The Ratbag Encyclopedia

Family history, Western Australian history, or just history

Tag: Joseph Dyson

There were many of them. These are the son and grandson of James, not his father.

  • Dyson’s Corner (the Second)

    Dyson’s Corner (the Second)

    or “How a bun in the oven changes everything”

    It could be argued that by 1872, James Dyson, owner of a Swamp and an urban block on the corner of Murray and King Streets in the City of Perth, was at the height of his wealth and influence—He had been elected to the Perth Municipal Council back in 1867, and was an inaugural member of Perth Road Board in 1871—so it would seem that there would be no end to the local government contracts he would be able to steer his way.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, Friday 3 March 1871 page 3

    But this article is not about James, but about his son, Joseph, for this was the year that Joseph stepped (ever so slightly) out of his father’s shadow and established himself as a Perth identity in his own right. Until this moment, when Joseph’s name appeared on a historical document, it was not immediately apparent whether it was in the context of his own interests or that of his father’s. For example: both he, his father, and his younger brother William are all recorded as being major employers of convicts but it is certain that James, given the age of his sons, was the real manager of this workforce. Press reports also tended to use the initial before the Dyson name interchangeably: “J” could stand for James or Joseph and there is one court case featuring William and convict labour that makes no sense until you realise that they probably are referring to James, his father.

    1872 was also the year of the birth of Joseph’s first (and only child), and James’s first grandchild, and the end of that same year saw the beginning of a new Dyson’s Corner. The two events were probably not unconnected…

    Joseph Dyson junior was born on 17 August 1872, but his birth was not registered until nearly a month after the event. This was presumably to give his parents time to have a wedding, which they finally achieved in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Perth, close to the houses of both Dyson and Elsegood clans.

    Note the lack of evidence for bastardry

    Joseph married Mary Ann Elsegood (aged 19) daughter of William Hunt Elsegood on 2 September 1872. The birth certificate for their son was signed on the 10th, (minus the scrawl of BASTARD on it, that some find so offensive, for some reason). While I speculate that it might have been a shotgun union (literally?) between the two, I haven’t identified anything to suggest they were not a loving couple, for while their union would be tragically short, Joseph would never remarry, and there is every indication he retained a close connection with his Elsegood in-laws long after Mary’s death.

    By the time of his marriage, the first Dyson’s Corner would have been bursting at the seams. Apart from his father, step-mother and brother, there might have anything up to ten or eleven half-siblings in residence (and a twelfth was born in May of that year). There would have been at least two or more domestic servants living with the family, and more employed by the various family businesses. According to a later anecdote, James Dyson was one of the biggest employers of labour in the colony. Many of these employees were ticket-of-leave convicts. Dyson may well have employed his in-law as a carter for his timber business—or Elsegood’s sons— builders and carpenters, may have purchased his products.

    William Elsegood was a prison guard at Port Arthur, Van Diemen’s land. James Dyson was not at Port Arthur: He was on the other side of the island at the time.

    That William Elsegood (senior) had arrived in the colony as a soldier guard and had once been posted in Van Diemen’s Land when James Dyson was also a prisoner would have been a deeply embarrassing subject never to be mentioned (if the connection was realised at all). The short of it was that Joseph Dyson and his new instant family needed a home of their own. They found it just down the road on Murray street, on the north-west corner of the intersection with William street. On the south-west side of this intersection was the city property owned by the Wesleyan Methodist congregation in Western Australia. On either side of the two chapels built in 1833 and 1842 respectively, was the new Wesleyan Church that had only recently been opened, and had been constructed by materials in part supplied by Joseph’s father. Opposite the Dyson’s new residence was the Methodist Sunday School building. Joseph Dyson’s connection with the Methodists was certainly a part of his life that he greatly valued—It’s hard to see how one could be a volunteer Sunday School teacher for one’s church without being so committed.

    William Street and the Wesleyan Quarter about 1885. Joseph Dyson’s store is on the far right [SLWA]

    One of the harder facts to establish when researching Australian colonial history is whether a trade or profession assigned to an individual by the records refers to them actually practising that trade or them employing someone else to do it for them. This is particularly the case with those who involved themselves in public life—How on earth could they afforded the time to attend all those meetings as well as do a day’s work for themselves? To participate fully in the public life of the colony there was also a financial barrier to entry. A citizen required assets or property worth at least £150 to be eligible to serve on a jury. Both James Dyson and William Elsegood passed this watermark about the year 1860. Son Joseph’s material assets are not so clearly defined: He did not own his new residence on the corner of Murray and William Streets: It was leased from a frustratingly obscure individual named H. Williams about who I know very little. Dyson opened his new concern on the first day of the New Year, 1873.

    The Inquirer & Commercial News, Wednesday 29 January 1873

    The question remains whether Joseph did the baking himself or relied on staff. His father had employed a handful of ticket-of-leave men specifically as bakers since the mid-1860’s, the last so described was a William Maynard whom James employed in December 1874, but there were many more ticket-of-leavers employed by both James and Joseph for whom their employment occupations have not been recorded. It might also be that the “general” part of the general servants that Joseph mostly employed might have included work in the bakehouse. The names and occupations of the non-convict workforce in any of Joseph’s (and James’s) concerns have never been identified, but there is one recorded story that might relate to Joseph’s bakery (or another one on Murray street):—

    Perth’s Early Bakers.
    Dear “Cygnet,”—About the early bakers. There was G. Marfleet, for a start. He was at the corner of Hay- street and William-street; John Scollard, opposite the Town Hall, in Barrack-street; T. Molloy, in Murray-street; John Liddelow, in Hay-street; J. Dyson, in Murray-street; Donald Camerson, at the corner of Hay and King streets; and Denis Metheringham, in Murray-street, where the Bohemia Hotel now stands.
    A little experience I had with one of the abovenamed. It would appear that this baker had had some trouble with an employee named Toby in the bake house, resulting in the baker being placed in the dough trough. I was not aware of this incident, and, whilst walking along Murray-street with a boy friend, this baker approached us on the same footpath. My boy friend said: “Do you see that boy on the opposite side of the street?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “You are not game to call out to him, ‘Toby, who fell in the dough.’ ” I very promptly called out, and the next thing I knew the baker had me in his grasp, and you can imagine what followed. For years this baker was taunted with this call by the boys of Perth.

    —”Groper,” Swan View.

