SYLLABlfS FOR 1961 MEETINGS The Western Australian The ordinary meetings of the Society are held in the Methodist Mission Hall, 283 Murray Street, Perth (near William Street Historical Society Incorporated corner), at 8 p.m. on the last Friday in each month. .JOlfRNilL AND PROCEEDINGS February 24th: Bishop Salvado and John Forrest, from the records of New Norcia, by Dom William, O.S.B. VoL V 1961 Part VllI March 24th: Annual General Meeting. April 28th: Goldfields Night. Recollections of pioneering days in Boulder City, by Mrs. Edith Acland Wiles. The Society does not hold itself responsible for statements made or opinions expressed by authors of the papers May 26th: Where was Abram Leeman's Island? by James H. published in this Journal. Turner. (Illustrated with coloured slides.) June 30th: The Development of the Hotel Industry in Western Australia, by J. E. Dolin. The Tuckeys of Mandurah July 28th: Sir John Forrest in National Politics, by Dr. F. K. Crowley. By J. H. M. HONNIBALL, B.A. August 25th: The History of Bolgart, by Mrs. Rica Erickson and G. R. Kemp. My own memories of Mandurah go back less than twenty years, but the quiet town left even a small boy on annual holidays September 29th: The History of Wongan Hills, by R. B. Ackland. with distmct impressions. Swimming and fishing were attractions October 27th: 100 Years of Local Government at Albany, by for every visitor; But other remarkable features of the place were Robert Stephens. the slowly clanking windmills, spreading tuart trees, old stone November 24th: Readings from prize-Winning essays in the Lee houses with grape vines and fig and mulberry trees in their Steere Award. gardens, the absence of trains and railway, and the white stone church with its graveyard. Grandparents and other relatives often talked of the early days and laughed about Mandurah's characters. HISTORIC TOlfRS The furnishings of the large living room of Melton House, my October 1, 1961 (Sunday)-Perth. grandparents' guest house, was one of several influences inspiring November 5, 1961 (Sunday)-Tour to All Saints' Church and awe for things aged and curiosity about the past. A visit to the Upper Swan. church cemetery to see the graves of great grandfather Charles and great great grandfather James provided visible evidence of January, 1962-Conducted tours of historic places of Perth and the Tuckeys' long association with Mandurah. James' headstone Fremantle. records that he came out to Western Australia in 1830. He and his In addition to the above, it is proposed to arrange tours to York, sister had come with their father, John, on the Rockingham, under Busselton and other places, details of which will be announced in Thomas Peel's scheme of colonisation. the press. Taking the story back to England, a few facts emerge about the Tuckey family's background before 1830. Charles wrote in MEMBERSHIP 1898 concerning his grandfather, John: For details regarding membership, application should be made "He was the eldest of seven brothers, and the family to the Hon. Secretary, Box. K774, G.P.O., Perth. Annual Subscrip­ owned a place called Hollywater Farm in Sussex or Kent (my tion, including "Journal" £1/1/-. father was born in the latter county but brought up in the former) and as far as I can remember of what I heard him say there was some dispute in the family about an inheritance, and my grandfather never wrote to his relatives after arriving here." (1) 8 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 9

Thus there appears to have been some movement of the family Australia, one with Colonel Light in 1836, one on the same boat between the two counties in the 1820s. Perhaps the unsettled post­ as the writer's great-grandfather Joseph Honniball (the Charlotte war conditions had something to do with it. At all events, when Gladstone, 1866). On the Eyre Peninsula in that State there is a on December 31, 1829, John Tuckey entered into agreement with small township named Tuckey. At least five Tuckeys have been Peel, to come out to Swan River, he described himself as "of the authors of books, the best known being the explorer Captain Cocking in the county of Sussex". (2) Cocking is an ancient village, James Hingston Tuckey for his Account of a Voyage to Establish with a population now of about 400, in the South Downs of Western a Colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait, on the South Coast of Sussex. New South Wales, in His Majesty's Ship Calcutta, in the Yeanl Further genealogical research may be possible in England in 1802-3-1,. and his Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River the future. It is noteworthy, however, that the name Tuckey prob­ Zaire, Usually Called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816. J. H. ably has pre-Conquest origins. It may have come to England with Tuckey was a member of a well documented family who went the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian invasions. For etymologists from Worcester to County Cork under the Protestant Settlement have traced the name Tuckey or Tookey to Tochi, Toke, Toche, of Ireland in the 17th century. This family had a high proportion Toea, Tuka, and linked them with Toki in Old Norse, Toke and of naval and military men and clergymen. (6) Tuke in Old Swedish, and Toki and Tuki in Old Danish. (3') A con­ However no known connection has been revealed with our nection with the Old English verb "tucian" meaning "to adorn" John Tuckey who was born in 1788 in Kent. He moved to Sussex, is suggested. (4) was at Cocking in 1829, and evidently fell out with his family. The name Tochi appears in the survey of the county of The only other fact known of his life at this time was that he Sussex in the Domesday Book of 1086, in Pevensel (Pevensey) fought in the Napoleonic wars as a private soldier. The phase of Hundred. The Book states, that "Ansfrid holds of the count (the the wars concerned was the Peninsula campaign, one of th.e most Count of Mortain) at Chenolle 2 hides. There is land for 2 ploughs. famous and glorious in the annals of the British army. John Tochi held this as an alod. On the demesne is half a plough, and Tuckey's Military General Service Medal tells some of the story. there is one villein with half a plough, and 5 acres of meadow. (7) It was not issued until 1848. Before that time, except in the In the time of King Edward this was worth 40/-; now 15/-." (5) case of the Battle of Waterloo (1815), medals were issued only Thus Tochi held this alod or estate. It might be inferred that to senior officers. But now, thirty-four years after the last battle he held it in the time of Edward the Confessor, but was displaced the medal commemorates, the General Service Medal was awarded when the Conqueror and his supporters divided up the land. Peven­ to junior officers and men who still survived. John Tuckey's medal sey is the place where William the Conquerer had landed twenty has attach.ed to its crimson and dark blue bordered ribbon, five years before, and the Battle of Hastings was fought a few miles bars-those for Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Nivelle, the Nive and to the east. The border with Kent is about eighteen miles away. Toulouse. The first of these battles was fought in June 1813, and Many surnames originated only four or five hundred years the last in April 1814, just before the news of Napoleon's abdica­ ago, especially those taken from place of residence, from nickname tion reached Toulouse. It is possible that John Tuckey enlisted or from occupation. They were often very fluid, and changed some time before the advance on the Pyrenees and the drive after a few generations. So it is possible, but by no means probable, through the south of France, for his regiment, the 43rd Foot, was that Tuckeys have been in the Sussex-Kent area all down the in the Peninsula as far back as 1808, and had led the attack at centuries. Salamanca. The regiment, under the command of Sir William Napier, Tuckeys are now to be found in most English-speaking countries, acquitted itself well, especially in the protracted campaign but infrequently enough to merit attention. They include, or have through the mountains. The 43rd was also present, when Napoleon done, C. R. D. Tuckey, English Davis Cup player of 1936; the made his unsuccessful comeback at Waterloo and so possibly John Reverend H. E. Tuckey who arrived in New Zealand in 1859 and Tuckey was at the famous battle. If so, he would have received was headmaster of two high schools; two Tuckeys were engineers the Waterloo medal, but it could have gone astray before he left in China in the 1890s; there was a 17th century clockmaker; a England. The regiment was later part of the army of occupation, Christmas carol written by Esther L. Tuckey in 1939 appears in quartered in Paris. the Australian supplement of The Book of Common Praise; William Fifteen years later John Tuckey was in Western Australia. Tuckey, organist of Trinity Episcopal Church, New York, was The story of Thomas Peel's grandiose scheme of settlement at possibly the first to play "God Save the King" on an American Swan River has been told by other writers in detail, and requires concert programme (1769); several Tuckeys migrated to South only a summary here. After protracted negotiations with the 10 The Western Australian HistoricaZ Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 11 British government, Peel accepted the conditions offered: if he A few, and these included John Tuckey, decided to make an were to land 400 settlers in the colony before November 1, 1829, earnest atte~Pt at farming. He selected fifty acres and by the he would be given 250,000 acres along the Swan River in prefer­ end of t~e first summer, had cleared and sown his first quarter ence over all other settlers. He intended to sponsor 10,000 migrants acre. ThIS was a mile or two north of the mouth of the Murra in four years, and would be given one million acres all told. and clos~ t? Peel's house. The threat of the Murray natives led ;~ Equipment, stock and seeds were to be sent out, and each male ~he stationing of a lieutenant and six soldiers at the settlement migrant was to be allotted land and encouraged to bring it under m October 1831, and a skirmish eventually took place known as production. the Battle of Pinjarra, in October 1834. ' However, Peel and the first party of settlers aboard the ~ieutenant Gilmore did not arrive until December 1829, and his concession was Bunbury, in his tour of the colony in 1837, describes Peel s low thatched cottage of wattle and daub, white washed and cancelled. He found himself in the position of an ordinary migrant, kept scrupulously clean. and was granted forty acres of land for each £3 invested by him and his followers. Instead of the land on the south bank of the "There he resides with his Wife, two young daughters and Swan that he had picked out, he had to accept an unpromising young. son Tommy, who, with his wife's mother form the establishment, He generally has one or two natives as servants tract extending from Cockburn Sound to the Murray River. He hount !llen who wash the dishes, look after the horses He took possession, and laid down the township of Clarence, but did as ailed completely ... Since 1830, many (of the ~~ri. he little else. brought out) have done extremely well, and have turned out The third ship chartered by Peel, the Rockingham, set sail thed~estt anhd .most Industrious emigrants in the colony, doing cre ~ 0 t err s;lect~on In England, whoever made it, and from London in January 1830, with 175 passengers. The voyage h~ovmg that Peel s. failure was his own fault and not that of began badly; outside the mouth of the Thames, the ship lost her IS people as he wrshes to make one believe anchor, and drifted on to the dreaded Goodwin Sands. Then after "The detachment at Mandurup consists' now of but four being carried off by the high tide, the 423 ton vessel ran into a ~e~, and ~e only. otht;r inhabitants are an old soldier of the fierce gale in the Channel, which tore away all her canvas. She r name .Tuckie with his family, and another man who rode out the gale safely, and limped into Falmouth Harbour, works sometImes for him and now and then for Peel." (9) where she remained a fortnight for refitting, before proceeding. . ~ith his son and daughter to help him, John Tuckey wrested Her voyage then appears to have been uneventful. a hvmg from the stubborn soil. A small crop of wheat was prob­ The Rockingham dropped anchor off Garden Island on May ably harveste~ each year. A bullock pulled his plough, and the 14, 1830, and a naval officer from Fremantle boarded her and w~ea~ wa~ evidentlv ground in a hand-mill. Joseph Cooper began piloted her in towards Clarence. At this point a violent storm b~IldI~g hIS flour mill at the mouth of the Murray in 1843 but arose, but Peel nevertheless gave orders for the disembarkation of still five yea~s later, John Sutton recorded that his son ground passengers and property. All the single men were placed in four some wheat m Tuckey's mill while waiting for a boat expected of the ship's boats, and sent off for Garden Island. However the from Fremantle. (10) John Tuckey and his children cultivated gale blew them back to the mainland, where most of them were vegetables ~nd vines in the home garden, raised poultry and pigs, tumbled into the surf. The ship was meanwhile cast broadside on ~nd a plentiful supply of fish and game was always at hand. Very to the beach. The married men and their families were put aboard h~~ly young James would have learned all he could from the the quarter boat, but as they approached the shore, the boat mifit.ary guard and the natives with whom he had contact. He capsized and cast them into the breakers. The single men on shore would have come to know the soil, the vegetation the sea and rushed to their assistance, and fortunately no lives were lost. No the est~ary, the rainfall and the seasons. Perhaps'many a time doubt it was an anxious time for John Tuckey looking after his he. reahsed that he was an explorer, treading land and probing young son and daughter. Among those who were introduced in this thIckets nev.er before seen by a white man. Shells of varied colours dramatic way to their new homeland were names which were to and fantastIc shapes were discovered on the shores admired and become well known in the colony within a few years: Adams, taken home to survive for many years. Such a life would 'have Edwards, Glyde, Leeder, Mews, Read and Pollard. taught the boy to be self-reliant and resourceful. Nor was the The pioneers had to find themselves shelter; many of their Mandurah community as isolated as those at Augusta, the Vasse belongings were lost or ruined. Livestock, which had been swum and elsewhere. There were many travellers journeying along the ashore, made off into the bush. For a long time Peel seemed unable Old Coast Road, "':ho had to cross the estuary at this point. Often to organise anything. Before long many of the migrants severed they. stay:d overnight at the home of John Sutton, who besides themselves from him, and made their way to Perth. (8) running hIS farm, operated the ferry in the 1840s. They were able 12 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 13

