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Apart from the annual race meetings held between neighbouring sheep and cattle stations, there wasn’t really much for people in the North to get excited about. In fact, most of the news which reached the newspapers concerned weather events – drought, flood, hail or, in many years, just a sprinkle of rain that barely kept the dust down.

The Spring of 1904 was a memorable one in The North. October 18^th brought a major storm system across much of South Australia, with dumps of rain up to several inches in the Flinders Ranges. The mail road from Mount Serle to Yudnamutana and beyond became impassable, with washaways and hundreds of fallen trees. The local correspondent described the scene – Umberatana Homestead’s roof damaged, even large trees snapped off as if they were matchsticks, large tree limbs hurled great distances from their parent trees.

It was impossible for the mail coach to even attempt the trip, so supplies at Yudnamutana had to wait for the road to dry out and the track damage to be repaired.

By November 7^th the mail coach was able to make its first trip. It was just in time, because that was the occasion of Mr P O’Reilly’s birthday celebrations. O’Reilly was the owner and manager of the Willigan Mine, a few miles further on from Yudnamutana. He had ordered his party supplies, which were to be sent up by the mail coach.

O’Reilly and his mates, along with others from the surrounding mines, wasted no time getting into the party mood – and into the liquid refreshments brought up by the mail coach. In no time at all there were a dozen or so men getting into fights, well and truly charged with the celebratory bottles of rum. An Italian man had O’Reilly flat on the ground, with his hands choking his windpipe. French Charlie came to O’Reilly’s rescue and dragged the Italian off him. O’Reilly’s drunken response was to lay into the Frenchman, loosening a couple of his teeth.

This gave the Italian the chance to make a rush at the Frenchman, who headed for the bush, closely followed by the Italian. Another eight or so men were having a general brawl, and things were rapidly getting out of hand – particularly for a group of miners who normally got on quite well with one another.

Into the fray came Richard Peachey. Peachey was in his late 50s, a long-time miner and resident of the district. Peachey had more-or-less retired from mining and was now best-known as Yudnamutana’s ‘deputy postmaster’ – the storekeeper’s assistant who sorted and distributed any mail in the district. However, he clearly still retained the brute strength and stamina gained from years of mining.

Peachey sailed into the brawling mob, scattering them in all directions. In no time at all everything was peaceful again, and Yudnamutana could settle down with the expectation of another twelve months of humdrum existence.

In the words of the Yudnamutana correspondent, ‘These little pleasantries break the monotony of outside camp life from which new friendships spring. The fighting over – rum all gone – aching heads and bodies next day, peace and quietness again reigns supreme.’

And, to this day, peace and quietness still reigns supreme at Yudnamutana.

Petersburg (today’s Peterborough) was barely three years old when its original pharmacy opened its doors. The proprietors were Francis Edward Brady and his wife Mary Maud (nee Morton), both quite experienced in the dispensing of medicines and the care of the ill and injured.

The Bradys first grabbed my attention when I came across Mary’s obituary in the 1932 newspapers. Some of the claims in the obituary were perhaps overstated, such as being ‘entitled to her degree of Doctor’, but mostly the biographical details gave a useful description of a life well-spent in the service of the sick and needy. Equally intriguing was the claim that Mary had plenty of first-hand stories to tell about the bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang

Mary Maud Morton was born 3rd June 1857 at Waanyarra (then known as Jones’s Creek) in the goldfields district around Dunolly in Victoria. Her parents were Michael Morton and his wife Elizabeth nee Hawkins, who ran a roadside store and inn – the Welcome Inn. Mary seems to have received some nursing training at Dunnolly Hospital or in one of the Melbourne Hospitals.

By about 1877 she was able to obtain the position of assistant matron at the Wangaratta Hospital in North-East Victoria. In 1878 she tendered for, and won, the position of Matron at Wangaratta. In that same year Francis Edward Brady applied for the position of Head Wardsman at the same hospital. A head wardsman had fairly similar duties to those of a matron, including the care of patients and the dispensing of medicines, but with more of the ‘heavy-lifting’ role.