    Western Mail, Thursday 27 June 1935 p9

    The other of James Dyson’s sons (the ones at least, he remained capable of providing for) had been given some training in a trade; printing and blacksmithing primarily—maybe Butchering and Baking had been Joseph’s chosen skill. He also continued his father’s business as a general dealer. After a year in business on his own account he was now described as “well known” in the City:—

    One of those cases of BAREFACED THEFT which are remarkable for the audacity displayed by the perpetrators in their efforts to secure the object of their search, came under the notice of Mr. Landor, our worthy police magistrate a few days ago. One Mr. Daniel Johnson who had but recently returned from one of his periodical visits to the charming establishment presided over by Mr. H. M. Lefroy, in your town, where he had been rusticating during the summer months, was proceeding along Murray Street one day last week, admiring the architectural improvements of the metropolis when his eye—was it by chance?—fell upon a pair of elastic side boots, suspended from a nail in the shop of Mr. Dyson, the well known baker and storekeeper. “Shall I have nought to encase my pedal extremities and protect them from the wild blasts of this wintry weather?” said he; and at that moment he walked up to the door of the aforesaid baker and storekeeper, drew from his pocket a penknife, gazed cautiously round, nerved himself for the action, and with the words, do or die, on his lips, rent the cord in twain, extended his right arm, and vanished with the boots. The hawk eye of the proprietor however caught sight of him, and the police were soon on his track. When charged with the theft before the magistrate he stoutly denied the impeachment, but Mr. Dyson as stoutly asserted that he could not be mistaken in his identification of the thief, who, failing to prove an alibi, was invited to return to Mr. Lefroy’s establishment, where he will remain a guest for the next two years.

    The Herald, Saturday 5 September 1874 p3

    So Joseph  was most certainly behind the counter of his general dealership. Professionally, he was doing all right, but in the domestic sphere there was the the agony of his young wife’s illness and the losses within her own family. Mary’s seventeen-year-old sister Elizabeth died in September 1874; Then in November died her father, aged 55. Three other siblings died in infancy or early childhood, Mary Ann was the fifth child out of thirteen.

    The Cloisters about the year of the accident [SLWA]

    That was the situation on 4 December 1874 when Joseph saddled up a trap to take his sickly wife out to visit her recently widowed mother who was now living by the Swan River foreshore under the shadow of Mt Eliza. He was passing what is now known as the Cloisters  on St George’s Terrace when his horse took fright and bolted.

    The out-of-control horse and cart plunged down Mill Street, which is on a steep incline. At the end of the street was a stony open drain or culvert, and it was here that the terrified horse tripped up and the cart and its occupants tumbled out. Joseph’s arm was badly broken. The poor horse’s leg was broken and the beast had to be put down. Somehow Mary Ann escaped injury, but the truth of it was she was in the last stages of a terminal illness.

    But not Mary Ann

    She died of tuberculosis four weeks after the accident. She was only twenty-two years old. She was buried in the newly inaugurated Wesleyan Cemetery in East Perth and she was probably the first to be interred in the existing plot that contains the remains of her husband’s father, step-mother and various other siblings. Her name is not on the surviving grave stone.

    When he lost his mother, their son was only two years and four months old. The mystery remains as to which side of his family had have more influence on the upbringing of this child: Dyson or Elsegoods? Joseph Dyson junior attended school with various Dyson half-uncles and aunts, but it was the husband of an aunt on the Elsegood side: Richard Tremlett Hardman, who may have assisted Joseph getting a job in the postal service during 1894. Hardman was later the Deputy Postmaster General. It can’t have hurt his career to have such a family connection.

    The Western Australian Times, Friday 6 November 1874 p3

    But by 1877, the negative influence of his Dyson side would have become impossible to ignore. Joseph the Elder’s father (and an indeterminate number of siblings) had moved in with them to that house on the corner of William and Murray street. His dad’s finances (and second marriage) had both collapsed. Joseph’s half-brother Drewy was gaining a reputation as one of the worst hooligans in the colony and other brothers were now presenting themselves before the city magistrates as well.

    The targets for their larrikinism were often the Wesleyan Church and the Temperance Movement—both causes close to Joseph Dyson the Elder’s heart. Was their elder brother’s… pious?.. nature getting right up their noses? The original Dyson’s Corner, the old family property on the corner of King and Murray Street was sold to cover debts, it fell into the ownership of one of Joseph’s brother-in-laws: John Joseph Elsegood.

    Elsegood transformed the old place into a hotel: The City Hotel, and the first Dyson’s Corner was no more. But that was not the end of the name… for the remainder of Joseph Dyson’s tenure on the corner of Murray and William street, and for many years afterwards, this location was also known as Dyson’s Corner.

    Dyson’s Corner… recently.
  • The Stranger In the Mirror

    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?

  • Dyson’s Hotel

    Dyson’s Hotel

    Part 2 of the Dyson’s Corner Story.

    previously…

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

    On the site of Dyson’s corner, 2017

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

  • The Sons of Australia: Foundation and Foulkes

    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

    Most of what there is to know about the society comes from the contemporary press. That there was no mention of it in the Perth Gazette, the supposed paper of record in the colony, until it’s first anniversary (and that was a snide one), and this was certainly due to the rivalry between 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 wrote in similarly approving terms of a benefit society newly established, named the Western Australian Union Society, but that same issue, it was reported that W. N. Clark 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 Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, he was also active behind the scenes in the formation of the society.

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

    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,

    John Burdett Wittenoom

    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

  • Secret Squirrel Business

    Secret Squirrel Business

    It seems like there was nothing the average man in Australia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enjoyed more than belonging to a secret society. Of course it’s no fun at all if no-one can know that you belong to an exclusive brotherhood*, so you have to make sure that everyone has got the memo by flaunting your membership of that organisation (you are not able to discuss publicly) in the most ostentatious manner you can manage. Street parades in uniform were best; inviting the press along to your celebratory dinners and having the whole thing published in meticulous detail the next day was even better. Of course the display of esoteric symbols and talismans on every conceivable public surface where ever you could manage it was obligatory, you just could never explain what they meant… because that was a secret.

    The Mechanic’s Institute (left) next to Perth’s first Masonic Hall (centre)  in about 1868. The Town Hall (right) is being erected in the background.

    The Freemasons are probably the most famous of this ilk, and were the most prestigious and exclusive club, as you needed to invited to join by your similarly elite peers. It was not for the everyday hoi-poli. Your Governor of the Colony (so long as he wasn’t a Catholic), Bishop, Judge or Top Civil Servant were all likely to be masons. For a secret society, they loved owning prominent buildings in the very heart of town, dressing up for the funerals of their brethren, and denying that being a mason had any influence on their day jobs.

