REMINISCENCES 0F DANIEL WILSON
Daniel Wilson - Reminiscences dated December 1908.
Some of my descendants having expressed a wish that I would jot down a few of the experiences of my life, and as there are some that, even in the plainest of lives, may bear being related, I am now endeavouring to mention a few matters that may perhaps interest my own immediate connections. Many events however have happened to me which, if I had kept a diary, I could much better recall, and those which I now transcribe are those which naturally have left the deepest impressions on my mind. It is somewhat difficult to mention things that stand out more prominently than others, in one’s very young days, but there are one or two that may be worth recording.
I remember once my mother crying bitterly when some sad news came about one of her brothers – it’s a curious thing that nearly all the boys in Mr. Hebblewhite’s family (my mother was a Hebblewhite) turned out anything but what they should have done, whilst the girls were all of the highest and noblest character. I rather fancy old Grandfather Hebblewhite professed a little too much at times. I have read one of his diaries, and I found it a good deal overloaded with attempts at religious fervour. My grandmother on the other hand was, I think, a truly pious woman, and she told us that she had often met John Wesley1. Certain it is however that the boys took more or less to drink, and this particular one had done so, and coming to the end of his money, had enlisted and taken the Queen's Shilling, had gone out to India, and was one of the many unfortunates who were killed in the Kyber Pass. My poor mother was sadly cut up about it.
Another of these neer-do-wells my father put into business at Knottingley, and I sometimes went over as a boy, or very likely was sent by my father, to act as a check upon him, but I feel sure that it did not have the desired effect for, if I remember rightly, he was more often at the public house than attending to his business and consequently I believe my father, who was not by any means a good business man himself, lost heavily.
As youngsters we went to see the Miss Gaggs of Knottingley, who were connections of my father's, and who eventually left their property to my sisters. Sometimes again, as a holiday, we went to the farmhouse of our servants' father, and we enjoyed this vastly - servants in those days were real retainers of the family, and during my childhood, I do not remember any other servants that we had, than three sisters out of this family, and they must have been with my father and mother some 12 or 15 years to my knowledge, Servant’s wages then were about £8 a year, and they were up early and late. I can remember one of them who used to get up long before anyone else in the house to get the breakfast ready - she used to stick in the ashes a long match about a foot long. and pointed at each end with sulphur, the only matches of the day, with which to renew the fire, which had been banked up the night before.
Coal was cheap in Wakefield then. My father used to get in a couple of loads at a time, direct from the pit's mouth, about a mile away at 8/- a big load. This used to be emptied into an underground cellar, to the great amusement of us boys.
We lads often went to Cottingham, my mother's birthplace, to see our grandmother and aunts. My grandfather had long ere this died pretty wealthy. Cottingham was a delightful
1 From Wikipedia: John Wesley (1703 – 1791) was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day.
place, and we thoroughly enjoyed being there, as I dare say did my poor mother, who always having a most anxious time with my father, enjoyed a brief respite from business worries, and going once more over the places of her youth, had a time of rest and happiness.
Wakefield, where I was born, was the County Town, and at election times riots would often occur, the Chartists used to come over in great numbers from Leeds, to attend the meetings of the candidates, and I well recollect that once I saw a great riot. Stones were thrown in all directions, an ongoing out next day to view the result, I saw that there was not a window left whole in one entire street - and I remember a man who had an out-door crockery stall just underneath one of the windows of our house, getting his horse and dray in a great hurry, and scampering off with the remains of the crockeryware which had not been smashed with the flying stones.
My father had an excellent business in Wakefield left him by his uncle Mr. Addey, who had retired with a fortune. Beyond this he had a splendid help-mate in his wife, my dear mother, who had inherited first class business qualities from her father, and with these advantages he should have been able at one time to have retired with a competency, and in this case it would materially have altered the whole course of my life, as well doubtless of those of his other, children, of who beside myself were two daughters and four sons, one son having died in infancy, leaving myself the eldest son. He was, however, more inclined to literary pursuits, was an excellent geologist, and his greatest enjoyment was to wander about the tops of old coalpits, picking up specimens and taking home various stones out of the different strata, polishing them with a machine which he had in one of the top rooms of the house (which, by the way, always much interested us boys,) writing perhaps various articles on his finds to other geologists, quite oblivious of the business which was thus left to subordinates. On these expeditions he often took one or two of us with him and was quite happy in thus ignoring all financial cares. Of course we boys were quite overjoyed to accompany him on this expeditions, and many were the old quarries and mounds thrown up by old coal pits near Wakefield that we scampered and romped over whilst my father was tapping and breaking specimens, which he used to examine with a pocket magnifying glass that he carried on such occasions, my poor mother very likely anxious at home, and wondering how the next business bill at the bank was to be met. She had been brought up by her father and mother with every wish gratified, no financial worries had hitherto troubled her, but, with a husband like my father, and a growing family of boys and girls, many is the time, I feel sure, that she wondered what in the end would become of us. How fortunate, as it turned out, that she could not foresee the future.
My father also wrote a great deal of poetry and some of his effusions were published, and were I think more than of ordinary merit. One I recollect was that of "Dudley Castle in the Olden Time". I am afraid however that this also was a losing speculation, for as a very young lad I remember great piles of these copies which had come back from the printers, and I fancy that those which did go into circulation were not sales, but gifts from the author to his friends. I wish now that I had a few copies, but I am afraid that there is scarcely one amongst all his numerous descendants.
My parents managed however to give me a fair education principally at the old Queen Elizabeth Grammar School2 in the fields not far from the Parish Church, situated beyond a very slummy part of the town, and we had to run the gauntlet every day of a very odorous passage to get to it. Schools in my boyish days were very different to what they are now, and
2 History of Queen Elizabeth Grammar School – Wakefield from Wikipedia: Queen Elizabeth Grammar School
the Rev. W. Carter3, the headmaster was simply a very cruel tyrant, especially to those boys against whom he had a grudge, notably two brothers who were boarders at his house not very far away from the school. These boys he used to beat unmercifully. I have seen him put the poor little fellows on the end of a desk and then take a run so as to put the full power of his strength into the cane with which he belaboured them, and only left off when he himself was exhausted, the poor wretches screaming at the top of their voices.
If this sort of thing took place in these days, the man would be scouted out of all decent society. It used to make my blood boil even as a boy, and how our fathers and mothers put up with it so long, passes my comprehension. It was generally surmised that these boys' fathers could not pay up. Whether this was so or not I cannot say, but we could not see any reason why he should beat them so shamefully, and at the same time, never thrash young B--- whose father was notably rich, and aw well known large brewer. B-- never received this treatment. B-- always had plenty of pocket money, sported a watch which in those days' cost money, and was the envy of all of us other boys. Oh, yes, B-- was a bird of quite another feather.
Mr. Carter was nicknamed “Jerry”, and I remember well when I had left the school, which I did for a temporary period, I took a savage pleasure one holiday in cutting out his name "Jerry Carter" in one of the out-house doors of the school through which he often went. Perhaps it was poor spite, but I have always had a wholesome and sad memory of my school days there.
My father, perhaps thinking that an entire change would be beneficial, sent me as a boarder to Wesley College, Sheffield, or as it was called when I went to it "the Wesleyan Proprietary School". This proved a good school, and shortly after I went the Rev. Samuel Waddy4, father of Waddy, K.C5. was installed as governor and his rule, though somewhat strict, was fair. There were over 100 boys at the College. 'The dietary regimen was not at all likely to give us indigestion, and we always had an excellent appetite. Our breakfast and tea consisted of a basin of tea or coffee, and dry bread; no butter being allowed. We had regular dishes for our dinners. The time, however, there, was on the whole, enjoyable. Mr. Waddy laid himself out to make our time as pleasant as possible. We had great cricket matches with a Church of England Collegiate School. Sometime entertainments in the Lecture Hall. I recollect one of these was a lecture by the old poet, James Montgomery6, who lived near us.
Our masters were painstaking and conscientious - punishment by the cane was administered privately and rarely, not like at the Grammar School, where it was a daily occurrence. Once for a day's outing, we were all taken in drags to the Blue John Mine over the Moors in Derbyshire. In a large cavern of the mine about 150 of us boarders and day boarders all told, stood round in a ring, and every fourth boy holding a candle, we sang a hymn. Another time we went to Roche Abbey7, whilst in the winter we went to skate on some of the dams near
3 The Rev John (not W) Carter was Headmaster at QEGS from 1837 to 1847. The period when Daniel Wilson would have attended.
4 Dr Samuel Dousland Waddy (1804-1876) was born on 5 August 1804 at Burton-onTrent. He raised eyebrows early in his ministry by wearing a gown and bands in the pulpit at Hull. An enthusiastic advocate of education, he was instrumental in establishing Wesley College, Sheffield, of which he was Governor and Chaplain 18441862.
5 Samuel Dousland Waddy's older son Samuel Danks Waddy QC (1830-1902), known as 'Judge Waddy', was born at Gateshead and educated at Wesley College, Sheffield.
6 James Montgomery (4 November 1771 – 30 April 1854) was a Scottish-born hymn writer, poet and editor, who eventually settled in Sheffield.
7 Roche Abbey - Wikipedia entry
Sheffield. Once a whole crowd of us boys gathered together in the middle of the dam, and this being a great strain on the ice, an ominous and loud report frightened us so that we scampered off as quickly as we could in different directions. Had it given way with us, there would have been a great loss of life.
A paper was started in the school, and I recollect two lads upon whom we others looked down very much, rather astonished us by their names being appended to the decidedly best articles in it. One of them took a good degree at Cambridge, became a missionary to the South Sea Islands, and writing several books upon them afterwards was thought so well of as to be pensioned by the Imperial Government. I met him often afterwards in Australia, and we used to talk of our old schoolboy days. He died a few years ago. On the whole this portion of my life is pleasant to look back upon, but I eventually came again to the Grammar School, but soon, however, to my great joy, the Rev. Carter was removed, and his place was taken by the Rev. S. Taylor, who was, in my opinion, a very clever, earnest, and industrious master, a bit of a martinet but nothing like the despot who had ruled there before him.
I was advancing at this time in the school and my father and Mr. Taylor8 wished me very much to try for a Sizarship9 belonging to the school, and to go to Cambridge and take my degree, but being of a bashful disposition and never, although I say it myself, valuing myself at anything like a proper estimate, I got the idea into my head that I should not succeed at the examination for it, and urged my father to take me away from the school and apprentice me to a surgeon. I have since regretted this very much. My bashfulness was a great deal owing to the way in which I was brought up. I was naturally very retiring, and my father and mother seeing this should, I think, have insisted upon my coming out as much as possible, but I was allowed to keep entirely to my own society, and could scarcely say a word for myself in company. I have endeavoured with my own children to counteract this drawback, and I have not regretted it. Children in those days were told to be "seen not heard" and although we may perhaps now err a little on the other side, I feel sure that the greater fault and danger lies with too much bashfulness.
I went to a gentleman at Leeds and was apprenticed to him for 5 years. He had a large practice amongst the poor people. At first I rather envied other pupils whose fathers were rich enough to put them with gentlemen who had a far higher standing in the profession than mine had, but the premiums paid for them, some £400 or so, were very different to what my father could afford £100. However, I afterwards found that this was greatly in my favour, as our patients, as I said, were mostly poor people I saw a great deal more real practice. I often listened to some of the long harangues that some of them delighted to favour me with, and I dosed them myself with Epsom Salts and cream of tartar with burnt sugar to cover it and disguise it. I took out their teeth in the old-fashioned way with the key. I did the vaccinations upon crowds of the poor little children every week, and sometimes went the whole round of patients if my governor had been up at a midwifery case during the night and wanted a sleep. On such occasions I thought no end of myself, going out in a carriage with a man in livery, and tried to look as solemn and consequential as I could, but being only 18 my great trouble was that I looked so young. No matter what airs of solemnity and assurance I put on, my youthful appearance was always against me, and I could see very well that my advice was always taken with a considerable grain of salt. But for all that I often went out when roused up in the middle of the night by the night bell. I could come to the
8 The Rev, James Taylor was Headmaster at QEGS from 1847 to 1875
9 a sizar is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job.
window (in my night attire) which looked over our back street, and opening the large pane which was hinged on purpose for such events, listened to the summons, and perhaps my governor, not thinking it worth his while to leave his snug bed for a Lodge patient, I had to get up and trudge through the back lanes and streets to visit some poor man in the low slums of this large town two or three miles away, and come back with the attendant to the surgery, and make up some harmless medicine, which I thought would do, until Mr. W -could see him next day, and then tired, turned into bed, perhaps to be roused again before morning. In fact, during the year 1848, when the cholera was raging with great violence, we scarcely ever went to bed at all until about 3 in the morning, as it would have been of no use.