Mary and Francis married in Wangaratta on 24 July 1878. A daughter was born in 1879, and sons in 1880 and 1882. Mary and Francis were highly regarded for their success in bringing the Wangaratta Hospital from a rather poor level of performance in 1878 to one of the best hospitals in Victoria by early 1881.

Success, however, does not always bring its expected reward. In early 1881 a rather public scandal broke concerning the admission of an underage pregnant girl to the hospital. The ‘scandal’ seems to have had nothing to do with the Bradys directly, but the subsequent investigation required them to give evidence in the case. The end result was that their two positions – and that of the admitting doctor – were put out to public tender, and they were unsuccessful in retaining their jobs.

They were similarly unsuccessful in tendering for positions at the Colac Hospital in March 1882, by which time they were running a chemist and druggist business in Drouin. Their third child, another son, was born in that same year.

In 1883 Mary and Francis moved to Petersburg in South Australia and opened a pharmacy. Their business seems to have been a modest success and they were well regarded in the community. Only four years later Francis Brady, who seems to have had recurring bouts of illness throughout the years in Wangaratta, died – in December 1887.

Mary continued with the pharmacy under her own name, and under her own claims to be a pharmacist. The business then adopted the name ‘Red Cross Dispensary, Petersburg’.

Mary re-married in February 1893 – to George Holland. George had arrived in Petersburg in 1884 to operate his saddlery business. He had built premises next door to the chemist shop.

Mary by now was clearly advertising herself as a registered pharmaceutical chemist, although it is not clear how much of a legal claim she had to this qualification, other than years of dispensing medicines as a hospital nurse and matron, and as a retail pharmacist. The 1890s were years in which people could still claim to be medical people when they only held overseas diplomas in various natural therapies. In common parlance, and particularly in the remote bush, the title of ‘doctor’ was often given to such people as the local vet or a retired navy surgeon-dentist. They often had some awkward explaining to do when they were called in a professional capacity to give evidence at a local coroner’s inquest.

By 1896 Mary was advertising that she could be seen at her consulting rooms at Petersburg, although she only accepted women as patients. By 1901, as Dr MM Holland, she could also be consulted at her rooms at the Coffee Palace in Port Pirie. At one inquest she had to explain that she was more of a ‘doctoress’ than a doctor. In 1903 she returned to Petersburg to open a private hospital. She sold or let the hospital business to a Nurse Quin for a brief time and lived for a while in Port Pirie. They finally left Petersburg in 1911. In that same year she was officially listed as one of the three registered women pharmaceutical chemists in South Australia.

George Holland had by then moved on from his saddlery and harness business to become the northern organiser for the Farmers Union. They seem to have made this their main concern, and they based their lives on that work, broadly centred on the district from Port Pirie to Quorn. Dates and places are uncertain, but George eventually became a representative for Cresco Fertilisers in Western Victoria.

In 1924 they settled in a house of their own in Geelong. George died in 1928. Mary seems to have spent her remaining years living mainly with family and relatives, rather than staying in the Geelong house. She died in Lewisham Hospital, Sydney, on 4th January 1932, aged 74.

As for the Ned Kelly stories, Mary’s obituary writer states that she was a good conversationalist and had many stories about the Kelly Gang. One of the claims was that she and her first husband were present at Glenrowan when Ned Kelly was arrested and Ned’s mother hit Constable Fitzpatrick over the head with a shovel and knocked him unconscious. The accuracy, timing and locations of these events seem to have become confused in the telling, but there is no real reason to doubt that the Bradys could have been present in either Glenrowan, Greta or Benalla for one or more of these events.

The Kelly Gang story that does turn out to be quite true, however, is that Francis Brady was the house steward at Wangaratta Hospital who tended to the dying teenage son of Ann Jones, the Glenrowan innkeeper. John Jones, aged 13, and his sister Jane were caught in the crossfire at the siege at the Glenrowan Hotel where the Kelly Gang were holed up. The police were firing into the building, and Jane received a flesh wound to the forehead. John received a bullet wound to the hip and was seriously injured. Their mother, Ann Jones, rushed out the front of the building to get the police to stop firing, while daughter Jane went to ask the Kellys to let them go by train to Wangaratta Hospital for treatment. Both sides agreed, and the Jones family set off for Wangaratta. Despite Francis Brady’s treatment, the boy could not be saved. He died on the day following his admission. Francis had discussed the Glenrowan events with young John while he was treating the bullet wound, and was called as a significant witness at the coroner’s inquest.