    But if you were not an elite, there were still mysterious and baroque organisations you could become a member of (if organised religion was too inclusive for your tastes). If you wanted to piss off the Catholics you could join the Loyal Order of Orangemen. If you hated people who drank alcohol, you could join the Good Templars, or the Rechabites (among others). Many publicans in the early days of Perth were foundation members of temperance societies.

    Good Templars being inconspicuous in Newcastle (Toodyay) circa 1875 [SLWA]

    *The Good Templars were somewhat unique in that they allowed women into their ranks. This was an excellent strategy as it allowed their members to bask in the warm glow of the strong disapproval of other such institutions as the Catholic Church.

    The original Weld Club house on St George’s terrace.

    Strictly boys only was the Weld club (for those who found the Freemasons too egalitarian). But if you were not a member of the ruling elite—only a humble mechanic or even a middling shop-keeper, then there were the friendly societies just for you.

    In the days before social security for a average worker, sickness meant ruin, and death meant poverty (or worse) for any dependent unlucky enough to survive you. Charity from the parish was even less of an option than back in Britain, as there pretty much was not a parish. The Colonial Government did establish the workhouse system here; to be destitute was practically a criminal offence. Friendly societies were first and foremost an early system of life or health insurance for their low-income members. The benefits received could and did vary widely. For a few pence a week, contributors or their families might receive paid medical attention, income protection when unable to work, funerals paid for, or even a pension for the widow.

    Back in England, originating from Lancashire, the best known and globally dispersed organisation of this type was the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows. This evolution from an even older organisation sprung up in James Dyson’s home town the very year of his birth (1810). The MUOOF or IOOF(as it was often abbreviated) combined the practical matter of regularly collecting the subs from its members with the very social activity of weekly or monthly meetings in the local public-house. Once the legal technicalities were overcome (establishing that this was not a seditious gathering plotting the overthrow of his Majesty’s Government), lodges would spread across the Anglophone world. Eventually it would reach Western Australia:—

    The opening ceremony in connection with the new Oddfellows’ Hall, Hutt-street, took place last evening. A full description of the hall, the foundation stone of which was laid on the 24th of July, 1895, has already appeared in our columns, and it is only necessary to say that the building is a very commodious one of two stories, admirably suited for the purposes for which it has been erected. If any defect might be mentioned, it is the fact that the dividing floor between the upper and lower halls is hardly sufficiently packed to deaden the sound, which penetrates from one hall to another, so that the two cannot be used at the one time with any comfort by those who have engaged them.

    The ceremony consisted of a torchlight procession, which left the Town Hall for the Oddfellows’ Hall, headed by the City Brass Band, in which about 200 members of the lodges marched in their regalia. Bro. F. Bowra, P.G.M., acted as Marshal, and amongst the heralds were Bro. W. Lawrence (bearing a measure of corn), Bro. Arnold (Bearing a vase of flowers), and Bro. G. Wallace (bearing a goblet of water).

    The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 – 1954) Wed 22 Apr 1896 Page 5

    The Oddfellows had been a presence in Western Australia for many years, but predating their formal establishment in 1870 by over thirty years, all the way back to the time of Governor Hutt, in fact— a home grown version of a friendly society on the Oddfellow’s model was created for the Colony. On the first anniversary of its birth, what would one day become the Western Australian Newspaper editorialised:—

    A union society, under the denomination “Sons of Australia” — not a very appropriate title, considering the ages of the members,— has been established at Perth, and the anniversary meeting took place at Dobbins Hotel yesterday. The Rev. J. B. Wittenoom, at the solicitation of the members, performed divine Service in the afternoon, and delivered a lecture on the occasion.

    The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 20 January 1838 p10

    If you think this is oddly snarky, you have to bear in mind that a year ago, in another publication was written:

    A friendly Society called the “Son[s] of Australia” has been formed since January last. The object of the Society is to provide by contribution for the maintenance or assistance of the Members thereof in sickness, old age and other infirmities. The Rules of the Society have been duly enrolled before W. H. Mackie Esquire, and a Bench of Magistrates pursuant to act of Parliament 59th Geo. III. and are now in the course of being printed at the “Guardian” Office. The Trustees are Messrs W. Nairn, W. Rogers Senr. and J. Tompson, Mr Charles Foulkes Secretary. The objects of this Society are highly laudable, and it is the most useful institution ever formed in the Colony. A considerable sum has been already subscribed towards the formation of a permanent fund, and we earnestly hope the Society will flourish.

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

    And so it all becomes clear. The editors of the two newspapers in town at that time were mortal enemies. For Charles MacFaull, editor of the Gazette, anyone who ran a newspaper who wasn’t him was a mortal enemy. For William Nairne Clarke of the Swan River Guardian it was much simpler: anyone who wasn’t him was a mortal enemy. They were naturally going to oppose anything the other didn’t oppose.

    This was only a few years before before James Dyson arrived in the colony of Western Australia, but fast forward to the time of his death fifty-one years later, and it becomes clear that his involvement with the Sons of Australia Benefit Society was one of the defining activities of his life:

    The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Saturday 23 June 1888 p 3

    The Society survived James Dyson’s death, but it would not survive the custodianship of his son, Joseph the Elder. Only a year after the opening of that Oddfellow’s Hall in 1895, the Sons of Australia Benefit Society was finally wound up.

    Last night the members of the Sons of Australia Benefit Society assembled at Jacoby’s Bohemian-hall, for the purpose of receiving their first dividend out of the sale of the city property formerly owned by that society, situated at the corner of Barrack and Goderich streets, which was recently purchased by Messrs. W. B. Wood, A. E. Cockram, and J. Carmichael, for £11,000. The scheme of dividing the assets of this old established institution, which was founded in the year 1837 by the late Mr. G. F. Stone, father of his Honor Mr. Justice Stone, whose inaugural efforts were supported by Messrs. Crane and others, is based upon a payment of £150 to the old and £115 to the younger members, who comprise a total of 83, all told. The first dividend amounts to £90 per member, one of whom has been an inmate of the Perth Invalid Depôt for several years past.

    The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Friday 22 May 1896 p2

    Now here is where the story really starts to get interesting…

  • “The Poste Restante”

    “The Poste Restante”

    “Poste Restante” is a French term that can be roughly translated as “remainder post“. It refers to when a letter is retained by a post office for collection in that building. Joseph Dyson, junior, ran the Poste Restante department within the central GPO building in Western Australia. Prior to the Federation of the Australian Colonies in 1901, each Colony had its own independent Postal service. These were all rolled together to form what is now known as Australia Post in 1903. The Western Australian service had a fairly grand headquarters on the corner of St Georges Terrace and Barrack street, on the exact site of what had once been the original soldier’s barracks for Perth. The Perth GPO then moved to an even grander structure completed in 1923 and the old building became home to the State Government Treasury Department. What is quite amazing is that both these structures, the Treasury (as it is now known) AND the Commonwealth GPO both still exist in 2017, and both have been sympathetically restored.

