THOMAS TWISDEN HODGES, [FORMERLY] OF SANDGATE, , GENTLEMAN & M.P., AND HIS TIME IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA FROM 1853 TO 1856 – PART 2.

JOHN D’EWES

So it is back again to John D’Ewes, whom we first met in Part 1 of this history of Thomas Twisden Hodges and his (Hodges) time in Australia in 1853 to 1856. You may well be asking “Who was John D’Ewes and what is his place in Australian history, with particular regard to the Gold Rush in Victoria in the early 1850’s”? It is now necessary to give some additional information on The Eureka Stockade/Rebellion and information on John D’Ewes’ role in the cause of all that followed. Two additional Internet descriptions on the background to The Eureka Stockade/Rebellion and to John D’Ewes that have been located and they are as follows.

1 “A Spark Ignited - On 6 October 1854 two drunken Scots [gold-diggers] disturbed the publican of the Eureka Hotel, James Bentley, and asked for a drink. In the ensuing confrontation, one of the Scots, James Scobie, was kicked and clubbed to death. Bentley was an ex-convict from Van Dieman’s Land who was on very friendly terms with local government officials. He was arrested by two of his friends, but was not committed for trial for murder by Police Magistrate Dewes despite his [Bentley’s] obvious guilt. The diggers were incensed, and saw this as clear evidence of corruption within the police and judiciary”1 The Eureka Stockade event followed …

2 “BACKGROUND - John D’Ewes was appointed Police Magistrate at Ballarat in January 1854. The diggers [gold miners] believed him to be corrupt. D’Ewes left Ballarat after his dismissal, and by the end of 1854 he [D’Ewes] was in Sydney. GOLDFIELD INVOLVEMENT 1854 - D’Ewes gave evidence at the Board of Enquiry into the burning of Bentley’s Eureka Hotel. He was dismissed on 20 November 1854, over Bentley’s acquittal [for Scobie’s death as found in the enquiry ordered by the Governor Charles Hotham]. This [earlier] acquittal greatly angered the diggers, and triggered the burning of James Bentley’s Eureka Hotel. D’Ewes was believed to have owned shares in Bentley’s Eureka Hotel. Bentley was a witness examined during the report of the Board appointed to enquire into the circumstances connected with the riot at Ballarat, and the burning of James Bentley’s Eureka Hotel.” This information is from the Internet under John D’Ewes.2

It has been considered necessary – for the benefit of readers – to recommend other works devoted to The Eureka Stockade that may be useful for further information for readers. The two works recommended are as follows: - a) Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand – Eureka Centenary Supplement. University of Melbourne, 1954. Admittedly this work consists of 100 pages. It is the product of a number of scholars and includes a number of long articles, e.g. “The Causes of Eureka”, by Geoffrey Serle, consisting of 9 pages; “Eureka and the Creative Writer”, by Hume Dow, consisting of 11 pages; and, “The Significance of Eureka in Australian History”, by R.D. Walshe, consisting of 19 pages; etc. It may be considered that these articles are rather left-wing. There is also a Bibliography of Eureka, which consists of 10 pages. It is of interest to note that in the article by R.D. Walshe, entitled “The Significance of Eureka in Australian History” the following statement is made on p.70 “following which the acquittal of Bentley by the venal magistrate, D’Ewes, was reversed …” b) Eureka Centenary Committee – Eureka 1854-1954. Ballarat, Victoria, John Fraser & Son, 1954. This consists of 8 pages. There is a long (6 and a half pages) article on Eureka, with a brief Bibliography and a short article of the activities that led to the celebration of the Eureka Stockade Centenary in 1954.

FURTHER INFORMATION ON JOHN D’EWES

1Hewitt, William – The Eureka Stockade, http://www.sbc.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=83 - Viewed August 2016 2http://eurekapedia.org/John.D%27Ewes

1

D’Ewes was a member of the English landed gentry. He was born in 1804 and died in 1861. John D’Ewes was the son of Bernard D’Ewes, Esq., of Wilsburn or Wellesbourne, Warwickshire and Judith D’Ewes (née Beresford). He attended Rugby School and later was at Cambridge University.3 In the two books that D’Ewes wrote and that were published the author’s abundant use of French and Latin words and phrases was clearly demonstrated – likewise, presumably was the frustration of 19th century printers! He recounts in his books that he was in the Madras Regiment in India, before returning to . He arrived in Melbourne on 26/27 March 1853 on the schooner Vibilia with his wife.