to give the people of Mandurah first hand news and accounts of The central position of the house also led to its becoming the conditions elsewhere in the colony. Very likely John Molloy and village post office. Thomas Watson and Resident Magistrate Elijah Dawson, travelling between the Vasse and Perth from time Murray had handled the mails between 1846 and 1858 but after a to time, would have met John Tuckey at Mandurah, and fought bridge was built across the Murray at Pinjarra, the southern mails the Peninsula campaign again over an ale or two (11). Two were diverted through that town instead of using the Old Coast clergymen, who were stationed at Picton and Fremantle after Road, and the Mandurah office was replaced by one at Serpentine. 1841, came and held services occasionally, either in a hut provided When Mandurah post office was reopened in 1865, Mary Anne was by Peel or at Thomas Watson's home. The Perth newspapers came given charge with a salary of £6 a year; increasing volume of with the mail or with visitors, and told of events of four months business caused the remuneration to rise to £10 after 1870. (15) ago in England and Europe. The 1840s were a period of economic In 1869 and 1870 three infants were baptised in James Tuckey's depression in England, Ireland and the Continent, and the settlers house, for it was the scene of the community's religious observances in the Antipodes knew that they were not alone in their trials. after the destruction of the little church built by Peel in 1842. At this time James Tuckey was making frequent trips in his The church magazine chronicles a visit by Bishop Hale in 1869 boat to Fremantle. He transported wheat for several local farmers; and plans for a new church: for John Sutton he took to the merchants of Fremantle butter "On Saturday, June 12th, as the Bishop of Perth was ex­ (which fetched 1(6 per lb.), eggs (1(- a dozen) and onions, and pected to visit Mandurah, a number of settlers assembled to there were sometimes one or two passengers. Provisions taken on ride out to meet his lordship. This, however was found im­ the homeward run often included liquor for Sutton's inn. (12) practicable, as the Bishop had arrived some' time before. A meeting . '. was then held in the police barrack. It was It was at Fremantle that James found a bride, his marriage composed of. nearly all the heads of families residing in the to 19 years old Mary Anne Esther Foster being celebrated at the Mandurah district ... Mr. H. H. Hall, Chairman of the Church Crown and Thistle Inn on December 7, 1841. Four children were Building Committee, took the chair. It was resolved unanim­ born to them at Mandurah between 1842 and 1849. Charlotte, ously that, seeing that upwards of £105 was already subscribed every effort should be made to have the Church built as James' sister, became the second wife of the widower Thomas speedily as possible, In furtherance of this object, a piece of Eacott, of Mandurah. ground -was ~Ixed upon for the site ... The Bishop, with his The Murray district was a reliable supplier of agricultural accustomed liberality, guaranteed a subscription of £10 as soon produce in these years, but as a whole the colony was stagnating, as the foundation should be laid; Mr. James Tuckey also for­ warded £5. His Lordship is loved and respected at Mandurah owing to the small size of the population and to the distance of a.s he is in every other part of the colony; and acts of con~ markets for its produce. The introduction of convicts in 1850 siderate and generous liberality like this serve to bind him gave the colony a fresh impetus, but shortly afterwards a number still closer in af~ection to the hearts of the people. Next day of the old settlers made for the Eastern colonies, attracted by (Sunday) the: Bishop read mormng and evening service, and preached twtce in Mr. Jas. Tuckey's house, where Divine the spectacular gold discoveries in Victoria. Among several from service has been celebrated since the destruction of the old the Murray district were the Tuckeys. Before their departure in church by fire. Large and attentive congregations were present 1852, twenty acres of land that John had acquired from Peel in on both occasions." (16) 1842 were sold for £50. (13) The two eldest children of James and The foundation stone of a new building was laid in April Mary Anne married while in Victoria, John taking as his bride 1870; building proceeded and the first service was held in Christ Eliza Hawley and Matilda becoming the wife of John Wearne. No Church on February 26, 1871. To provide for furnishings which great fortune came their way on the goldfields, and in 1862 the were required before its consecration, Henry Sutton and James family (apart from John and Matilda Wearne who stayed until Tuckey each gave a second donation, while Henry Hall gave his the mid-1870s) returned to Mandurah. third. Bishop Hale performed the consecration on Wednesday, James' two sons apparently considered moving to Augusta, for October 25, 1871, in the presence of a congregation of seventy. (17) in 1866 J. and C. Tuckey wrote to the Surveyor-General, enquiring On May 4, 1872, John Tuckey died at Mandurah, having spent about lots which were for sale there, and asking for "a tracing of exactly half of his eighty-four years in Australia. He was one of Augusta and the country around." (14) They invested in land there, the last veterans of the Peninsula War who had settled in W.A. but it is not known whether they ever inspected it. Instead they to survive. G. W. Leake fifteen years later compiled a list of were both soon to seek a living from the wealth of the seas. In colonists who were known to have fought in the Peninsula and at 1869 their father took over the duty of keeping the ferry boat Waterloo. Numbering eight, they were: John Molloy, Richard which crossed the river when required at a point close to his Meares, Frederick Irwin (officers), and William Edwards, John house, just upstream from the present bridge. Tuckey, John Adams, Elijah Dawson and John Farquhar. 14 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys 01 Mandurah 15

"The children and grandchildren of all except Molloy and they had Victoria in 1855. The colony was a proud member of the Irwin are yet among us. These old soldiers were true orna­ still expanding British Empire, and the adored Queen Victoria, ments of the colony in their lifetime, their fellow colonists now in her 70s, was approaching her diamond jubilee. Just at the honoured and revered them, and the memory of them should time James and Mary Anne were celebrating their golden wedding not pass with them to their graves. Their lives had an influ­ ence of the most beneficial nature on Western Australia in its anniversary, the colony made a powerful leap forward. Western early years." (18) Australia's gold rush was on, and Sir John Forrest was guiding a rich and optimistic community. Throughout the 1870s James Tuckey developed pastoral and tillage leases which he had acquired in the district, and was assoc­ iated with his sons' commercial interests in the north. Father and James Tuckey's elder son brought his Victorian wife (she was sons continued to ply by boat between the Murray and Fremantle born in the Channel Islands, but had come to Victoria as an infant) periodically. The colony had enjoyed more prosperous times in to Mandurah to live in a little stone cottage next door to that of recent years. Pastoralists and pearlers were now exploiting the his parents. Part of it still stands beside the Brighton Hotel. A North West. Eighteen years of transportation had increased the daughter, Mrs. Bertha Thompson, recalls, the family's home and colony's population and provided more money and markets; the the activities of her mother Eliza. At first, though this was years convicts were building better roads and bridges; and ticket of leave before she was born, the home was plain and furnished barely, men were employed by the settlers. furniture being difficult to obtain. Eliza, however, capable with For Mandurah, one of the most dramatic, though tragic, her hands, spared no pains in decking the place out with colour­ events of this period was the wreck of the barque James Service. ful materials. She came to win a reputation as the safeguarder of The vessel struck the Murray Reef in a storm on the night of July Mandurah's health, being equipped with a cupboard full of chemicals. 20, 1878, and all aboard were lost. When' news of the disaster Yet hot water and mustard wrappings were standard equipment. reached the town, Charles Tuckey assisted Police Constable Holmes People would say "Send for Mrs. John" if an arm were broken or in the unrewarding search for survivors. Personal effects and if the birth of a baby were imminent. When the doctor from Pin­ cargo drifted ashore, and James Tuckey, being the nearest settler, jarra paid his periodical calls, he would first enquire from Dr. was appointed receiver by the Collector of Customs. (19) Various Tuckey, as he called her, where his help was required. For a few items were returned to the agent for the vessel. One relic that years, commencing in October 1869, Mrs. John was also an un­ stayed, a bowler hat, was still donned occasionally by a Mandurah official schoolteacher; she gave instruction to her own and to indentity up to fifty years later and its appearances served as a several other children in her home, and for this she received an continuing reminder of the tragedy. A lifeboat from the James allowance of £25 a year. When her son Stephen was, born, she was Service was acquired by the Tuckey family, and, renamed the permitted a fortnight's break from her duties, and when class re­ Ellen, was employed by them until it too ended its career tragic­ sumed, she kept the baby in a basket beside her table. The first ally eleven years later. official school opened in 1876, under the charge of Mr. R. Mew­ James Tuckey retired to his farm at Marrinup, nine miles east burn. Mrs. Thompson can still recite a lengthy poem which Mr. of Pinjarra, in his old age, and he died there in 1895 at the age of Mewburn taught her nearly seventy years ago. (21) Eliza also 79, his wife surviving him by only a few months. (20) Before they found time to teach Sunday School and to play the harmonium for died James and Mary Anne could look back on the colony's history church services. from its infancy to its coming of age. They were old enough when John Tuckey devoted himself to farming for a few years, and they arrived as children to appreciate the wilderness of the country then turned his attention to the sea. During the 1870s the boom­ and the crudity of its civilisation, in contrast with the orderliness ing pearling industry drew many young Western Australians to the of old England. They had witnessed the first twenty lean years, North West, and .John and Charles were among those who sought and the convict era (although for the greater part of this episode a fortune from the tropical waters. Working in partnership, they they had been in the midst of the excitement of the Victorian gold were equipped with two boats, the Florence and the Jessie. (22) rush). They saw the slow but steady progress of the 1870s and They employed natives as divers, as was customary. Having good 1880s. The telegraph gave them the overseas news which had once powers of endurance and keen eyesight, natives frequently proved taken four months to arrive. Steam power had largely displaced the themselves first-rate divers. The white men shared hard work and sailing ship. Railways were reaching out over the settled districts, dangerous conditions. During summer hurricanes could cause and the line to Pinjarra was opened on May 2, 1893. In 1890 James sudden disasters, and at any time the sea could be rough. The and Mary Anne saw Western Australia achieve self-government, as white pearler's task was to scull the boat or dinghy against the The Tuckeys of Mandurah 17 16 The Western Australian HistoricaZ Society round trip through the shallow Java Sea and across the deep wind all day, so that the divers would surface near to the boat, Strait of Macassar. From Singapore the steamer proceeded through and often he was exposed to a burning sun and wet with salt the Karimata Strait to Banjermasin on the south coast of Borneo, water and occasional rain. After diving was over for the day, the the first port of call, and thence, keeping between the low swampy shells had to be cleaned and opened, and kept guarded. coast of Borneo and the island Pulo Laut, to Coti Broeuw, where After four or five seasons the brothers invested their profits coal was taken aboard. Her itinerary then took her across to in new enterprises. C. Tuckey & Co.'s Peel Inlet Preserving Works Dongala on the west coast of the Celebes, back to Coti Broeuw and was established at Mandurah, and the first tins of fish were to small villages upriver on Borneo's east coast; thence, back to turned out in September 1880. While Charles managed this con­ Singapore. Captain Tuckey navigated his craft through dangerous cern, John entered into partnership with the Fremantle merchants estuaries and mud flats, and up treacherous winding rivers between Owston and Pearse. His next command was a far cry from his banks clad with dense, dark mangrove and palm forests, where little schooner which he had sold in May 1880. On behalf of the only monkeys and birds broke the silence. Sometimes the vessel partnership he purchased the Ribston, a three masted barque of would be driven close enough to shore to be scraped by branches 397 tons, as a wreck in the Java Sea, and when she had been re­ or to disturb the crocodiles, sometimes in the lower reaches it would conditioned, took her on a trading run between the Straits and be out in the middle of a wide sheet of brown water. Such was the Japan. Then, after taking a charter cargo of sugar from Sourabaya awe with which the Malayan crew regarded their captain's navi­ to Melbourne, John brought the Ribston into Fremantle on Decem­ gation in the tortuous rivers that they gave him the name Captain ber 3, 1880, where she was registered in the name of J. Tuckey Hantu (Devil). The upstream ports usually contained a row of and partners. (23) Under John's command, the Ribston departed houses and shops made of bamboo and palm leaves, perched on for Hong Kong on January 25, 1881. Two years later he relinquish­ stilts and facing the water. The rickety landing stage was the ed his captaincy, and when the vessel sailed for Adelaide with a focal point of the settlements. On these voyages the captain regu­ cargo of jarrah in March 1883, her master was James Craig. Mrs. larly met a procession of colourful characters-Europeans, half Craig, who accompanied her husband on his voyages, was the castes, Malays and Arabs-and traded with them for their rubber, daughter of John's sister Matilda. Since the Ribston appears in the cane, rice, pepper, coconuts, gutta-percha