    By 1937 the old Perth GPO building was occupied by the Treasury Department. This was also the year Joseph Dyson junior died.

    Back in 1901, the building had then only recently been completed, but with a decade, it would be deemed too small.  In five years Joseph Dyson had risen through the ranks from letter carrier to head of the department. The workings of the Poste Restante were fully described in a rare article by a journalist who had conducted a full tour of the establishment. The complete article, archived on Trove, is reproduced below:

    THE GENERAL POST OFFICE

    HOW IT IS WORKED.

    The recent alterations to the Post-office, together with the new arrangement for receiving letters at that institution, have been fully described in “The Morning Herald,” and a brief reference made to the working of the various branches of this great and important department. In order to gain an idea of the working of the sub-branches, a representative of ‘The Morning Herald’ called at the Post-office yesterday, and, accompanied by an officer of the department, went through the poste restante and the letter carriers’ divisions.

    THE POSTE RESTANTE.

    The GPO sometime in the 1910’s. SLWA collection

    Nobody could form an idea of the amount of work which this branch of the General Post-office carries out daily. Something like 21,200 letters, besides newspaper packets and registered documents, are dealt with weekly by the staff. The offices occupied by the staff are situated on the eastern side of the Post-office hall, where letters addressed to the General Post-office are delivered as called for. The sorting of letters for private boxes and for the various Government departments to be called for entails much labor, and calls for alacrity on the part of the officials. There are 250 private boxes in use, from which the department obtains an annual rental of from one to three guineas each, according to the size of the box, which must be regulated according to the extent of the correspondence for the various firms. The advantages gained by business people through the introduction of private boxes cannot be over-estimated. The letters are placed in the private boxes, and may be extracted by the addressees perhaps hours before they would be delivered to them per the medium of the letter carriers. Besides this, there is an other distinct advantage to the box holders, as they are able to obtain letters at any time between 7 o’clock in the morning and 10 o’clock at night. The letters are immediately sorted into the boxes on the arrival of all mails, and it is therefore surprising to find that out of the 378 boxes in position only 250 are in use. The delivery windows, which are open from 9 a.m.. to 6 p.m., provide, plenty of work for a large number of the staff. In the boom time, before people from the other States had established homes in and around Perth, the number of letters delivered daily was so large that six men were constantly engaged sorting and handing out letters from the delivery windows. The number of letters passing through the Post-office has largely increased since that time, but now that the people are settled, and have fixed residences, the majority of the letters, packets, and newspapers are delivered by the carriers. But even, now the work of delivering letters addressed to the G.P.O., Perth is no sinecure.

    There are three delivery offices, the first being for letters from A to G, the second from H to M, and the third from N to Z, besides an additional box for taxed letters, and communications addressed to foreigners. At each of the first three boxes the principal work is that of sorting the epistles alphabetically into 108 pigeon-holes, so that they can be delivered when called for without the delay that would be experienced if all the communications addressed to people whose surnames commenced with, say, B were placed in one pigeon-hole. As it is now, persons can be informed in a few seconds whether there are any letters addressed to them, and if there are registered parcels they are given a ticket and sent to the registered letters’ office. Then there are many additional duties to be performed. One that occupies considerable time is that of re-addressing letters sent care of G.P.O. to private residences, in accordance with instructions sent in by the addressees. After being redirected these letters are despatched to the letter-carriers’ room, where they are sent out with the greatest possible speed. When an eastern mail arrives, the officers are often kept busy until 10 or 11 o’clock in the night— for which no allowance beyond the usual departmental leave of absence on full pay is made— the rule being that all mails must be sorted straight away, so that lessees of private boxes shall receive their correspondence without any delay whatever. For the work performed the staff is not a large one, although it has been increased numerically during the past few weeks by an innovation which has been resented, to a certain extent, by many officers of the service.

    Hitherto the work of delivering the letters at the G.P.O. was carried out by male officers ; now women carry out the duties. The alteration was brought about in this way. The increased business throughout the General Post-office necessitated the engagement of further hands, and with a view to economy women were engaged to deliver letters at the boxes, their predecessors being removed to other branches of the department. The women are not overworked— and certainly not overpaid — for their time does not average more than five hours per day. The work is tedious, but with five hour “shifts” the strain imposed on them is not great, and they appear to be contented with their yearly salary. The work was previously carried out by half the number of male officers, but as each of the women employed receives a salary of only 60 guineas per annum, the department is gaining a slight saving by the new arrangement.

    The branch is under the control of Mr. Joseph Dyson, and is in every respect up-to-date. In addition to the staff of women, two private-box sorters and two assistants are constantly employed. The introduction of female officers was not at first regarded favorably by the male employes, but it is believed that the system is now working satisfactorily.

    The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Friday 28 June 1901 p 12

    During the Second World War the basement of the Commonwealth GPO building in Perth was converted into an air raid shelter, and the vast majority of the old Colonial Postal records that were stored there went into whatever the 1940’s version of the skip was. Within the records of the State Library of WA however, are a handful of group photographs of the staff of the during the early days.

    It may be that Joseph Dyson is in these photographs and I just don’t know it. This final image was taken on the steps of the new Federal GPO in Wellington Street. It must date from the 1920’s. Note the presence of ladies…:

    In 2012:

  • Going Postal: The great family rift.

    Going Postal: The great family rift.

    …About half-past nine last Friday night, my attention was attracted by a number of persons standing in front of prisoner’s brothers’ residence, in Murray-street; I was in plain clothes at the time, and Dyson’s sister — a little girl — came up to me and said that her brother Andrew was killing her Father;

    The evidence of P.C. Grant.

    The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Tuesday 13 January 1885 p 3

    The location of Joseph Dyson’s Bakery, also known as “Dyson’s Corner”. If you would like to see a larger, clearer version of this picture so would I.

    When Joseph Dyson, junior, was just thirteen years of age he would have been present when his uncle Andrew entered his father’s home on the corner of William and Murray Streets and proceeded to beat up his grandfather.  Old James Dyson had lived with them for a few years now.  A man named Barker separated Andrew “Drewy” Dyson from his father. Drewy then went out into the street to hurl, instead, abuse of the verbal kind at the gathering crowd. Finally, he returned inside the house and vented his frustrations on a small dog, before the police arrived to haul him away.