In an effort to find employment he stated that he met “by dint of a little local interest with Mr. Latrobe, the [Lieutenant-] Governor” of the Colony Victoria.4 Charles Latrobe (1801-1875) was appointed in 1839 (February) as Superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales and after the establishment in 1851 of the colony of Victoria [which is now a State of Australia] he became its first lieutenant-governor. The Latrobes arrived in Melbourne on 1 October 1939. Latrobe resigned his office as Governor of Victoria in 1854, and he left Melbourne on 6 May 1854. Latrobe’s successor was Sir Charles Hotham; see also later in this Part 2.5 In Australia the La Trobe surname is not spelt as La Trobe but as Latrobe.

Later in 1853 John D’Ewes was interviewed by the Chief Commissioner of Police. At that interview he was offered a temporary position of Police Magistrate at Ballarat in the place of an officer who was about to go on leave. As a result - if he accepted that temporary position - he would be offered the first vacancy of a permanent position within the service. D’Ewes went to Ballarat on this temporary appointment and commenced duties on or about 1 August 1853. He did not give the exact date of the end of this temporary appointment in his book, but he only stated that “The time was now approaching when my term of service as locum tenens (defined as “a person, who substitutes temporarily for another”) for Mr. Eyre was likely to terminate, and for my return to Melbourne, where I had left my wife.”6 So it is likely that D’Ewes left Ballarat in “the latter end of October, 1853”7.

D’Ewes began his permanent appointment on 1 January 1854, as he recounted “Mr. Eyre having obtained another situation, on the 1st of January 1854, I was appointed permanent Police-Magistrate of Ballarat, and ordered to proceed forthwith to my destination [Ballarat].8 This appointment ceased with his dismissal on 20 November 1854, although D’Ewes only refers to the date of his dismissal as “ultimately led to the loss of my appointment in the month of November, 1854”9.

Later John D’Ewes wrote two books that were published in 1857 and 1858. The first was his China, Australia and the Pacific Islands in the years 1855-56 and which will be referred to again in this article. It is interesting to note that the title quotes the “years 1855-1856”, but in relation to Australia, as we have already seen, D’Ewes was in Australia in 1853 and 1854!

The book China, Australia, and the Pacific Island […] is categorised as “rare” by Australian libraries that have it in stock. The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales – for Sandgate readers, the major library in the world for Australasian material and resources – holds two copies. One of which is David Scott Mitchell’s copy and contains his bookplate and is signed “D.S. Mitchell”. As far as I am aware this was the first time that I have handled a book for an enquiry in the Mitchell Library of such status, but as with every book it is the contents that are of the greater asset – rather than its awe-inspiring provenance or commercial value.

The second of D’Ewes two books was entitled “Sporting in both hemispheres”, which was published in 1858 by G. Routledge & Co, of and New York. One point needs to be made at the outset – the word “Sporting” in the title relates specifically to shooting birds and animals and not to the general noun of Sports as is defined in most language dictionaries. D’EWES TEXT IN HIS BOOK ON THE UN-NAMED HODGES

3Alumni Cantabrigienses …to 1900; comp. by J.A. Venn – Part 2 from 1752 to 1900, V.II Chalmers –Fytche. C.U.P., 1944, p. 289 4D’Ewes, John – China, Australia and the Pacific Islands […] Digital edition, 2007, p. 27. 5This text is based on The Wikipedia article on La Trobe and on the Australian Encyclopaedia. Vol. 5. pp. 246- 248. Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1958 6D’Ewes, op. cit. p. 60. 7D’Ewes, op. cit. p. 65. 8D’Ewes, op. cit. p. 71. 9D’Ewes, op. cit. p. 105.

2 Now you may be well asking “Why is the first title of John D’Ewes - China, Australia and the Pacific Islands in the years 1855-56 – so important in the context of this article”? First of all D’Ewes met up with Thomas Twisden Hodges in Ballarat in the first period of time of his temporary position in the goldfields in 1853, and he referred to that meeting in this book. Secondly but more importantly – from the point of view of research – D’Ewes did not actually name Hodges when writing about that meeting with Hodges. We have to be thankful that the identity of Hodges was recognised – first of all at Folkestone in 1857 and later in about 1900 when it was indexed (unusually) by Col. Fynmore or on behalf of Col. Fynmore and again in 2008 through that Fynmore index entry. At that time in 2008 I was sent a copy of the relevant item from the Folkestone Library’s microfilm files of the Folkestone Chronicle by Pat Walters of Folkestone Library. In fact the relevant index entry to the Thomas Twisden Hodges reference is on page 198 of Col. Fynmore’s Sandgate & Shorncliffe Scrapbook V.2. This Hodges reference was a handwritten note by Fynmore, or by someone else, in the spine of the volume and reads as follows “See the extract in Folkestone Chronicle 3 Oct. 1857 from “China, Australia and the Pacific Islands’, by J. D’Ewes, as to Twisden Hodges at Ballarat – his yacht (90 tons) with a Kentish Crew”.