I had at that time a fellow pupil who was older and in advance of me. Mr. W-- and he used to visit all they could, whilst I was left to make up the medicines, which in those days was done in our own surgery and dispensing room. The charges in those days were very different to what they are now. Visits were l/6d, medicines 1/-, midwifery cases 10/6 in rare cases 21/-. Lodge patients used to have medicines and attendance for 7½d per quarter, or 2/6 a year. Of course, the Lodges some of them were large, and consisted of say two or three hundred members, and as they all paid 7½d each, and also had to pay the usual prices for attendance to their wives and children, it was worth taking up. I was often sent with the quarterly account, and many times I have waited outside the Lodge room doors in public houses (which doors were faithfully guarded against non-members) until the money was forthcoming.
The cholera kept us very busy. Fathers of families would come with long faces, to ask what they should do to avoid the dread disease, we ourselves being quite careless about taking the infection, and although many serious and fatal cases occurred with but scant notice, the patient often being taken ill one day, and dead the next, we seemed to lead a charmed life. Funerals were passing by our place to the cemetery all day long. My governor, who was decidedly a clever man, had an idea that it was a loss of electricity in the human body which laid one open to the dire attack, and he used to advise us to put gutta percha soles on to our boots, as they were non-conductors. This. we did for two reasons; one for the immunity from the plague, and the other because they were cheap. We put them on ourselves and found that they wore very well. It is rather strange, but at my present age I am reverting to India rubber heels which I find give me a good deal of ease in walking.
I have often wondered since how it was that I was so indifferent to the danger of infection. I went into shocking places in the slums. I remember going to visit one place where five children were in bed in the same room with virulent smallpox, proper sanitary measures being in those days very loosely attended to. Another time I got into a third-class railway carriage with a woman and boy whose face was covered up - "Poor little fellow" said the woman, "he is just recovering from the smallpox . But I went to these and other low typhoid cases without feeling in the slightest degree afraid. My governor used, however, to give me advice as to certain steps to take to avoid the danger. In visiting to sit at the bed side of the patient, and not in front from where their breath would be likely to be inhaled, to wash my hands after feeling the pulse, etc. He was very particular himself, and all silver and other monies he received in coins, he used to wash in the surgery lavatory before he put them into his pocket.
The coroner, being a friend of my governor's, we had a good many inquest cases, and at times some very gruesome ones, especially when the subject had perhaps been found in the river after about a fortnight's immersion. In these cases, the bodies used to swell up
tremendously and were difficult to sew up after being examined. We then were very particular as to any cuts we had about our hands, for if we had got blood poisoning it might have been very serious. We had many bad cases of this latter kind among the butchers, and they were warnings.
I was very sorry soon to lose my fellow pupil and being alone the time used to hang very heavily on my hands, and as someone was required to be always in attendance when any patients came, I could not go out without permission. I had however, a great consolation in the books of two libraries. My governor had the right to two sets of books at the Leeds Library, and he used to let me have the use of one set. I used also to choose his books for him, he never seemed satisfied at his own choice, and so I often went over in the carriage after the visits on the round were finished, to choose his and my own books. I devoured a great many books. Novels in those days used to come out in 3 volumes published at 31/6d a set, and I usually managed to get through a volume a day. Those of Sir Walter Scott, James, Fenimore Cooper, Bulwer Lytton, besides many others. I got quite annoyed when a confounded patient came to have a tooth out, or wanted some mixture, and perhaps wanted me to listen to a long account of ailments. It is a strange thing how some people like to dilate on all the symptoms that have taken place in their lives. Mr .W-- when bored by a patient of this kind, had an agreement with me that he would come out and say, "Mr. Daniel, I think the gas must be escaping somewhere. I knew then what gas he meant, and I used to go down and ring a bell in the yard violently, and then rush up and tell him he was wanted immediately, which generally had the effect of routing the objectionable character. We used, as I said, to dispense our own drugs. I rarely made mistakes. I smelt at a new bottle of Hydrocyanic (Prussic) Acid10 once which nearly knocked me down, a very small quantity is a fatal dose. Another time I do believe I made an error in some baby's mixture. I know the baby died, but I am quite sure that it would have done so in any case, so there was no necessity to say anything about it, nor did it disturb my sleep. We had many cases of children's deaths amongst the poor people who could not afford to keep them, and my governor used to say that not a few of the cases where the mother used to sleep too soundly, and the babies were found suffocated in the morning, were greatly open to suspicion. Medical men see many curious things behind the scenes, and some of them came within my ken. So we went on. I began to wonder however I should get the fees for hospital lectures so as to get my diplomas as M.R.C’s. and L.S.A. as my poor father at this time was in greater straits than ever. I determined that when my time was up with Mr W-- that if I could not get the money other ways to go as a medical assistant at about £10 to £15 a year and try to save something out of this for my fees when circumstances happened which at once altered the whole course of my life.
Mr. W-- used to send all the weekly papers into my room after he had read them, and one morning the news came about the wonderful discoveries of gold in Australia. I read the accounts with fever heat. No more scraping for pennies I thought if I could get away, no more wondering how I should manage to get a new pair of boots, or a new shirt, if (and here was the trouble) if I could get my indentures cancelled, and by any means get the money for my passage by a sailing vessel. However, I determined to try what I could do. I wrote the same day to my father telling him that I had fully made up my mind (I was only 20 years of age) to go to Australia, and that he must in some way or other try to get my indentures cancelled; and I wrote to my mother also painting the thing in glowing colours. She, poor thing, had already lost one of her sons, my brother Alfred who had gone to Canada. But she was weighed down with anxiety, and the gloomy position of things, my father getting more
involved than ever, and she perhaps hoped that my emigrating to the New Eldorado would turn out well. I often wonder how she placed such confidence in us, but it was a fact that when other boys were not allowed by their parents to go boating, fishing, swimming or skating she had such faith in us that we were entirely trusted, and this perhaps it was that gave us self-reliance, and which stood me in great stead in after life. The wonderful account of the great finds of gold fired my imagination and I fancied I saw in this distant enchantment "a solution of all our monetary difficulties".
It ended, therefore, that if at all practicable, I was to go. My father somehow got a few pounds together to satisfy Mr. W-- and after that there was the passage money. How to get that: I could, I found, get a third class for about £12. I sold some odd bits of jewellery and a watch, and by these means got sufficient to land me in Liverpool, pay my passage, and still leave me 25/- to see me through the voyage, and land me 16,000 miles away on the other side of the globe. Fleets of vessels were sailing every day from London and Liverpool, taking thousands all bent on the same bright prospects. I at length left Leeds, spent a few days in my native town, and one morning which I shall never forget the omnibus came up to the house for myself and box, and so bidding a dreadful good-bye, I tried to kiss the tears from my poor mother's face whom I left prostrated with grief, and whom I was fated never to see again in this world, came with my father on to Liverpool.
We visited the boat in dock that night, and it looked anything but inviting, with the great confusion and preparation for departure. Slept at an hotel, and early the following day, I left my poor father standing at the dock side, and as long as we could see each other, waved our farewells. The boat went into the river, and we were soon afterwards tugged down to the mouth of the Mersey, the sails unfurled to the weird songs of the sailors, and we got under way for the other end of the world.
We had over five hundred passengers on board our ship of 1,000 tons and were packed like herrings in a barrel. Many of my shipmates were well-educated men, university men, barristers, and others, who were bent on the same mad, speculation. For the first few years, after the discovery of gold, thousands of young fellows, the flower of England, crowded the ships. Amongst others on our vessel was young Oglesby11 of Wakefield, and Wardel12 his cousin. These young men had fine voices, and oftentimes at night, we gathered on the deck and sang the songs of the day. Those with choruses being especially favoured. I shall not easily forget one song, which I am not ashamed to say often brought the tears to my eyes.
One by Thomas Haynes Bailey13 .
Shades of evening close not o’er us, Leave our lonely bark a while, Morn alas! will not restore us, Yonder dim and distant isle.
Still my fancy can discover, Sunny spots where friends may dwell, Darker shadows round us hover,
11 Richard Oglesby also arrived in Melbourne on the Merlin with Daniel Wilson in 1852 –Born 1830 at Huddersfield, Yorkshire England – parents Richard Oglesby and Charlotte Loveday. He died at the Ovens Diggings from dysentery between 12 Sep 1852 & 3 Oct 1853 (refer letter home from S B Lee below) – no death was registered.
12 Passenger records indicate that Henry Carpenter Wardle aged 28, occupation farmer, arrived in Melbourne on the Merlin with Daniel Wilson on 12 Sep 1852. He was born in 1824 in Yorkshire England & died in 1910 in Perth Western Australia.
13 Thomas Haynes Bayly (or Bayley) - (13 Oct 1797 – 22 Apr 1839) was an English poet, songwriter, dramatist and writer.
Isle of beauty, fare thee well.
Tis the hour when happy faces, Smile around the taper light, Who will fill our vacant places, Who will sing our songs tonight?
When on that dear land I ponder, Where my old companions dwell, Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Isle of beauty, fare thee well.
And we had to rouse ourselves, build fanciful castles in the air for the future, with “Cheer Boys Cheer “, “There is work for honest labour'' and other songs.
Our part of the vessel was anything but pleasant, no light we had to eat all our meals in semi-darkness. In fact, we could never see what was in our tin plates, a little reflected light only coming from a gangway. We had certain provisions given out to us to ensure the best of them ourselves. Flour, oatmeal, raisins, salt meat, salt, hard biscuits, and the use of the galley fire to cook our own concoctions. Our dressing and sleeping accommodation which was in one berth was a space of 8’ 6” x 6’ 6”. A Scotchman and Dr. Eccles14, a Canadian and myself, the 6th person I have forgotten as many others in the cabin were confined in the same small space, we saw at once on the score of health, the necessity in keeping our cabins in something like order and cleanliness.
I omitted to mention that a few days before I left England a fellow young man called Lee15 came up to our house and saying that he heard that I was going out he would like to go with me, at which I was very glad. He had £30, and after paying for his passage money in the 2nd cabin, it left him with £5 when he got on board, but as was. Playing 1oo during the Passenger records indicate that Robert Eccles, Surgeon arrived on the Merlin with Samuel Belton Lee born c1829 at Leicestershire England and died on 29 June 1911 at Brighton, Victoria. He arrived on the Merlin on 12 Sep 1852 with Daniel Wilson. He lived in Taradale and became a mine manager, farmer and a member of the Taradale Cricket Team. The property originally farmed by S. B. Lee would become Rock Farm in Potts Road Taradale originally owned by William Maltby.
voyage, he landed in Melbourne with about 2/6, so my 25/- and what I could raise on some things I sold, had to do for the both of us. My father had given me a Dolland telescope which I sold for 30/-, found it was worth £5 afterwards. A feather bed my poor mother had furnished me with went for 17/6 and some other things brought the amount up to about £10.
Nothing very remarkable had happened on the voyage out. We were three months on board, and I do not think our captain was very sure of his whereabouts, it being his first voyage to Australia. He made a point of sighting land when he could do so, so as to verify his course. The Madeira Isles, Peak of Teneriffe, the Cape, and Table Mountain, all in turn, though I believe we should not have gone near the latter if we had taken a proper course. But he was wise to be sure, and at the Cape, it gave me the first opportunity of sending letters home by a vessel going back from India. We did not land there, land there, but came away again for the East.
Soon after leaving the Cape we encountered a big storm, and our ship was tossed about on the tops of the waves, which threatened to engulf us, but I think she was a fair sailor, and so we escaped. One moonlight night however, one of our passengers, when the ship's deck was at an angle of 45 degrees, slid down to the lee side, and getting to the bulwarks, just when the ship gave an extra lurch, was thrown overboard into the sea. “A man overboard" was shouted out, and many of the brave sailors rushed to one of the boats for the rescue, but the captain, hurrying up at the moment, saw that no boat could live in such a sea, and ordered them all out. I believe someone threw a light buoy to the poor fellow as he was seen in the distance, which it is to be hoped he never got. This threw a damper on all our spirits, and a curious thing in connection with this was that he was known to have had about £30 in his clothes, but that when the captain went to take possession of his effects for his relatives, none of this money could be found. A man in his cabin was always supposed to have taken it, but of course it could not be traced. The money must have been extracted almost immediately.