    The Wesley Church in the centre of Perth.

    Joseph’s step-grandmother Jane was no longer living with them. She was residing several streets away from them by then, in the old Perth Gaol — seven months into a five year sentence for theft. Meanwhile Matthew Dyson had been sentenced (in absentia) for disorderly conduct, and was now serving a spell down in Fremantle Prison. Joseph’s other uncle’s crime was to have thrown a rotten egg at a religious procession entering Wesleyan Church. That also happened to be the same church Joseph’s father, Joseph (the Elder), was a Sunday School teacher for, and lay just on the other side road from the Dyson’s home.

    All things considered, its not that strange that Joseph Dyson, hunior, might now have a jaundiced view of certain sections of his family…

    Perth Boys School in 1861 photographed by Alfred Hawes Stone (SLWA)

    Scholastically he resembled his father. They both went to the same Perth Boy’s School, and were awarded similar prizes for their academic achievements. Back when they were all much younger, he and several of his aunts and uncles (many younger than he) had all marched together as school children for a parade celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee (1879).

    By 1888, the year his grandfather died, Joseph (then 16) played Australian Rules football for a Perth team. In 1890 he was a member of a team called the “Pearlers”. Their captain was a lad only a year younger than he, by the name of Strutt. Arthur Ernest Strutt came from Melbourne, Victoria, to the west in 1885 with his widowed mother and several other siblings. He had a young sister, then aged twelve, called Jessie.

    The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Friday 15 May 1891 p3

    Joseph junior, was just as capable of being an idiot as any other member of his family. On 11 May 1891 Uncle Drewy fronted the magistrate yet again, for another matter (this time for nearly running down a clergyman in his cart). The same day Joseph and a young friend appeared before the same magistrate for allegedly firing a gun in the street near a policeman. Fortunately for Joseph, this would his first and last appearance on the wrong side of a court room. Soon, he would have a very strong motivation for keeping his nose clean.

    This is the only photo this side of the family has of Joseph Dyson the younger. What was it with him and guns?

    Sometime in the year 1892, Joseph Dyson joined the Western Australian Postal and Telegraph Service as as a letter-carrier. Although there is nothing to suggest that influence was applied either way, Dyson had an relative in this sphere of the public service. Mr Richard Tremlett Hardman (1848-1927) was married to his Aunt on his late mother’s (Elsegood) side. Hardman was a mail contractor during the 1860’s, postmaster at York for a couple of decades, then appointed an Inspector in July 1893. Later he would be the Chief Inspector, rounding out his career as Deputy Postmaster General.

    Dyson’s career in the postal service was extremely respectable. By 1895 he was a mail assistant in the Perth General Post Office. By the time of Federation in 1901 he was head of the “Poste Restante” department within the GPO, a very responsible position. When the Western Australian Postal department was absorbed into the new Commonwealth Postal  service in June 1904, Dyson transferred to the new organisation, and retained his same pay grade: £180 per annum.

    He could afford to marry and start a family. He did so— to a now grown-up Jessie Christensen Strutt — in the Wesleyan Church on 7 February 1900. Their first house together on William street in the city, they named “Hawthorn“. Their first child, a son, was born there on the 5 November 1900, a very respectable nine months later. His mother-in-law, Mrs Annie Strutt died in this same house on 19 January 1901. She was a Scottish immigrant who ran a respectable boarding house in Perth during her long widowhood. The family next moved to a new house in the fresh Perth suburb of Subiaco. Respectability mattered to this family. Yes, brother-in-law Arthur Ernest Strutt would abandon his wife and two children never to be heard of again, but the Strutts were respectable. Why, back in Tasmania, (where that side of the family had come from) they were senior bureaucrats, politicians and brigadier generals during the 20th century.

    But those terrible Dysons, they were nothing but trouble…

    St George’s Hall. The pillars remain, nowt else.

    Previously in 1893, when the junior Joseph was still attempting to establish himself as a public servant, another incident involving his outrageous uncle Drewy ensnared Joseph’s own father this time. The venue was the then newly opened St George Hall in Hay street; The performance was a play called “The Silver King”; The encore spilled out into the street and into the Police Court five days later.

    Andrew “Drewy” Dyson, if he had never quite redeemed himself after the death of his father, was now — gloriously and scandalously — who he would always be.  He owned a cart-manufacturing works located on a site directly across the road from the family home on the corner of William Street and Murray Street. The disagreement he had that evening may have had something to do with a dissatisfied customer (One of the milder obscenities he seemed to have uttered was something to do with it being “a b—— good cart”. It was obscene language — one word in particular — that had landed him before the court this time (but no, it is has not been recorded in the press).

    His the elder Joseph turned up at court to give testimony on behalf of his younger brother. He had been upstairs in the hall during the commotion, so he had heard nothing — and that was his evidence. Another witness called was a young lady named Emily Bates. Her evidence was likewise. However Miss Bates also happened to be Drewy’s mistress, further more, she was heavily pregnant with their child.  Only a month later she was packed off to the family’s property in Wanneroo for the birth. The boy — Andrew Samuel Dyson — was subsequently raised by Drewy’s long suffering wife as her own. Charlotte Dyson, but with certain pre-conditions.—

    The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 – 1954) Friday 22 September 1893 p5

    Drewy Dyson was the very antithesis of respectability, a well known racing identity in every sense of the term, then and now. Yet despite everything, he always remained close to his half-brother Joseph. Why, I’ve no idea. In 1910, on the centennial of their late father’s birth, they jointly placed a memorial in the local paper. They were proud of their father.

    The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879-1954) Tuesday 19 July 1910 page 1

    But Joseph, junior, was not so enamoured of his heritage. Back in 1893 he was attempting to cast off the inky shadow of his father’s family’s name, a task all the more difficult because they shared the same name. The week after the reports of the court case were published, (Drewy was fined — yet again) a classified advertisement appeared in the same paper:—

    The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Friday 19 May 1893 p2
    The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 – 1954) Monday 27 May 1912 page 8

    Old Joseph Dyson finally passed away in 1912 aged 66 years, at his house in Robinson Street, North Perth. His son performed the required conventional pieties, and had him buried in Karrakatta Cemetery in the same plot as his late mother-in-law. No headstone was purchased. The grave is unmarked.