So back in 1857 – after the book was first published – someone, maybe the newspaper editor, at the office of the Folkestone Chronicle read the book and recognised the identity and the name of the man, a former Kent MP, who had lived for many years in Sandgate, to whom D’Ewes was referring in the book – without D’Ewes naming that individual! As a result of that recognition a section of the text from the book was printed in the newspaper, with additional comments from the editor or whoever it was who recognised Thomas Twisden Hodges! That extract will be printed in full, as it appeared in the newspaper and in the book, on pages 3 (below) and 4 of this article, Part 2.

Before it is entered as part of the text of this article it is necessary to add some preliminary sentences that precede it in the book, as those sentences also actually relate to Thomas Twisden Hodges and to his role – indirectly – in the history of Australia.

The preliminary section [not included in the Folkestone Chronicle entry] reads as follows: - “The attractions of Ballarat were fast increasing, and hundreds, indeed thousands, were wending their way, intent upon exploring the hidden treasures of Eureka and the Canadian Gully. Stagecoaches, or American Waggons, capable of holding a large number of passengers, drawn by four horses, and performing the journey from Ballarat to Geelong [should this phrase not have been written as “from Geelong to Ballarat” as that was the direction in which gold prospectors would have been travelling to Ballarat?] (accidents excepted!) in two days, had been established by an enterprising en [ci – sic] devant [both words translated as “former” based on the correct version of this French phrase] English member of Parliament, at a cost of £50 per head [this £50.00, it is assumed on the basis of that which follows, is the purchase price of each horse and not of the charge for a seat in the waggon!] and filled with a motley collection of passengers.

[D’Ewes continued his text in this way -] At this stage of my narrative I cannot help devoting a short space to attempting a description of this most active and wonderful speculator, whose amour proper [translated as “a sense of one’s own worth; self-respect”] should he happen to peruse these lines, will not, I hope, be wounded by a recital of his efforts to command success, however much he may have failed in the endeavour” 10

THE FOLKESTONE CHRONICLE ITEM

The following is the section on Thomas Twisden Hodges from D’Ewes book that was printed in the Folkestone Chronicle, but remember that Hodges was not actually named – that newspaper inference was drawn by recognition: - “A SPECULATIVE KENTISH EX-M.P.” [this headline was inserted in the Folkestone Chronicle of 3 October 1857]11 “I remember, during the early part of my sojourn at the diggings [in 1853], the Chief Commissioner [officially the Chief Commissioner over the Gold Region, John Richard Hardy]12 arrived from Melbourne, on a short visit to Ballarat, accompanied by an extremely rotund and convivial looking gentleman of middle age, well known to the yachting and sporting circles of Great Britain, with whose person I was perfectly familiar, although I possessed

10D’Ewes, op. cit. pp. 65-70. 11Folkestone Chronicle of 3 October 1857 page number not recorded. 12Fitzsimons, Peter – Eureka the unfinished revolution. Sydney, Random House Australia Pty. Ltd. for William Heinemann, 2012, p. 57.

3 but a very slight acquaintance with him. Being astonished by the appearance of a man of his previous habits at [sic – “in”?] the antipodes, I ventured to inquire his motives for emigrating, when he informed me with the most perfect sangfroid [translated - as defined in The Shorter English dictionary - as “coolness, indifference, absence of excitement or agitation”] that he had come out to Australia with the intention of making £200,000 or so in a few years, and then returning [to England] and giving the British House of Commons a better idea of their Australian colonies than they hitherto possessed. I suggested that by far the most speedy way of making a fortune I had heard of was by keeping an inn or public-house. He immediately replied that he had not landed in Melbourne twenty-four hours without taking measures to secure an establishment of that description; he had also despatched his yacht (a cutter of 90 tons), with a crew of Kentish men known to himself, and she had arrive safe at Port Phillip, where he had sold her to the [Victorian Colonial] Government for a considerable sum. These men, he told me, he had equipped with everything necessary for a gold-digging expedition, upon the understanding that they were to pay him one-half or one-quarter (I do not exactly remember which) of their gains. In addition to these speculations, both of which were managed by deputy, he had purchased, by credit and otherwise, several American waggons, and upwards of fifty horses, at an average cost of £50 each, which were now performing the stage-coach service; he had also to keep up an extensive staff of coachmen, ostlers, conductors, &., at very high wages; and the cost for forage was immense. He had accompanied the Chief Commissioner to Ballarat with a floating idea of building saw-mills, speculating in land, and establishing market-gardens, merely as a preliminary step to other and more important undertakings. It might suggest itself to ordinary mortals that a capital of between two and three thousand pounds, nearly all he possessed when he arrived, and which arose from the sale of his vessel, was hardly sufficient for such gigantic speculations, and in a country where the value of everything is subject to such extraordinary and rapid changes [in the year 1853]; but my friend’s confidence in his own infallibility was never shaken, and his egotism was so great, and his sophistry so cool and persuasive, that he possessed a great facility of talking round others to the point he aimed at. The hotel and restaurant he had started in Melbourne, when his projected improvements were effected, would involve an annual rent of £6,000; and he paid his head cook two guineas per diem [Latin for “per day” or “for each day”]! He installed as manager of this establishment a Polish Jew, who had formerly acted in the capacity of courier to him in Europe, and who had accompanied him from Marseilles, and whose character he depicted as a fellow who would cheat all the world with the exception of himself! The upshot of this speculation was, that in a few months Monsieur Louis unhappily forgot to make this exception in favour of his master, and not only filled his own pockets, but brought an action against his patron for alleged moneys due, which he succeeding in gaining. The joint-stock company of gold-diggers, when turned loose upon their own efforts, were either unsuccessful in their search for the precious metal, or at all events never turned up again to report progress. The coaching establishment was disposed of to a clever Yankee [Freeman Cobb? - see also below] who looked after it himself and drove his own horses. Some injudicious purchases in land fell to one-half of their original value; and in less than a year the enterprising ex-Member had to make over his assets to his creditors, which, as may be well conceived, stood in very minute proportion to the amount of his debts and responsibilities.”