We reached Australia at length, and very glad we all were to see land again. We got into Port Phillip Bay, and the first thing that happened, was that the pilot ran us aground on a sandbank which took us a whole day to get off, and which was exceedingly provoking after such a long and tedious voyage and being naturally most anxious to land. However, we got up to Hobson's Bay, and found it full of vessels, without any sailors, for they had all gone off to the diggings, sails all furled, the captain often being the only one to look after the ship.
Our captain chartered a tugboat, to take us and our belongings up the Yarra about 4 miles to Melbourne. It was then called the Yarra Yarra stayed there about three years, and to which place my daughter Florence returned from England. My family increased. Harold was born in Taradale and came with us as a baby to Bairnsdale. 16, "flowing flowing", a native name. We
16 The local First Nation people’s name for the Yarra River was said to have stemmed from words such as Yarra-Yarra, Yarrow-yarrow & Yarro-Yarro, which was claimed to be a Wurundjeri term in the Boonwurrung language meaning “ever-flowing.” The river’s actual name, in Melbourne’s local Kulin languages, is ‘Birrarung’ (‘river of mists’). The Yarra
landed September 12th, 1852, the beginning of the summer and rainy season, and the wharf and its surroundings were heaps of mud up to our knees. We got our boxes ashore as well as we could and went to an eating house in the lower part of the town, where the proprietor gave us fair meals and the use of a long stretcher, upon which about 25 of us could sleep together for 2/6d each, meal and bed, finding of course our own blankets.
The rats were jumping in and out of the water that surrounded the stretcher during the night, so next day we bought some canvas, and made a tent, which would hold about eight or ten of us by lying close together on the ground, somewhere near Flemington Bridge where we pitched it.
There was not then a house beyond the old cemetery at the top of Elizabeth Street, and the land all up to Flemington was one dreary plain, with the stumps of trees showing above ground.
The place was infested with foot pads, and the next night after we had fixed up our tent, Davy one of my shipmates came running in with his face all covered with blood. It seems that coming in from Melbourne, and when near us he was struck by about 5 or 6 of these desperadoes. One of them fired at him, and missing him, struck him a heavy blow with the butt end of the pistol laying his forehead open. Davy, who had a long knife, drew it out of the sheaf, and stabbed the man, but whether it hurt him or not, he did not know. But it had the effect of making him lose the hold he had got of him, which Davy took advantage of and ran for his life. He had a sum of £80 on him at the time. We others expected to be attacked, and got our pistols and weapons out, but the men must have cleared off as we were not further disturbed. Being the only man who knew anything of wounds and having fortunately my little pocket case of instruments which I had brought with me from home, thinking it might be useful, sewed Davy' s face up, and as it turned out afterwards, made a good job of it as he was very little marked.
We left Flemington next day, packing up our goods, blankets, etc., fastened them on our backs as well as we could and made a start for the Mount Alexander Gold fields which we found then to be the most popular, some 80 miles away. The road was lined with drays of all kinds, carts, bullock wagons with goods and provisions enroute for the diggings. At starting it came on to rain heavily, and the road was a mass of mud coming by what is now called Dean's Hotel, at Moonee Ponds, we could scarcely get through it. We must have come with our swags on our backs right past where I have been living at St. Olave’s for the last 35 years, but we made slow progress and somewhere about Broadmeadows came across a settler, who had a paddock by the roadside. We begged of him to allow us to put up our tent in his ground which we did in the rain, and at last laid down on the wet ground under cover. Very miserable we all were that night, and we did not get much sleep, as not being able, under the circumstances to properly fix the canvas the rain came through it.
Next morning, however, it was fine, and we again made a start on the road, getting that night as far as Jackson's Creek, and in a bend of it we again put up our tent. This site is now
River and the Colonial Act of Naming. “The naming of the northern riverside park ‘Birrarung Marr’ in 2002, ….pays homage to the Yarra’s actual name. In the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung languages this means ‘riverside’ or ‘beside Birrarung’.”
occupied by a splendid mansion belonging to the late Sir William Clarke17, the ground being when we were on it old Mr. Clarke's property. Coming in touch with a Chinese during the day, as we trudged on, and who seemed very willing to attach himself to our party, we allowed him to come along with us, and he turned out very useful in helping us to cook things we knew very little about, as our only experience had been on the ship, and we had no cooking utensils with us beyond a frying pan and camp kettle so had to make fritters of flour. Next day, being Sunday, we stayed there, one of our party shot a bird and our Chinaman cooked it somehow and we found it good.
However, before leaving the ship matters, I ought to have mentioned that in the second cabin was a little girl seven years of age, who was corning with her father and uncle and two brothers. Her father and uncle had been sea captains and having met with some, reverse, her father also having lately lost his wife, they all determined to try their fortunes in the new land. I got intimate with them through Lee who was in the same part of the ship but as I was twenty years of age, I did not pay much attention to this young lassie who afterwards however became my dear wife and with whom I have now lived nearly fifty years. What small matters turn the whole course of our lives. Little did I think that when I left the shores of old England, in the good ship "Merlin" I had my future wife on board with me18
Well, to resume, on the Monday we got once more on the road. We kept together as much as possible. The roads were dangerous to single individuals, so many bushrangers being about who made short work of anyone they robbed. Life was little thought of and the sad notices which for many years appeared in the newspapers asking for information of this or other young man who had left the home circles never to be heard of more points to the suspicion of untimely ends. We got next day to the Bush Inn or as it is since named Gisborne, and as soon as we had put up our tent on the flat near the creek, the rain came down in torrents and we began to think that the flat might be flooded in the night and that it would be downright dangerous, so we made for the Inn whose proprietor allowed as to lie on the floor the night for 3/- each and glad enough we were to think we were under shelter and that our blankets and selves would not be wet through that night at any rate. When we rose in the morning, as we anticipated there was a big flood so we had to leave our tent and make our way without it. At this place we entered the Black Forest, which had a most evil reputation for bushrangers, but as we were known to be going to the diggings and not returning with gold, were not molested. We kept however pretty close together and as having met other shipmates there were now sixteen of us, we presented a good front. My mate Lee, for some reason left us in the middle of the forest and decided to stop at a wayside shanty but I determined to go on. How he was going to manage I could not tell as he had no money whatever and my little remains of cash was all he had to depend upon, but he was always of a devil-may-care nature and trusted to something turning up in his favour. I with the others got to Carlsruhe that night where we were again allowed to sleep on the floor for the same money as in the last.
17 Sir William Clarke (1831 – 1897) biography from the Australian Dictionary of Biography: Sir William John Clarke
18 Passenger records indicate that John Gardiner Jackson, his brother Alfred and his children Alfred, Alice (Daniel Wilson’s future wife) and Robert arrived in Melbourne on the Merlin on 12 Sep 1852.
Next day only to Kyneton, a distance of six miles where I thought I had better wait for Lee, the others with the exception of one who stayed with me, going on. I had to pay 5/- each for my tea, bed and breakfast which made a terrible hole into my little cash with nothing to calculate on in the near future. I have often wondered since how it was we put such unlimited faith in the bare fact of simply getting to the diggings, but so it was and at last having met with Lee again, at the end of a week we got to Forrest Creek diggings. Going up I had noticed gangs of men forming the roads by making side-drains etc. I asked one of them what they got, and they said 10/- per day. I stored this in my mind as a resort. We landed in Forrest Creek with very little money, not enough to pay for the license fee which was 30/-. I bought 12 yards of calico at 2/6 per yard with which to make another tent but the lookout for stopping there, in an illegal manner (for no one was allowed to stay even in the field without a license) was a poor one indeed. We had bought two loaves of bread at 3/- a 2 lb. loaf, at Sawpit Gully19 going up, together with a hind quarter of mutton for 4/-, meat being the only cheap thing to be had. We made shift to manage along for a day or two, “Something surely would turn up”. I tried to dodge the troopers and go into some old holes and dig for gold but as I knew nothing whatever of digging and was not at all used to manual labour, did no good beside being frightened that the police might pounce upon me at any moment and haul me up to the Commissioner’ s court where they showed no mercy. The Colony was entirely under a semi-military government. Officials who had been used to treat convicts in N.S.W. and Van Dieman’s land in a very lordly and tyrannical manner had no idea of treating colonists in a civilized way as British born subjects expected. This eventually resulted in the Ballarat riots where the diggers resented this kind of domination and the poor fellows who sacrificed their lives on that occasion deserve well of their country, for from that time it was seen that this kind of treatment would not do. Many of these men were gentlemen and to chain them up to logs and drive them like sheep to the Courts was a common occurrence.
One case which came under my immediate notice may be cited as an example of the way the diggers, many of them as I said, gentlemen, were treated. One of our passengers in the “Merlin” one Saturday after knocking off work, changed his diggers clothes, accidently leaving his license in his other pocket, and walking about 10 yards from his tent door was accosted by the police who demanded it. He was not allowed to go to his tent, immediately arrested, taken three miles to the camp, chained to a log then put into the horrible gaol there and kept all Sunday and to Monday morning until the Commissioners could sit. Whilst going up in charge of the police he met one of his young sons and got him to run back for the license, telling him where to find it and follow him quickly with it. This he did and on the Monday morning were charged with not having a license, produced it explaining the circumstances, result 40/- fine. This was the kind of treatment meted out on all the diggings.
19 The township of Elphinstone was originally called Sawpit Gully, but was renamed Elphinstone after Baron Mountstuart Elphinstone (6 Oct 1779 – 20 Nov 1859), LieutenantGovernor of Bombay from 1819 to 1827. The name Sawpit Gully might have lingered on, but the first reference to it as Elphinstone appears to be in October 1852.
My medical knowledge stood me in good stead in my first years of the goldfields. I had a wholesome dread of sleeping on the damp ground without some intervening substance to keep the moisture from getting to my blankets and when it happened that I had to sleep on the ground, I put a piece of table oilcloth as a bottom layer. At Forest Creek I made a sort of stretcher between two saplings and stretching a piece of canvas between them so kept myself from the ground. It was very primitive however, and my sleep was often disturbed by its being so uncomfortable, but it was better than nothing and it is to this, that now in my old age, I ascribe my immunity from rheumatism and kindred complaints.
The imperative question now stared us in the face, of how to keep the wolf from the door as the little cash was nearly all spent. Lee and myself thinking of the road gangs, determined to make our way to one of them and try to get work, so we set off one day but were unsuccessful at the one lot nearest to Forest Creek as they said they had plenty of men, so went on further towards Sawpit Gully or Elphinstone as it is now called, to another lot of workers at a place called in those days Back Creek (Taradale afterwards}. Going down the road we got into conversation with a man in an empty dray, who told us he was employed by some people of the name of Ellis20, Fellmongers, who carried on their business on the Coliban River and who lived at the place now called Malmsbury. He told us they were Yorkshire people and that they came from Ossett near Wakefield. He gave us a lift in his cart and Lee thought it likely that if he went on and saw them, he might get work from them, his business in Wakefield having been amongst wool people whilst I could try to get employment on the road party. We should then have two strings to our bow. In the latter case I succeeded, and the overseer told me to come on the next day and he would put me on at 10/- a day. This was Wednesday and I decided to go back, bring my tent down and start on the Friday. which would give me a pound at the end of the week, and this was carried out.
Lee and I spent the last shilling we had between us in the hotel for a drink and we came along next day with our belongings. It began to rain again, and I put up the tent that night in the wet and got somehow under cover, but it came down so heavily afterwards that I was nearly swamped out in the night so got very little sleep, got up early, lit a fire and soon had the camp kettle on it and the water boiling and made some coffee. Lee had gone on to the Coliban, so I was by myself. I went on to work or rather I should say, appearing to work at a side drain. The overseer was, however, nothing of a martinet, rather fond of his glass and generally speaking, had a sleep in his tent in the afternoon whilst we made a pretence of doing something. Time was up about 5 o'clock. I had been able to dry my clothes a little the first day as it turned out fine so slept a little better that night and as the next day was Saturday, we were told to knock off at 12 o'clock. We got orders for the money due to us, had to go to some police station at Sawpit Gully, three miles off for it and that day I handled the first money ever I had earned for myself viz 20/-, I am afraid the Government did not get value for it.