    But it was the day after the funeral that the final rupture between Drewy and his nephew most likely took place. Drewy didn’t even bother to turn up to the resultant court case; he sent along his wife to plead guilty on his behalf. The magistrates were without sympathy (it was rare that they were) and the fine of £10 for obscene language (yet again) was a very steep one. The words were uttered outside a house in Robinson street, the house is not specified, nor the two witnesses who gave evidence against Drewy, but a good guess can be made.

    As far as I can tell, from 22 May 1912, no member of the family of Joseph Dyson had anything to do with any other strands of the Dyson clan for the next one hundred years.

    The last resting place of Mrs Annie Strutt and Mr Joseph Dyson, parents-in-law, in Karakatta Cemetery, Perth.
  • All the girls love a soldier

    All the girls love a soldier

    The pensioner guard in front of their barracks in Perth

    In 1869, the last two companies of the British army were finally withdrawn from Western Australia. With the departure of the 14th Regiment of Foot, horrified colonists were faced with the terrifying prospect that they might have to pay to expand their own police force. There were the pensioner guards, of course, who were retired or invalided out former members of the British Army, some veterans of the Crimean campaign of nearly twenty years ago, who had been sent out as settlers to the colony in conjunction with the convicts, part of whose duty it was was for them to guard. But by 1870, these 4000 odd pensioners and their families were scattered throughout the colony, and while some in the Enrolled Pensioner Guard still looked good on parade in Perth, their increasing decrepitude gave cause for concern.

    Various volunteer militias had winked in and out of existence in various locations though out the colony over time. Since 1862 there was a volunteer force of riflemen in the city of Perth.

    Prussian soldiers of 1870. Look at their hats—no wonder they won— While the French were incapacitated by laughter, that’s when they shot ’em.

    It would have been nice to have been able to tie in the call to form a cavalry troop in the city with the worsening international situation abroad, but in May 1870, the Franco-Prussian War was a little way into the future, so I cannot ascribe the desire for a new cavalry unit out of admiration for the funky Prussian headgear. On 25 May 1870 various Perth worthies signed a petition to Frank DeLisle, a ranking officer of the Pinjarrah Mounted Volunteers and perhaps more pertinently, aide-de-camp to newly-arrived Governor Weld (and his brother-in-law). Weld also brought with him the beginnings of representative government to the Colony, and one of those new representatives had his signature on that petition. Maitland Brown was a murdering bastard, and one of the most highly respected squatters in the colony because of it. Also on the petition (the last name, in fact), was a young man of 25. He was Joseph Dyson, son of the timber dealer and Perth town councillor, James.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Friday 3 June 1870 p2

    Any troop of calvary was by its very definition, something of an elite or prestige unit compared to the humble foot-soldier. This elite status was to a large extent built in to it’s very nature as only volunteers of some means would have owned the requisite horseflesh to seat their superior rumps upon.

    Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901), Wednesday 9 March 1870, page 3

    James Dyson was by now a horse owner of some note, he was regularly loosing track of them, or loosing races with them. All his sons must have been able to ride with various levels of proficiency. Andrew, Septimus and Octavius built careers around horse riding or horse ownership. George Towton, whose name was also on the petition, would become to be a race horse trainer of some repute. Aged only 17 in 1870, he was also the Dyson’s family’s next door neighbour in Perth.

    A Cornet?

    Nowadays we know it only as a musical instrument, but back in the day it was the military title of the lowest-ranking commissioned officer. DeLisle was Cornet of the Pinjarrah Mounted Volunteers so he was gazetted Lieutenant of the newly formed Union Troop of Western Australian Mounted Volunteers. “From Captains to Colonels” by James Ritchie Grant (1991) notes:

    …despite some initial doubts to its viability it was approved on the 19th July 1870

    (p51)
    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 6 Jul 1870 Page 2

    This might be a little bit of an understatement. One of the delays in promulgating the new regiment was quite literally rain on their parade.  A new Cornet was appointed to the Troop, the gloriously named Cornelius C. Fauntleroy. It might have been there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians, for there were never more than fifty members of the troop and numbers fell as low as thirty at times:—

    THIS UNION TROOP OF MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS.—We trust that this Corps which gave so much promise of success on its first establishment, will not be allowed to collapse for want of attention on the part of the officers ; drill is neglected, one worst signs[sic], and unless the officers shew more zeal in the company, it will certainly come to an untimely end. To the officers we say, persevere and you will succeed.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 25 Nov 1870 Page 3

    The members of the Troop finally gathered at the pub to elect some NCOs (Non-commissioned officers) and not a moment too soon, for one of it’s first official duties was imminent, to be a guard of honour to their leader’s brother-in-law, the Governor, during the opening of the first session of (semi)representational government:—

    At ½ past 1 p.m, a guard of honour, consisting of the Enrolled Force, under the command of Capt Finnerty, and the Union Troop, under that of Lieut. DeLisle, assembled in front of the Council Chamber, to receive His Excellency the Governor and suite.
    On His Excellency leaving Government House a salute of 17 guns was fired, and on the arrival of His Excellency at the Council Chamber, the military presented arms, and the band played the National Anthem.

    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 7 Dec 1870 Page 3

    Shooting things off at ceremonial occasions would be the raison d’être of the Regiment.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 24 Feb 1871 Page 2

    In February of 1871, the decision was made to wield a big stick and institute fines for non-appearance on parade. As far as carrots went— Their fellow volunteers in the Rifles received an annuity for good service of about 16 shillings, a nominal amount but better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. I have yet to find evidence that their mounted brothers ever received the same compensation. However, there was always the side perk that the girls apparently loved a man in uniform… as was illustrated by a display the Troop put on for the inhabitants of Guildford, a few miles up the Swan River, in May 1871:

    GUILDFORD.
    From our own Correspondent.
    This town was enlivened on last Wednesday afternoon by the Union Troop and Guildford Volunteers, who numbered in force, and went through their various evolutions in a creditable manner. It is seldom the Guildfordites have the opportunity of witnessing such an array of horsemen in military uniform, and a considerable amount of eagerness to have a glimpse prevailed ; especially (may I be permitted to say?) amongst the fair sex, to whom the attractions of a soldier are ever predominant. I hear that it is the intention of the above Troop to have alternate meetings once a month in Perth and Guildford ; which should have the effect of producing more energy, and augmenting the numbers of each.

    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 10 May 1871 Page 2
    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 29 Sep 1871 Page 2

    Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more…  Later that month, nearly on the first anniversary of the meeting that started it all, they paraded for the Queen’s birthday public holiday (This being H.M. Queen Victoria, of course). There was another special meeting of the troop held in a pub in September, where it was decided to change the days they assembled together and paraded.