“It will not be difficult for many of our readers to recognise the individual referred to in the above extract, he being too well known in this locality.” [This was the inserted comment in the Folkestone newspaper that indicated that D’Ewes text on Hodges was recognisable as being that of Thomas Twisden Hodges in both Folkestone and Sandgate.]

HODGES’ ROLE IN AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORTATION

There are two sections in D’Ewes book (as quoted above) which indicate that Hodges was responsible for initiating the first “American Waggons” for transportation to and from the gold fields at Ballarat. Usually such initiative is attributed in Australia to “Cobb and Co.” or to Freeman Cobb – maybe the American to whom D’Ewes refers. There is an 1859 book in which the author makes the same attribution as does D’Ewes.

This book is William Kelly’s Life in Victoria; or Victoria in 1853, and Victoria in 1858 … this was originally published in London, by Chapman and Hall, in 1859. The following is a very relevant extract from the book:- “Even the Yankees themselves, though aware of their [American waggon-coaches] adaptability, never brought them into use in Victoria until an English gentleman, whose wits and energies were aroused from fashionable lethargy by the deprivation of his parliamentary privileges, put the first batch [of waggon-coaches] in active motion. It is a popular delusion to imagine that safe and rapid travelling in Victoria is due to American enterprise – a mistaken supposition which has lately taken root because a clever go-ahead Yankee managed to associate his name prominently with the business, and to put a majority of his countrymen in possession of the ribbons. But honour to him honour is due, T-d-n H-d-s was the first man who, on his own hook [“16 - on one’s own hook”

4 Colloquial “on one’s own responsibility”13 However this may not only be a phrase of Australian English, “Phrases. … On one’s own hook: on one’s own account, at one’s own risk (Colloquial.)”14], started and successfully established a line of fast coaches in Victoria. He was as much the pioneer of fast travelling in the colony, as John Pascoe Fawkner was the precursory apostle of settlement and civilisation. Mr. H-d-s, in 1853, purchased up a lot of these Yankee coaches, got together mobs of well-selected horses, superintended personally all the preliminary preparations, starting and maintaining with remarkable punctuality all the time of his management a line of coaches from Geelong to Ballarat, over the identical track which I have twice travelled with my reader. If western Americans originated the project, it would not, nor should not, have been a matter of surprise, but that an English gentleman, accustomed to tool his teams over the smooth turnpike-roads of England, or the well-maintained thoroughfares of the Continent, should be the man to carry passengers (really carry them) through the swamps, the ravines, the crab-holes, and other impracticabilities of the Australian bush, is – even to me who have brought wheeled vehicles over strange places – a subject of wonder and admiration. His enterprise was as well supported as he could have wished, the up and down coaches at 10 shillings fares were always crammed full, nor was there a chance of a seat unless it was secured some days in advance, so that the practicability and payability of rapid bush travelling were at once successfully demonstrated by an English gentleman “all of the olden time”, and not by an American of modern growth. Mr. H-d-s embarked soon after in another leviathan enterprise, which holding out for a time of much greater promise of emolument, induced him to sell out of his coaching business. It was purchased up by associated American capitalists …15

It would appear that the William Kelly’s account of Hodges involvement in the provision of travelling organisations was much more positive than John D’Ewes’ account. It is also of interest to note that Kelly used an “abbreviated form” of Hodges name, as did W.H. Newnham, the author of “Melbourne: biography of a city”, which was quoted in Part 1 of this article.