At Sawpit Gully was a store so bought what provisions would last me for the next week viz: 10 lb flour 15/0, Hindquarter mutton 3/6, Salt, pepper, tea, etc. 1/6
I felt set up again, anticipating that I should have £3 at the end of the next week.
20 Joseph William Ellis of Coliban Falls Farm near Malmsbury, born on 30 Nov 1825 at Ossett, Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England & died 2 June 1896 at Coliban Falls, Malmsbury, Victoria. His wife Sarah Ellis (nee Parkin) born 1830 Hull, Yorkshire, England & died 29 Sep 1910 at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Sunday was the day for washing our shirts, tidying up the tent, as I had no conveniences of any kind, the flour was kept in paper bag, the mutton hung on a pole outside in a calico bag to keep off the flies which began to be very troublesome. Nothing of great importance occurred for the next week or so. I managed to live on the 20/- a week and save the two pounds. Lee had got work at the Ellis' at the Coliban could do. My work was by no means a strain upon me, little even as I could do. I was asked once or twice by some of the crews of diggers going and returning past us to the goldfields what I had been sent out for as they took us for convicts working on the roads, had a rather narrow escape of my career being abruptly closed by our overseer who was meddling with a pistol in front of me and I told him to turn it on one side, when as he did so, it immediately went off and lodged a bullet in a tree, it would have gone through my stomach if I had not spoken.
I had an idea of starting a coffee shop on the roadside when I could save enough money to put up a bigger tent and I went down to the Ellis' s to consult them about it. They encouraged the idea. When in Leeds my fellow pupils and myself often used to make ourselves summer drinks with acid and soda and flavouring essences that were in the surgery and I thought perhaps that I could turn this to account, make these drinks and sell them to some of the hundreds and hundreds of people passing. The Ellis' helped me to get a small keg and tap, glasses, a pound of tartaric acid which cost me 20/-, a pound of carbonate of soda for which I paid 3/- and having expended by £8 which I had saved in four weeks in these and other necessaries, I put up a good large tent on the roadside and began to sell. This was a success from the first, with sugar, acid and essence of lemon, I made good lemon syrup and putting a little of this from the keg into a glass, and filling it up with water, made a nice drink for which I charged 6d. This began to pay very well, and I made a profit of quite £2 per day which suited me much better than working (?) in the sun, which at this time of the year began to be hot.
When in an evil hour I had a great adventure or, I should say, a dire experience. However, before I go into this, I would like to tell you about a man who lived with me in the tent. One night I was standing at my campfire in the road party's camp, when I heard someone talking to another at a campfire not far away. Listening, I thought I remembered the voice, and quietly sauntered over to see, but as there was only the light of the fire did not gain much help through that, but being still quite sure that it was familiar to me at some part of my life, went over, to him and said I thought I knew him, and asked him what part of England he came from. "Oh", he said, “the South". “Were you ever in Yorkshire" I asked. “No”, he said, "the only time I was ever there was a very short period at Sheffield, at school”. "Yes “, I said, “You were at Wesley College, and your name is L--- “.
I remembered him at once although it must have been 6 or 7 years since I had seen him, and so it turned out. He was a young fellow who was quite a don at the school, and as he told me afterwards, had come in for a fortune on his 21st birthday, had promptly squandered this, and having come to the end of his tether he had been obliged, like many others, to try his luck in Australia. He had got work on the roads like myself, and with his cousin who came out with him, was then in the same party as I was. This led to our acquaintance. He came to live with me in my coffee tent for safety, as there were so many bushrangers on the road, I thought that if anything happened and I were shot by one of them, as was often the case, at any rate he would know what my end was, and would be able to communicate with Lee so that my relations in England would know what had become of me at any rate.
From the Wakefield Journal & Examiner (Yorkshire) 7 Jan 1854.- references the death of Dick Oglesby at the Ovens Diggings
To exemplify this, I will give an instance which came to
my knowledge. Soon after we came from England to Australia, poor Oglesby21, a young man from Wakefield who, as I previously mentioned, came out with me and had a fine voice, went up to the Ovens diggings, and there soon contracted dysentery and died.
I was much grieved to hear this, and when writing home mentioned it in my letter. One of my brothers, walking out in Wakefield one day, met the two Miss Oglesbys and said how sorry he was to hear of their brother's death. "What", they said in consternation, and it turned out that this was the first news they had of it. Communications being so difficult and uncertain in the early days, was I suppose, the reason, but it was a great shock their hearing of it in such a sudden manner. So, I was very glad of my friend’s company at night. We lay on the floor on sheets of bark and slept very soundly.
He was with his cousin working on the road close by and home to his meals with me. It was fortunate that we had good appetites in those days because our means of cooking, a camp
21 Richard Oglesby arrived on the Merlin with Daniel Wilson in 1852
oven, frying pan, and camp kettle being all we had, there was not an extensive menu. Generally, mutton chops and bread baked camp oven, which being made without yeast was pretty solid when taken out of the fire. This was called damper, appropriate I think. I managed to get a little butter, but it was very dear, 5/- a pound. Cabbages, and vegetables of any kind were quite out of the question. Salt 1/6, onions 4/- and so on. In these road side coffee shops, you could if not suspected to be a policeman in disguise, generally manage to get a glass of spirits, but it was quite tabooed by the Government, on the roads and goldfields no licensed houses at all being allowed, Government was exceedingly strict in trying to prevent the sale of "sly grog" as it was termed, but as I said before, one could generally get this illicit liquor. The police however got a portion of the fine in convicted cases, which was then never less than £50 or an alternative of 6 months in gaol. There were, of course, great risks in selling it, but the profits were great, 1/- being always charged. It was somewhat tempting, and the Ellis' thought that I could sell it without much danger, so I invested in a bottle of rum from them, and one morning Sunday of all days, a digger as I thought, with his bundle of blankets, kettle, etc. came in to the tent and begged me to let him have some which I did and went on his way, after paying me. Next morning, about 5 o'clock, a posse of police with a commissioner on horseback roused B--- and myself out of our sleep and arrested me for selling liquor without a license. As I had laid out all my money, with the exception of £5 for things I had required for the place, I felt myself in a very unfortunate predicament. I got the money, however, out of the hole in which I had hidden it for safety, and had just time to put it in my pocket, the police hurrying me off without much notice, got the nearest pair of boots I could find (we always then slept in our clothes with this exception) put them on, and was soon on my way, handcuffed, walking between two of the police, to the Forest Creek Court some 12 miles away.
At the distance of 3 miles, we came to the Sawpit Gully Police Station, and the police stopped there to have breakfast before continuing. They kindly asked me to have some, but I was extremely depressed at the lugubrious prospect before me and could not eat anything. We were to appear at the Court at 10 in the morning, so we soon started again. This time, as they evidently thought I was not a very desperate looking scoundrel, three of them were thought sufficient, two brothers as I found out afterwards, and one other man. Soon after leaving Saw Pit Gully Station one of them said to me "You seem rather a young fellow to be carrying on this fame. where do you come from, and what is your name?" I thought it as well to be careful about this so told him my name was George Wilson, and that I came from Leeds in England, as in case I had to do the 6 months it might at some future time militate against me. “Leeds,” they said, “why we come from near there, Wakefield”. So, then I said “Why I come from Wakefield" ... "The devil you do" said he, "what is your name again? “my name is Wilson" “and I am Mr. Wilson of Wakefield's son I said, “Sam! Sam!" he shouted to his brother who was some yards behind, "who do you think you have trapped? “1 Don’t know, why?" "Well, you have done it, it is Mr. Wilson’s son of Wakefield". "Good Heavens” he said, “you don't mean that. Lord, what are to going to do? Why I have a letter for you from your father in my pocket" (which he pulled out at once). It seems that my poor father, hearing that the two Whiteleys were coming out to Australia (they were in the Police Force in Wakefield) said "You might possibly come across my son, and I will give you this letter for him in case you see him". Poor man, little dreaming under what circumstances. "Here lad" he said, “let's take these handcuffs off thee" in Yorkshire dialect which pleased me "and let's see what we are to do”. The difficulty was that they had laid the information and naturally the matter would have to take its course. However, I was to a certain extent much relieved of the greatest anxiety, feeling that I was so singularly in friendly hands, and they came to the conclusion that they would speak to the Clerk of the court, make out as good a case as
possible, and see what could be done. "How much .money have you they asked. “Only 5” I answered. “ 0h gracious, and the fine is 50. However, we will see if anything can be done".
Well, we came at last to the building into which they thrust all the criminals, and I was shown in amongst as dire a lot of scoundrels as could be picked up in the goldfields. One unpleasant thing happened as I was marched through the diggings ,and that was one place we met one of our passengers in the "Merlin" who knew me very well, and who seeing me between two of the police supposed that I had been doing something criminal. The gaol was a log house with no window beyond a hole naturally placed very high up. There was nothing whatever to sit on, the men already in were either standing or sitting on the ground.
One of them came up to me and said, "Hello, what are you in for?” I told him, and he said "Oh, that's nothing, I am in for horse stealing, and I'm bound to get lagged. You can plead "Not guilty" and tell the beak as how the tramp came in dead beat, and said he was very sick, so you took pity on him and gave him a glass of grog, which you said he could have for nothing, but he would pay for it". “0h, no” I said, “1’m going to plead guilty". “Plead guilty” he said with the greatest contempt, and after that he evidently thought it was no use wasting any more time on me. The place was stiflingly hot and suffocating, and unfortunately we were all kept there until 3 o'clock in the afternoon as the Magistrate could not attend to us, and as I had had nothing to eat all day, I began to get very faint after the long walk of 12 miles. However, at last we were walked down to the court. I forgot to mention that a lawyer came up to the log house also, and being allowed in, he offered to defend me for £5, and make me a good case, but I had agreed with the Whiteleys to plead· "guilty" so he went away too, quite disgusted. It so happened that there was another case similar to mine came on before me, and I think that man was greatly astonished and agreeable so when they let him off with a fine of £20 or 3 months. When I appeared, there was some little talk between the Magistrate and the Clerk of the court, and the Magistrate asking me how it was that a young fellow like me had got into this mess I plainly told him the whole truth, that I had just arrived in the colony, and had not yet made myself acquainted with the laws, etc. The end of it was that I had to pay £15 or the alternative of one month and was then dismissed.
The Whiteleys came up to me after it was over and asked me what I was going to do about the fine, having only . The Whiteleys came up to me after it was over and asked me what I was going to do about the fine, having only £5 and I said "Send someone at my expense to Lee at the Coliban, and I am quite sure he will raise the £10 for me", as the prospect of staying more than one night at any rate in the fearful den with the lot of fellows there was appalling. “Well” they said ”if you are sure of getting it in a week or so, we will pay the £10 now, and you can then get out at once". This gave me inexpressible relief, and on their part was, I think, handsome, for they quite trusted me., and not only that, if the fine had been bigger the proportion would have been much more. We went down to the Clerk at once and I was, again free. And to anyone whose movements have been thus restrained by others, the sense of once again being able to act without interference and as always accustomed can scarcely be imagined.
I was faint with excitement and want of food and crawled away from the place as far as my feet, which were covered with blisters, would allow me. I had as before mentioned, in my hurry in the morning put on a pair of boots that never had fitted me, and not having time to put on any socks I could scarcely walk at all, but I was free and that sustained me. I had said goodbye to the Whiteleys and told them that the £10 would I hoped be forthcoming next week, but I now began to wonder what had become of my coffee tent and my belongings
whilst I had been away, the more serious matter of my incarceration and prospect of 6 months imprisonment had quite overshadowed any thoughts about these.
However, before leaving this part of my story, I may comment upon a rather curious part of the affair, and this was that some few years after this, I was made a Magistrate by the Government, and I have several times sat on the Bench with the same justice who condemned me to the fine and alternative, and I wondered that did he only know that the gentleman who was sitting beside him, and consulting with him as to the cases before us had appeared before him in a very different role, what he would have thought.
Such are sometimes the ups and downs of life. The fact, however, of sly grog selling in those early days was not looked upon as being anything very dreadful, and except for the consequences, which loomed very fearful for me at the time, it was not thought to be any more culpable than it would be for a lady to smuggle lace over from France, or a gentleman who did not declare that he had 3 or 4 hundred cigars in his bag, and the very next court to the one I was hauled up to, the Harkers, storekeepers in a very large way in Forest Creek, were fined £50 for grog selling, and George Harker22 himself was afterwards Treasurer in the Ministry of the Government, and was known as “Honest George”. It made however a great impression on me at the time, I was not 21 years of age until a fortnight after, and I determined in my own mind to take all sorts of care not to be into a mess of that sort again, and the very sight of a policeman used to affect me for months afterwards.