    And that was nearly the end of the story of the the Union Troop of Volunteer Cavalry.  In June 1872 DeLisle was replaced by a Captain Blundell, a man with an appropriately absurd string of first names. C. C. Fauntleroy’s name was already silly enough, so he was retained as Cornet.

    The Herald (Fremantle, WA : 1867 – 1886) Sat 29 Jun 1872 Page 3

    Blundell was an British army officer with Artillery experience, so less than a month after his appointment the Cavalry troop were no more, replaced in name, but not in purpose, by the Western Australian Troop of Horse Artillery. Firing canon at celebrations was their primary activity, budgets being such that practice shots in anger were limited to one firing a year. Never the less, all mocking aside, this volunteer force did survive in various iterations to eventually be rolled into the new army of the Australian Commonwealth in 1903 as the No1 WA Battery Australian Field Artillery.

    1872 was a year of economic problems in the west. To balance the books, the government abolished the tiny stipend paid to the Perth Volunteer Rifles, and presumably the other units as well. Their Captain resigned in disgust and the whole regiment was disbanded for ‘insubordination’. This may be significant for the Dyson story for the following reason—when it came time for the volunteer’s rifles to be collected, one could not be accounted for. An Enfield rifle issued to Private William Elsegood was not returned, and if the matter was ever resolved, record of it is not surviving in the official correspondence. It was still missing by November… [pdf]

    This W. Elsegood could be one of two people: William James Elsegood was 27 in 1872, a carpenter and builder who would go on to construct part of the overland telegraph line to South Australia; or his father, William Hunt Elsegood,  52 years of age,  a carter in town, but before that a Lance Corporal in the 96th Regiment of Foot. Elsegood was posted to the colony back in 1847 but stayed on as a civilian to raise a very large family. He had a daughter called Mary Ann, who was born in Perth, and by 1872 was aged 19.

    Mary Ann suddenly gave birth to a son on the 17 August 1872. A few weeks later she married Joseph Dyson in Perth on 2 September. Note the order of events. The child was named Joseph Dyson junior.

    Now, there are a lot of gaps in the record. We know Joseph Dyson had something to do with the setting up of the Union Troop of Cavalry, but there is no evidence as yet for (or against) him actually being a member of the troop, and if he was a member, how long did he serve? But I would like to think that a gallantly attired cavalryman might have caught the eye of the teenaged daughter of an old soldier…

    …then later on the father (or the brother) used the display of a bit rogue ordinance that just happened to be in their possession to ensure the young buck did the right thing. Nearly a literal shotgun wedding? The romantic in me likes to think so.

    …continued.

  • Dorothy Dyson Dances

    Dorothy Dyson was the youngest daughter of Joseph Dyson junior and Jessie Christisen nee Strutt. Jessie was born in Melbourne, the youngest child of James Strutt, a draper and largely unsuccessful businessman who died in 1883 when she was only 5. Her mother, Annie Brown Brough was a young Scots immigrant from Perthshire who maintained links with her relatives in Scotland as well as her husband’s English family who settled in Tasmania.

    Annie relocated herself and her family to Western Australia sometime in the 1890s. She may have run a boarding house. One of the earliest references to the family in the west is of one of Jessie’s teenage brothers captaining a football game. Also in the Perth City side was a slightly older lad called Joseph Dyson.

    But first to be married in Western Australia was Jessie’s older sister Mabel to a man named Couch in 1895. A daughter soon followed. Of her, more later.

    In February 1900, Jessie married Joseph Dyson, junior, the only child of Joseph Dyson the elder, who in turn, was the eldest surviving son of James Dyson—who at his respectable peak, had been a long standing Perth City Councillor. Young Joseph had risen through the ranks of the colonial postal service in Western Australia to be, at the time of federation, in charge of the Perth GPO postal sorting division. His mother-in-law Annie Strutt died latter that same year. Despite contact being maintained with the Tasmanian Strutts, the identity of the family was solidly that of Annie’s Scottish heritage, to the point where, 100 years on, researchers of this side of the family came to their studies believing that the Dysons had always been Scottish. Any association with Joseph’s rather colourful family came to an end with the death of his father Joseph the Elder in 1912.

    The family were finally established in a house in York street, Subiaco, which they titled “Mandalay”. There’s no point looking for that house today, its been redeveloped. Dorothy Dyson was born towards the end of 1911, the only daughter of three surviving children.

    Mrs Jessie Strutt was an active member in the Caledonian Society, a Scottish cultural organisation in Australia which seems to have exploded into prominence  in WA during the gold rush of the late nineteenth century,  peaked in the first world war period and remained popular into the 1920s. Scottish dancing and music were organised and displays and competitions keenly contested.

    Miss Ethel Philp seems to have risen up through this system of dancing competititions and exhibitions. Born in 1899, in West Perth, she was about the same age as the Dyson’s eldest son Leslie Guy, born late 1900. Her parents were Victorians of Scottish ancestry, a very similar background to that of Mrs Jessie Dyson. Their families definitely mixed together for in 1916, Jessie’s niece (that daughter of Mrs Mabel Couch now grown up) married Ethel Philp’s older brother. By this time Miss Ethel had long been famous in Western Australia, as a prize-winning Scottish country dancer, and at the time of the outbreak of the first world war, famous for her dance school for young children. The papers of the time have numerous advertisements for such schools and it was expected that these schools or troupes would take part in parades, exhibitions or concerts, held in such prominent locations as the local town halls.

    Miss Ethel Philp’s break out year seems to have been 1916. She was only 17 herself, but she had a knockout child prodigy dancing star in her class. Aged 5, Baby Dyson, aka Miss Dorothy Dyson had arrived. Also, with the first world war at it’s peak, these colourful displays were used for fund raising and morale purposes. Mrs Jessie Dyson becomes more and more involved in the organisation of these spectacles, she was also a designer, and possibly a seamstress for many if not all the costumes.

    Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954) Sunday 23 November 1924 p30

    During and after the war, a routine was established. The dance school opened for students in March, and at the end of the year increasingly extravagant exhibitions were held in places such as King’s Hall in Subiaco or the Perth town hall. Occasionally the troupes went on tour to far-flung and exotic locations such as Albany. As Dorothy Dyson grows up the “baby” moniker is dropped and she wins more and more competitions in her own right. The sheer quantity of medals acquired in such a short time must be evidence of the number of events and competitions that were held in this state. I don’t have any evidence that she travelled out of it till much later.