Francis and Mary’s two sons became doctors, both obtaining higher degrees overseas. One became a Macquarie Street Specialist in Sydney. Their daughter joined the convent and became the Mother Superior of the Benedictine Convent ‘Subiaco’ at Rydalmere, Sydney.

Francis Edward Brady’s Irish family:

Francis arrived in Victoria in 1870. He was born in Dublin, the son of a judge. His father went on to become the Chief Justice of Newfoundland.

One of Francis’ brothers, James Charles Brady, had come to Victoria in about 1861, some nine years before Francis. He was employed as a teacher in Rutherglen and Beechworth. He died in Melbourne in 1889.

some relevant links:

Mary Maud Holland re-visits Peterborough in 1929

Mary Maud Holland farewelled from Petersburg 1905 

Mary Maud Holland obituary 1932
Obituary: Dr AE Housen-Brady

George Holland, Port Pirie Farmers Union Agent 1898 
George Holland obituary 1929

Mrs Kelly – attempted murder of Constable Fitzpatrick 1878 
Francis Brady and the John Jones shooting death inquest 1880 

Officially Gazetted women pharmacists in South Australia 1911 

Advertisement for Mrs M M Holland’s Pharmacy 1893

Bob Hawke was farewelled today in a State Memorial Service at the Sydney Opera House. The proceedings were televised nationally by major networks.

Bob, as is well known, was born in Bordertown in the Upper South East of South Australia. But he is also a descendant of one of the earliest families in the Blinman Township, in the heart of the Flinders Ranges. John Pascoe and his wife Ann (nee Delbridge) ran one of the original butchery businesses in the town. They were up there by 1862, within a year or so of the opening of the Blinman Copper Mine, and continued in Blinman until 1874.

In that twelve-year period they had five children born in Blinman. The eldest was named Elizabeth Ann Blinman Pascoe. The younger ones were James, Albert Russell (died as a young child), Eveline and Mary Jane.

In mid-1874 the Pascoes sold their butchery business to Thomas Young (formerly a member of South Australia’s first Parliament) and moved to Morgan on the River Murray. John died in 1898 while working on North-West Bend Station, and Ann died at Kapunda in 1896.

Elizabeth Ann Blinman Pascoe married James Renfrey Hawke at Morgan in 1885. They went on to have seven children, all born while they were living in Kapunda. Their fourth son, Albert George Redvers Hawke, later became Premier of Western Australia. Their third son, Arthur Clarence Hawke (known as Clement or Clem), born in 1898, married Edith Emily Lee at Thebarton in 1920.

Clem and Edith had two sons, John Neil (born at Torrensville in 1921) and the subject of today’s memorial service, Robert James Lee Hawke (born at Bordertown in 1929).

Bob will be remembered as a Prime Minister who captured the attention of all Australians. Today’s memorial service was a fitting tribute to a great-grandson of the town of Blinman.

It can be easy for history to overlook the long-term contributions of the various families who have, over many generations, been employed on the sheep and cattle stations of the Flinders Ranges, and of the Outback generally.  Quite apart from their years of hard work and dedication, some families have had a significant impact on the whole of the pastoral industry, even at the national level.

One such family is that of John Hawkes Mules (1842 – 1894). John’s ancestors had traditionally dealt with flocks of quite different ilk. His father, also named John Hawkes Mules, was the vicar of Ilminster, Somerset, from 1828 to 1858. His grandfather, another John Hawkes Mules, was vicar of Muchelney, Somerset.  His brother, Charles Oliver Mules, was Bishop of Nelson, New Zealand, from 1892 to 1912.