Being, as I said very faint, I went into a coffee shop on the roadside in the diggings, and asked for a glass of wine, but the man, looking at me very fiercely told me to clear out at once or he would do me an injury. He had taken me for a policeman in disguise. This was about the last straw, so I crawled out again and went for about 3 miles further when I was completely done. I went into another place where the man was selling lemonade and begged of him to give me something and let me lie down in the tent. He said he could not give me a bed having only one bunk in the place for himself but having shown him my feet he let me lie down on the floor of his hut. He was an old man and gave me something to eat, and I was very soon fast asleep scarcely waking until the morning, but then I found my feet so bad that I could hardly put them to the ground and I wondered how I should get back to my coffee tent and property nine miles off about which I began to be more anxious when a bullock dray came along, and the driver stopping to have a drink I asked him to let me get into his empty wagon, and I can safely say that never before or since have I enjoyed a ride like that. The fact of my being able to lie down and get home again without any exertion on my part was so pleasant, and about 11 o'clock I arrived opposite my tent, and found to my surprise everything going on in full swing.
I will now go back to when I was taken off by the police in the early morning before. When B--- found I was arrested he was very thankful that he had not been taken as well, and he immediately began to think what was best to do and determined to go to the Coliban and let Lee know. He knew that Lee and I had come out together, and were to a certain extent partners and mates so without thinking of his billet on the roads, he immediately set off, and
22 Details about George Harker from the Australian Dictionary of Biography: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/harker-george-3720
George Harker Obituary from the Mt Alexander Mail, 26 April 1879: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/198859422?searchTerm=thomas%20harker
getting to Lee's tent, 5 miles off, (I may say that Lee had started a coffee tent on the same lines as mine) rushed in and said to Lee “He's taken”. Lee wondered what on earth was the matter and wanted to know who was taken. B--- then explained the whole thing to him, and Lee at once saw the seriousness of the affair and going over to the Ellis' who lived on the river close to his tent, told them. They were taken into council and Lee determined at once to get a horse from them, ride to Melbourne, 70 miles away, make use of his letters of introduction which he had brought out to some people of the name of Schesingler, Wakefield people, and never used and beg, borrow or steal the £50, so as to try and stop me on the road coming down with the next batch, the convicted of any kind always being brought down to the then only gaol at Melbourne, none being on the goldfields.
The Ellis' were very kind people and asked Lee did he think he could get the £50 or was there any doubt about it. “Well,” he said, "he could only try". I fancy the Ellis' thought it was somewhat dubious and after a little, consultation amongst themselves (two brothers and a cousin being the firm) Mr. Joseph Ellis said, "Look here Lee, I am going to Forest Creek in the morning to buy skins (they were fellmongers) and I will put £50 more in my pocket and get Wilson out”. This at once settled the thing and Lee returned to his tent and sent B-- back telling him to mind the place until I returned. Next morning Mr. Ellis set off on horseback with the money and when he got to Back Creek was thunderstruck to see me in full possession and doing a good business, and before going further, I wish that the kindness of the Ellis' and the attention of B-- to my belongings may not be forgotten. I thanked him from my heart, he gave me the £10 out of the £50 (which I soon gave back to the Whiteleys) and he went on his way to do his business in the skins. I soon got the £10 out of my business to pay Mr. Ellis back again but he would not take a penny and made me a present of it.
The affair was nearly having its tragic side however, as what with the anxiety of the thing, the coarse way of living that I had, without vegetables or milk, always having only tea or coffee and meal cooked roughly, I fell ill of dysentery and one day Mr. Joseph Ellis coming up and seeing me rapidly sinking immediately got me down in a dray to his place, where Mrs. Ebenezer Ellis23, his brother's wife attended to me and giving me plenty of milk (they had cows) for about 10 or 18 days, I began to revive again. Their kindness and help saved me and for many years afterwards, we were on the terms of greatest friendship. I got B-- to mind the place for me whilst I recovered and business improving, I began to lay in a stock of other goods for sale to the teamsters and others who began to live permanently about the place.
Whilst I had the store, sometimes curious things happened, one which I may mention was this: One day an old man with his dog came to the place and being very tired and looking ill, I let him come in. He was a shepherd. The squatters, pioneers of the country as they were, had at this time large parcels of land leased to them by the Government for the purpose of sheep grazing and wool growing, wool fetched a high price and a shepherd's billet was in many cases, the last home of some poor fellow who had probably been sent out or transported as it was called, to Botany Bay, for in some cases, very trivial offences, such as poaching. They lived by themselves or sometimes with a hut keeper in a bark or log shed in a very out of the way part of the run, as it was termed, without in many cases, seeing for months any other white man excepting the stock rider or station hand with regular supplies of provisions at long intervals, quite a hermits life, dangerous at times from the attacks of the aboriginal natives who in the early days were very audacious, especially when they were
23 Ebenezer Ellis (brother of Joseph William Ellis} – born 11 Sep 1821 at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England & died 24 May 1913 at Mullumbimby, New South Wales. His wife was Mrs Annie Ellis (nee Lancaster) – born c1818 at Huddersfield Yorkshire & died 10 Oct 1899 Summer Hill, New South Wales.
in large numbers. These poor shepherds then fared badly, and the storekeeper coming up with the regular supplies would sometimes find the man murdered and speared by them. This poor old fellow looked very weary, and I let him lie down in a bunk in an out-house I had had built. His dog would not leave him and looked resentfully at me when I went near him. He lingered for a day and then died. I had him buried, the dog persisting in following him to the grave in the lonely bush and for some days would not leave the place, wandering round and round with a most pathetic look on his face. At last, he went away, where I could not tell. These sheep dogs are wonderfully intelligent and will do almost anything connected with sheep that you tell them and in fact, a shepherd would sooner lose his right hand than a valuable dog of this description. I never knew the name of the old man; he was buried without a friend in the world excepting his faithful dog. What was the story of his life? Who were his parents? What was the tale of his early days, his youth, his manhood? All buried with him not even his name known.
There was always the danger of bushrangers to contend with and I bought a Colts revolver from an American going up to the diggings for which I gave him £6, and I also purchased a large and very fierce dog called ‘Husk’ from a teamster. I tied him to the door every night and I fancy he was a great protection. One night. a man came up on horseback after I had gone to bed and wanted to come in. I did not like the look of the fellow and Husk went furiously for him at the end of his chain, and I threatened to shoot him if he came nearer, so he cleared off.
Lee after a while came to Taradale to join me, giving up his tent at the Coliban, we launched out into a roadside store, bought goods in Melbourne, and sold them at a good price. I also had always done a little in the medical way and often got a fee, one man once shot himself drawing a pistol out of his breast and it being loaded with shot, I got them out of his skin, and he gave me £2. I was known in the district as the Doctor and I have since very much regretted that I did not take it up all together, as at that time there was no law in the Colony nor were there any restrictions of any kind against unqualified men. My first essay against the laws having turned out so disastrously, I was very nervous of doing anything that at all savoured of illegality and I knew well that the laws in England were very strict in this respect and that any patient dying under the hands of a man without a qualification, the offender could be tried for manslaughter. I was ignorant, however that these restrictions did not apply to Victoria, and it was some years afterwards that the law came into operation and even then it was not retrospective and those practising could, without any demur, claim to have their names on the register as properly qualified. If I had recognised this, I could have made a rapid fortune, the fees being very high.
Taradale now began to assume the shape of a township. Lots were surveyed24, laid out and sold and land in larger blocks was offered for farming purchases.
24 William Swan Urquhart, District Surveyor (1818-1881) was responsible for the surveying and design of Taradale making recommendations on the sites for such things as church and school reserves, a police station and police paddock. The first land sales in Taradale took place in 1853.
The bushrangers were still troublesome. I remember one night two men came to our place put up their horses at the door and came inside for something to drink. ‘Husk’ in the meantime was barking furiously. I went out but could not see anyone, however, when the two men started to go, they found that the saddles had been taken off the horses, so they had to ride home bare backed. Another night all the places in the township were stuck up, except ours which exception I put down to the dog again, who had rushed out from his recess in the door where I chained him every night. One day they stuck up the McIvor Escort. The gold brought down from the diggings was brought with an escort of 10 or 12 armed police. Some in the wagons with the gold, and some as outriders, but before the McIvor Escort was waylaid the police used to content themselves with riding in a body close to the spring wagons carrying the gold, and the consequence was that the bushrangers seeing this had felled a tree in an awkward place where they would have to go round, and coming to it were fired into by the robbers. Several of them were killed, and the rest ran away or were tied up. The gold dust in boxes was carried off in the wagons.
After this an outcry was made, the escort made stronger, and the outriders kept at a distance of from .20 to 30 yards on every side, so that they could not be shot down at once. The Mt. Alexander Escort used to pass my place twice a week with the gold. One day 4 bushrangers stuck up everybody on the road between Saw Pit Gully and our store, missing us however, and riding at a gallop past our place on to the Coliban or Malmsbury, as it began to be called, On the hill past our place, they met an oldish man driving the first of three teams of bullocks which were going up loaded to the diggings, and stuck him up. This old man was of an active turn of mind, and being an old Van Demonian himself, a freeman now for some time, but greatly indignant that he should be robbed by a mob like this, so as soon as they were out of sight, he quietly unloosed his little pony which was used for bringing up the bullocks in the morning, before starting, the custom being to camp each night in the bush and allow the team to wander about for food, when some of them would sometimes stray for long distances. Bullock bells were however attached round their necks, and many a time on a mild Australian night, have I heard their musical notes. However, as I said, the old man unloosed it, and getting on its back followed the men at a distance until Malmsbury was reached, and there meeting the gold escort coming back from Melbourne, went up to the Commanding Officer and related his story.
The young man remembered meeting these four fellows, and being mettlesome, and determined, decided if possible, to capture them. Detailing one or two of the escort and telling them to follow him, he went off at full gallop after them. They, seeing the pursuit, fled over the ranges, the officer following with his revolver. One man fell from his horse, and strange to say, was the only one who escaped, for they followed after the other three not
liking to lose them, and perhaps thinking the other fellow would be got afterwards, took them, had them handcuffed and brought back. The first man must have recovered his horse and got away. Bringing them to Taradale and meeting there, several of the men who had been robbed, they were paraded opposite our store. The names of witnesses, etc. were taken, and the upshot of it was that they were tried shortly afterwards and all three hung for robbing under arms for the penalty of this was death.
Another time, we again missed being stuck up. A noted bushranger murdered a man at Fryers Creek Diggings, about eight miles from us, and coming down the road stuck up a coffee housekeeper on the main road, and as he would not divulge where his cash was, or that he had none, I do not know, but he fastened him to a tree at the back of his tent, and made a target of him. The poor fellow was found dead riddled with bullets, and the bushranger passed our place in the afternoon, but the police being after him for a murder committed the day before, he was promptly caught and hung for that. I have often wondered how it was we escaped so well.
I mentioned that Government land sales were taking place of land in our district, and a rather pretty spot which we afterwards named Frogmore, was to be sold at one of these sales which were held at Forest Creek or Castlemaine, as it was then called. We had however very little money to spare at the time, but Lee said he would go to the sale at any rate. He took £10 in his pocket, and I of course thought he would not do anything. This land consisted of about 100 acres situated on the Coliban River, near Taradale, and it was put up at the upset price of 20/- an acre. Lee very boldly, and as I then thought rather dangerously under the circumstances (as 10% had to be paid down at once, and the balance within a month or the deposit forfeited) bid for it, and it was ultimately knocked down to him for 20/6 per acre. He just had sufficient to pay the deposit money, and telling me of it, we wondered how on earth we were going to find the balance of the money, some £90 or so within the month. It happened, however, that a bullock driver, and proprietor of his teams had intended going to the sale as he wanted the ground to spell his bullocks on but had been delayed on the road. Finding out who had bought it, he came to us and asked us to sell him some of it. The end of it was, we sold him 40 acres of it at £4 per acre, for which he at once paid, which made us quite easy as to our own payment. We then sold another 25 acres at £2.10.0 an acre. So, the speculation left us the remainder of the land, and some little cash as profit.
