The reverend gentleman impressed upon his hearers the necessity for good conduct, by which alone the very useful objects the members had in view could be carried out, and expressed his approbation of the general state of the Society.

The members returned from Church in the same orderly manner, to dine at the United Service Tavern, where an excellent dinner was provided for them; Mr. Charles Foulkes in the chair. After the cloth was drawn, the usual loyal toasts were given, and the evening was passed in harmony and good fellowship. The Rev. the Colonial Chaplain intimated that his Excellency the Governor had requested him to convey to the members his cordial approval of the objects of the institution, and his satisfaction at the flourishing state in which it then was ; in proof of which a donation from his Excellency was at their service in aid of the funds.

This Society was instituted in the year 1837, at the instance of a large body of the operative class, and is for the relief of members in sickness, old age, and infirmity, and for the providing certain sums for the decent interment of the members. It is the first institution, in this colony, of a kind that has done so much good for the labourer, mechanic, and artisan, in England, and in other old countries, and it seems to us to be especially requisite in this land, where there is, as yet, no public institution for the reception of the aged and infirm. The rules and orders by which the Society is regulated appear to have been very carefully drawn, and entirely free from objection : especially we are glad to observe that all political or religious discussions are expressly forbidden.
Inquirer (Perth, WA : 1840 – 1855) Wednesday 27 January 1841 p2

That same anniversary meeting, the society unfurled their new banner, under which they would march for many years to come. Like their organisation itself, their emblem was a shameless knock-off from the International Order of Oddfellows: A hand touching a heart. By 1841, the Sons of Australia were thoroughly respectable. Stirling’s successor as Governor, John Hutt was himself the society’s patron, and later that same year, future treasurer and chairman James Dyson would arrive in the Colony (but no record survives of when he actually joined).

But for Foulkes, he would not have the chance to benefit from what he had started; he resigned his offices in 1844 and the next year followed his grown daughter to the new colony of South Australia where she married. It was not a successful move for her father:

[…] The thing which it is chiefly important that our readers should know, is, the statement which Mr. Steel (who has returned to this colony in the Paul Jones) makes relative to the prospects of employment in Adelaide, and the condition of those persons who, deluded by specious representations, and their own restless spirits, have lately gone to South Australia. Mr. Steel says that hundreds of persons are walking about Adelaide unemployed; that Mr. Foulkes (whom all our readers well remember) has not had a day’s work since his arrival in Adelaide; and that there is scarcely one of those who left this place for Adelaide who would not gladly return, if it were in their power.[…]
Inquirer (Perth, WA : 1840 – 1855) Wed 15 Oct 1845 Page 2

Worse, a copy of the Inquirer made its way back to South Australia…

It is quite evident that Mr Steel was not suited for this colony. The statement of hundreds of people being idle in Adelaide is grossly false. Instead of such men as Mr Steel, we want some good laborers[sic]. For example, if all the bullocks, drays, and draymen, were transported from Swan River, we could guarantee them employment.
South Australian (Adelaide, SA : 1844 – 1851) Tue 11 Nov 1845 Page 3

Steel had been verbaled and as he had planned to return to South Australia with his family, he was furious. But Foulkes had been identified by name and he was stuck there as a walking example of a b—y insular West Australian. By 1852 he was declared insolvent. At some point between then and his death aged sixty-one, he took the only course of action open to one with no options left—he moved to Victoria.

Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954), Wednesday 22 July 1857, page 4

It will not be often that one of my research subjects get to speak in their own voice, but Charles Foulkes is one rare example who has become just a little bit more than a name on a page. He seems to have liked a drink occasionally— On one occasion in Ougden’s Tavern during 1835 he was involved in an altercation where he was drunkenly accused of being a convict. Foulkes took great offence (although it was not he who was up on assault charges later on). He must have had some sort of not-entirely-respectable-reputation for when he stood to speak at a temperance meeting held in 1841, the Methodist minister in the chair attempted to suppress him hard.—

Mr. Foulkes rose to make a proposition. The Rev. Mr. Smithies said he should not do so.
Mr. Foulkes,—I a British born subject —am I to be put down in this way before I have opened my mouth ? As a minister of the gospel, Mr. Smithies, you are bound to hear me candidly and dispassionately; I have not disgraced myself; I came here with a friendly feeling to the society ; and I have a strong interest in its welfare. I do no advocate it by gab, but in my breast. I feel how its best views can be promoted.
Mr. Smithies—I will show you how you are interfering with the progress of the meeting by authority forthwith, (one of the rules of the society was then read which enforced the propriety of conveying instruction on the subject of temperance, and not admitting any disquisition.)
The chairman requested Mr. Foulkes to proceed if he had any thing to state in conformity with this regulation.
Mr. Foulkes—I have been put out, for every body knows that all men’s ideas ebb and flow. Mr. Smithies is a good sort of man in his way, but he is not in my line of life, or he would not have said I have no right here ; I am perfectly sober, and have not had a glass of spirits in my house for many months. But if I were drunk I should be the proper man to remain here, and to be listened to; it is not the sober you seek to reclaim but it is the drunkard, and the more drunkards you could assemble the better. I don’t come here with any cut and dried bits of speeches; I tell you my mind and you don’t seem to like it—now to disappoint you, as you at first put me out, I’ll not make a speech at all. (Laughter.)
Mr. Smithies—sit down, or I will say something will make you look queer.
Mr. Foulkes—I say, say it! you come it very queer!
The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 – 1847) Sat 6 Nov 1841 Page 3
1 November 2017
Under the Establishment

Under Fremantle prison there are a network of tunnels. Why would you build such a thing?