The young John Hawkes Mules was working in the Flinders Ranges – on Oraparinna Station – by as early as 1860, at the age of eighteen. His employers were Septimus Boord and twenty-three year old George Charles Dewdney. By 1870 he was managing the Blanchewater Station, on the outwash plains to the north of the Flinders Ranges.

It was John who, on behalf of the Blanchewater and Umberatana proprietors, purchased the thousand or so cattle which Harry Collins (Harry Readford) had brought down the Strzelecki Creek – the cattle stolen from Bowen Downs in Queensland. Fortunately for the Blanchewater people, they got to keep the Bowen Downs mob – the Roma Court case had effectively failed to prove that the cattle had been taken from Bowen Downs. In fact, the only animal positively identified in the case was the imported white bull.

John later worked on Holowiliena Station where, in 1875, he married Catherine, daughter of Holowiliena owner William Warwick. Their first-born was named John Hawkes William Mules, and he was to spend his life managing or owning sheep and cattle properties throughout South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. His early working years were spent on Oraparinna and Coongie Stations where he ‘learnt the trade’ under his uncle, Robert Warwick, and Coongie manager Larry Darmody.

John junior’s claim to fame arose out of his many years of managing sheep. A major problem in the Australian conditions was blowfly strike, which could be a terribly debilitating condition, particularly for certain bloodlines of merino ewes. In the early 1930s, on his farm at Woodside, John worked on his ideas for a quick surgical procedure to remove the worst of the skin folds around the sheep’s crutch, the site most prone to blowfly strike. In the later 1930s the CSIR worked on improving the technique and it soon became a widespread practice among woolgrowers. The procedure was named after the Mules family name.

John married Elsie Maynard in 1904 and they had one son, Marwood William Mules (generally known as Bill), born in 1908 while the family were living in Queensland. Bill, although he spent time farming sheep in the Cradock district, was more of a field naturalist, with a particular interest in birds, butterflies and insects. In the mid-1930s he began working on projects for the CSIR – the forerunner of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Working for Dr LB Bull of the CSIR Animal Nutrition Research Department, Bill conducted field trials with the Myxoma virus with the hope of proving that it might be an effective control for the rabbits which were in plague proportions across the farming and sheep-grazing areas of Australia. The trials were held in several sites in southern Australia, with a significant site on Wardang Island in Spencer Gulf.

By 1944 the (by now) CSIRO finalised the testing program. They had shown that the virus was lethal to rabbits, and to rabbits only, but had not been able to show that there was an effective insect vector to carry the virus from one infected burrow to another. Without such a vector, the virus would be ineffective in stamping out the rabbit pest across Australia. The plan was shelved.

Fortunately, in 1950, researcher Dr Jean McNamara of Melbourne began a very public letter-writing campaign to convince the Federal Government to resurrect the myxoma virus project. She argued that the government had given up too easily, and that there was every likelihood that a suitable insect vector would exist somewhere in Australia. Jean McNamara was the noted researcher and virologist who had proposed back in 1934 that the Australian Government take a serious look at the myxoma virus as a possible way to control the rabbit scourge.

A test site set up near the River Murray in the Barmah area produced the eventual proof of the project. By February 1951 huge numbers of rabbits were dying along lengthy stretches of the river system, both upstream and downstream. A suitable mosquito vector had been found. Within a few years myxomatosis had brought about a massive reduction in rabbit numbers across southern Australia.

It may be of interest to some readers that Burke’s Heraldic Illustrations traces the Hawkes Mules family in a direct line back to Godfrey, Earl of Ewe, natural son of Richard, First Duke of Normandy and grandfather of William the Conqueror. It would also interest some of the merino flock to know that the family crest consists of a hand armed with a glaive – a curved blade sharpened on the outside curve. The family motto is ‘Misericordia temperet gladium’.

 

Jim Lennon spent his life as a stockman in Outback South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. Yarding wild cattle, taking mobs on long-distance treks to railheads, and the general experience of surviving the harsh outdoor life in the Outback, all produced a breed of men who knew when to stand and fight, and when to run for their lives.