Lee himself determined to go on the land, and cultivate it as a garden, leaving me the store to manage. Vegetables then were fetching high prices at the goldfields. Cabbages were retailed at 5/- each. I remember at this time, an old man who was doing very well at the game, passing the store one day, slipped off his spring cart, and so hurt his leg that he could hardly move. He had a load of cabbages that should fetch from £10 to £12 if sold, and if not of course be entirely wasted, so he offered me £3 to go with the load the to diggings and sell them for him. As I was never above earning what I could, I left him at my store, took the load up to Forest Creek and sold it all for him. I remember getting pretty good price for them, not knowing his customers I did not do so well as he might have done, but I brought him about £9 back, so it was not all loss for him.
Lee and I kept on together for a while, but not agreeing about something we dissolved partnership. He took the ground, and I took the store.
Soon afterwards I married a young woman who was the sister of a man named Alley from Queen’s County, Ireland. He had brought his sister out with him from the old country, and not knowing what to do with her in the unsettled state this was in then, and he himself being the owner of drays and carting on the road to the diggings, was thus always away from her, and so left her with some countrymen of his who were then living at Taradale, as it was then named. I went into partnership then with the brother. We bought goods in Melbourne and carted them up in our own drays, sold the goods at the store, and did fairly well.
Carriage was then very high, sometimes £80 per ton. Alley was a good man at his business, knew how to treat his horses, and generally speaking, his trips to Melbourne were a success. Amongst other things we loaded up oats for sale for the teamsters on the roads, sold many tons at 40/- a bushel, equal to 1/- a pound. We had built again by this time, new stores of wood, in which, however, the mice began to be very troublesome, and as oats at 1/- a pound were very high-priced food for them we thought we had better look for a cat. Hearing that about three miles away two cats were to be sold by auction, the proprietors Messrs. Joubert & Co. giving up their business there, we went to the sale. The first cat fetched £3 and the auctioneer then said that the other one had got away, but that he would sell the chance of it, and that if we managed to catch it, all would be well, otherwise we would lose our money. We had it knocked down to us for 30/- and fortunately got it all right. We bought it home and it stayed with us after various enticements and we found it was an excellent speculation, for it soon stopped our loss in the oats.
This reminds me of another story about cats, some years after when they had become plentiful. A certain doctor who had a small cottage on Forest Creek was disturbed at night with the horrid noise they made, so caught all he could and put them in a bag, and bringing the bag full down to Taradale some ten miles away, let them all loose. One of them came to us and was an excellent mouser.
I was a great walker at this time. I used to think nothing of walking to Melbourne and back to do my business. It used to take me two days to go down and two days to come back, walking about 35 miles a day. I generally started early taking it very easily at first, averaging four miles an hour, and resting for an hour in the middle of the day. I once did it in a day and a half, but it tried me too much. Alley and I after some time dissolved partnership and I carried on the place again by myself. A numerous family followed my marriage.
,
Very rich diggings broke out in the township, a very singular formation, a large bed of quartz which was named the "Achilles"25 had about 16 ft. thickness, and it would turn out sometimes 20 to 30 oz to the ton, so that a very small bit of it meant a lot of money. Unfortunately, I was too late to peg out some of it, although another fellow and myself sank a hole in another spot where we thought it would go, but strange to say, it cut off as sharply as possible, and I verily believe that quite as much money as ever it yielded was spent on it afterwards in trying to trace the lost reef. No success was attained. Quartz reefs now pay if the stone will turn out 4 or 5 penny weights to the ton. Then it would not pay unless it went from two to three oz. so great was the expense of getting it, so primitive the means of extracting the gold, and the quartz which would not pay then was sold to the road contractors (the roads then being done by contract) for metal.
A digger who was named "Nuggety Tom" finding this out used to scrape the roads at night, and washing the stuff by the day used to get lots of gold, some of it in quite large pieces, which had been crushed out of the quartz by the various drays going up and down. I used to buy the gold from Tom, and many an oz. did he get in this way. He generally used to sit drinking in the hotel until his cash had gone and then scrape some more dust and wash it as usual. At this time a railway was projected up to the diggings. It came through the township. A very large viaduct had to be built. Taradale was made the headquarters of the railway camp, and much Government money was spent. Before this, two of my brothers had come to the Colony after me, Addey26 and Alfred27. Addey at first went storekeeping on his own account, first in Daylesford, and was doing well. He afterwards married a sister of my wife's who had followed her brother and sister to Australia.
25 Achilles Gully/Reef: located just outside the township to the north of Taradale at the end of what is now Pennos Road
26 George Addey Wilson: brother of Daniel Wilson, born 8 Feb 1834 at Holbeck, Yorkshire, England & died 9 May 1923 at Elsternwick, Victoria.
27 Alfred Dudley Wilson: brother of Daniel Wilson, born 29 Oct 1836 at Wakefield, Yorkshire England & died on 12 April 1899 at Burnley, Victoria.
Newspaper Article: “Nuggetty Tom” – From the Kyneton Observer
During my life in Taradale I made some close friends, the Turners more especially. They had a little selection up the Taradale Creek. Mr. Turner28 was a well-read man, his wife a most charming woman. How they ever thought of settling in Taradale I never could tell. He himself had come out with his father when a boy to Western Australia on the “Swan” as it was then called, owing to the Swan River running through the settlement. (The Swan is now the distinguishing sign of the Western Australian State) Mr. Turner Senior29 had been tempted by the then Government to charter a vessel with all his belongings, wife, maids and goods, and come out there. He was granted 16,000 acres of ground, but owing to the state of the settlement, dry seasons, bad ground, and no market for produce, he never made a success of it, and eventually died there. The only people whom they ever saw coming to the place were American whalers, who then frequented this part of the world for whale fishing. My Mr. Turner had married one of his father's dependents30, left the Swan with all their belongings and his young family to come over to the East, hearing of the diggings. He was a surveyor, and the Government finally employed him round our district. I first got to know him by a rather melancholy circumstance. One of his little boys31 had wandered to the creek and fallen in. They discovered him after a while and sent for me knowing that I possessed some medical knowledge, but all our efforts to revive him were in vain, he never breathed again, and I shall never forget his mother's agonised look as we desisted from endeavouring to revive him. I have often thought since that perhaps we did not persist long enough. Mr. Turner had a family of one girl and four boys, and his house became a great source of comfort to me.
28 Thomas Turner – born 31 July 1813 in England & died 3 July1895 at Albert Park, Victoria. Appointed mining surveyor of the Taradale Division of the mining district of Castlemaine in 1860.
29 James Woodward Turner: born 1780 London England – died 13 Jun 1862 Perth Western Australia & his first wife Anne Elizabeth Turner ( nee Rockley) born 7 July 1784 & died 20 July 1825 Westminster, London, England. He then married Anne’s sister Myriah.
30 Thomas Turner married Elizabeth Heppingstone in 1846 at Busselton, Western Australia
31 Charles Rockley Turner – son of Thomas Turner, drowned 13 January 1859 at Taradale aged 7 years
My brother Alfred was with me then in the store, not as a partner, but it was a great comfort to me having him. He used to do a great deal of the outside work, travelling about on horseback amongst the various stores on the railway works which we supplied. I had bought about this time a very fine chestnut hack named "Bendigo". One of the neighbouring squatters, going home for a visit, sold all his horses, and at the sale the auctioneer stated that whatever price it fetched, Mr. Low thought so much of it that he agreed to give the same money for him when he returned. I bought him for £21, and the valuable feature about him was that he could walk his six miles an hour all day long, he had a magnificent stride and was so easy to ride that it was like sitting in an armchair, and sometimes, on hot days, I went to sleep on his back. I often tested his walking capabilities by taking out my watch. On the other hand, he was dangerous in this way, that he could not bear anything to go past him, and on any occasion when another horse came up alongside of him he was off, and I could not hold him without a strong bit. One dark night my brother, Alfred, on Bendigo's back, and myself were riding on the road at a gallop from Malmsbury, and Alfred not seeing a hay wagon in front of him, ran into it and snapped his leg below the knee. I succeeded in getting him home and found on getting a doctor that one bone only was broken, but he was six weeks in bed with it before he could get up again.
Occasionally some of the young ladies of the district would come and help him to while away the time. He was a great favourite with them.
As I said before, I had always been a great walker, and before I dissolved partnership with Alley we launched out into opening two or three other stores at Mt. Blackwood32 diggings which had broken out there. I went first to start them, but of course the life was very rough as we always slept on the bare ground and as I had experienced then more comfortable
32 From Wikipedia: “Gold was first discovered at Mount Blackwood in November 1854 by two teamsters, Harry Athorn and Harry Hider, who were searching for bullocks that had strayed into the bush. While eating their lunch beside Jackson's Creek "they saw waterworn gold at the bottom of the stream" (at a spot now known as Golden Point).” “Towards the end of 1855 the Mount Blackwood goldfield had an estimated population of 13,000 inhabitants.”
quarters at Taradale, did not take to it so kindly, so I sent a manager there who eventually robbed me to a great extent. I used, at that time to walk from Taradale to the diggings about 35 miles to fetch the gold dust. We bought a good deal of gold at that time and as we made a profit of 2/- an oz on it, there was something hanging to it, but the risk was great as the bushrangers always looked out for gold buyers and at that time no escort was running from the field, so all the gold had to be brought away by private hands.
Our arrangement was that I should go down about once a week to fetch it, doing the distance on foot. To ease my journey, I generally got to a splitter's hut about seven miles away from the diggings, slept there and then went on first thing in the morning, coming out the same or following night with the gold on my person, of which I sometimes had as much as £100 worth. I always, however, came out of the diggings at night travelling in the dark to the splitters hut, it being safer then than in the daytime, as the bushrangers would never think of a solitary person carrying gold at night. The splitters hut was kept by a rather elderly couple who had two or three children, very worthy people who used to supplement the father's living as a splitter of palings in the forest, by taking people in occasionally in this way, giving them perhaps tea, bed and breakfast. I had got to know them from buying their palings at Taradale which we used to sell to builders and fencers. I generally got to their place about 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, had my tea and on a form by the open fireplace with a blanket to cover me, used to sleep fairly well. One day however getting to the place about 8 o'clock in the evening, I found I had narrowly missed a tragedy which had taken place in my absence, in the intermediate night of my being away. It must have been known that they kept cash in the house and this night about the time that I usually put in an appearance, they were astonished by four men coming in presenting pistols and sticking them up.
They threatened to murder one of the children if they did not at once give them their money some £80 or so. This was hidden in the bark roof of the hut and to save their child, they did so. Just at the close of this however, some five or six men splitters, Americans, came up to the hut for their usual drink after work, before going to their own place. The four-promptly presented their revolvers to these men and made them go into the hut and sit down on the form where I always slept, and ordered them to come out one by one to be searched and any valuables they had about them were taken, one of the splitters it seems had a revolver of his own underneath his blue shirt, hung upon his belt, while sitting on the form and waiting he with his left hand, drew it and keeping it down at his side, when he got up in his turn, presented it at the man at the door and fired straight at him, calling his mates. They all rushed back into the hut, banged the door and threatened to shoot any of the others who came near, who not liking this sort of thing made off, although those inside, did not know of this until daylight and were in fear that they would be attacked by them and more so as the revolver somehow or other would not act for the remaining chambers. They had very little sleep and in the morning, not hearing anything, ventured out and found the dead body of the man who had been shot. This however, when I got there had been removed by the police and a few days afterwards, they got the other three fellows, who I think were hung. I congratulated myself with my gold for missing this. Soon afterwards we gave up the storekeeping there which altogether had resulted in a loss.
I had reason to believe that my marriage had greatly grieved my poor father and mother and I determined that as soon as I could scrape up £100 to take a trip home, take my eldest daughter with me, leave my brother Alfred in charge and see them all again. With this view, I
took a second-class berth in the “Result”33 and after three months of a very uneventful passage with the exception that we saw lots of whales and had a calm off Cape Horn which is generally very stormy, landed at Gravesend, took the train to London and stayed at an hotel in the city. One little thing amused me at Gravesend, the boatmen who crowded around the ship on arrival, asked 5/- each to put us on shore. I thought this rather high and waited a while, soon I was asked but 2/6 and smelling a rat waited still further and at the end we got off for 6d each.
.I found letters awaiting me with the distressing news of my poor mother's death a fortnight before I landed. This was one of the severest blows I ever had, to come so far and then to find the main object of my journey frustrated in this cruel manner. My little girl Florence, seeing me so overwhelmed said "Let us go back again Papa”. We went down to Yorkshire and were met at the Wakefield railway station by my father and young brother Gerald. We came through the old familiar streets which looked to me so exceedingly small.