A visitor who spends any time in the port city of Fremantle will have a hard time missing the high pale limestone walls overlooking the town, dazzlingly yellow in the sunlight but grey and oppressive on a cloudy day. For most of my lifetime they have been an ugly annoyance, it was only after they stopped being what they were designed for that I, and I suspect most Western Australians, really began to understand this place and its importance to our history. Perhaps for the next generation with no direct memory of it as a functioning high security prison, they may even grow to love it.

Fremantle Prison stopped being a working gaol in 1991. At the time, I doubt many of us realised how long it had been in existence. It was constructed in the 1850s by the first cohort of convicts to be sent to the Colony of Western Australia from Britain. Their arrival signalled the transformation of this place from a community of free settlers to a penal settlement. Originally known as the Convict Establishment, it only later became the primary jail of the Colony and then the State.

Port Arthur in 2017

The closest comparable surviving convict structure in Australia have to be the ruins of Port Arthur in southern Tasmania, however they are ruins. The Convict-era built portion of Fremantle Prison survived fires, riots and earlier eras that would have seen the whole lot bulldozed for a block of flats had it been decommissioned before the date it was (or after).

Now it is a museum, and part of a world heritage site. I got to visit it properly for the first time today and it was wonderful.

I did not visit the main complex, but instead was treated to something rather special. Underneath the old gaol are a network of tunnels and shafts deep into the limestone. Once so filled with water that the prisoners who hacked out these tunnels by hand were waist-deep (and work was only halted when the water reached neck height), those of the tunnels that have not dried out (nearly) completely are navigable by boxy shallow canoes. In full safety gear — harness, hard hat, life jacket and thick rubber boots — we descended a narrow ladder many dozens of metres down to the sea level, and for two-an-a-half hours we traversed the tunnels by foot or by canoe, modern replicas of those rowed by convicts a century-and-a-half before. It was an amazing experience. I have no photos of down there because a) it would have been too dark, b) no images would have done the experience justice. If you had a go-pro or similar which you could have strapped on to your hard hat you might have got something vaguely satisfactory.

Thank you my wonderful friends.

The Prison tour’s web site has some images of down there, but they too do not do the site justice. Access to the interior of Fremantle Prison is only available as part of an organised tour. This was my first proper excursion so I look forward to seeing more on future visits. You should visit their web site for times and prices.

So who is the spectral figure in the banner image of this web page?

Albert Grigg c 1935 [family collection]

Albert Grigg (1877-1942) was a Fremantle City Councillor for twelve years from 1923 to 1935. By the time he was elected to council, the tunnels under the prison had been out of service for ten years. Since the 1880’s they had been used as a giant cistern for the town of Fremantle’s water supply. Prior to that time, wells in the sandy ground of the town itself provided the drinking water requirements. Unfortunately other holes in the ground were far to close to those wells were being used as toilets. What came in one hole came out into the other. I’m not going to draw a picture for you.

Scheme water came to Fremantle in the 1910’s which was just as well, as the water from underneath the gaol was growing increasingly unpalatable. Too much water had been sucked out of the ground, and seawater was percolating though the limestone. If Cr Grigg should be remembered for anything today (and I do believe he does deserve to be remembered for any number of things), it should be that he fought long, passionately and hard for, and achieved during his time in office a proper sewerage system for Fremantle. It was thanks to people such as he that when you turn on a tap of water today, you are not drinking your own shit. Oh…

Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954), Sunday 26 March 1933, page 8

But Grigg had another, even closer connection with the Fremantle prison (and no, he was not an inmate… as far as I can tell). In 1933, toward the end of his civic career, he did what he did best — stir up a hornet’s nest. He recommended that the the Prison be removed. I probably shouldn’t breath a deep sigh of relief that on this occasion the state’s finances and public opinion were not on his side… this time. (he was my great-grandfather, after all) — but still, if the prison had been relocated in the mid 1930’s it is unlikely that any of the colonial structure would have survived to this day.

The Sunday Times newspaper loved Grigg on the whole (He was so fiery in council he could produce columns of reportage), so that is possibly why they were so kind to him on this occasion and did not draw attention to what must have been bleedingly obvious to pretty much everyone else involved in the debate — Cr Albert Grigg and his family lived on Ord street and Hampton road, immediately on the northern perimeter of Fremantle Prison. If anyone was going to personally benefit from the removal of a high security prison on his doorstep it was going to be he. My aunt, in the late 1930’s to early 40’s, remembers the chain-gangs of prisoners under armed guard shuffling past her grandfather’s house on the way to their work area.

One wonders how much more agitated Councillor Albert Grigg might have got if he realised that the former water storage tunnels extended outside the perimeter of the prison and along Hampton street itself. If any prisoner had ever used the tunnels for an escape attempt, they might have literally ended up in his backyard…

23 October 2017

Category: Family History

In Australia.

Which school?

What do you see when you see a family photo?

Part 2 of the Dyson’s Corner Story.