Mr William Benjamin Chaffey

STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 692/21 Full transcript of an interview with MR WILLIAM BENJAMIN CHAFFEY on 5 March 2003 by Rob Linn Recording available on CD Access for research: Unrestricted Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library OH 692/21 MR WILLIAM BENJAMIN CHAFFEY NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT This transcript was donated to the State Library. It was not created by the J.D. Somerville Oral History Collection and does not necessarily conform to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription. Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge. This transcript had not been proofread prior to donation to the State Library and has not yet been proofread since. Researchers are cautioned not to accept the spelling of proper names and unusual words and can expect to find typographical errors as well. 2 OH 692/21 TAPE 1 - SIDE A AUSTRALIAN WINE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. Interview with Mr William Benjamin Chaffey on 5th March, 2003. Interviewer: Rob Linn. Well, Mr Chaffey, where and when were you born? BC: I was born in Whittier, California, on November 12th, 1914. And who were your parents? BC: My father was the youngest of his family. He was conceived in America and born in Melbourne. My grandfather and his brother, George Chaffey, came out at the invitation of Deakin to pioneer irrigation settlements, firstly in Mildura, and because of political delays and so on in Victoria, pretty well the same time in Renmark South Australia. So my father was the youngest. The other kids all came out with my grandparents of course, and they were immediately sent to boarding school in Melbourne. Two of them went to Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, for a couple of years. They were George’s sons. My father was born in Mildura and consequently was much younger. The going was pretty rough. My father was born in 1887, and in Melbourne, as it happened. 3 What were his Christian names? BC: William Herbert. He did his primary schooling I suppose in Mildura—they had governesses and all that sort of thing—and then went to boarding school in Adelaide. He could only get home once a year because of difficulties in travel, but before many years had gone there was a train to Morgan. He travelled by river steamer to Renmark. He spent a lot of time in Renmark because those last eighty or ninety miles from Renmark to Mildura, except by river craft, was pretty well impassable. So he spent a fair bit of time there on Chowilla station with Robinsons. By then the family, of course, was well known. George had a big house at Paringa. That was well known. Olivewood was the family centre and office. Charles Chaffey, my grandfather’s younger brother, was put in charge of Renmark, and so he lived at Olivewood and my father would spend school holidays at Olivewood, or out at Chowilla station. He’d get home for Christmas by steamer and by horses and coaches—train to Morgan—but spent a lot of time with friends in Adelaide. The Cudmores were related through marriage. And he'd spend a lot of time at Adare in Victor Harbor, and out at what's now Sacred Heart, Brighton Road—Paringa Hall. As a matter of interest, I was eighteen when I first went to Roseworthy before I ever saw Adelaide. As soon as I went to school—Geelong—we went to Melbourne every year for summer. Tell me a little bit about your mother, Mr Chaffey. BC: By coincidence, both my parents were British Canadians. My grandfather and his wife, although they lived in California and came from Ottawa, were 4 British Canadians. The Chaffeys left Somerset in 1812 when the French wars were on, and they were engineers. They built bridges over the St Lawrence, and Chaffey locks and weirs on the (sounds like, Reed-o) River, I think it is, in Ontario. When Dad finished school in Adelaide—his old man had him working for a year at the winery because he was young, about seventeen or eighteen years of age—he sent him over to his brother, George, who'd returned to California and by then was a banker in southern California. In fact, he and his son, Andrew, who’d cut his teeth at the Union Bank in Mildura and therefore had a background in Australian banking, persuaded them to go into banking in California. And so Dad went over there. In fact, he arrived in San Francisco when San Francisco was burning after the earthquake, and he and two or three other Melbourne friends worked there for a while helping to clean up and so on, and then went down to Los Angeles. He worked for his uncle in the Bank of Southern California (I’m pretty sure), and then later was moved to Whittier, to the Whittier Water Company, which was in Ontario and named after Ontario Canada by my grandfather and his brother where they'd pioneered irrigation. So my father was secretary/manager of Whittier Water Company, one of the big family concerns in the Ontario irrigation settlements. Is this actually in Canada or California? BC: No, Ontario, California. By coincidence, Mother was a British Canadian too, because her father and mother - (Tape restarted) 5 You were just talking about your mother, Mr Chaffey. BC: They were married in California. What was her name? BC: Nayda Laura Rolph. You’ve heard of Pocahontas(?) of course? Yes. BC: Same family. Her two older brothers were pretty clued up. One ended up in Philadelphia as President of the American Storage Battery(?) Company. He was a doctor of law I suppose—Wyman Rolph. Her brother, who was only about twelve years older than me—Raymond—ended up a general sales manager. They all went into this Willard Storage Battery Company. Joined in Canada, in Toronto and places like that. Wyman ended up as one of the top businessmen in the States in Philadelphia. Ray was the general sales manager. And the other brother, Arno, was killed in the Atlantic during the war. Was torpedoed. They would've been my father’s age. Anyway, we talk about other ethnic groups like Greeks and Italians and Swedes and others congregating, but I presume the British congregated too because my father obviously, through his relatives living in California, would've been in various British groups and clubs. And Mother’s family would've been well and truly known to them. He met her and married her there. By coincidence, both British Canadians. 6 How did they come to get back here to Australia? BC: My uncle, Fred, who was being groomed to run the Mildura winery—it was called Mildura Winery and Distillery—had been sent to London in 1914 to further his education. War broke out and he joined the London Artists Rifles and was subsequently killed at Ypres on what's now Anzac Day in 1917. He was aged twenty-three. So my grandfather got in touch with my father in California and said, ‘When you're able to travel I want you to come out here and manage the winery’. So virtually at the end of the war we came out. I was the eldest, my brother two and a half years younger, and a sister imported in utero. We went straight to Mildura and lived at Rio Vista for a year, which was a family home. I remember my grandfather quite clearly. My mother wasn't too happy about it. You know, she came from a family who’d lived in the lap of luxury in America, and the old man being a typical Australian was glad to get back I suppose. Did your mother always find it hard here? BC: Well, she obviously had to adapt to it. Things were pretty bloody rough in a place like Mildura in the early days. We went through a depression of course. I remember that quite well. I remember blokes out of work coming to the house one after the other offering to cut the wood, or do anything, for a sandwich. Mother, like other women, was flat out making sandwiches for them. We always had plenty of wood cut. (Laughs) And plenty of times there was nothing to do. You said, Mr Chaffey, that you were educated at Geelong later on. BC: Yes. 7 How did you ever come to go to Roseworthy to begin a diploma in agriculture? BC: Well, we virtually lived at the Mildura winery. After boarding school I had two options. My father’s cousin, Ben Chaffey, was well known as a grazier who'd bought in in drought conditions and made a pack of money. He literally owned the Murray/Darling area. Had wonderful sheep stations everywhere. He was well known for that. One option was to get a job with him on one of his stations, which would've been out from Wentworth, or not far away. The other was to go on with the wine and spirit industry, in which case Roseworthy was the only agricultural college that had anything worthwhile.

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