The sight of the old parish church clock lit up (a strange thing then to me) made me realise more than anything else that I was again in my native town, went on to St Johns' and were welcomed by my sisters34 (who were in deep mourning) as well as possible under the circumstances. They told me of the last days of my mother and her sudden attack; whether they thought of my coming back to which she had been so anxiously looking forward had any effect on her or not I cannot say, but it was not improbable.
During my stay in England, which I now did not wish to prolong, I went with my brothers to all our old places of resort, the old school, the cricket ground at Heath Common, the scene of many a boyish struggle, Sandal Castle and its old ramparts, round which, as lads we used to conjure up mystic stories of siege and defence in the times of civil wars, heard again the chimes of the old church which seemed to awaken many memories of the past, how we used to run from school at 12 in the day to get home before the chimes had finished, sure of a cheerful welcome from that dear mother who had so lately gone to rest. At other times we would take long walks through the fields when the distant bells of the village churches would call to mind those words of Tom Moore,
"Those evening bells, those evening bells, How many a tale their music tells, Of youth and home and that sweet time, When last I heard your soothing chime".
I visited my old governor in Leeds, was ushered into the waiting room (by a strange abigail) where I rather surprised him. He took me into the sitting room where now were his grownup sons and daughters and asked them all round who I was. One of the girls remembered me.
After a short time I took my passage in the “Sussex”,35 came back in the second cabin and although not quite so bad as my first voyage, it was anything but comfortable. I met a young fellow on board ,who was coming out as a clerk to one of the banks and we chummed together. We were fond of mathematics and arithmetic and to pass the time, we worked out
33 Passenger records indicate the “Result” departed Melbourne on 3 January 1863. However, the records also indicate only a male child aged 7 (the age at the time of his oldest son) travelled with him. Daniel Wilson’s poor memory or poor record keeping on the ship?
34 Daniel Wilson had two sisters Mary Elizabeth (1828-1916) & Emily (1841-1932). Both remained single.
35 He returned on the “Sussex” departing England on 21 July 1863.
all the problems at the end of Colenso's Arithmetic, some of which were pretty stiff. I left my daughter a Florence at my sisters' and in due time got once more to Melbourne. Both the ships in which I had travelled, were subsequently lost. The “Result” was burnt in Hobsons Bay36 and the “Sussex”37 wrecked on one of her voyages, fortunate I was in neither at the time.
I found everything alright at Taradale. Lee had been married some time and had a family and had got into difficulties. I took over his land for his debt to me and he went into other pursuits. I still kept on the store. Godfrey Berry38 had been a partner of Lee's but had also dissolved from him. Mr. Jackson39, who had still lived at Forest creek in the same place as he had always done, from the time that we first went up, had had his little daughter with him and many times when I had gone up to Castlemaine, for stores and to do my banking business, had, as I passed seen her with her two brothers, Alfred and Robert, playing about but Mr. Jackson, not thinking it wise for his daughter to go about in this slip shod fashion, had got Mrs. Berry, some five or six years before I returned from England to take her into her house and she lived with them, helping in the household arrangements. She became very intimate with us all, especially my brother Alfred. She often used to come over to order the weekly stores for the Berrys and I used to tease her very much by saying 'she should be my second' at which she always got exceedingly indignant and generally speaking as I was about thirty and she about 16 or 17, looked upon me as a dreadful ogre and was very thankful when I was out of the store and she could exchange laughing compliments with my brother Alfred. Many a bit of amusement have we had over this since, for at the time, not the faintest conception of our ultimate union, ever seriously entered our heads.
I was afterwards made a Magistrate, had been Mayor of the (Taradale) Borough twice. Upon one occasion, presenting a testimonial of Welcome to the Duke of Edinburgh, our present King's brother (1918 now uncle) who visited the Colonies for the Elections for Municipal Honours. I always gained my seat. Mr. Jackson had obtained a good billet under the customs, first in Melbourne, afterwards in Wahgunyah, and when I came down to Melbourne for my visit to England, I happened to meet him and his daughter on the pier at Port Melbourne, not then at all dreaming of the closer relationship. Mr Jackson married again, and being settled in one of the border towns, wished his daughter to come and live with him which she did. After living about 15 years with my first wife, an end was put to them by her death, and after this took place, I lived singly for two or three years more, bringing up (my children of which there were five, Henry, Florence, Emily, Annie and Fred as well as I could under the circumstances. Mrs Addey took Henry under her charge. Emily went to the Leighs, friends of mine, Annie and Fred to some other people. I took a housekeeper a Mrs. B but as the children were growing up I thought it would be better if I could meet with a good help-mate and have them near me.
36 The “Result was destroyed by fire on 12 October 1869. Read about it in this article from The Australasian (Melbourne) newspaper of 13 October 1869. Burning of the Ship Result
37 The Sussex ran aground one mile West of Barwon Heads on 31 December 1871. Read about it in this article from the Leader (Melbourne) newspaper of 6 January 1872. WRECK OF THE SHIP SUSSEX - 5 LIVES LOST
38 Godrey Barker Berry also a native of Wakefield Yorkshire. He arrived in Taradale in 1854, initially running a dairying business and subsequently opened a general store. He later built the Beehive Store which he operated until his retirement in 1892. He was prominent in Taradale activities where he was a J.P, Deputy Returning Officer, a member of the Taradale Borough Council and Mayor on several occasions.
39 John Gardiner Jackson, Officer of H.M. Customs & father of Daniel Wilson’s second wife Alice Marion Jackson.
One day my housekeeper, who by the way had known us all for a long time, my wife and children, Mrs. Berry and in fact all my friends said, what a dear girl Alice Jackson was, I was sorry that she had left us for Wahgunyah and added, "What a good wife there was for somebody”. Somehow or other, I began to think of this, I had previously intended proposing for another young lady in the town, but this remark presented itself to me more and more prominently, I knew her so well so after a little time, I determined to take a run up to Wahgunyah and see how the land laid. This was in 1869, a flood year. I went up in a steamer from Echuca and arriving there one Sunday afternoon was made exceedingly welcome by the Jacksons. Mrs. Jackson was a termagant of a wife, and her treatment of her stepdaughter was simply shocking as well also was that of her own daughters whom she treated quite as badly. Mr. Jackson for peace sake, and frightened at her violent bursts of temper, foolishly put up with it. Alice was in that state that she would have welcomed any change and had determined to take advantage of the very first opportunity. I found that there was no previous engagement, proposed to her right off, and she accepted me. Of course, she knew all about my previous life and marriage with my poor wife, and my having five children. I could not flatter myself that at the time she was at all in love with me, but we had been thrown together more or less ever since we left Liverpool, and we had a mutual respect for each other. I quite recognised the position and determined to make her as happy as I possibly could, whilst I am sure she intended to make me a good wife. Mrs. J tried to make herself as amiable as possible during my stay. and I came away in a few days, fixing the time for our marriage in about three months.
It was singular, but it is true, that I happened to be just in time for the proposal, for a gentleman who had been paying her attentions and had gone away on a journey, feeling the ground quite sure, and that he would declare himself on his return, a few days afterwards coming back for the purpose was greatly astonished to find her engaged, and promptly left the town again. I came back to Taradale and mentioned that I was about to remarry, and one rather amusing thing took place about this. An old friend of mine, Bob Wray 40, came to me one day and said, "Do you know what I was told the other day?" “No” I said, “Well” he said, "I was told you were going to marry Alice Jackson." "And what did you say, Bob" I asked. "I said I knew you were not such a fool." "You did quite right Bob" I said, all the time wondering what he would think when he saw it was a 'fait accompli’. Well at the time fixed, and after the usual loving letters between engaged couples had passed between us, I went again to Wahgunyah and found to my surprise that the marriage was rather a grand affair. I had not gauged this and discovered that I had made scarcely sufficient preparations to meet it. The class of people there were high class squatters, and my wife had endeared herself to a great many people of the district, and it had become quite a popular event. I had thought it would pass off quietly, but the whole place was ’en fete’.
40 Robert Mackie Wray was, according to his children’s school registrations, a grocer/shopman/hawker in Taradale arriving in the 1850s and later moving to Castlemaine.
My brother Alfred had come up with me as best man, a position I had taken for him some years before at Sydney, when he had married Miss Coates41, and a somewhat amusing thing had occurred about this. After the marriage we came back by steamer to Melbourne, and both Alfred and his wife were terribly seasick. I never am so, and divided my time looking after them, and particularly after Alfred's wife, and the stewardess was greatly puzzled as to which of the two men was her husband, and I believe never successfully unravelled the difficulty during the two days we were on board. Our wedding passed off very nicely. We took two or three days returning to Melbourne, saw our friends and relations there, and then were straight on to Taradale, myself resuming my business duties. But commerce not being too good, and the place declining, I left Taradale altogether. They gave me a sendoff and a testimonial, and I went to Bairnsdale in Gippsland, stayed there about three years, and to which place my daughter Florence returned from England. My family increased. Harold was born in Taradale and came with us as a baby to Bairnsdale. 41
Bairnsdale is a very pretty place on the Mitchell River, but most difficult to get to at the time. One had either to take a boat from Melbourne round by Wilson's Promontory, and the 90 Mile Beach, through the dangerous entrance to the Lakes, or go by the coach, perhaps the vilest road in the colony, in winter, a mass of mud, and in summer it was even worse, as the roots of the trees (it was nearly all forest) showed up and shook one almost to pieces in the coach. Strange that I never met with a serious accident. One time coming to Melbourne after severe rains the floods were up and the coach which we were in, wading through, got completely stuck. We had to take the horses out, get the assistance of a lot of wood men in the forest, and drag it on to a sound spot. Then we got to the Avon River and found that the old bridge had been washed away. This was at ten at night. We had Judge Bindon42 on board the coach, and he was due at Sale for a court the next morning, so it was imperative to get him on and us with him. A new bridge was being built, torrents of water coming down the river left at each end a good bit of the stream running past it. Logs were laid over this hiatus, the coach hauled up on to the portions of bridge in the stream, the horses got up somehow or other, all this with the aid of about 20 men, and by the light of strong lamps made a weird scene. However, with this help we managed in some fashion, and they got the coach and horses down again to the shore on the other side, and we got to Sale sometime in the early morning. I often used to be the only passenger on the coach to and fro. We were generally two days and one night on the road. I used to pack myself up with the mail bags, so as not to be jolted more than possible, and actually sometimes got a sleep. But I was always a week recovering after I got back.
Amongst the matters that took place in Bairnsdale may be mentioned the death of my eldest son, Henry. He was a fine lad but going to bathe in one of the lakes at Bairnsdale we thought that he had had a sunstroke. He went down to Melbourne, it developed into inflammation of the brain, and he died at my brother's residence in St. Kilda Road, near Albert Park, Melbourne. Mrs. Addey Wilson was very fond of him, and he is now buried at the St. Kilda cemetery. Whilst on this melancholy topic I may also mention the death of my father at Castlemaine. He had come out with Gerald some years before. He died very calmly and quietly at the age of 67. He lost his right hand in the death of my mother. He lies buried at the Castlemaine cemetery. The stone however mentioning his decease is at the grave of my son at St. Kilda where my daughter Florence is also buried. Peace to his ashes.
Business at Bairnsdale however was not too good, and the place not agreeing with some of.the children, particularly Fred, I determined if possible to get to Melbourne. This was rather an undertaking as I found that when I had paid what I owed I should have very little left. Such was the case. I sold my furniture, got to Melbourne with my then pretty large family with nothing more than £80. I have since looked upon this as a very risky adventure indeed. I took a house, bought a few things for everyday use which made a hole into £50, and wondered what next I should do for a living. Whilst in Bairnsdale however I had brought the premises I occupied, and I mortgaged them to get the money. Fortunately, property then began to improve in value, and I was able to borrow something more on them and got about £150 more. I tried several avenues, found all filled up, competition much keener than I expected, but at last putting down £100 deposit and being able to borrow the rest from a firm of accountants, I bought an insolvent estate in the country, Rochester, and with the aid
42 Samuel Henry Bindon: according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography: “In 1855 Bindon arrived in Victoria where he practised law in the county courts. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Castlemaine in 1864. Full biography can be found here: Samuel Henry Bindon
of my daughter Emily worked it out, paid back the money I had borrowed, and made about £200 profit in two or three months.