Jim was one such stockman. He was born at Wilpena Station in 1877 and from an early age spent his life riding horses, managing cattle. Stockmen were ideally suited to the armed forces of that era, so it was no surprise that Jim volunteered as a horseman to fight in the Boer War. He was mentioned in despatches for his bravery in recapturing a British machine-gun post with all its weapons. He again volunteered for service in World War 1 where he was a tunneller in France.

There was a time, however, when he did choose flight over fight – fear can overcome the best of us at times. Back in the mid-1880s, when he was aged about eight, Jim and his brothers were living with their aunt, Caroline Ryan (nee Kirwan) at the Arkaba Eating House, of which she was the proprietor. Caroline and other family members had gone off on a walk, leaving Jim and a couple of his mates (probably his brothers or cousins) to look after the house. Arkaba was the sort of place where you were lucky to get one or two passing visitors in a day, and this was a Sunday – a day when most good folk took a day off from their travels.

Jim told the story when reminiscing some sixty years after the terrifying events of that day. It had been a typical lazy day for the boys, until they noticed a buggy heading their way along the dusty track from Hawker. Even in the distance the boys noticed that the travellers were particularly well dressed, with black coats and belltopper hats.

It quickly dawned on the three young boys that these didn’t fit the usual appearance of travellers in the Outback. ‘Coats and hard hatters’, they gasped in sudden fear. ‘Must he priests’, said Joe. ‘They will want to ch-ch-christen us’, stammered the next. The third boy, holding on to a shred of hope, fervently muttered ‘They mightn’t have the knife to do it with!’

There was no time to lose, continued Jim. The buggy was only about two hundred yards away and their only chance lay in making a run for it. They looked into each other’s faces and decided to make a run for the big redgum tree out the back of the eating house, on the bank of the Arkaba Creek. Hiding on a limb of the tree they kept an anxious watch on the buggy-load of visitors. The belltop-hatted men went to the tank for water, then went through the door into the dining room – which the boys had left wide open in their desperate run to escape what they thought must be one of the unkindest cuts of all, particularly at their tender age.

After what seemed an unreasonable time in the dining room, the men drove off back towards Hawker. Jim and his mates eventually plucked up enough courage to return to the house. They found that the men had boiled the billy and made mugs of tea to go with their lunch. There was a pencilled thank-you note left on the table, held down by some silver coins.

Jim and his mates could have kept their embarrassment to themselves if it hadn’t been for the travellers meeting Caroline and her friends on the track after leaving Arkaba. The story was told of some boys running to hide, and keeping watch from the tree, so Aunt Caroline knew what questions to ask when she arrived home. It took very few questions before the boys’ slight misunderstanding about christening became clear, and the humour of the situation was enjoyed by all and sundry – well, apart from the boys. Jim didn’t think he would ever live that story down.

 

James Richard Lennon

born 8 March 1877 at Wilpena; birth registered at Blinman

parents: James Lennon and Elizabeth nee Kirwan

died 29 January 1954 in hospital, Adelaide; residence: Myrtle Bank Soldiers’ Home

 

some useful links (‘Slippery Jim’ is Jim Lennon’s nom-de-plume):

Jim Lennon’s reminiscences about Wilpena

Running from the knife

More Wilpena Reminiscences from Mrs G E Davis

Life on early Outback sheep and cattle stations could get pretty lonely – not only for the shepherds in their isolated huts, but also for the manager and the homestead employees.

On the more remote stations, even the occasional passing traveller was a source of some excitement – someone with news from the outside world, someone to while away an evening with, swapping yarns, sharing the odd drink.

Christmas and Easter provided the chance for a welcome break – an excuse for having sporting events, either among the station employees or in competition with folk from the surrounding stations – which could be twenty or more miles away. On these occasions cricket matches, sprinting challenges and horse races were typical events.

Umberatana was a typical remote station, and we are lucky to have a good description of the sporting events on Christmas Day 1867. Managers Samuel and Robert Stuckey organised a four-a-side cricket match, in which Robert Stuckey and Thomas Flett excelled in their bowling. Visitors from neighbouring Illinawortina Station helped fill up the teams.