You, the reader, may have wondered at my earlier comment on page 3 of this Part 2 that “Hodges and his role – indirectly – in the history of Australia”. This applies to Thomas Twisden Hodges’ actions in establishing the first “safe and rapid travelling in Victoria” as detailed above. In fact this endeavour in Australia is frequently attributed to “Cobb and Co.” and throughout the whole of Eastern Australia [States - Colonies before 1900 of] – Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.16 It seems to me that (as will be shown below) on the basis of the text of William Kelly certainly Hodges preceded Cobb and Co. in his efforts between Geelong and Ballarat.

In addition to the above-mentioned correction to the fabled attribution, held by most Australians, that Freeman Cobb and “Cobb and Co.” were the first to introduce basic transportation procedures into Australia. There is another book – on “Cobb and Co.” – that refutes this basic error. This book is by Austin, K.A – The Lights of Cobb and Co.; the story of the frontier coaches, 1854-1924. Adelaide, Rigby, 1967. The author, K.A. Austin, refutes statements made by George F Train in his book “My life in many states and foreign lands: dedicated in my seventy-fourth year.” – published in 1902.

Austin writes as follows: - “Cobb and Co.’s original coach line was certainly not “the first in Australia”, and, of course, coaches of the English pattern had been in use in Australia for many years. If Train was referring to the Concord coach, his statement is correct, but Concord “thorough brace waggons” appear to have been used for carrying passengers before Cobb and Co. began operations. As we have seen William Kelly in his book Life in Victoria, published in 1859, clearly stated that an Englishman, T. Hodges, who had been a member of the House of Commons, was the first to put American “wagon-coaches” (probably Concord wagons) on the road in Victoria.”

FURTHER COMMENTS ON D’EWES TEXT ON THE UNAMED HODGES

Now it is back to D’Ewes text in his book and as reprinted in the Folkestone Chronicle. However there is one comment that it is necessary to make in regard to D’Ewes statement on Hodges’ long-term plan to return to

13The Macquarie Dictionary [of Australian English]. [Sydney], Macquarie University, NSW, p 852, one of many definitions of the noun “hook”. 14The Shorter Oxford English dictionary … 3rd revised edition. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956. P. 919. 15Kelly, William – Life in Victoria, or Victoria in 1853, and Victoria in 1858 … Reprinted ed. Kilmore, Victoria, Lowden, 1977. 16Australian Encyclopaedia … V.2, pp 425-6.

5 England and to give to “the British House of Commons a better idea of their Australian colonies than they hitherto possessed.” My reaction and question to that D’Ewes text is that Thomas Twisden Hodges had been less than one year in Victoria, so how was he - by then - able to advise Parliament of the real situations in Australia in the early 1850s? Maybe this was just an example of D’Ewes rubbishing Hodges.

We have reproduced in the text about facts in Part 1 concerning Hodges involvement in a Melbourne hotel at the outset of his arrival in Melbourne in 1853. There is adequate coverage on Hodges role in relation to the Union Hotel. In that extract a quotation was made from W.H. Newnham’s book entitled “Melbourne biography of a city”, in which it can be assumed that the writer is referring to Thomas Twisden Hodges, thanks to his clear description and to the use of the short-hand versions of his name. Added to which is the fact that we know already that Hodges name was linked with that of “F. Louis” from December 1854 as the proprietors of the Union Hotel and also from D’Ewes book. This confirms D’Ewes statements in respect of Hodges – he was in the colony of Victoria by September 1853, as was F. Louis – but not as a “passenger” on the Laelia/Loelia!

So far no record has been located in Shipping Arrivals in Melbourne in 1853 of T.T. Hodges’ date of arrival in Melbourne and the name of the ship on which Hodges travelled. As will be seen later the date of the arrival of the Laelia/Loelia has been ascertained on 4 September 1853.17 However D’Ewes statement that F. Louis, at Marseilles, was taken on board the ship on which Hodges was travelling leads to another set of hypotheticals.

These may be difficult to outline and for the reader to take on board from the following text. One has to ask if a commercial ship’s captain – of a ship sailing from the UK to Melbourne in 1853 (before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869) - would have sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and onto Marseilles to pick up an employee of a passenger and then turned around and sailed back to the Atlantic Ocean and onto Australia! But maybe if “James Hodgman” – who later was listed as the owner/captain of Laolia/Leolia - was actually Thomas Twisden Hodges, using another surname close to his official surname of Hodges? In this case the decision to make a detour to Marseilles while on the voyage to Melbourne would have been quite straightforward. So did Hodges arrive in Melbourne on 4 September 1853 named as “James Hodgman”?