    Not long after her 21st birthday (for which Dorothy danced for) Miss Ethel Philp married (Dorothy, aged 10, also dances at this event) but she continued her dance school under her maiden name. In 1924 Mrs Ethel Sheehan made a visit to the eastern states during the off months of January to March to learn the latest dance moves which presumably she teaches to the greatly impressed hicks back west…
    Meanwhile Dorothy performed at many functions for the Caledonian Society including a very popular gig on New Years Eve. She was also an early performer on radio in Western Australia, broadcasting from the Perth Town Hall.

    By age 14 Dorothy Dyson was teaching her very own class of child pupils. She would seem to be in direct competition with her old teacher, but it is more probable Ethel handed over her business to Dorothy as she retreated from it into marriage. Dorothy was a favourite with the press. Pretty much every year a paper would publish her picture about the time of her annual extravaganza in November or December. She never got a bad review. Almost immediately after that, she would depart on a ship, or later a train, with her mother, for the eastern states on a three month holiday, where they would visit relatives in Tasmania and Dance schools in Sydney and Melbourne. The social pages of the press would announce their departure and return.
    This situation continued up to Dorothy’s marriage to Mr Selby Norton in 1937. He was a dance partner of hers from at least 1933.
    Her father, Joseph, died a little over six months after her marriage.

    Mrs Selby Norton performed for a Red Cross fund raiser in 1939, but this is as far as my researches have reached.. So far.

    But I do know that the performance and dance tradition was maintained by her grand-children if they realise it or not…

  • Joseph Dyson the Elder: The Respectable one

    Joseph Dyson the Elder: The Respectable one

    Could the situation have got any more tragic for the Dyson family in the November of 1859? This is the family of James Dyson, the timber merchant of Perth, Western Australia we are talking about here, so yes it had been (and would be again).

    Since the death of Dyson’s first wife, the family had actually been doing fairly well. Convicts had arrived in the Colony during 1850 and cut labourer’s wages by 60%, It was hard at first, but Dyson was now an employer himself, and by utilising both free and ticket-of-leave workers, he was soon to be counted among the largest employers of labour in the colony.

    He was on the cusp of eligibility (through his growing real-estate holdings) to be selected as a juror, and hence, eligible to stand for public office. Having £150 in assets was the measure of tangible respectability for a man who was was yet to marry his future second wife, although they already had seven children together (including two from her previous marriage and three from his). They were counting down the days until her first husband could be declared legally dead. Dyson clashed in court with the Perth Town Trust over the right to collect timber on the Trust’s land, but soon he would be eligible not only to vote for councillors to that body, but be a councillor himself.

    Awards day: Inquirer (Perth, WA : 1840 – 1855) Wednesday 28 December 1853 page 3

    He had three sons on the cusp of manhood. William, the youngest surviving child by his first marriage was then twelve, and might have been a bit of a concern. He did not seem to have the academic nous of the next, Joseph, then fourteen, who was one of the first students to attend the state-run Perth Boy’s school in St George’s Terrace (when it was opened in 1854).

    Perth Boys School in 1861 photographed by Alfred Hawes Stone (SLWA) Joseph Dyson would have been among the first students to use this building. Other buildings including the courthouse were used before this.

    This is speculation based on the abject lack of any future positive mark William has left to posterity. There is a mention in 1887 that he may not have been able to hold his liquor (thus marking him out as a true Dyson), then there are a number of traffic offences (involving horses). One of these includes a fine for mistreating a horse, which leaves me unable to summon any affection for him whatsoever. William’s ending was sad. He did not seem able to function outside the family umbrella, so by the beginning of the 20th Century when the family of James Dyson had well and truly disintegrated, he was reduced to the situation of being a mad old bastard ranting about the extent of his family’s fortune back in the good old days.

    The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1950) Saturday 19 March 1904 p8

    The “Fremantle” they threatened him with was, of course, the insane asylum. The Old Men’s Depôt had not long been moved from it’s uncomfortably public location at the foot of Mt Eliza to a less confronting locale conveniently situated in Claremont. William was only 54 years old at the time. He lived the rest of his life in the Claremont Retreat, later known as Sunset Hospital, where he died, totally forgotten, in June 1915. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at Karrakatta. He had outlived all his immediate family.

    The Dysons had famously owned property in the Subiaco-Claremont area. In 1858 James purchased a wetland lake from George Shenton, senior. Apart from being one of the most influential merchants and financiers in the Colony, Shenton was also the chairman of the Perth Town Trust, yet despite that, seemed to hold Dyson in some high regard. Many years later, Dyson was compelled to sell the lake back to Shenton’s son, George, junior. The area around the lake was a significant camping ground for the Noongar inhabitants near Perth. Their name for the wetland area was Julabup, but from the time of Dyson’s possession of a British title deed, it became known as Dyson’s Swamp.

    There are no records of Dyson’s interactions with the aboriginal custodians of his property, so I remain cautiously hopeful relations were good. Julabup is now formally returned to its original label as Lake Julabup after a long stretch when it was known as Shenton Lake. But it will always be Dyson’s Swamp to me.

    Lake Julubup in 2016

    Dyson had been expanding from his original business as a timber cutter, to being a building contractor, market gardener, baker, butcher, brick-maker and general dealer. Not that he personally did any of these things—that was what convicts and family members were for. Dyson’s swamp was a key asset. The Perth city herd of cattle was marshalled just outside the north of the city. In theory the abbatoirs were supposed to be on the eastern edge of town, by the Claise Brook—In practice, butchers plied their trade wherever they had their premises. Dyson’s Perth city dwelling and butchery was on the corner of William and King Streets. This was the first Dyson’s Corner. Dyson’s swamp was a convenient watering area for the herd near the town, as such, it was quite a lucrative piece of real estate. No doubt it was also a useful source of timber that he could legally exploit. His eldest son might well have been carting timber on the bullock cart when James Dyson’s world fell apart.

    George Dyson might not have had the formal education of his younger brother, but he was described as sharp, active and industrious when aged nearly sixteen. It is not hard to imagine that he was his father’s pride and joy. Two months after his death, his desolate father was drinking himself into insensibility. It was a uniquely nineteenth century traffic accident. The bullocks pulling the cart had swerved suddenly and crushed the young lad between the wheels of the cart and a tree. He died a short time later. The accident certainly took place on the path to Dyson’s Swamp.

    An example of a bullock team from about three quarters of a century later in the south west of Western Australia. [SLWA]

    The grave site of George Dyson is lost. If George had lived, the fortunes of the Dyson clan might have been very different. But George was gone. His place as James’s heir was inherited, somewhat awkwardly, by James Dyson’s second son. This is where Joseph Dyson the Elder’s story really begins.

    …continued.