and resin. He had to register under the name of William Owston and partners after contend with superstition and cunning, and he heard tales of the May 1883, it is evident that the partnership was reconstituted or petty warfare and headhunting that still prevailed in the interior that John had withdrawn from it. In the following summer he of Borneo, but the journeys themselves were on the whole placid. was again on the pearling grounds, as master of the schooner The Sarie Borneo carried Europeans as first and second mates Argo (33 tons), working from Derby. His crew comprised 37 Kim­ and engineers, together with a small crew of Malays, and, since berley natives, 36 of them divers, and the other the cook. In it was difficult to obtain sufficient experienced labour in the ports, 1884 he took charge of the Comet, a schooner of 29 tons, built for a host of Chinese lumpers. Reputable wandering traders were J. and C. Tuckey at Fremantle by T. W. Mews. (24) After spending often aboard as, passengers. a few years at home once more, and plying between Mandurah and Fremantle in the Comet with Tuckey and Co.'s produce, he re­ The characters and scenes that John Tuckey knew have been turned to the tropics again. vividly described by Joseph Conrad in his novels "Almayer's Folly", "An Outcast of the Islands," "Lord Jim" and "The Rescue". During the 1890s Captain Tuckey became a well known figure Conrad gathered a wealth of material in his mind and in note in the Singapore shipping community. For several years he was in form as a result of a four month engagement as first mate aboard command of ships belonging to Aug Lim Thay, a Chinese merch­ the Vidar, a steamer which plied the same route as the SaTie ant. One of his voyages took him to England and Scotland, making Borneo for many years under the command of James Craig. him, more than sixty years after his grandfather had left it, the Conrad was at the time (1887-8) aged 30 and had not yet thought first member of the family to see the Old Country again. He had of becoming an author, so he claimed. He describes the Vidar in been instructed to watch out for a good sailing vessel, which his the novel "The Shadow Line". Craig has been identified with employer might buy, but, nothing being found suitable, Aug Lim Captain Kent in this, and with Captain Ford in "Almayer's Folly". Thay had a steamship built in Singapore in 1897. John became part­ The captain was a big, broad chested man, with thick, iron-grey owner of the vessel, the Sarie Borneo, and for three years he hair and moustache. Conrad had a warm regard for him and con­ guided her along the historic trade routes of the Malay Archipel­ sidered him a shrewd psychologist, learning from him much about ago. The ship sailed under the Dutch flag, being registered at people's characters, interests, morals and intrigues. (26) Banjermasin in Borneo. (25) Her normal course was a three week 18 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 19

In July 1900 while taking the Barie Borneo on its homeward The sister of the unfortunate boys maintains that the accepted run from Dongala, with his wife and daughters aboard, John story has been that the Ellen's broken mast was found projecting Tuckey died of a paralytic stroke at Pulo Laut. Captain Craig a foot or so above the water; an oar or the broken top of the took command of the steamer and conveyed his uncle's body to the mast had been tied to it, and William's arm fastened around it. British Oil Settlement at Balikpapan for burial. (27) Stephen and Evans had presumably left William so, and then tried to swim to shore for help. Stephen was a strong swimmer and should easily have been able to make the shore; he may have ex­ To John and Eliza Tuckey eight children were born between hausted himself in attending to his brother, and perhaps also in 1865 and 1888. The eldest, Evangeline (Van), followed in her helping Evans. It was believed that William could not have been mother's footsteps in respect of being Sunday School teacher and long dead when Mr. Rosser found his body. The ballast, which organist at Mandurah, and in her grandmother's in being post­ may have shifted and caused the accident consisted of a heavy mistress. After learning the morse code at Pinjarra, Evangeline chain, strewn zig-zag along the floor of the boat. was appointed Mandurah's first postmistress-telegraphist in Decem­ ber 1886. (28) She held the position for eight years and trained The tragedy inspired a contemporary poem: her cousin Clarence Cooper to be her successor. Her younger brother William was messenger boy in his sister's office at the LOSS OF THE TUCKEY BROS. AND MR. EVANS time of his death. Mrs. Wager (as Evangeline had become) lived Land of the Swan, weep, weep again, to see in place of her one room establishment at Ivy Cottage, a For the youthful and the brave, new brick post office, built at a cost of £8,888 a few doors away. Who sleep beneath the rolling main As an honoured guest at its opening in May 1951, at the age of Rocked in an ocean grave. 86, she tapped out the first telegraph message. (29) Weep, weep with those who hail with joy, John and Eliza were stricken by tragedy in 1890 when their Christmas with goodly cheer, And artless mirth, without alloy, sons Stephen and William, aged 17 and 13, were drowned near The glad, the bright, New Year. Rockingham, together with Evangeline's intended husband, who had been visiting Mandurah. The West Australian describes the But ere the sun had warmed the earth, incident: Three times in the bright New Year, Laughter was struck from the lips of mirth, "We have gained the following particulars of this very And brave hearts were filled with fear. regrettable and painful occurren~e. . . '. Messrs, Tuckey w~re accompanied by Mr. Evans who IS associated m business WIth The young, the bright, the beautiful, Mr. A. G. Rosser of Fremantle. Mr. Evans having expressed Stood face to face with death; a desire to return to Fremantle earlier than was at first con­ And they wept, for those sons were dutiful, templated, the brothers Tuckey, yielded to his desire, and the For loved ones, with quivering breath. party left the River Murray in the cutter Ellen at about 1 p.m. on Friday last for Fremantle. As far as is known, all went They thought of their parents' sorrow, well until the boat arrived in the South Passage sometime When they looked for them in vain, yesterday evening, where it capsized. As soon as a rumour of For, for them, comes no bright tomorrow, the accident reached Fremantle, Mr. A. G. Rosser left the Each day will be fraught with pain. port in a sailing boat, in order, if possible, to ascertain if there was any foundation for the report. After cruising about 'Twas but a few short hours for some time, Mr. Rosser found the dead body of William Since they sped on their homeward way, Tuckey which was floating on the surface of the water, being Bringing wishes as bright as the flowers, supported by the mast of the Ellen, which had become separ­ From the friends of their holiday. ated from the hull, and was floating about; the clothing of the deceased having become entangled in the rigging. Having Their voices ring with laughter got the body on board the Maud, and finding no trace of the As they stand on the shining sand, others, Mr. Rosser returned to Mandurah .. ." (30) They think not of an hereafter, Nor dream of a better land. A search party sent out on the following day found no trace of the others, but saw the Ellen lying in about ten feet of water, They bid good-bye, to their dear friends, with ballast heaped in her bow. They conjectured that in attempt­ With joy and goodly cheer, And so their glad New Year ends, ing to jibe the boat had capsized. With never a thought of fear. 20 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 21 The boat is dancing lightly Athwart the crested wave, Their eyes and cheeks glow brightly, daughters went to join her husband in Singapore in 1895. Evangel­ The young, the loved, the brave. ine had preceded her the year before, and was shortly to be married there to William Wager, a printer who had been sent out But what is this that pales the cheek from England for the Methodist Mission Press. And makes the stout heart quail? Ask of the winds that howl and shriek Five years later, as chronicled above, John Tuckey too was 'Tis they can tell the tale. dead. Once again, grief-stricken, Eliza returned to Western Aust­ ralia, and with her daughters Bertha and Ida took up residence in They found one lashed to a broken mast, His brother and comrades fled, Peppermint Grove, where she remained until her death in 1907. And the boy, the pride of a mother's heart, Like the soldier's mother in Bingen, she still had one son to corn­ Lay on the ocean dead. fort her old age. Edward (Ned), who was one of the infants bap­ tised in his grandfather's, house in 1870, in his boyhood clambered Weep, ah weep, in sympathy For the youthful and the brave, over the remains of the wreck of the Rockingham, he recalled Their requiem the moan of the rolling sea, long afterwards. He spent his youth on the pearling grounds and Rocked in an ocean grave. stations of the North West, and for a short time worked at Man­ (31) durah at pit-sawing and splitting shingles from she-oak. The Charles, the elder brother of Stephen and William, had him­ timber was loaded on to drays and carted to the government jetty self come close to death in the same vicinity eighteen months to be loaded on to the schooners which were then able to navigate before. Like his father, uncle and grandfather before him, he regu­ the river mouth. Wages were 4/6 a day or £1 a week and keep for larly sailed from Mandurah with produce for Fremantle, where he heavy work from daylight till dark. (33) Following his marriage, would stock up with provisions for the settlement. A few weeks after Ned settled on the land at East Coolup, and after fifty years as his twenty-first birthday, on such a trip. his boat capsized in a farmer and orchardist, he retired to Mandurah, where he lived squall off Woodman's Point. Charles clung to the upturned boat to the age of eighty-eight. overnight, knowing that the steamer appropriately named the Rescue would leave Fremantle for Rockingham next morning. He Charles Tuckey, like his brother John, was well acquainted managed to attract its, attention by waving his coat, and was with the sea, and was also for a time styled Captain Tuckey. rescued at 7 a.m. And this was in mid-winter. "Fancy the suspense, Born in 1846, he was sixteen when he came home from the Vic­ cold and discomfort, uncertainty being ever uppermost!", comments torian goldfields, and for a few years he devoted his energies to the newspaper, which continues in its intimate and complimentary farming. In 1875 he made his first voyage north in the quest for style: pearls. Like most seafarers of those days he had many interesting "The poor young fellow, though exposed to very rough adventures to recount and tales to tell. One of them appeared in weather in a most precarious position for seventeen hours, the press in January 1876: preferred it to trying to swim ashore at the risk, as he sensibly puts it, of being attacked by sharks. The Tuckeys, father and "An account of a shipwreck has reached us which, if sons, are known for their great patience and fortitude ... followed up, would probably prove beyond any further doubt This incident affords another instance of their acknowledged the fate of the schooner Emma, which left Port Walcott for powers of endurance under exceptionally trying circum­ Fremantle, with a large number of passengers on board, ten stances." (32) years ago, and has' not since been heard of. The narrative is told by an intelligent native whose tribe inhabits the country But Charles was to be spared only a few years more. In 1890 in the neighbourhood of the alleged disaster. Coming from he married Sarah Jane Green, and a daughter and a son were born such a source there may be some hesitation in giving the story to them in the next three years. Shortly after the son's, birth, credence, but it is accompanied by such detail and circumstance that some truth at least appears to attach to it. On a voyage Charles' father called him up to Singapore, for the purpose of from Port Walcott to Fremantle recently the native referred introducing him to a career in maritime commerce there. But on to related the following circumstance to the master (Mr. C. only his second voyage out from Singapore with his father in De­ Tuckey):- A long time ago (about ten years he described) a cember 1893, he suffered sunstroke and died. ship was wrecked near North West Cape; the passengers land­ ed, at night, in the boats, and as they had no means of defend­ Having lost three of her sons and a daughter in infancy in ing themselves the natives had no difficulty in making them 1887, Eliza decided to leave Mandurah, and with her younger prisoners. There was a large number of persons, and amongst them were some females. The natives were not 'sulky' with them, but nevertheless they killed and ate all of them, the 22 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 23