At this stage it is necessary to address the statements made by John D’Ewes on the “yacht” of Hodges. There are a number of complications in this regard the first of which is the name of the yacht – The Times newspaper refers to it as the “Laelia” whereas most Australian sources refer to it with the spelling of Loelia! The following is the 1853 quotation from The Times: - “NAVAL INTELLIGENCE … ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON. The Laelia, belonging to Mr. J. Hodges, late member for Rochester, has this day sailed from our harbour, for Port Phillip, [Victoria], Australia, her owner being about to take his final leave of this country for the gold regions. WOOLWICH, May 7.”18 It is not definitely clear from the above if Thomas Twisden Hodges was actually on board the Laelia and also in charge of his yacht/cutter. One also has to comment on the statement above - “Mr. J. Hodges, late member for Rochester” – is this a reworking of the “James Hodgman concept” or is this just a typographical error?

However other resources have been provided by Peter Gill, in which the spellings of the yacht’s name are written as Loelia - in the Australian version of the spelling. These sources state as follows:- “Loelia, wooden cutter/yacht, built at Poole, Dorset, England in 1850. O.N. 53977, 56-ton, dimensions 69.0’ x 17.0’ x 9.6’. Owner – James T. Hodgman, of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, registered at Poole, 8/1850. 4/9/1853 – Arrived at Melbourne from Rochester, U.K., (departed on May 18 – this is at variance with The Times date/s of 7 May 1853, whereas that port was Woolwich! The date of arrival is confirmed in the Melbourne newspaper Argus with the name of the captain printed as J. Hodgman.19) 15/9/1853 …

… – For Sale – The cutter/yacht Loelia, 82-ton O.M. and 49- ton N.M., she was built in 1850, is double timbered, and having been in very heavy weather from the Cape [of Good Hope], has arrived in perfect order and proved herself an extraordinary seaworthy and fast craft. For price and particulars apply to Mr James Hodgman, master, on board

17The Argus of 6 September 1853 p 4. 18The Times, 9 May 1853 p 8, column e. 19Argus, of 6 September 1853 p 4, Shipping Intelligence, Arrivals.

6 off Sandridge [now called Port Melbourne].” … [The cutter/yacht was purchased by the Victorian Government for use as a supply vessel for the many surveying parties then very active throughout the colony]. “2/3/1854 – Captain Ross, of H.M. Cutter Loelia, reports the ship Humbolt, Cooke, Master, on shore at the Heads.” [This sentence is included to indicate that the Loelia had been purchased by the Victorian Government between 15 September 1853 and 2 March 1854.]

Certainly D’Ewes stated that Hodges “had despatched his yacht” – does this mean that Hodges did not sail on the Laelia/Loelia? However D’Ewes may have been uncertain of all the facts in this regard. There is no doubt that the yacht/cutter, named Laelia, was sold to the Victorian Colonial Government. But no record has been found of the sale price. Again D’Ewes may have been unsure about the price paid for the boat and actual total of Thomas Twisden Hodges’ finances that were available to him (Hodges). However D’Ewes did estimate that Hodges had “between two and three thousand pounds, nearly all he possessed when he arrived, and which arose from the sale of his vessel”. On the other hand D’Ewes stated in his book, as printed in the Folkestone Chronicle, that Hodges “had sold her to the [Victorian Colonial] Government for a considerable sum”! Therefore can the D’Ewes information really reliable in this situation?

Further to the problem of the ownership of the Laelia/Loelia, Peter Gill has provided yet more information in this regard. This is from a book, in which it is stated as follows: - “Thomas Twisden Hodges and the Loelia In 1852 (a typographical error or a mix-up of facts?), Thomas Twisden Hodges, Member of the British Parliament for Rochester arrived in Melbourne aboard his yacht, the Loelia. […] In 1853 the Victorian [Colonial] Government purchased the Loelia […] This [purchase] no doubt provided Twisden Hodges with enough capital to establish himself in the booming colony, and at the end of 1853 he bought the Union Hotel … Writers of the time refer to him as ‘T.H.’ or ‘T-d-n H-d-s’, perhaps to help him [Hodges] preserve some anonymity against his creditors in England.”20 But let us return to the evaluation of all that John D’Ewes said about Thomas Twisden Hodges and his affairs.

It has not been possible to ascertain the accuracy of D’Ewes statements about the yacht’s crew being sent off to find gold, and the fact that they never returned to pay to Hodges his planned share of the profits. This may be an anecdote of D’Ewes creation, but it does appear to be in line with Hodges’ financial and other actions. D’Ewes statement that “Some injudicious purchases in land fell to one-half of their original value; and in less than a year the enterprising ex-Member had to make over his assets to his creditors, which, as may be well conceived, stood in very minute proportion to the amount of his debts and responsibilities.” Maybe John D’Ewes was continuing his attempt to ensure that Thomas Twisden Hodges could not be identified from his text on Hodges.

