Trove Tuesday: In which Lemuel is shockingly injured

Gold mining was a dangerous occupation. I have quite a few horrible stories attached to various people on my family tree, stories of men and boys trying to earn a living from digging into the earth to gain the gold (or other metals) and being injured or killed in the process. This is one of them.

In 1909 my great-grandfather's cousin, Louisa Cameron, married Lemuel Williams who was a miner. In 1917 they were both about 30 years old and living at Beechworth in northern Victoria. They had six young children.

Lemuel was badly injured in a work accident. He was working at a molybdenite mine at Everton when an unexploded explosive exploded. [Don't you love the English language? Those last three words do actually make sense!] I had to research what molybdenite is. Apparently it is used, amongst other things, as an alloy for strengthening steel and the Everton mine was Victoria's most productive. Lemuel had charged a hole with explosive using two charges and only one fired so after a while he went to check and was standing close when the second charge fired.


Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 5 Dec 1917

Lemuel was taken to the Ovens District Hospital at Beechworth - that's a journey of eight miles, probably by horse and cart, that must have been dreadful - and then he was treated in the hospital for fractures on his skull and damaged eyes. What did Louisa do while he was in hospital? She had children to care for and their income had ceased so it must have been a very worrying time for them.

A month later there was a newspaper article about the state of Lemuel's health. He is deeply scarred and is still having trouble with his eyes but plans to go back to work 'in a week or two'. As it turns out that might have been a little optimistic because four months later there was another newspaper notice stating that he had only just gone back to work. So he was about five months off work and there was no such thing as unemployment benefits or compensation in those days. I wonder if his eyesight was permanently damaged.


Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 5 Jan 1918

 

Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 5 May 1918

Lemuel and Louisa had four more children before Louisa died in 1937 at the age of 52. Lemuel married again, to Helena Roy, and lived until 1963 when he was 77 years old.

Sepia Saturday: Naomi and Mabel

The theme photo for this week's Sepia Saturday

A lady standing in a doorway to have her photo taken. That should be easy. I should have plenty of photos to match that theme. Huh, famous last words. I found people standing on steps, on verandahs and in front gardens. But doorways? Only two!

Naomi Wyllie nee Milgate

My Grandfather's aunt, Naomi, was born in Jacobs Creek in South Australia. Her family moved to the Wimmera district of Victoria and it's there that she met William Thomas Wyllie, a farmer at Dunmunkle. They married in 1885 and had four daughters.

They moved to Melbourne and for a number of years lived in a house called 'Lilydare' in Burwood. There's a nameplate in the photo but it isn't quite clear enough for me to read it so I'm not sure if it's that house.

It looks like Naomi has been called out to have her photo taken and she hasn't even removed her apron, just like the lady in our theme photo.

Naomi died in 1945 at the age of 83.

Mabel Lydia Larkin nee Quick

Mabel Lydia Quick was an English girl who met an Australian soldier during World War 1. She travelled out to Victoria after the war and married him in Melbourne. He took her up to the hot and dry mallee country in northern Victoria where he had a farm. She is the mother of my husband's uncle, Jack Larkin.

This photo is of Mabel Lydia standing in the door of their home. There was almost no water so gardens and lawns were almost impossible. Heat, drought, mice plagues, very cold winter nights, dust storms, lack of water, unreliable crop harvests - what a shock for an English lass!

Trove Tuesday: In which the Alfords holiday at Dromana

Bungalows, Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana c1940

For three summers in a row the Alford family, from Mologa north of Bendigo, travelled to the Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula for a holiday by the beach. They stayed for a fortnight. There are several photos of the camp in the album.

Dining Room and Lounge, Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana c1940

Dining Room and Lounge, Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana c1940

So I had a look in Trove to see what the camp was all about. It seems that in the late 1930s the Country Roads Board established a camp for country people and it was supported by a committee of Melbourne society ladies.

The Argus, 14 Aug 1939

The Age, 30 Dec 1939

The Age, 27 Apr 1944

Postcard, The beach road, Dromana

Postcard, Dromana beach

In 1939, the first year they went, father stayed home to milk the dairy cows and mother went to Dromana with her five daughters. The conditions were very simple that year - they had to supply their own eating utensils and bedding, they slept in a rather a rather cramped old tram and water was in short supply (they only had tank water) because Victoria was in drought at that time. Shirley, one of the daughters, remembers that they were in church one day when they heard the fire bell and several men from the congregation left quickly to join their brigade as they defended the town from the fire that was bearing down. Ralph, the father, heard on the news that 'Dromana was wiped out' by the fire so he must have had an anxious time before he heard that his girls were safe.

The next year the whole family went down to Dromana. As mentioned in one of the newspaper articles, there was a camp cook, but while Ralph wasn't very impressed by the standard of the food I'm sure his wife, Mary, was glad of the break from cooking. That year the sleeping accommodation was much more comfortable and water was piped to the camp.

Shirley remembers that they were very lucky with the weather because it was calm and warm each time they holidayed at Dromana. Probably the drought was a major factor there. She also remembers one time they were walking along the beach, the five girls in their white wide-brimmed hats that mother insisted they wear, when a photographer from one of the Melbourne papers asked to take their photo. She said they had to run down the beach 'about fifty times' before he was satisfied that he had the right shot. It was published apparently but neither The Leader or The Weekly Times (Shirley can't remember which) has been digitised at Trove as yet for those years.

Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana

Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana 1939

Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana Jan1938

Country People's Holiday Camp, Dromana

Voyage to Australia: The ship 'Susan'

In 1852 Robert Leed was 22 years old and working at Kinneil Iron Works at Bo'ness on the Forth, Scotland. His father, deceased, had been a Master and part owner of a schooner operating out of Glasgow. His mother remarried in August 1852.

Gold had been discovered in Australia so that may have influenced Robert's decision to buy passage on a ship to Australia. He paid his own way on a brig called Susan, one of only nine passengers on board. A brig has two square-rigged masts and is quite small compared with some of the huge clippers that sailed to Australia in the 1800s. She weighed 175 tons. Brigs were fast and maneuverable but had a reputation for being difficult to sail into the wind.

A brig

The Susan, with R D Munro as Master, departed Liverpool 24 January 1853. On 2 March she was sighted off the west coast of Africa by another ship called the Lima, and on 8 May she was seen west of Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia by Uncle Tom.

South Australian Register, 16 May 1853

The Argus, 25 May 1853

Hobson's Bay, Williamstown, Victoria [Source unknown]

After a voyage of four months the Susan arrived Hobson's Bay (Williamstown), Melbourne on 24 May 1853. There was a notice in Melbourne's main paper, The Argus, detailing the cargo she and several other ships had carried and the Sydney paper also listed the cargo.

The Argus, 25 May 1853

Geelong Advertiser, 26 May 1853

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 1853

The brig stayed for a year or so, plying back and forth between Victoria and Tasmania carrying passengers and cargo. In August 1854 is was advertising accommodation to Mauritius and England.

The Argus, 11 Aug 1854

Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencier, 26 Aug 1854

In 1856 and 1857 there were several newspaper notices of 'the brig Susan' returning to Sydney port with sperm oil from whales, but it may not be the same ship.

Robert Leed went to the goldfields at Castlemaine and Eaglehawk, married and raised a family and died at the age of 57 from phthisis, a lung disease common with goldminers. He was a very good engineer, and worked for many years on large quartz-crushing machinery, but that's a story for another day.