After the cricket, a number of  two-horse races were organised, along with a trotting match. Proceedings at the track finished up with a hurryskurry.

As evening approached the whole gathering retired to Umberatana Homestead for a Christmas dinner, after which Samuel Stuckey’s wife treated them to some excellent piano playing – something rarely experienced in such a remote part of the North.

In 1870 Umberatana Station held a mid-year race meeting. By now, the event was a bit more formal, with stewards, starters and, of course, a judge. The organising committee appointed as judge a drover by the name of Harry Collins. Harry had very recently arrived in the district with a mob of a thousand or more cattle which he and a couple of mates had brought down from Queensland, pioneering the Strzelecki Creek as a cattle droving route. This was a feat that had quite impressed the locals – no one had considered it possible to bring cattle through that great expanse of dry, sandy desert country. Harry’s horse-riding skills had particularly impressed the locals at Umberatana – and those at neighbouring Blanchewater Station where they had sold all their cattle.

By all accounts the races went well, and the judge proved eminently suited to the task. Harry and his mates then moved south to Blinman, where they treated the locals to stirring tales of their trip down from Queensland – tales of huge snakes, alligators (no doubt perenties, giant goannas up to two and a half metres in length)), floods and the like. They met many groups of Aboriginal people, all of whom proved to be friendly and helpful. After a few days relaxing at Blinman they headed south on the mail coach to Adelaide.

Harry’s offsiders, George Dewdney and William Rook, used their share of the money from the venture to sail to New Zealand and set up new lives. Harry, perhaps less wisely, decided to gradually work his way back to Queensland across the back-blocks of New South Wales. It was to be a couple of years before the law caught up with him and put him on trial at the Roma Court charged with one of Australia’s most daring cattle rustling exploits.

At the Roma trial Harry (under his real name Henry Arthur Readford) had to front up to a jury of twelve of his peers. The evidence about the identity of an imported white bull that Harry had sold to the Walke brothers at Wallelderdene on the southern end of the Strzelecki Creek seemed good enough to gain a conviction. However the prosecution’s main witness about the original theft of the cattle proved to be quite unconvincing in Court – particularly when he was forced to admit that he was an escapee from the Brisbane lunatic asylum. The jury came in with a ‘not guilty’ verdict, much to the outrage of the judge.

Much was said and written about the jury’s decision, and the government reacted by removing the Roma Court from the judicial circuit – they were of the belief that it was impossible to find enough honest jurors in Roma to conduct reliable trials. There was, however, some valid argument that the evidence, as presented, was circumstantial and quite open to a ‘not guilty’ verdict.

Harry went on to have a few more brushes with the law, but eventually owned or managed several cattle stations in western Queensland and over the border in the Northern Territory. He became involved in an ambitious scheme to find a stock route from Western Queensland to Coolgardie in Western Australia. He was drowned in 1901 while crossing the flooded Corella Creek in the Northern Territory.

Harry is best remembered not as Harry Collins or Harry Readford but as one part of the composite but fictional character Starlight in Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms. And to round the story off, even Rolf Boldrewood’s name was an invention – his real name was Thomas Alexander Browne and, appropriately for the Starlight story, he was variously a pastoralist, a magistrate and a writer.

 

… some useful links …

Christmas Day in the Far North – Umberatana Races 1867

Harry Collins judges at the Umberatana Races, 1870

Harry Collins and colleagues at Blinman, 1870

Harry Readford biography – Wikipedia

The Roma Trial, 1873

Letter defending the Roma Court decision  in Regina v Readford 1872

Reminiscences about Harry Readford and the Readford family, 1901

 

 

The Flinders Ranges do have a bit of coastline – the strip from Port Augusta to Port Pirie. Just north of Mambray Creek the Range comes to within a kilometre or so of the sea at Yatala Harbor, the scene of our present tale.

Thomas Hannan (Thomas Andrew Hannan  c.1836-1910) arrived in South Australia on the Navarino in 1837, aged one. His parents took on dairy farming at Onkaparinga, and one of his later childhood chores was to ride his horse down to Adelaide with a load of up to thirty pounds of butter for the market.

