Following in his father’s footsteps William Thomas Chapman was in the postal service for forty-five years.
[trove newspaper=90099554]
I have just recently found pay records at the State Records office (South Australia) as well as photos of William Thomas and his father William which I need to go into the office to view.
Postal worker wages ledger
Oh how attitudes to smoking have changed, and I’m so glad they have. Here is a real blast from the past.
[trove newspaper=48119478]
I searched Trove for the words Buring tobacconist (my 2x great grandfather Heinrich Franz Rudolph Buring was a tobacconist in Adelaide, South Australia) to see what I might find and the following article resulted. This is something I never knew about and a totally unexpected result from a search for tobacconists.
[trove newspaper=95799359]
Phillip Rushton Buring is my first cousin twice removed. I did a Google search on the Lawhill and was surprised to find results including this photo and wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawhill
The Barque Lawhill, photo courtesy of the State Library of Victoria
It turns out this is a fairly well known ship.
From the SA Memory website
The Lawhill was one of the many ships involved in the Australian grain trade. Before that she had carried jute and then case oil for the Anglo-American Oil Company before being bought by Gustaf Erikson in 1917. After her first voyage for Erikson to South America he placed the ship in the South Australian grain trade and she continued in this right through the Second World War. However in 1941 she was taken over by the South African government and ended her career in 1947 under the South African Blue Ensign. From this we may assume that the date on the photograph is incorrect.
Lawhill was a steel four masted, bald-headed, stump-topgallant barque, a consistent sailer which earned the name the ‘Lucky Lawhill’; between 1921-39 Lawhill made 14 voyages to the Spencer Gulf with an average sailing time of 121 days.
There are terrific pictures of a scale model of the Lawhill on this site http://www.ahailey.f9.co.uk/lawhill.htm
Another Trove article
[trove newspaper=11348226]
I haven’t been able to find Phillip’s apprenticeship records yet or the details of his service on the Lawhill, but I will continue searching.
Phillip Rushton Buring – not sure how old he is in this photo.
I just found this photo which I had forgotten I had.
Phillip and his brother Ralph went into the tobacconist shop following after their father and grandfather. I’ve also found more articles, with this search, for further Trove Tuesday posts.
My Great Grandmother Jessie Melina Wigley nee Boyd died from Spanish Flu on 7 May 1919 in Sydney, New South Wales. She was only 29 years old and my grandfather Richard Alexander Wigley was 12.
Jessie Melina Boyd
Jessie Melina Wigley nee Boyd
“The flu was said to have infected 500 million people worldwide and killed 50 to 100 million of them, 1 to 3 percent of the world’s population at the time, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.”
ABC Radio www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/11/11/2740044.htm
Jeremy McAnulty, the Director of Communicable Diseases, with NSW Health talks to Richard Glover about the impact of the flu on New South Wales. This is a short interview which I found well worth listening to. Here are some of the notes I took while listening.
The first wave of the flu in New South Wales was from March to May 1919 this was a weaker strain of the virus however approximately 1800 people still died. The second wave was from May to August 1919. The influenza strain had mutated by this time and was stronger. Approximately 2900 people died in this time.
The Spanish Flu differed from seasonal influenza in that it mostly effected healthy young adults around 30 years of age and not the young, elderly or infirm. Unfortunately Jessie fell right in this age category.
Although this article is primarily talking about the staff and students of the University of Sydney it still gives readers an idea of what it was like in Sydney at the time.
Influenza Emergency Worker Badge from the Powerhouse Museum http://from.ph/135446
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Wednesday 7 May 1919, page 12
Report in the SMH on the day Jessie died.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Wednesday 7 May 1919, page 12
Jessie and Charles Wigley
Jessie’s Death Notice In The Sydney Morning Herald
In Western Australia’s Karrakatta cemetery as well as Payneham Cemetery in Adelaide, South Australia and other cemeteries across Australia, headstones are being removed and grave sites re-used. I’ve written about the destruction of headstones at Payneham cemetery previously; https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2012/04/removal-of-headstones-payneham-cemetery-south-australia/
Sandra Playle has started a petition asking the Western Australian government to bring an end to the clearing of headstones in Western Australian cemeteries. I’ve signed it and I hope that many more people will too. Sign the petition!
Cleared headstones and monuments at Karrakatta cemetery
Thanks to Chris from That Moment In Time for this poem.
GRANDMA’S FOUNDATION
I went to visit Grandma
Her stone it wasn’t there
I thought I made an error
But I did look everywhere
It was then I noticed rubble
Right against the fence
And a dumpster full of rubbish
It really was quite dense.
Then I saw my Grandma’s name
As if she was calling me
“Please help me darling granddaughter
Will you please help me be free
For crushing is the next step
Road base they say they need
I suspect that that is just a cover up
It all comes down to greed.
The land here’s rather valuable
I heard the workmen say
My lovely stone you saved for
Will be destroyed today.”
(c) Crissouli
Cleared headstones at Payneham Cemetery, Adelaide, South Australia
I received this email, via my website, last week;
Hi Kylie, Thank you for your website. I was just wondering if you had come across a brief letter of inquiry written by a Miss May A Scadden of “Riverview” Buffalo, South Gippsland to the AIF about an Arthur Evans who died in France in 1916. This letter can be viewed at http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=1908431 (digital record page 19). Could this be your May Alice Scadden? and is there a story to be told here? (My interest is that Arthur Evans’ brother Horace Sidney Evans married one of my wife’s relations).
This message intrigued me and as I am currently researching the Scadden branch of my tree I followed it up straight away. May Alice Scadden is my first cousin once removed. My paternal grandmother was her Aunt.
Why did May write to the AIF on Arthur’s mother’s behalf?
May Alice Scadden’s letter to the AIF
I turned to Trove to help me find out. I couldn’t find any evidence of May and Arthur being romantically linked however Arthur was living in Buffalo, Victoria, Australia, where May lived, when he enlisted.
Was it part of her job or simply a helpful and good thing to do?
May and her sisters wrote to soldiers and sent care packages as the following article shows.
May and her sister Janet attended a fancy dress ball where May was dressed as a Red Cross Nurse. I wonder if May was a Red Cross nurse or she desired to be one. Either way it shows a concern for others and, with the letters written to soldiers, an interest in world events.
May and Janet attend a fancy dress ball
Maybe they were involved, maybe they weren’t. I don’t know, however it is sad that Arthur didn’t return from the war, he died at the Battle of the Somme and his grieving mother may or may not have received his personal effects.
May went on to marry a local chap, Malcolm McFarlane, in 1918.
(Unfortunately I had some problems with Trove this morning so I haven’t been able to include links to the two newspaper articles above)