narrator partaking of some of the flesh. Two other vessels Early in 1875 the Stefano, of about 800 tons burthen, and flying were also stated by the native to have been lost about the the flag of the Dual Monarchy, left Cardiff with 1,100 tons of coal same spot-a large vessel and a smaller one, and he was able for Hong Kong. The master, the oldest man aboard, was only 25, to point out where the wrecks lay. The crew of the larger vessel took to their boats and proceeded southward, and were and the crew comprised fifteen subjects of the Hapsburgs, and an probably the ship's company of a whaler who were rescued at English lad named Harry Grose. From his friendship with Grose, Shark's Bay by the s-chooner Favourite about the year 1857. Baccich, whose aunt was owner of the vessel, had acquired a The smaller vessel was probably the Brothers, which was lost knowledge of English. Apparently to correct longitude, they sight­ about the same time as the Emma, but no account is given of the fate of her crew. To ascertain if possible whether the ed the Australian coast at Cape Cuvier, about 80 miles north of wrecks really existed Mr. Tuckey took his vessel inshore as Carnarvon, and then shaped a course for Sunda Straits. But about far as he considered prudent after rounding the Cape, and by two o'clock on the following morning, October 17, 1875, the ship the aid of a telescope made out distinctly the ribs of a vessel lying on the beach. The place is situated about 100 miles to struck a rock about two miles South West of Point Cloates, near the south of the Cape, between Point Cloates and Cape Cuvier, the North West Cape, and the barque broke up in about one hour. where a reef of fifteen to twenty miles in length, and generally The captain, boy and seven men were drowned, the remaining eight undefined on the charts, runs out seaward. Upon this treacher­ succeeding in reaching shore. They had a directory on board, which ous rock, it is reasonable to suppose, these vessels have been wrecked, while standing in shore at night. There is little stated that the natives on the North West Cape were cannibals. doubt but that wrecks have occurred on this part of our coast· The charter case, which showed settlement at Geraldton, and one and the many survivors of those who have for so long give~ cask of biscuits drifted ashore. The biscuits were eaten in little up their friends- on board the Emma as lost, may very reason­ more than a day. On the day after the wreck, natives who had been ably solicit the Government, when a suitable vessel is avail­ able, to institute a search and endeavour to clear up the diving for Charles Tuckey and other pearlers, came to them, made mystery. Almost every mail that reaches us from the neigh­ them a fire, and left. The stranded men carelessly let the fire go bouring colonies brings tidings of the rescue of Europeans after out, and for a month they lived on raw shellfish and water. The years of bondage on islands in the South Seas, inhabited by the natives returned and made them a fire again. They then decided moet ferocious cannibals. And who shall say that there may not be one or more survivors of the many shipwrecks on our to walk south towards settlement. After walking about 75 miles, coast similarly situated in the hands of the savages in the and having been for some time without water, they started to walk neighbourhood of North West Cape?" (34) back towards the wreck. When the natives came across them It was all too true that there were survivors of a shipwreck again, some were lying on the beach exhausted. They could not in the hands of the North West natives at this time. The fate of walk to water, so the natives carried the precious fluid to them. the Emma was never solved, and it is not known what wreck Two died that day, and three in the next three days, just before Charles Tuckey saw with his telescope. But in the same vicinity Christmas, 1875. On Christmas night they were about 40 miles the Austro -Hungarian barque Stefano had foundered three months south of the end of the North West Cape, when the sixth man died, before, and he was to pick up its survivors three months later. leaving only two. A remarkable incident in colonial history unfolds. The two lads stumbled north, searching for water. Again the When the pearling season for the summer of 1876 had finished, natives found them, but meanwhile the friendly blacks had been Charles Tuckey headed for Fremantle aboard the Jessie. Having joined by others who wanted to kill the boys. A lengthy argument rounded the North West Cape, the little craft struck fierce gales ensued among the natives, and although the youths could not and was driven back on its tracks. Charles decided to anchor in understand a word, the signs and gesticulations were clear enough. the lee of the Cape, and as he moved inshore, natives on the beach Finally the friendly natives prevailed, and began to restore the hailed him. Investigating further, he was presented with two lads' health with food and water. The gins carried them for the emaciated white youths. In broken English one of them told their first few days, but later they were able to help in the hunt for story-that they were the sole survivors of a shipwreck, and that food. The natives became quite attached to them, and tried to they had fallen into the hands of natives, who though evidently un­ cheer them up, sometimes by patting them, and at times by saying friendly at first, finally took care of them and brought them to the "White feller, Charlie Tuckey, come now and take you Tien Sin." North West Cape, apparently with the idea of handing them over to Baccich said later that at the time he could not make out what a passing ship. Charles took them aboard, and while nursing them was meant by the words Charlie Tuckey. Tien Sin was another back to health, learnt the full story from the younger of the two, name for Cossack or Port Walcott. 16 year old Michele Baccich. His companion was Giovanni Gunnich Then after their six months' ordeal, Baccich and Gunnich or Jurich. boarded the Jessie. Gunnich was taken into the care of a Fremantle 24 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuc1ceys of ManduTah 25 family, and Baccich went to Mandurah to live with the Tuckeys. I cannot express my thankfulness for your gratitude and kindness, and you may rest assured you will never be for­ A few months later the two youths were given clothes and money gotten by me. When I receive an answer to my letter registered and sent back to Hungary. (35) to you last March I will send you my photo; also one of my Early the following year the press records: father and mother taken at their golden wedding which was kept up on the 7th December, 1891. They are still Iiving and "It is very gratifying to learn that Mr. Charles Tuckey, well at the age of 78 and 72 years respectively. the second son of our esteemed fellow colonist, Mr. James There are no photographers in Mandurah, Those in Fre­ Tuckey, has been presented by the Hungarian Governor with mantle are the nearest we have (40 miles distant). a gold watch and the thanks of the Austrian Government, for Let me know how your family are. I shall always be glad the distingui~hed services rendered by him in saving the lives to hear from you, and when I find you receive my letters of two of the shipwrecked sailors of the barque Stefano, on safely I will let you know my circumstances. Are there any the North West coast of this colony." (36) machine manufactories in your town? If so will you kindly endeavour to get particulars and cost of a machine for fasten­ The watch, with the inscription in Hungarian "The Royal ing the ends' on round tins without solder. I have heard of Hungarian Sailors thank Captain Charles Tuckey, 1876" was pre­ the machines and seen the tins. If I can get one of these sented to the Historical Society in 1951. machines I believe it will answer for lIb. fish tins and be a There is a pleasing sequel to the story. Early in 1894 Charles great saving. Tuckey was delighted to receive a letter from Baccich, the letter­ With best wishes from your sincere friend, head revealing that he was established in New Orleans, as a C. TUCKEY." "commission merchant and dealer in imported and domestic (38) groceries and liquors." The letter runs: Several subsequent letters came from Baccich and one from "Dear Captain, his wife, and then there was silence. Charles tried to locate Baccich This letter is written with the hopes of it reaching you, and his, family, but without success. He came to the conclusion although my venture is wrapt with great uncertainty. that tragedy had overtaken them. (39) I desire to remind you that I am one of the two whom you A stretch of water off the North West Coast where the wrecks rescued from the natives on the northern coast of Australia in 1876, on April 18th, when you were owner and captain of the had occurred came to be known popularly as Tuckey's Passage cutter Jessie. I have always remembered you as a saviour, (40), but the designation is not now officially recorded by the and I justly consider that it is owing to you that I am still in nomenclature authorities. the land of the living. I consider you as a second father, very dear to me, and if this letter shall fortunately reach you, I The wealth of the sea and rivers near Mandurah were also desire you to communicate immediately with me, and give any being exploited in the 18708. The waters abounded in mullet, pil­ and all news concerning your welfare, or position in life, and chard, herring, whiting, bream, schnapper and tailer, and not many any such details as you might see fit to give. Your picture is years earlier James Tuckey had frequently seen as' many as three always with me, and is kept in a prominent place in my family. I hope I will receive good news from you. I will write whaling ships at a time anchored in Safety Bay and operating in again if God be willing that this letter reaches, you, the vicinity. Charles recalled having caught 300 schnapper in four Your sincere and grateful friend, hours in Safety Bay on one occasion, the catch being afterwards M. A. BACCICH." salted for the Indian market. (41) Singapore was also a good (3'7) market, and was supplied through Batemans of Fremantle with kingfish and mullet caught and cured at Mandurah. The potential Charles replied, but his letter crossed with a second one from sale for tinned fish was soon appreciated. The Brothers Francisco Baccich, and Charles wrote again on 25th June, 1894: had begun preserving fish at Fremantle in 1868, and in 1878 "I have just received your second letter dated 14 April, Charles Broadhurst set up a cannery at Mandurah. The Tuckeys and we were very pleased receiving it, with your picture followed in 1880 with the Peel Inlet Preserving Works, the site of enclosed, which is very good. I have one which you gave me the factory being on the water's edge opposite the Brighton Hotel 18 years ago, and there is decidedly a great change. of later years. I can assure you that I have often thought of you and spoken of the way our little cutter was driven back to the The fish canned at first was the sea mullet, which was caught Nor West Cape by the strong winds to your rescue. by sieve nets in large quantities between September and March in When here you spoke of getting a pamphlet printed of the estuary and along the coast; it kept the factory well supplied. your adventures on the Nor West Cape, and through not re­ The size of fish caught long ago is apt to be magnified in retro­ ceiving a copy of that, it was with great surprise and pleasure spect, but Charles and his son Hobart, giving evidence before that I received your letters. 26 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 27

Parliamentary Commissions in 1906 and 1922 respectively, declared had won on the pearling grounds had been sunk in a rather un­ how much larger fish were generally in the early days. profitable venture. On the death of their parents in 1895, the "We used to get tons of black bream weighing about five brothers sold the old house opposite the ferry, and twenty-five pounds each (in the Murray) ... One man brought in 300 sea town lots. (47) mullet which packed nine hundred Llb, tins'. Today it takes four mullet to a tin ... Formerly you could fill a sugar bag Messrs. J. & W. Bateman, through whom much of the firm's with whiting in a couple of hours summer or winter ... We used to get kingfish weighing seventy pounds, and a thirty marketing was done, and others later became partners in C. pound kingfish was quite common." (42) Tuckey & Co. The fortunes of the firm improved considerably in the mid-1890s, as people flocked to the goldfields, and set up their Charles used to go from Rockingham up the Serpentine River camps, for there was a great demand for tinned foods of all kinds. to Hudson's Falls, where mullet, often three pounds in weight, In the best year for the cannery the output was 137,000 lIb. tins of were to be caught in a large pool all the year round. Fishermen were at first paid 7/- or 8/- for each 100 fish delivered to the fish, and 23,000 2lb. tins of fruit-over twelve tons in all. (48) factory. Later, when the fish became smaller, the payment wag However Charles was not having an easy time in 1897, as is 12/- per 100 tins of fish. Early in the season fish were also ob­ revealed in a letter he wrote to the Under-Secretary for Lands, in tained from the native weir or mungah at Barragup, before it was the hope of obtaining land on the seafront, outside the bar, for the destroyed in 1897. When more fishermen established themselves at purpose of removing his cannery: Mandurah in the early 1890s the supply of fish was often more than could be treated. (43) Complimentary remarks as' to the "In support of my claims for some consideration at the quality of the tinned product were voiced by the press: hands of the government I would emphasize the fact that in the face of almost overwhelming difficulties I have followed "In delicacy of flavour the Western Australian mullet far the vicissitudes of the fish preserving industry in which I am surpasses either the imported salmon or herring, and the only at present engaged almost from the inception to the present wonder is that Mr. Tuckey's goods do not effectively drive the time, and in developing it have spent time, money, and all my tinned American salmon and English herring quite out of the energies, which, had they been employed in some other direc­ local market." (44) tion would have yielded a far more satisfactory result. In November, 1891, I wrote fully to the Hon. the Premier, point­ C. Tuckey & Co. were further honoured and rewarded in re­ ing out the great difficulties which my firm, as Fruit and ceiving a government gratuity of £200 for the first forty tons of Fish Preservers, laboured under in prosecuting the industry fruit preserved in the colony. Peaches, pears, plums', apples, apri­ with a highly unfavourable tariff which neutralised our efforts cots, grapes and figs were bought locally for canning, and Charles to compete with the cheap imported foods with which the market was constantly inundated. I directed attention to the became well known for urging the settlers of the district to plant fact that whilst in three of the other Colonies the duty on fruit trees. "For desserts and light repasts they are universally preserved fish was 2/- per dozen, and 1/- per dozen in the esteemed," so the wares were advertised; "Their delicacy of flavour other two, here it was equivalent to only 5~d. per dozen so renders them grateful to the impaired appetite of the invalid." that while being driven out of our own market, the others were virtually closed to us, owing to their high protective Careful and prompt despatch to any part of the colony or abroad duties. Previous to that time my establishment had been paying was promised on receipt of orders. (45) Kippered herrings and pil­ out wages to the extent of £40 per week, but had to curtail chard were also turned out, but were not so popular, and Perth operations, and discharge hands, to allow of the heavy accumu­ lated stocks being reduced. The demand from the goldfields herring were tinned for the first time in 1906. The products of subsequently assisted us in some measure, but all throughout the Peel Inlet Works received silver and gold medals at several our resources and energies have been strained to the utmost exhibitions, viz. the Perth International (1881), the Indian and tension to keep the industry alive. I have also repeatedly Colonial (1886), the Melbourne Centennial (1888) and the Franco­ pointed out to the government how we have been handicapped through the impossible state of the bar, which not only causes British (1908). (46) vexatious delays but also largely increases the cost of transit, But the local market was too small and too competitive. a disability from which we are still seeking relief. I have sunk Thirty-five men were employed by both Mandurah factories when a considerable amount of money in the business which came in full work in 1882. The Tuckeys employed up to twenty hands to me from other sources, and which might have been more profitably employed, but with perhaps less benefit to the at times, including four tinsmiths, during the eight months canning district in which I live, and I think I might say without ego­ season. However activity slackened, and both factories had to re­ tism, that had I abandoned the fish preserving industry years duce operations. John Tuckey withdrew from the partnership when ago it would practically have ceased to exist at any rate for a he settled in Singapore. He felt that too much of the income they considerable part of the time that has elapsed since it was first started." (49) 28 The Western AustraZian HistoricaZ Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 29