Thomas married Ann Murphy at Kapunda in 1858. Two years later, with an infant son in tow, they went to the Victorian gold diggings. They were soon back in South Australia, presumably none the wealthier, and the next twenty or so years seem to have been spent working on sheep stations.

By the mid 1880s they were living in Port Augusta. Thomas owned or leased a scrub block near Yatala Harbor, at that stage covered with mallee eucalypts. He purchased a small cutter, the Star of Peace. The mallee timber made good firewood, and he used his cutter for weekly trips to ship the cut mallee to a woodyard he had opened in Port Augusta. His son had the job of delivering the wood to customers around the town.

On the evening of 15 December 1887, Hannan had his cutter anchored in Yatala Harbor, the keel resting on the sand, in about four feet of water. He had about 8 tons of firewood already loaded on board. As luck would have it, at about 8 pm, an earthquake struck. Modern estimates put the quake at about 5.2 on the Richter scale – it was felt from Burra to beyond Blinman, a distance of some three hundred kilometres.

He described a loud rumbling sound, and the surface of the water gave the appearance of boiling. The cutter was bumped violently against the bottom with such force that the caulking between the upper timbers of the hull crumbled and fell out. The whole of the cutter quivered, the mast shook, and the tensioned ropes cracked like whips. Hannan was quite apprehensive that the sea floor was going to open up and swallow the boat.

Fortunately, the seafloor didn’t swallow him and his boat. Unfortunately, when the tide came in, the water poured in through all the new gaps in the planking, completely filling the boat.

Next morning, the outgoing tide left her high and dry. Thomas enlisted the help of some local farmers who had come to the beach for a swim. Together, they pumped out the hull and re-caulked the seams with white lead. The following high tide floated her again and she safely sailed back to Port Augusta.

 

The Hannans’ Later Years

The firewood business provided an income for a few more years. Then Hannan put the Star of Peace to use in shipping ironstone from Eyre Peninsula to the silver- lead-zinc smelters at Port Pirie. Eventually she was wrecked on the coast near Point Lowly.

In their later years Thomas and Ann moved to Glanville, Port Adelaide, reduced to living on government rations. Ann died at Glanville in 1908 aged 74, and Thomas died in hospital at Fullarton in 1910, also aged 74.

some web links

TA Hannan reminiscences 1887 – An Old Colonist

TA Hannan’s firewood advertisement 1887 – Firewood!  Firewood!

TA Hannan and the earthquake that sank his cutter – The Earthquake at Sea

TA Hannan reminiscences 1906 – SA Old Colonists’ Association

 

I first came across mention of Lindsay Paterson (John Lindsay Paterson 1813-1889) over twenty years ago. He turned up in a series of interviews conducted in the mid-1850s by the South Australian Crown Lands Commissioner in relation to several disputes about the legality and boundaries of some pastoral claims in the Flinders Ranges. The documents are preserved in the holdings of State Records South Australia.

Lindsay had been involved in droving cattle from Adelaide up north to the newly claimed pastoral runs around Parachilna Creek (cattle or sheep stations in later terminology). Later research showed that he was a partner on one of these runs, Bunuroo (or Bunyeroo, in later times Edeowie Station). Lindsay and his wife Rhoda (nee Rhoda Lock) lived at the Bunyeroo Homestead on Bunyeroo Creek, while the other partners, Alexander Fotheringham and Charles Burnet, seem to have lived on another of their leases much further south – the Mount Brown Run.

Other than that, Lindsay remained a bit of a mystery to me. I could find no origins here or overseas, and no records beyond about 1860 when Bunyeroo was sold to William Lavington Marchant. Marchant built a new and more substantial homestead on Edeowie Creek, a few kilometres to the south. From about that time the lease became known as Edeowie.

Then one day, some twenty years down the track, I came across an obituary in an 1889 newspaper. It was for a John Lindsay Paterson, a pastoralist near Bowen in Queensland. Further research proved that this was clearly the same person, so the article added quite a bit to my knowledge about Lindsay’s life in Australia.