However it appears that Hodges bankruptcy was finalised in 1856. In February 1856 there is a press report under the heading “New Insolvents” on the case of Thomas Twisden Hodges, which states that “the insolvent assigned all his property in 1854 for the benefit of his creditors, then valued at about £14,000 sterling.”21 However it was not until October 1856 that the matter was finally ended. On Monday 27 October 1856 the Insolvency Court in Melbourne heard the Hodges matter.22 The latter source states that the amount of liabilities was £35,738 whereas the Stated Assets were given as £276.

THE HOTHAM/HODGES CONNECTION

Sir Charles Hotham landed at Melbourne on 22 June 1854, succeeding Latrobe who had sailed away on 6 May 1854. Hotham was faced with Colonial financial problems, many of which were related to the Eureka Stockade situation and to the Gold Rush in general throughout Colonial Victoria. Hotham’s term as Lieutenant- Governor/Governor of Victoria was relative short, as he died on 31 December 1855, although many sources of information give Hotham’s date of the end of his office to 10 November 1855. Peter Gill made an amazing discovery from an issue of the Victorian Government Gazette, which was devoted to the arrangements for Hotham’s funeral on 4 January 1856. On one page [p 50] there is laid out the full funeral party, excluding the military brigade which is shown on the first page. There are listed as the “Chief Mourners”, the following: - “The Private Secretary, The Aide-de-Camp, Twisden Hodges, Esquire, [and] His Excellency

20Neale, Ralph P. - Jolly dogs are we: the history of yachting in Victoria 1838-1894. Mont Albert, Victoria, Australia, Landscape publications, 1984, p. 63. 21The Argus, 13 February 1856 p 5. 22The Argus, 28 October 1856 p 5.

7 Major-General Macarthur.” The names of other employees of the late Charles Hotham also follow, as do other members of the funeral party.23

Later Peter Gill was able to advise the reason for Hodges being listed among the Chief Mourners in Charles Hotham’s funeral Procession. Thomas Twisden Hodges was a first cousin of Hotham. Hotham’s mother was Anne Elizabeth Hodges before her marriage to the Rev. Frederick Hotham – she was the sister of Thomas Law Hodges, the father of Thomas Twisden Hodges.

BACK TO ENGLAND AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS

In late 1856 Twisden Hodges and his wife left Melbourne and returned to England. They sailed on 29 November 1856 on the ship “Blackwall”, which arrived in London on 11 March 1857. The passenger list, as reported in a newspaper identified her as “Lady Nott” with a servant, while her husband was listed as “Mr Hodges”. According to an entry on the Internet the wife of T.T. Hodges only began to use her first husband’s title after the death of her second husband, Thomas Twisden Hodges. The use by Rosa Nott of her first husband’s title was in line with current English forms of address, and one that she continued (like Lady Randolph Churchill) up to her own death. It is also relevant to record that – after the death of Thomas Twisden Hodges on 12 March 1865 – a document that records Probate details, the wife of the deceased is quoted as being “Rosa Wilson Hodges, commonly called Lady Nott of Frimhurst aforesaid the lawful widow and relict. Effects under £1,500.”

But back to 1856/7, the date of the arrival of the “Blackwall” in England early in March 1857 meant that the Hodges couple arrived before the death of Thomas Law Hodges on 14 May 1857 at Hemstead (also spelt Hempstead), Benenden, Kent. In fact news of the approaching death of his father may have been one of the reasons for the couple’s return to England at that time. T.L. Hodges’ son Thomas would have found the financial situation after his father’s death was such that “it fell to him, or his agents, to sell the Hemstead estate and the contents of the house.”24 His mother, Rebecca Hodges, had died at Hemstead 2 February 1843.

A daughter, Rose Caroline Twisden Hodges, was born to Twisden Hodges and his wife in France in 1857/8 (year uncertain as this information is based on the 1881 Census25 and the birth appears not to have been registered in the Consular Records). Possibly the Hodges family “decided that a couple of years living in France might be financially expedient” as did the family of Henry Arundell leading to his daughter Isabel’s meeting Richard Burton, the explorer, in Boulogne in 1850 and subsequently marrying him in 1861.26

Eventually Thomas Twisden Hodges “found the means to spend the short remainder of his life at Frimhurst, a house in the parish of Frimley in Surrey …”27 He died on 12 March 186528 at Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square, and not at Frimhurst, as stated by Sir John Twisden. The Illustrated London News “Obituary of Eminent Persons” notice on T.T. Hodges, Esq. incorrectly stated that “He did not contest the city of Rochester at the general election of 1852”, but the Rochester entry for 1852 in The Parliamentary poll book … clearly shows Thomas Twisden Hodges and Ralph Bernal as the two defeated Liberal Party candidates.29 He died intestate and letters of administration were granted to his widow.