Nevertheless Charles was not granted the land he wanted, and But while the Peel Inlet Preserving Works maintained a fluc­ instead he transferred the preserving works to Carrabungup, at tuating but gradually declining output until the First World War, the head of the estuary soon after the turn of the century. Charles Tuckey and his family were turning their attention to two 1890s~land A visit by Governor Sir Gerard Smith and his party on Oct­ new developments of the transport and the tourist­ holiday trade. ober 15, 1897, was a great day for Mandurah. After a cruise down the Murray from Pinjarra to Mill Island on the paddle steamer Charles had long been anxious about the bar's obstruction of CooZingup, the vice-regal party drove to the town and received an the estuary. Not only was it often impossible to get his produce address of welcome read by Mr. H. Sutton on behalf of the in­ out to sea, but inconvenience was also caused to the steamers which habitants. This was considered to be "the most voluminous expres­ brought holidaymakers; passengers had to disembark into small sion of loyalty that has been evoked so far in any part of Western boats. Several vessels went aground. The Perth-Bunbury railway Australian territory that His Excellency has yet visited." was opened as far as Pinjarra on May 2, 1893, and Charles hoped that Mandurah might also be served by a railway. Following up a "The canning factory, which was started by Mr. Charles Tuckey and was afterwards floated into a company, was in­ conversation he had held with Mr. E. Solomon, M.L.A., of Fre­ spected. Recently somE; improved appliances have be,:n added mantle, about Mandurah's potentialities, he wrote: to the plant with a VIew to the saving of labour. HIS Excel­ sugge~ted "The South Fremantle Railway should be surveyed past lency others that are in vogue in America, where Robb's Jetty and the racecourse, over to Coogee at the back fish canning is done on a very large scale. A catch of mullet of Brown's Mount, through Rockingham on the west side of had just been brought in, and, fresh from the net, they shone White Lake and Stake Hill (where there is a great deal of like molten silver. After the mullet season the herring shoals agricultural land fit for summer gardens and other products) keep the factory going. One of the troubles of the manager to Mandurah, thence to Pinjarra. The first two sections should is that the sandbar at the mouth of the 'estuary makes the be built from Fremantle to Coogee and Pinjarra to Mandurah." consignments very uncertain, the ketch Amy bE;ing half the time unable to get enough water for even her light draught. (52) ... Give Mandurah seaway communication with Fremantle But the railway was not to be, and the family which for fifty and the residents think Bunbury will have to look to its laurels as a favourite holiday place, because a yachting trip to the years had provided sea communication for Mandurah, now estab­ Brighton Hotel would be a great attraction. To show the ex­ lished a road link. Passengers, mail and produce were carried first cellent accommodation that is provided for visitors, His Excel­ by horse and buggy and afterwards by char-a-banc to Pinjarra to lency and Lady Smith were invited to inspect the Brighten meet the trains, the few passengers compensating for the low rate Hotel which has recently been enlarged, and WhICh was In holid~y dress, and they were pleased with what they saw." (50) of the mail contract. (53) All of Charles' sons other than Melville were involved in the transport business at different stages; Roy Lindsay Thompson, in his Report on the Marine Fisheries in and Clarence later inaugurated a bus service to Fremantle. The 1898 noted that at Mandurah there were "two excellent canneries service was acquired by L. and N. Scott in 1935. at which the best work is turned out", and gave credit to Robert Holidaymakers flocked to Mandurah in the 1890s. Perth people Smart's and Charles Tuckey's enterprise. He felt that there was could conveniently make their way by train and buggy. Goldfields room for the expansion of the industry into "enormously large pro­ people sought relief at the seaside from the inland summer heat. portions." But the volume of imported fish was well ahead of that The State's population increased fourfold during the decade. Seeing of the local product, and fresh fish was now quickly and regul­ the opportunity for providing accommodation, Charles converted larly supplying the markets of Perth and Fremantle. Fishermen the two storey house he had recently built in Mandurah Terrace were getting good prices for their catches there. (51) Furthermore, into a hotel-the Brighton. A second hotel was established in 1903 better communications and cool storage facilities caused a decline on the "peninsula", to which access was made easier by the con­ in the demand for tinned foods on the goldfields. struction of a footbridge across the water. The Peninsula Hotel Twenty-five boats, employing forty men, were operating at was formerly the holiday residence of Mr. W. S. Brookman, a Mandurah in 1898. Very quickly the depletion of the colony's fish­ leading businessman of Perth and Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Both hotels eries gave cause for grave concern, and protective measures were came into the possession of Hobart Tuckey in after years. enacted, which extended the work of an Act of 1889. The size An English tourist wrote enthusiastically of her holiday at of the mesh used in fishing nets was restricted, and fishermen Mandurah at the beginning of the new century: and their boats were required to have licences. More inspectors (From Pinjarra) "I took a drive of 14 miles through rich were appointed to patrol waters that had been closed, a second fruit-growing country to the charming seaside town of Man­ inspector being appointed for Mandurah in 1909. durah. Pears, peaches and nectarines loaded the trees, and 30 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 31

there is a fine fruit-preserving factory, as well as several t:ether with his cousins Charles and Theo Wearne, he had attended factories for preserving fish. The Brighton Hotel is very com­ Major Humble's Fremantle Boys' School, and had gone on to Sir fortable, and you can get a vast amount of pleasure at this charming resort. Boating, fishing and shooting can be indulged Henry Briggs' Fremantle Grammar School for secondary educa­ in to your heart's content. I had a right merry time; several tion. His artistry at the piano put him in great demand for play­ people I knew were staying there, and I became quite an ex­ ing at the little town's social functions and gatherings, and for pert at fishing. Across- the ferry from the hotel is the Murray twenty-five years he was organist at Christ Church. (58) His estuary, which is really teeming with fish. The goldfields people patronise Mandurah largely, and many huge catches of fish children recall being out fishing on the estuary with their father have been chronicled by them on their return to the fields on Sundays; he would keep his eye on the time (always accurately from their holiday. Very large king-fish are frequently caught reckoned by the sun), and without fail pack up in good time to be with hand-lines. Almost any kind of line will do; it is amusing home for evensong. His increasing deafness occasionally provided to see the greedy things snapping at anything you put on the hook. I saw one caught that measured five feet in length and anxious and amusing moments in the tiny church. weighed 381b. Black Bream weighing 41b. are a common catch. Emily's brother-in-law, the Reverend John Beukers, chose Hosts of crabs are about, making the fishing more exciting Mandurah as a camp for his scouting troop for a number of years than ever. At one time I thought fishing the slowest amuse­ ment in the world, but after this experience at Mandurah I while he was stationed at Armadale. Their encampment was in am convinced that there is some fascination in it after all. In the bush at the northern end of the town, behind Lady Hackett's two days a visitor caught 17 dozen whiting, bream and mullet. summer residence. He has recorded the scene in January 1917 in The mullet is a delicious fish, more like salmon than anything. his parish magazine: Some English people staying at the hotel said it was quite equal to the English salmon. As you may imagine, plenty of "Mandurah consists of blue water and black sand, with a well-cooked fish is always supplied at table and anyone re­ white metalled road between the two. The sand is covered with quiring a quiet and enjoyable rest from city troubles cannot tuart forest, and the water branches into ponds, rivers and do beter than visit Mandurah, where, in addition to the splendid estuaries. Some jetties and a bridge span the water; old stone fishing, other sports can be indulged in, since plenty of good houses and newer ones built of wood cluster about the roads, duck, teal and snipe shooting is to be got at the lakes 5 miles but the combination of forest and stream, of bridge and river, out." (54) sandbank and lagoon, and clustering houses, covered with a cloud-flecked sky and tinted with the golden sunlight, is so Charles Tuckey also devoted himself in his later years to his charming that the eye never wearies' of looking at the scene, farming interests and served on the Mandurah Agricultural and while the genial atmosphere and the gentle sea-breeze provokes Progress Committee and the Murray Road Board. In June 1897 a laziness and quietude. "The people of Mandurah do not hurry. There are a num­ deputation pointed out to the Commissioner of Crown Lands that ber of oldest inhabitants, some of their descendants, a few closer settlement would be possible and small farms established newcomers, and a host of visitors. All of them fish. Those that if the large estates around Mandurah, particularly the Hall Estate, don't catch are supplied by those that do, and when fish is could be broken up (55), and in August Charles strongly urged scarce meals are restricted. Yachting, boating and swimming­ particularly if the weather is warm-are serious occupations. the government to purchase part of the Barragup Estate for an The scouts had bathing parade twice a day, none being exempt. agricultural college. The Serpentine river ran through the proper­ "We gave some concerts. The first was held at the camps ty, and there was every description of soil. (56) Charles showed in the moonlight, and the whole of Mandurah turned out. The great faith in his district and was a real optimist. Few shared his boys from the Pinjarra farm-about 30 of them-came along and contributed an item or two, fraternised with our lads, and optimism, and he was really ahead of the times. He died in 1912, both camps divided the collection .. _ Mr. Fairbridge, who was while on a visit to his nephew's farm at Cool up (57); his wife, who in charge of the Pinjarra boys, told some very interesting before marriage was Emma Bell of Rockingham, survived him for stories' from his experiences. twenty-six years. There were six sons and two daughters to the "We had church parade on the Sunday, and all the marriage. Protestant scouts attended the service at the Anglican Church. It was on Intercession Day, and the close of the service was very solemn." (59) Melville Tuckey, while continuing to operate the preserving Lady Hackett's house, "The Pines", was a few years later works together with his brother Hobart during the early 1900s, acquired by Clarence Tuckey, and opened as a guest-house during turned his attention to the holiday trade in summer. Helped by the season. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. Crogan, son-in­ his energetic wife, Emily, he extended his large stone house, and law and daughter of Mr. William Tuckey of Carnarvon. converted it into a guest house. A genial host, Melville was well Social activity in the early years of the century was very known for his sense of humour and his literary knowledge. To- lively, and all members of the community entered into local func- 32 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 33 tions zestfully. Sports were often held to celebrate national occas­ King Charles I "was easily the best in the room, and one would go ions like Australia Day and the 1911 Coronation. They sometimes a long way to find the costume so well worn and the portrayal so took the form of an aquatic carnival at Ravenswood; another was well carried out as it was by Mr. Tuckey." His, niece Myrla, a programme of children's events and log-chops on the town sports­ masquerading as Bluebeard's seventh wife, "looked quite fascina­ field, which was then situated on the south side of the road to the ting in her beautiful character costume of 'Fatima' with long "peninsula." Cricket was popular in Mandurah and Pinjarra, both flowing red cloak." (62) towns having a team; a parliamentary team came down from In the summer of 1930 a new form of transport and com­ Perth for some years, and one from the High School (Hale School) munication made its appearance at Mandurah, but it was an paid an occasional visit. The Patersons and McLartys sometimes occasion for entertainment rather than the start of a new era for fielded a team consisting entirely of members of the two families. the town. On February 23 the first sea plane touched down. Of the Tuckeys, Hobart, Cecil and their cousin Ned were keen "It settled just like a bird south of the bridge and in a very players, Cecil's ability being such that he was frequently referred short time a crowd of people had gathered-so large in fact to among the family simply as "the Cricketer." that Canon Burns was heard to remark: He didn't think so many people lived in Mandurah.' (63) Among the most colourful episodes of the period shortly before the First World War were the meetings of the Mandurah Hunt The aviators later spent a busy and profitable time taking Club. In their light and dark blue colours, members would assemble passengers on short flights. One of their twenty-eight customers, at the Causeway or Ravenswood on the Pinjarra Road, for a run Miss Dolly Cooper, perhaps eager to share the perils of Pauline, in the direction of the Serpentine and the lakes, or towards the begged the