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 Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 26 Feb 1879 Page 4The 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.”
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.
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 p250The 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.
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:—
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.
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.[…]
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.
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!