But the really jaw-dropping part of this obituary was a tale from Lindsay’s childhood. It claimed that Lindsay’s parents decided to emigrate from Scotland to America. When halfway across the Atlantic the ship caught fire. Realising that all was lost, they placed Lindsay in a basket and set him adrift at ‘the mercy of the waves’. The ship sank and all lives were lost, but Lindsay and his basket were picked up some hours later by a passing vessel. He was returned to Scotland and, in answer to an advertisement for relatives, was claimed by an uncle.

For the researcher, this is one of those ‘tall tales or true?’ moments, with the balance of probabilities weighing rather heavily against Lindsay’s childhood memory. But I have found that the tall tales handed down in family lore are often based on at least some amount of factual information, regardless of how much the story may have become embellished over the years. Sometimes the reality can be just as amazing as the supposed myth!

With little more than Lindsay’s name to go on, a bit of internet searching came up with the true story. Bearing in mind that this event occurred some two centuries ago, the amount of detail available about the events turned out to be quite astounding.

Glasgow in 1820 was facing difficult economic times. A plan was developed for a consortium to apply for a land grant at the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa), and for families from Glasgow and surrounding villages to be invited to apply for the opportunity to begin new lives as settlers in that colony. The successful families sailed on the vessel Abeona (Abeona, Transport, No 36, Lieutenant Mudge), leaving Greenock on 7^th October 1820. They were headed for Algoa Bay, now the site of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Among the passengers were John Paterson, his wife Peddie (nee Peddie Fergus), and their children Elizabeth, John Lindsay, Adam and Helen Wright Paterson.

On 25th November 1820, in the mid-Atlantic, just north of the Equator, the ship caught fire. The crew were able to launch three lifeboats, and a number of passengers and crew got to them. Other passengers, including the Patersons, decided that going down with the ship was a better option than drifting in the mid-Atlantic, with little or no food or water, taking days to die of thirst and exposure.

One fellow passenger, James Wright, who had come to know the Patersons quite well during the voyage, tried to convince them to jump overboard and swim for the lifeboats, but they refused. In a last-ditch effort to change their minds as the fire closed in on them, he pushed young seven-year-old Lindsay overboard and jumped in with him. The rest of the family refused to follow.

Wright and Lindsay managed to reach one of the lifeboats. Just before dawn on the following day, a Portuguese merchant ship, the Condeca da Ponte, sailed directly to the position of the lifeboats. This was completely by chance – the Portuguese had not seen the fire, or any wreckage, or any lifeboats. They just happened to turn up at that same tiny spot in the middle of the Atlantic. Interestingly, one of the young boys who survived with Lindsay was a James McLucky.

One hundred and twelve people died in the loss of the Abeona. Forty nine survived. Six ended up in Cape Colony; others – including Lindsay – returned to Scotland.

Lindsay lived with an uncle until 1828, then with the family of William Barnet at Kinross, Kinross-shire. In 1838 he joined James Fotheringham and others in coming to the new colony of South Australia. Lindsay Paterson, the Fotheringham family and the Barnet family were all to become influential people in the early township of Gawler, north of Adelaide.

The Paterson couple lived at Bunyeroo from about 1855 til 1860. They had two children, a son and a daughter. Lindsay’s wife, Rhoda, died at Bunyeroo on 15th January 1860. Lindsay later moved to Queensland, taking up a pastoral lease at Caley Valley near Bowen.

Lindsay and Rhoda’s son, Alexander Gillies Paterson, did not marry. Their daughter, Agnes, married Thomas Earl, and the family moved to New Zealand in about 1903.

links to some of the sources:

John Lindsay Paterson obituary, May 1889

newspaper report of the sinking of the Abeona

Lieutenant Mudge’s report of the sinking of the Abeona – go to page 340

Abeona survivors’ book: Narrative of the Loss of the Abeona – see page 23

 

 

There are thousands of stories in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. The people, the places, the historical events, the landscape and the natural environment all have their tales to tell, their pictures and memories to be preserved. I hope that these pages will go some way towards achieving this.

Many of the tales are the result of over two decades of archival research, newspaper searching, interviews and field work by myself and research colleague Tony.

Frank