Within a year Lady Nott was at the centre of a Chancery Court Case in respect of her late husband’s estate and his creditors, with her daughter being represented by her cousin, Sir William Henry Smith Marriott, whose mother was one of the sisters of Thomas Twisden Hodges.30 This may not have been a long drawn out Chancery Court Case, as there are no subsequent Times index entries on this matter. It may be that Sir William’s involvement was arranged by the child’s mother so as to give Rose Caroline Twisden Hodges, as a minor, the protection of an adult in the settlement of her father’s financial affairs.

23Victoria – Government Gazette, Extraordinary[…] No. 4, Wednesday January 2 1856 pp [49]-51 244 Twisden, Sir John Ramskill [and] Dudley Ward, C.H. op. cit., p 451. 25RG11, Piece 1433, Folio 88, p 7.0 26Blanch, Lesley – The Wilder shores of love. London, John Murray, 1954, and Lovell, Mary S. – A Rage to live. London, Little, Brown and Co., 1998, p100. 27Twisden, Sir John Ramskill [and] Dudley Ward, C.H. op. cit., p 451. 28The Illustrated London News 25 March 1865 p 287c. 29The Parliamentary poll book for all elections from … 1832 to July 1880 … p 232. 2nd ed. London, Edward Stanford, 1880 30The Times, 19 April 1866, 5a.

8 Lady Nott died on Sunday 25 August 1901 at Gloucester Street, London,31 her London home for over ten years. There is one published oddity in Kelly’s handbook … for 1892 in so far as the entry for Lady Nott described her second marriage in 1854 to “Thos. Twisden Hodges, of Melbourne, Australia […]”.32 One would have thought that it should have been “at Melbourne” as users of Kelly’s Handbook who knew or knew of Hodges and/or Lady Nott, would have seen this as an inaccurate description of Twisden Hodges.

The daughter of Twisden Hodges and his wife, Rose Caroline Twisden Hodges, was married on 19 October 1878 to Henry John Peareth.33 He, like Sir William Henry Smith Marriott, was another first cousin of the bride. As with Sir William’s mother, Henry’s mother was one of the sisters of Thomas Twisden Hodges. Of greater interest to Sandgate readers would be the fact that Henry Peareth was born on 23 October 184934 at Sandgate in his parents’ residence of Cliff House. This fact jumped out at me from the 1881 Census, after having learnt the name of Mrs Peareth, the daughter of Lady Nott, from the latter’s will.

At this point in my research – too many years ago - I decided that the birth place of the husband of Rose Caroline Twisden Peareth (née Hodges) at Sandgate was important enough to be highlighted. Sandgate was the first place covered in Part 1 of this article and it is also the place name that figures in the title of this piece.

There is another aspect of this whole research, which it appears to me needs to be stated. This is the theory of “Six Degrees of Separation”. Wikipedia defines this theory as “everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world. So that the chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps”.

Incidentally there is no mention in this definition of any context of passing years. So with this abstract idea being uppermost in my mind I like to consider that the concept could be applied to all information on Thomas Twisden Hodges that has surfaced in recent years. Is it possible to make the idea of the theory relevant in this case?

For example we have the following: - 1 1857 John D’Ewes writes and has published his book, China, Australia and the Pacific Islands … 2 1857 Someone at the office of the Folkestone Chronicle reads D’Ewes book, and makes a connection with Thomas Twisden Hodges, former MP and a former resident of Sandgate. As a result the extract from D’Ewes book is inserted in the issue of the Folkestone Chronicle of 3 October 1857 without Hodges being named. 3 1900 or thereabouts – Colonel Fynmore recognises the Hodges reference in the issue of the Folkestone Chronicle of 3 October 1857 and makes an unusual index entry in relation to Hodges. 4 2008 Pat Walters, a Librarian at Folkestone Library sends me a photocopy of the relevant D’Ewes extract on Hodges based upon the index entry referred to above. 5 2008 I, Bernie Sargeant, am deep in an article on Hodges’ association with the former house, Barn House, in Sandgate. 6 2016 or some years later - You, a reader, come across this article on the Folkestone and District Local History Society website and read the article.

So do you agree with the Six Degrees of Separation theory in relation to this exercise?

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31The Times, 27 August 1901, 4b. 32Kelly’s handbook of the titled, landed & official classes for 1892. London, Kelly & Co, 1892, p 868. 33Fynmore, Richard John – Sandgate and Shorncliffe, V.2, p 199. 34Burke’s landed gentry … 8th ed. London, Harrison, 1894. V.2, p 1579.

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