pilot to loop the loop. estuary. Swamps and thickets enabled the brush to lead hounds The provision of entertainment for holidaymakers and for the and huntsmen a difficult chase, and an hour or two's nun was quite townsfolk is an activity with which the Tuckey family has long exhausting. For the opening meet of 1911 the club assembled at been associated. From the time that holidaymakers first appeared, the Ravenswood Hotel for afternoon tea at the invitation of Mr. Mandurah's permanent inhabitants made their boats available for and Mrs. A. E. Thomas. hire to visitors. Charles Tuckey in the 1890s established a roller "Over one hundred persons put in an appearance, and the skating rink in a storage room above his preserving works. A sight was indeed a pretty one. The meet was one of the generation later Hobart acquired the Hotham Valley Theatre, largest yet seen south of Perth, and speaks well for such a which had been erected in 1928, and it has served as a cinema small place as Mandurah.' (60) each winter since. In summer time, picture programmes were first Donald Paterson of Creaton was fieldmaster and Hobart introduced on a block between the Brighton Hotel and Mandurah Tuckey master of the hounds, while among the huntswomen were House, and shortly before the war the screenings were transferred the Misses Rona, Edith and Verna Tuckey. to the new Ambassadors Gardens. The picture business, operated Fortunately the Hunt Club Ball was held in August that year, in its early years by Hobart's nephew Kelvin is now conducted by for a shortage of gentlemen was compensated for by the presence the former's son Owen, who also has an interest in the Mandurah of a dozen or so boys from the High School, who were camped at Drive-In, which was opened in 1960. As in Perth, television's effect Mandurah for their vacation. "They were a great acquisition, on the picture industry has lately been felt in Mandurah. making up in enthusiasm what they lacked in knowledge of the The San Toy Ballroom in Mandurah Terrace, owned by Roy art of Terpsichore." (61) Tuckey is another new venue of entertainment. It was named after The 1920s saw numbers of adventurous motorists negotiating one of the family's boats which once plied between Mandurah and the roads to Mandurah; young men in white flannels called to Fremantle. take the town's eligible girls out for a game of tennis; jazz and the Charleston made their appearance at the local dances; and the silent movies flickered in the Agricultural Hall, Melville Tuck­ The career of the Honourable Hobart Tuckey, third son of ey and his daughters Edna and Myrla providing the piano accom­ Charles, shows a continuation of his father's faith in and devotion paniment. towards the district's progress. He assisted in the canning enterprise for five years, and then his' father selected the civil The fancy dress ball was a popular form of entertainment. That to wind up the 1921-2 cricket season was considered "quite service to be Hobart's career. Appointed to W.A's. Posts and Tele­ the most brilliant social function witnessed at Mandurah for many graphs department, he served first as telegraphist at the old Fre­ years." The prize-winning costume worn by Hobart Tuckey as mantle Post Office, and later as Acting Postmaster at Narrogin and 34 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 35 Wagin. But the attraction of a more independent life proved too strong, and after six years' service he resigned. Returning to elections. Mr. D. R. (later Sir Ross) McLarty was also a candidate Mandurah, he transferred his energies to landed property and to for this seat for the first time, .and was the winner. Sir Ross has the running of a store which he established in conjunction with inow held the seat for 30 years. Both men, and a third, Mr. C. his brother Cecil. The brothers also took over the operation of the Eppingstone, stood in the Nationalist interest, while Mr. F. J. passenger and mail coach service, and in 1910 they bought a 14,000 Becher of Harvey and Mr. J. T. Tonkin, schoolteacher, stood for the acre property on the Upper Blackwood at Kulikup. Cecil settled on Country Party and Labour respectively. Tonkin polled 1039, McLarty the property, grazing cattle and sheep, and after his war service in 929 and Tuckey 599. Distribution of preferences gave McLarty a France, he bought out Hobart's share. majority of 803 over Tonkin. Mandurah voters gave Hobart over­ Hobart then bought the Peninsula Hotel and conducted the whelming support, and he also led the poll at Waroona. business personally during the 1920s. Among his other interests was But perhaps it was as well that Hobart did not enter the a farm he maintained near Pinjarra. A field day held there in 1928 Assembly. The Nationalist government of Sir James Mitchell ruled was a great success, the Director of Agriculture remarking that the for the next three years, but was powerless to solve the problems clover demonstration was the best he had seen anywhere. Hobart of the world wide depression. W.A. electors threw the Nationalists also found time to participate in various sports and to give consider­ out in 1933, as readily as Australian electors generally threw out able honorary service. the Labour government in Canberra the same year. His public service and his work for the community's progress The retirement of the Hon. Edwin Rose from his seat for the was already evident at the age of twenty two, as shown in letters South West Province in the Legislative Council, opened to Hobart he wrote as secretary of the Mandurah Progress Committee in the a better opportunity for parliamentary service, and in the 1934 years 1906-8. Writing to government departments in Perth and Council elections, he successfully contested the seat. Though he was to the local Road Board, his association pressed for such things a good Liberal, and could be relied on to support the Party's major as the resumption and improvement of the river fore-shore, the principles, he did not care for the rough and tumble of party construction of swimming baths, for better roads and a more politics, but preferred to judge legislation on what he considered frequent mail service, for lectures by visiting Agriculture Depart­ to be its merits. In his pre-election policy speeches even for the ment officers. For instance, to the Road Board, in December 1906, Assembly elections in 1930, he declared that he believed there was he wrote: too much of the party principle in Australian politics, and that there should be more co-operation between capital and labour. "I have been directed to advise you of the bad state which the gates are in along the main road between Mandurah and Hobart's opponents for the 1934 election were Mr. A. E. Clifton Bunbury and to ask you to kindly endeavour to have same of Brunswick, who was also a Nationalist, and Mr. R. J. C. Butler, attended to. According to complaints recently received some of secretary of the W.A. Douglas-Social Credit Group, an independent. these gates or gateways are merely blocked up with logs and Butler led the poll decisively in Collie and in the Warren district bushes to make them sheep-proof. Some of the logs are said to be too heavy for women to handle and that they cause con­ and narrowly in Bunbury, Hobart won good majorities everywhere siderable inconvenience to the travelling public." (64) else, and secured an absolute majority of 261, while Clifton lost his deposit. Hobart was first elected as representative of the Mandurah Ward of the Murray Road Board in 1914. He held this position It is pleasing to read in an account of a reception tendered to for the next 35 years, and was for 25 years Chairman. In a wider Hobart by the people of Mandurah after the election, that "among sphere he was a member of the executive and later President of the those present occupying a seat of honour was his mother Mrs Road Boards' Association, and a member of the Council of the Tuckey, who with all her 84 years, looked hale and hearty, taking Justices' Association, being its president in 1929 and in 1948. Besides great interest in the proceedings." (65) being a local J.P., he was also honoured when in the late '208 the The South West Province, though largely a primary-producing South Australian government created him a J.P. for the whole area, had a diversity of interests and industries: dairying, fat lambs, of that State. It is noteworthy that three brothers and their sister timber, fruit, tobacco, coal, condensed milk, and tourism. Hobart have all been or are J.Ps. - Cecil, Hobart, Roy and Rona (Mrs gave his encouragement to all of these. The '30s were hard years Dempster). for the South West. Dairy farmers suffered from the fall in the In 1930 Hobart made his first bid for Parliament, when he price of butter fat, and the competition of margarine, although contested the Murray-Wellington seat in the Legislative Assembly butter production picked up again in 1938. The farmers were among the strongest supporters of the Secession movement of 1933-35, 36 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tucke1l8 0/ Mandurah 37 claiming that Canberra's protective tariff policy made them pay the last few years in the town's committees and organisations, par­ dearly for their machinery. In his 1934 election speeches, Hobart ticularly the young Chamber of Commerce, of which he is vice­ announced himself an ardent Secessionist, and was pleased to hear president. that the government was to send a delegation to London and pre­ sent the case for Secession from the Federal yoke. However, in retrospect, the movement was rather farcical, and agitation for it Roy Tuckey, youngest son of Charles, is another who has seen declined as prosperity returned. Mandurah evolve from a quiet fishing hamlet to a prosperous town­ Hobart always advocated closer settlement of the South West, ship. His house in Mandurah Terrace, together with those of Charles though he wanted to see development of the unoccupied land along and Theo Wearne in Leslie Street, were the first brick residences in the railways and closer to the markets, rather than the continuation Mandurah to take their place beside the stone buildings of earlier of the unsound practices of the Group Settlement scheme. He voiced days. Built during the late 1920's, Roy's home stands on the water­ his wish to see that Bunbury and Busselton harbours should handle front, just south of the site of the canning works. His contribution the natural trade of their hinterland. Irrigation schemes received to the orderly development of the town has been considerable. He his support when first mooted, and he continued to urge their ex­ has served on numerous public bodies, culminating in his chairman­ tension. Strong backing was given by Hobart to the South West ship of the Mandurah Road Board at its inception in 1951. The Light and Power scheme, and to the development of Collie. After largest landowner in the Road Board district, he has many business the war he opposed the ultimate expenditure of £2% million on the interests, chief among them being farming and his store. He was power scheme at South Fremantle, contending that a project of the people's warden and treasurer of the parish church and diocesan kind should be established closer to the coalfields. synodsman for fifteen years, and was responsible for the erection of Hobart had a firm hold on his South West seat, and of course a stained glass window in Christ Church in memory of his parents. the South West has always been the stronghold of the Liberals. A new sanctuary to the church, incorporating the window, was con­ However in both the 1940 and 1948 elections he had Liberal (or secrated by the Bishop of Bunbury in July 1958. The altar is in Nationalist, as they were earlier called) opponents: Mr. L~k, un­ memory of his aunt, Matilda Wearne, and was given by her sons. endorsed, of Manjimup, in 1940, and Mr. D. D. Johnstone in 1948. Finally amongst the older generation, Rona Tuckey, now Mrs. But in both elections. as in 1934, Hobart received an absolute George Dempster, has earned a prominent place in local history. majority on the first count-always receiving strong support from Since their marriage in 1915 Mr and Mrs Dempster have lived on the Murray and Sussex districts, parts of Wellington, and at their farm at Benger. The farm, "Sheron", was named after the Bridgetown and Donnybrook. guest house in Singapore owned by Mrs. Dempster's cousin, Mrs. However, party strengths never altered very much in the Ben McCall (nee Ellen Wearne), at which the newlyweds stayed in Council and there were no spectacular or acrimonious issues. 1915. In addition to fulfilling the claims of her family and the farm, Hobart's views on land development, local government, native wel­ Mrs. Dempster has for many years given her attention to wider fare, town planning, water conservation and fisheries were those interests. Joining the Country Women's Association in 1931, she was which commanded the respect of his fellow members and his party in turn elected branch president, district vice-president, divisional leader. In his day he had little opportunity for ministerial office, president, council member, and in 1947, State president, the first though he would have been glad to take on such responsibilities. It West Australian-born. For the year 1948-9 she held the highest was only during the last four years of his life that a Liberal-Country office of all in Australia, that of national president of the Associa­ Party government came to power, under Sir Ross McLarty. There tion. Initially as a C.W.A. delegate, Mrs. Dempster has since ex­ were then a number of members with previous ministerial experi­ tended her interests to include the Pan Pacific and South East Asia ence, and longer service in the Council, and in any case, only two Women's Association, the Save the Children Fund, the Good Neigh­ portfolios were customarily allotted to the Council. (66) bour Movement and the Tree Society. These associations and bodies have appealed to her for their non-sectarian and non-political basis, After some months of ill-health, Hobart died in March, 1951, at and for their meetings and conferences she has frequently travelled the age of sixty seven. (67) Throughout his public life he was to the farthest parts of the State and to the east. At home she has ably assisted by his wife Edith, and upon her there also devolved also given keen support to the Harvey District Hospital and the much of the work of attending to business interests at Mandurah. parish of Brunswick. Their only son, Owen, has followed and extended his father's com­ Christian names given to the seven generations of Tuckey child­ mercial and farming pursuits, and has played a prominent role in ren make an interesting study. In the first three generations there 38 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 39 appear the names John, James, Charlotte, Charles, a second John, 1803 and gave rise to legend. Stirling, second son of Melville and Helen and Matilda-all of them very English, except that James Emily, can trace his name to Governor