This gave me courage, the firm of accountants again supported me in buying another estate, a much larger one. I had only about £350 of my own, and they found me about £1500. This also turned out well. It was a large timber stock at Footscray. I had this for about six months and made £750 clear. So I began then to buy a few articles of furniture for my house at Ascot Vale, to which place I had removed, and felt that I was a good deal lifted out of the very low water mark I had for a long time been in. I found my metier in the business I was engaged in, bought a great many more estates with my own money. After staying at Ascot Vale a year or so, where one of my daughters, Emily, was married, I bought a place further out at Essendon, containing nearly three acres of ground. This we called “St. Olave’s” the name of a parish in London in which my wife was born, and now 26 years after that we are still in the old place.
During my residence at Essendon, the usual ups and down of life took place, one time making money, and at another time losing it by various speculations. Had I, as I previously mentioned, kept a diary of my daily transactions, I think I could have mentioned various interesting circumstances. One or two however come to my mind as I am writing. One was the episode of the Kelly bushrangers. These Kellys consisted of two brothers of the name, with one or two other companions. They had long been suspected in the Mansfield district of being cattle duffers, that is cattle stealing, and the police tried to bring it home to them. At last, they had reason to believe that they had clear evidence and determined to arrest them. This, however, was easier said than done. Several of them went out to take them, but the Kellys determined to make a stand, shot one of the troopers and killed him, and very nearly another who however escaped. This at once placed them in great straits, so thinking that perhaps as they were now committed to desperate crimes, that they might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, launched out as armed bushrangers of a very desperate character. Their first important enterprise being the sticking up of the bank at Euroa, taking the manager and clerks away with all the gold and notes. This was followed by another raid of the same kind, and the consequence was that the whole of the northeastern district from Wangaratta to Seymour was kept in a state of terror. They were active men and moved about over the whole district. The Government offered great rewards for their capture, but the police were frightened of them, and for a long time the Kellys defied them. I had bought a stock at Wangaratta and was living there at the time at a hotel. One night I heard some men galloping through the town at a great pace. It seems that at a place called Eldorado, near Wangaratta, one of their gang who was supposed to have given information about them to the police had been murdered by them that day, and they were clearing out to another place called Glenrowan, about nine miles from Wangaratta, where they stayed. The police getting to know of their whereabouts made great preparations to catch them. A posse of them came up from Melbourne in a special train. This the Kellys heard about and determined to fight them, tore up the railway line, thinking that when the train arrived and was thrown off the line, they could then easily kill them all. If this had been successful no doubt there would have been great loss of life. A schoolteacher however at great risk of his life put a red handkerchief round a bottle holding a light, and went down the line, and by this means stopped the train before it got to the dangerous place. The men all got out and made ready to attack the Kellys. These however got into a wooden hotel and barricaded the doors and defied the police. A good deal of firing went on from both sides without any casualties. The Kellys had put on armour which they had made out of plough shares, but at last the police managed to set fire to the hotel. Ned Kelly got outside, was fired into and
captured. One was burnt in the hotel, and eventually the other two. surrendered. During all this we in Wangaratta heard what was going on, and some of the people rode over on horseback to see the melee. I however thought there was danger and kept away until I heard the desperadoes had been caught. I then went down saw the dead body of the burnt man, and Ned Kelly in the waiting room of the station guarded by police. The close of the matter took place as usual, as they were all hung. I afterwards put on for curiosity the armour of Ned Kelly, and as far as I could see thought the use of it would hamper one. The district breathed freely again after this, and it must have cost the Government a pretty penny, fully £2,000.
After being in Essendon at St. Olave’s a year or so, I again took a trip to England, this time with my wife. We went by way of America, touching first at New Zealand, took advantage of the short time we had there to go on to the top of Mount Eden, and old volcanic height above Auckland, and were greatly charmed by the magnificent view we had from there, seeing the beautiful harbour and both sides of the island. we went on board again and had a very rough passage to the Sandwich Islands43, where Captain Cook was killed. Before reaching Honolulu, however, we passed through some of the Samoan Islands, and were much interested in the crowds of natives who came off in canoes offering to sell us native weapons, curios, etc. They are very sharp traders and know the value of a dollar very well. One amusing thing happened. My wife saw a blue necklace round the neck of one of the girls, and thought she would buy it. The girl, nothing loath sold it to her for half a dollar, about 2/-. I bought a waddy, a very formidable carved weapon, and most of the passengers by virtue of exchange in cash were the possessors of something or other.
However, the ship bell rang out for their departure to go back in their canoes. They, however, paid no heed, and we began to steam away with a lot of them on board. This did not trouble them, but waiting until they had done their marketing, simply jumped overboard, over the vessels side, and swam off to their canoes, laughing all the while. But as for the necklace, talking over our purchases with the other passengers, my wife showed her necklace. "Oh" said one of them, "I gave that to one of the natives for this basket" showing it, "the necklace only cost me sixpence in Melbourne, and I think I made a good exchange for this piece of native work." This amused us all vastly, but I noticed that my wife kept the necklace in the background after this.
Honolulu interested us much. It is a lazy, hot place. Life amongst the natives seems a sort of holiday all the time. Cannibalism of course is a thing of the past. The world might turn topsy turvey with all sorts of political and other troubles, but they care not, live in a laisse faire sort of way, with smiles on all their faces. We went up to the Pali Pass during our short stay and were sorry that we had not arranged our trip so that we could have had a fortnight there until the arrival of the next steamer. We would then have gone to see the volcano in one of the neighbouring islands, it is always active. We soon however had to say goodbye to the pleasant Hawaiians. A curious custom here when one of them is going away is for all his friends to come to the boat, and bringing very large wreaths of flowers, threw them over him, so that by the time all his friends have bidden him farewell he is covered with flower.
San Francisco was our next stopping place. We put up at the Palace Hotel, since completely wrecked by the earthquake. We visited the places of note about, Seal Rocks, where all the seals are, from there across the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City where the Mormons dwell. Went into the old temple there which has extraordinary acoustic properties. It is a large building, capable of seating four thousand people. If one drops a pin into say a
43 The Sandwich Islands are now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
gentleman's hat at one end of the building, it can be heard at the other. Talking of acoustic properties, we saw on our travels in Europe, a singular one at the Louvre in Paris. In one of the large rooms there full of statuary, are two immense vases a long way from each other, and although there are crowds of people viewing the marvels around them, a conversation can be carried on by those who place themselves at each end of the different vases and talk into them. A new temple was being built while we were at Salt Lake City. From there to Denver, Colorado, Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, Saint Louis, Chicago, Niagara, and Falls, Albany to New York, staying a little at these places en route but as they have all been described in books of travel I will not further dilate on them.
The Americans are very frightened about catching a cold or catarrh as they term it and were greatly alarmed when we opened the windows to let a little fresh air in. Sleeping and dining cars very good, gentlemen and ladies however sleeping in the same compartments, made it sometimes very awkward for dressing and undressing. I lost a five louis piece of gold equal to £2 in my undressing one day which I never saw again. Stayed in New York for about ten days waiting for the boat to Liverpool, came across in the "Alaska" a then very fine boat and called the Grey Hound of the Atlantic. The Americans spend a lot of money on flowers as mementoes to their friends. When leaving there were flowers in all sorts of shapes and devices suited to the man or woman leaving, as for instance a telegraph line of poles and wires all covered with magnificent flowers for a gentleman connected with telegraph lines, a ship in full sail for a captain of a vessel and so on. It was computed that the flowers sent on board the Alaska to the passengers leaving must have cost £800 all to be swept away next day after we had got to sea.
The passage took eight and a half days. We came along through a thick fog off the coast of Newfoundland, the foghorn booming out every five minutes. I am not surprised to hear that the fishermen there are sometimes run down by the passing boats. We touched at the south of Ireland to land the mails, which are forwarded by train to Dublin, thence to England. Got to the mouth of the Mersey just in time to get over the Bar before the fall of the tide and I fancy we bumped a little. Gerland and Mr. Binney, his intended's father met us at Liverpool which we reached on the Queen's Birthday 1883.
At Liverpool we went to North Western Hotel44, visited my wife's mother's grave at Everton church yard, then on to Bradford where my brother Charlie45 met us.
We enjoyed our stay in England very much, visited London, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Halifax, saw old castles and abbeys in the north, had a charming day or two at the English Lakes, went to Scotland to see the old Lady-Packs in Edinburgh, they were much pleased to see us, my mother's grave at St. Johns and went over the old spots in Wakefield, took my sister to Paris, left England again on the 1st September for the continent, had a very rough passage to Rotterdam, then to Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, up the Rhine to Mayence and Wiesbarden, Heidelberg and its grim old castle, Lucerne and the Swiss Lakes, Gieesback, Interlaken, Martigny, and Chamounix by the Colde Balme Pass. Whilst going to Chamounix on mules with a guide we experience a deluge of rain which wet us completely through, our heavy baggage having gone on.by the boat from London we found ourselves in rather an awkward predicament having no change of clothing. We took the first decent hotel we came across and fortunately found a good samaritan who had all our clothes taken down to a fire whilst we had dinner in our bedrooms in costumes that might be considered evening dress. In the morning our clothes were all nicely ready for us and we took the diligence to Geneva, 44 North Western Hotel (Wikipedia)
45 Charles Maurice Wilson: brother of Daniel Wilson born 12 June 1843 at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England and died 1 May 1921 at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England
Turin, Milan, Venice, where we were dreadfully bitten by mosquitoes. Florence, Rome, Naples were our next places. At Naples we went over to Ischia46 where the earthquake had lately been, we saw them digging out the dead bodies of the victims, the hotels all in ruins, many of the inhabitants were killed and a strange thing, those who happened to be enjoying a night at one of the theatres were saved although the place was wrecked. I noticed the play bills announcing the play for the night were still on some of the walls. Thence we went to Brindisi where we caught the supplementary boat to Suez, not being allowed to land at Port Said on account· of cholera being prevalent there, joined the "Ballarat" at Suez, and after a short time landed again once more in Melbourne47 and I shall not forget seeing our children on the pier at Williamstown in the early morning.
For the next few years nothing very wonderful strikes my memory until the boom time. This was a mania for land speculation and to many of the people in Melbourne, after it had run its course and the boom burst, great distress fell on those who had gone into it and not only on those, but it brought distress in its train to other indirectly. Nearly all the banks closed their doors, and the Australasia, Union and New South Wales were the only ones who did not do so. Bank shares which, hitherto had been reckoned good security became great liabilities on account of the uncalled capital not wanted and ladies and others who had been in the habit of receiving their usual yearly dividends upon which they depended for a living suddenly found themselves penniless. Travellers in other countries as for instance, the continent of Europe, who had gone on tours and who thought themselves well off found that they could not cash even the letters of credit with which they had furnished themselves and had to pawn their jewellery etc. to get back to find when they did so, that everything they had was completely lost. Many with these reverses committed suicide and for a long time, the colony could not recover itself.
Like others I was bitten with the mania. I had made sufficient at this time if I had been contented to have given me a decent income for life and I did indeed, make a good haul out of the boom at first but it was the old adage "light come, light go" and the end of it was I lost not only all I had but some £4,000 or £5,000 more. This was a cruel blow, and I had to begin again, fortunately my wife's property at St. Olave’s was saved out of the wreck and this was all we had to rely upon. I again began my old business and although in one or two cases I lost, notably one case where I dropped £2,500 I was generally speaking pretty successful. I was greatly helped by my dear wife who through all reverses always looked on the bright side and helped me to pluck up courage and "never say die"..
This I think brings me pretty nearly to the end of my sketches. I have just returned with my wife and youngest daughter Irene from another and I think the last trip from England, the main thing to take us over being to see my son Harold who some 15 or 16 years before this, upon the advice of the tutors of Trinity College, Melbourne, went to Cambridge, came out 5th wrangler and who afterwards was elected to a fellowship. As he got married and settled permanently there, his mother and myself were most wishful to see him again. This time, in addition to the other usual places on the continent with Harold and his wife, we visited Norway and had a most delightful trip together, the only regrets we had, were at the inevitable partings at the last but we were rejoiced to have the pleasure of seeing all our relations again who welcomed us with open arms in this part of the world.
46 The island of Ischia which sits at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples was hit by an earthquake in August 1883: The report in the Argus Newspaper is here: The Earthquake at Ischia
47 Passenger records show Mr & Mrs D Wilson arrived back in Melbourne on the Ballarat on 30 October 1883. Port of departure was Brindisi.