Stirling through the Stirling might be considered primarily Scottish. At the time Charlotte Estate, which the governor assigned himself in the Vasse district. Tuckey was born, hers was a popular name, being that of George The farm of Emily's parents, Stratham, was on the Stirling Estate. TIl's queen and of the Prince Regent's daughter; Princess Charlotte Surnames have frequently been preserved as second Christian would have been queen in place of Queen Victoria had she lived. names. These include Foster, Anstey, Green, Roberts, Hurst, Bell, In later years several Scottish names have been given-Roy, Howell and Eaton. They forcefully demonstrate the wide ramifica­ Neil, Ross, Stuart, Kenneth and Colin- and Welsh ones-Owen and tions that an old family can have through marriages. The careers Lloyd. Some of these are connected with the origins of their and family backgrounds of the men and women who have married maternal forebears, and naturally, as time goes on, more and more members of the family provide colourful and valued links with Australians will have a mixture of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish many aspects of the history of the State and with more distant and European blood. Christian names will often reveal racial origin, places. even if in the maternal and not the paternal line. Ethel Tuckey's The 1841 marriage between James Tuckey and Mary Anne son Murray Jardine has a name which not only is in accord with Foster has resulted in eight descendants bearing the name Foster, his father's Scottish origin, but also happily commemorates the two of them born in 1960. district which is home for his mother's family. The Murray district The name Anstey is believed to be derived from Elizabeth was named in honour of Sir George Murray, Secretary of State for Anstey, but it is not known whether the lady was the mother of the Colonies. James Tuckey or of Mrs. James Tuckey. Two grandchildren of The last decade or so has seen the adoption of the currently James and Mary Anne Tuckey received the name---Albert Anstey popular names David, Philip and Wayne; the influence of royalty Tuckey, and the short-lived Hamlet Anstey Cooper. again and of Hollywood are perhaps ultimately discernable here. The brothers Ned and Charles John Tuckey each took as a bride Daughters of the family have been assigned even more striking and a Miss Green, but the ladies were not previously related. Ned original names in recent years, again after the fashion of the times. Tuckey's bride in 1889, Lucy Sarah Green, was a daughter of Levi Charles and Emma Tuckey eighty years ago chose some interest­ Green, farmer of Brookdale, Pinjarra, who had arrived in the ing names for their sons. The eldest was Melville, and his name is Shepherd in 1840, and her mother, nee Lucy Finyard, had come to transmitted to his second son and to his eldest grandson, the present the colony in 1848 on the Mary. Levi and Lucy lived for years near chronicler. Melville perhaps suggested itself, being brought to at­ the estuary, and in the 1870s moved to Brookdale. It is related tention locally through Melville Water and Mount Melville at that Mrs. Levi Green lost her wedding ring while crossing a creek Albany; now there is a suburb of the name. Governor Stirling in­ shortly after her marriage. A thorough search failed to recover it troduced the designation to Western Australia, in honour of a friend at the time; but twenty five years later, Levi's best man, while of his, Viscount Melville, sometime first Lord of the Admiralty. crossing the creek and reminiscing that he was at the place where Charles and Emma's fourth son was Clarence. This name was that of the ring had been lost, poked about with a stick, and to his amaze­ the projected township for Peel's settlers, and Albany also has a ment brought it to light. When Levi and Lucy celebrated their Mount Clarence. These were named after the Duke of Clarence, who diamond wedding anniversary in November 1911, their descendants in 1830 became King William IV. Albert, the fifth son, has a name numbered ninety six; all their twelve children were living, and their which became very popular last century through its possession by grandchildren and great grandchildren numbered respectively sixty­ the Prince Consort. Every one of the sons and grandsons of Queen seven and seventeen.(68) Mrs. Ned Tuckey's eldest brother Levi Victoria and Prince Albert received the name. Charles and Emma (1856-1945) succeeded to his father's farming property, and a great .Tuckey apparently simply took a fancy to the name Hobart in granddaughter of his, Norma Green, was a partner in another 'giving it to their third son; it is the most original in the nineteenth marriage alliance between the two families in 1952. Norma and her century. husband Bryne Tuckey now live on their farm, Kookabrook, five Melville and Emily Tuckey also produced some thoughtful miles from Pinjarra. Christian names fifty years ago. The Vasse, the district from which William George Green Tuckey (1893- ) now of Carnarvon, Emily came, is commemorated in the second Christian name of one owes his third name to his mother Sarah Jane Green (1868-1942), ot her daughters-Clarice Vasilla. Looking back, the Vasse district who married Charles John Tuckey in 1890. Her parents were John was named after the French sailor La Vasse, who was lost there in Edward Green and Mary Crowdy, and her uncle was yet another 40 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 41

Levi Green, the well-known coachbuilder and hardware merchant Within a small community, strong personalities collaborated and of Perth. John and Levi were two of the eleven children of George clashed with one another; the campus moved from cramped Irwin Green and Jane Beacham, whose marriage took place in 1836. George Street to spacious Crawley. From 1937 until his death in 1948, Mr came to the colony in February 1830 aboard the Tranby, the ship Thompson was designated Associate-Professor of Old English. Twice which brought from Hull the Hardeys, Clarksons, Inkpens and he acted as head of the department, during Professor Murdoch's other pioneer Methodist families; he was a cousin to Mrs. Joseph absences abroad. He was the first local graduate to be elected to Hardey. The Beacham family, stemming from William and Mary who the university senate, and for five years was warden of convocation. arrived on the Lotus in October 1829, have been established at His interests were wide, and he was keenly sought after in many Jimjamup on the Murray since the mid-1830s. In 1951 Ronald circles as a speaker.(71) Beacham married Shirley Tuckey, granddaughter of Ned and Lucy Both the son and daughter of Bertha and Harry Thompson now Tuckey. carry on the name Sherman. Ronald, a graduate in engineering in Lancel Roberts Tuckey derives his second name from his 1942, today has charge of the Small Arms Factory, Lithgow, N.S.W. mother's family, who were of Cornish origin. Catherine Emily Jean, who was dux, champion athlete and captain of her school, Roberts, daughter of Charles Fox Roberts of Stratham and his wife continued her triumphs at the university (Bachelor of Arts, 1940, who was Hannah Hurst, married Melville Tuckey in 1899. Her recipient of a blue for life-saving and of the Amy Jane Best prize grandfather William Jenkin Roberts arrived with his family in the for English literature). After a short time as first officer of the colony on the Diadem in 1842, under the second major scheme for National Fitness Council in Canberra in 1941, she became an officer colonial settlement. The ambitious Australind scheme was however in the W.R.A.N.S. In Brisbane she married Lieutenant-Commander just as unsuccessful as Peel's settlement at' Clarence eleven years Lloyd Mostrom, and thence went to America as a war bride. The earlier. Myrla Hurst Tuckey, second daughter of Melville and Emily, newlyweds first settled after the war at Charleston. This southern is named after her maternal grandmother. city was the centre of America's ancestor worshipping community, Three grandchildren of Mrs. Charles Tuckey (nee Emma Bell) but it was imprudent at times to reveal the name Sherman. are Stanley Bell Tuckey, Audrey Bell Dempster (Mrs. Francis Bertha Thompson's nephew, Victor Wager, also has a link with Culliver) and Barbara Bell Tuckey (Mrs. Hugh McLarty). Emma's the university's foundation at Crawley, as the sculptor of Socrates father farmed a property at East Rockingham; the low stone and Diotima, whose figures flank the entrance to the undercroft. homestead still stands close to the Fremantle-Mandurah road. A He was also responsible for the execution of the plaques on Mel­ sister married the proprietor of the old Chesterfield Inn, and a bourne's Shrine of Remembrance, and has written a text book on brother was an eye-witness of the dramatic escape to sea of the plaster casting. (72) Victor is the son of the late Evangeline Tuckey Fenian prisoners in 1876. (69) An employee of the Bells and friend (1865-1953) and William Wager. His sister Ellen (Mrs. John of the family, Thomas Howell, has his name preserved in that of Chappell) is an accomplished painter of still life and landscape, and Emma Bell's grandson Kelvin Charles Howell Tuckey.(70) has exhibited her work annually as a member of the Perth Society Lloyd Eaton Tuckey and his nephew Vance Eaton Tuckey re­ of Artists. John Chappell, who was born in Johannesburg and came cord in their names that of a family friend Foster Eaton, sometime to Perth from Scotland in 1912, was for many years secretary of Inspector of Fisheries at Mandurah. Foster Eaton was later the Master Printers' Association. Having served in both World Wars Inspector at Bunbury, and the Eaton estate on the Collie River, (discharged as Lieutenant-Colonel), he held office as State secretary now a suburb of Bunbury, was named in his honour in 1951. of the R.S.L. from 1947 to 1956.(73) While in the 16th Battalion Bertha Tuckey's husband, Henry Sherman Thompson, was the during the Second World War, Colonel Chappell found that one of son of an American engineer who had migrated to Victoria and his Company Sergeant-Majors was his wife's cousin, Stirling Tuckey. later settled in Perth, and a relative of W. T. Sherman, Union Stirling was later commissioned and transferred to the 8th Bat­ general in the American Civil War. A graduate of the University talion; a newspaper article records his experiences during the last of W.A., Harry Thompson was for five years classics master at phase of the war.(74) Now a city businessman, Stirling is the Guildford Grammar School, and for one year headmaster of Christ ifamily's most ardent devotee of recreational fishing. Church School. Having proceeded to the degree of Master of Arts One of a team of three Movietone cameramen responsible for he was appointed lecturer in the university's English department lfilming the latter stages of the South East Asia campaign was in 1922. The twenty six years he was a member of its staff were an 'Ray Phoenix, whose wife Beryl is the daughter of Ethel Tuckey era of exciting development for the young institution of learning. (1880- ) and the late Duncan Jardine. Beryl also came through 42 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 43 with the troops from Burma to the recapture of Singapore, engaged cars. Their motor firm, which became known as Wearne Bros. Ltd., as script-writer for her husband's films. prospered rapidly over the years. The company also pioneered air Myrla Tuckey's late husband, Frank Cotton, a mining engineer ~ansport in Malaya and Singapore, and now has twenty branches in Malaya before the Second World War, was seconded to the Royal In the two countries. The brothers built substantial homes at Navy early in 1942, given the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, and Mandurah in the 1920s, to which they periodically returned, and it instructed to lead a demolition squad, which destroyed Singapore's was at Mandurah that Charles spent his last years before his death immense underground oil reserves before the Japanese advance. in 1944. Several others among the ten children of Matilda and John Devotion to duty cost him three and a half years as a prisoner of Wearne were connected with Singapore's commercial and shipping war, and consequent poor health led to his untimely death in community, and in recent years some of their descendants have re­ 1960. (75) Meral, daughter of Myrla and Frank, renewed the family's turned to settle in Western Australia. Matilda, second daughter of connection with the Post Office in 1958, when she married Man­ Matilda and John, married J. A. Hicks in 1884, proprietor of the durah's present postmaster, Stanley Barry. "White House" chain of drapery stores in Fremantle, Northam, Edna Tuckey's husband, James Jefferis Heath, co-owner of the York and Kalgoorlie; he and his family eventually concentrated Barton Mine at Nullagine, derives his forenames from his grand­ their attention on the Kalgoorlie business.(79) James Hicks was the father, the Reverend Dr. James Jefferis, distinguished Congregation­ grandson of another Rockingham immigrant, William Leeder, and al minister of Adelaide and Sydney. To Dr. Jefferis' influence has he was a relative of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the prominent been attributed the early foundation of the University of Adelaide. English statesman. The names Leeder and Beach, as well as Foster, (76) Alfred Heath, father of James Heath, came of another old Ade­ are preserved as secondary Christian names for several of the laide family. While training as a surveyor in'the west of South Aust­ descendants of Matilda and James Hicks. ralia in 1894, an offer was made him by Sultan Faiz Mohamed to Helen Tuckey (1847-1929), known as Ellen, became the wife of take charge of the first caravan of camels for the new Coolgardie James Cooper, son of Joseph Cooper, who built the mill at the mouth goldfields. Although only 20 years of age, he accepted the offer, and of the Murray, and of Elizabeth Wright. The Cooper family arrived led the team of fifty-eight camels, without loss, overland from by the Warrior in March 1830. Two of Helen's daughters married Hergott Springs to Coolgardie, His diary recording the trek vi.a sons of Walter Easton, who had come to Fremantle as a teacher in Eucla and Esperance makes interesting reading. (77) Edna Tuckey's 1858 and was later an orchardist and vigneron at Plympton, East daughter by her earlier marriage to the late Henry Meyers, Fay Fremantle; and their sister-in-law, Selina Susannah Easton was Mrs. Beresford Meyers, derives her second Christian name from a connec­ Charles Wearne. Frederick, second son of Helen and James Cooper, tion through her father's family with Admiral Lord Charles (later married Mandurah's schoolmistress, Minnie Molloy, daughter of Baron) Beresford, son of the fourth Marquess of Waterford.(78) T. G. A. Molloy, mayor of Perth. Frederick's youngest sister Violet The gold rush also brought to W.A. the family of Lorna Tuckey's married into another of Mandurah's earliest families, when 'she be­ husband, John Joseph Honniball. Herbert Honniball, aged eighteen, came the wife of George Sutton. Mavis Wright Cooper, grand­ set out from Adelaide by ship in 1896, and following the customary daughter of Helen, is Mrs. Roy Tuckey. course, disembarked at Albany, then the colony's chief port, and In 1953 Barbara Bell Tuckey, daughter of Roy and Mavis, made his way by train to the bustling gold fields. At Menzies he married Hugh, son of Donald McLarty and his Wife, Gladys Chidlow married Mary Collier, who had come to the fields from Warragul, Paterson. The McLarty family has played a pre-eminent part in the Victoria, with her brothers. Marie Collier, now a leading soprano history of Pinjarra and of the State since the arrival of John Me­ at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, is a niece of Mrs. Larty in 1839. The pioneer from Campbelltown in Scotland estab­ Honniball. John, son of Mary and Herbert Honniball married Lorna, lished the pastoral property of Blythewood near Pinjarra, and in the fourth daughter of Melville and Emily Tuckey in 1932; he is now 1880s his son Edward was one of the first promoters of the industry superintendent of the State Building Supplies' timber mills. in the Kimberleys. Edward was the father of Donald and of Ross, Matilda Tuckey (1844-1924) met her husband John Wearne, a and represented the Murray district in State parliament, as his mining engineer, while her family were in Victoria. Their sons youngest son was to do. (80) Charles (born at Castlemaine, 1873) and Theodore (born at Man­ The marriage of Rona Tuckey to George Marsden Dempster durah, 1878) served marine engineering aprenticeships with a Singa­ provides a connection with another Scottish pioneering family. When pore firm in the 1890s. In 1905 they established their own business, the Stuarts were reigning in Scotland, the Dempsters were lairds C. F. F. Wearne and Co., and secured the agency for Ford and Morris of Muresk, Auchterless and Killesmont and viceroys of Banff and The TuckeY8 of Mandurah 45 44 The Western Australian Historical Society the postman and television antennae poke skyward. A good road Buchan. James McLean Dempster (1810-90) settled in Western Aus­ puts Mandurah only an hour away from the metropolis, and leads tralia in the mid 1830s, following several visits as mate and captain past a great oil refinery-a landmark which never guided James of the schooner Eagle. After a few years as superintendent of the Tuckey at sea. native penal establishment at Rottnest, he took up the property Bucklands near Northam. His four sons in 1864 established a large POSTSCRIPT pastoral property at Esperance. Andrew, the third son, returned to Fifty members of the Tuckey family were guests of the W.A. the Avon Valey in 1888 and built the homestead Muresk. George, Historical Society at the reading of the above paper in May 1960, fourth son of Andrew's marriage to Mary Ellen Marsden, managed the month which marked the 130th anniversary of the arrival of Muresk for a few years and from 1908 to 1913, in partnership with their ancestor John Tuckey. The idea was conceived at the time to his brother Reginald, turned to wheat farming at Nambling near hold during the course of the year a family re-union dinner and Dowerin. In 1913 the brothers acquired an 1800 acre property at church service at Mandurah. These functions duIy took place on Benger, partly for the purpose of providing alternative pastures for the first weekend in November. Ninety people sat down to dinner in the sheep from their drought-prone Murchison properties. George Mr. Roy Tuckey's San Toy Ballroom on the evening of November 5. brought his bride from Mandurah to live at Benger in 1915. The Some had come from as far afield as Carnarvon, Meekathara and name Marsden is perpetuated as the second name of George and Manjimup, and Mrs. Bertha Thompson, last surviving child of the Rona's second daughter, Beryl (Mrs. Archer Eckersley).(81) late John and Eliza Tuckey, arrived home after a year's absence in French ancestry is revealed in the name of Cecil Tuckey's America the day before, which was her seventy-seventh birthday. wife, who was Dorothy Malraison. Her forebears left Alsace-Lor­ Mr. Jack Crogan, husband of Jill Tuckey, was chairman; Mr. Roy raine to seek refuge in England from the French Revolution. Tuckey gave an address of welcome to all present; and Mr. John Chappell, following an interesting discourse, proposed a toast to the The late Clarence Tuckey (1886-1942) married Eva Gallop, a memory of "John Tuckey and our pioneer forebears". Dancing, inter­ granddaughter of Richard Gallop, who arrived in the colony at the spersed with musical items given by members of the family, followed. age of twenty, aboard the Lotus in 1829, together with his brothers At this very happy gathering, the oldest present were Mr. Cecil James and Edward. While James and his son developed a mixed Tuckey (78), his brother-in-law Mr. George Dempster (84), and farm, orchard and vineyard at Dalkeith from 1847 onwards, Richard his cousin Mrs. Minnie Easton. (83) cultivated the fine orchard Orange Grove in Brisbane Street. Part The following morning at 11.30, a hundred people, represent­ of the land on which Perth railway station stands was once his. ing four generations, crowded into Christ Church for the service of Living in North Perth for sixty years before he died in his eighty­ Mattins. The rector, the Reverend Canon E. H. Burbidge, conducted ninth year (1898), he saw the suburbs of Perth expand to meet his the service, and the author of the above paper gave an address con­ property. (82) cerning the family's association with the church. The two lessons For one hundred and thirty years members of the Tuckey family, were read by Mr. Ross Chappell and Mr. Owen Tuckey. Two young engaged in a wide variety of occupations and professions, have cousins, Kenneth Tuckey and John Menzies, took up the collection, contributed to the general progress of the community to which they and Mr. Roy Tuckey and Mr. Gerald Honniball acted as ushers. The belong. As pioneers and citizens they have performed in and wit­ highlight of the service was the baptism of four infant boys. They nessed the pageant of colonial and State history. The Australind were Michael Wilson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Tuckey of scheme, the gold rush, the second world war, the post-war im­ Carnarvon; Philip Stanley, son of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Barry of migration programme-in fact nearly all aspects and episodes in Mandurah; David Foster, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bryne Tuckey of Western Australian history have directly or indirectly provided Pinjarra; and Phillip Wayne Foster, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ivan partners in marriage and given the family closer identification with Tuckey of Mandurah. For reasons of space, the rector was obliged the life of the whole community in successive generations. But al­ to use a small portable font, placed at the sanctuary steps. The though they are scattered throughout the State and some have gone mothers, with their sons, stood in a semi-circle around the rector, abroad, all the Tuckeys continue to look upon Mandurah as home. facing the congregation, and the godparents responded from their It is no longer the remote tranquil village. While inland towns 01 places in the pews. fifty and sixty miles from Perth have grown slowly in the post-war Before the close of 1960 many members of the family again era because of their very proximity, the once tiny hamlet has been assembled for two happy functions in Perth-a dinner party to transformed into a progressive town and a thriving seaside resort. celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Theo The newspaper is delivered in the morning, house numbers assist The Tuckeys of Mandurah 47 46 The Western Australian Historical Society 16. Western Australian Church of England Magazine, August Wearne, and a dance to celebrate the 21st birthday of Miss Helen 1869. George, whose mother was Patricia Tuckey. From South Africa came 17. Ibid, December 1871. the news that Mr. Ray Phoenix had received an award from the En­ cyclopaedia Britannica as photographer of the year for his coverage 18. West Australian, 21 November, 1887. of the attempted assassination of the South African Prime Minister. 19. Inquirer, 7 August 1878. A few days before Christmas Mr. Ross Chappell and Mr. Gerald 20. Southern Times, 9 February 1895. Honniball were admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of West­ 21. "Bingen on the Rhine", by Caroline Norton. ern Australia. A month later the family again gathered at Mandurah 22. R. Parsons, Ships Registered in the Port of Eremantle Prior on a hot day under a sky overcast with smoke from a fire which to 1900 (Typescript, 1960) (Battye Library, PR 2684): had razed a town twenty miles away, for the funeral of Mr. Cecil Florence, registered 1876, J. Tuckey; 24.16 tons; 48.7 x 14.7 x 5.12; built in Perth, 1876; 1 deck, 2 masts, fore and aft Tuckey. rigged schooner oval stern; sold in May 1880 to J. Stewart; lost in cyclone, North West coast, 23 April 1887. REFERENCES Jessie, registered 1875, C. Tuckey; 22.7 tons; 47.1 x 14.1 x 5.58; built in Fremantle, 1875; 1 deck, cutter, oval stern; 1. C. Tuckey, Letterbook, 16 March 1898, f. 379. altered to fore and aft rigged schooner, 29 August 1879; sold, 2. Articles of Agreement ... between Thomas Peel of St. James's no trace for long time, register closed 1908. Square, Middlesex, and John Tuckey of Cocking, Sussex, 31 December 1829 (Battye Library, 711A). 23. Herald, 4 December 1880; and other current newspapers. R. Parsons, op, cit.: Ribston, registered 1881, J. Tuckey and 3. P. H. Reaney, Dictionary of British Surnames (1958), p. ~4. partners; 396.88 tons; 127.6 x 28.1 x 17.2; 1 deck, 3 masted 4. H. Harrison, Surnames of the United Kingdom (1918), p. 239. barque, eliptic stern; built by John Robinson, Sunderland, England, 1867; formerly registered at Hong Kong; register­ 5. Victoria History of the County of Sussex, p. 480. ed in name of W. Owston Snr. and partners, May 1883; sold 6. The pedigree of this family is in the possession of Mrs. M. E. at Amoy to Mr. Hernphel, a German, 22 November 1888. Tuckey of Five Dock, N.S.W. 24. Ibid: Comet, registered 1884, J. and C. Tuckey; 28.77 tons; 7. The medal is in the possession of Mrs. M. E. Tuckey of Man­ 63.8 x 13.5 x 4.5; 1 deck, 2 masts, schooner, counter stern; durah. On one side of the medal is the diademed head of built in Fremantle, 1884; wrecked in storm, 13 September Queen Victoria, and the legend Victoria Regina 1848. On the 1893, passage Bunbury-Fremantle. reverse is the queen standing on a dais about to place a 25. Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping, 1899-1900: laurel wreath on the head of the kneeling Duke of Welling­ Sarie Borneo, registered at Banjermasin; Dutch flag; J. ton; it is inscribed: "To the British Army, 1793-1814." Tuckey, master; 741 tons (585 under deck, 356 net); 195 x Twenty-nine bars for campaigns or engagements were issued 29 x 13.7; steel sc. sr., 1 deck (teak) and shade deck (teak) with it. and hold beams' forward; built by Riley, Hargreaves and Co., 8. C. Bryan ("Cygnet") Story of the Rockingham (Swan River Singapore, 1897; owner: Aug Lim Thay; master in 1902-3: Booklet No.9). Koch. 9. W. H. Bunbury, Early Days in Western Australia, (193'0), 26. G. Jean-Aubry, The Sea Dreamer: A Definitive Biography of p.175. Joseph Conrad (1957), pp. 119-130, 239, 255. E. H. Visiak, The Mirror of Conrad, (1955), pp. 174-185. 10. John Sutton, Daybook, 1847-57, 14 February 1848. (In the J. Baines, Conrad: A Critical Biography, (1959), p. 90. possession of Mrs. V. I. Sutton of Mandurah.) J. Conrad, A Personal Record, (1912), pp. 162-190. 11. Elijah Dawson solemnly observed Waterloo Day each year, Lloyds Register ..., 1895-6: Vidar, registered at Banjer­ with his family gathered around him for the commemora­ masin; Dutch flag; J. Craig, master and owner; 315 tons tion. (301 under deck, 174 net); 132.5 x 20.3 x 15.8; iron sc. sr., 2 12. John Sutton, op. cit., passim. decks; built by Wigham, Richardson and Co., Newcastle, England, 1871. 13. "Indenture made the twenty-third day of August in the year Lloyds Register . . ., 1899-1900: Vidar, registered at Penang; one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two between John British flag; J. Lingard, master; owner: Chua Yu Kay. Tuckey of Mandurah in the colony of Western Australia yeoman of the one part and Christopher Armstrong of the 27. Singapore Free Press, 9 July 1900. same place yeoman of the other part". (microfilm, Battye 28. G. E. Owen, op, cit. Library, 474A). 29. South Western Advertiser, 17 May 1951. 14. S.D.U.R./T2/223 (Battye Library). 30. West Australian, 6 January 1890. 15. G. E. Owen, The Post, Telegraph and Telephone Offices of Western Australia: An Alphabetical List, (Typescript, 1958), 31. Margaretta Dore, Political Reminiscences Of Western Aust­ (Battye Library PR 2151). ralia (1897), pp. 54-6. 48 The Western Australian Historical Society The Tuckeys of Mandurah 49 32. Inquirer, 11 July 1888. of Western Australia". Mr. Smart had taken over the 33. Interview with Mr. E. J. F. Tuckey by officials of the W.A. management of Mr. Broadhurst's factory in 1892. Historical Society at Mandurah, 30 October 1954 (W.A.H.S. file 812). 52. Letterbook, 27 May 1896, ff. 57-8. In his advocacy of a rail­ way, Charles had something in common with his niece's 34. Inquirer, 19 January 1876. The Emma, owned by Mr. Walter husband, Mr. J. A. Hicks'. As chairman of the Jandakot Padbury, was lost in 1867, with forty-two people, mostly Board, Hicks urged the claims of Jandakot for a railway young Colonials, aboard. ling with Armadale with such persistence that he was often 35. West Australian, 29 August 1908; and newspapers in 1876. known as Jandakot-Armadale Hicks. -Pink Penny, 24 July Charles Tuckey recounted these eve.nts in a letter to. !he 1909. editor of the West Australian, in which he gave his opimon 53. South Western Advertiser, 17 May 1951. as to how the search for the Waratah, missing in the south­ ern Indian Ocean in 1908, should be conducted. 54. May Vivienne, Travels in Western Australia, (1902), pp. 101-2. 36. Inquirer, 14 February 1877. 55. West Australian, 10 June 1897. 37. Letter from Baccich to C. Tuckey, 9 January 1894. (Battye 56. C. Tuckey to Under-Secretary for Education, 5 August 1897; Library, 554A, microfilm copy). Lands and Surveys Dept. File 7069/97. 38. C. Tuckey, Letterbook, ff. 32-33. 57. South Western Advertiser, 14 June 1912. 39. There are several entries for the name Baccich in the New 58. Ibid, 15 December 1949. Melville Tuckey's daughters are also Orleans Telephone Directory. Enquiries as' to any possible accomplished pianists; the second, Myrla, followed her father connection with M. A. Baccich will be made. as organist at Christ Church. 40. F. W. Gunning, Lure of the North (1952), p. 108. 59. Drill of the Foothills, No. 11, February-March 1917, pp. 28-30. 41. Parliament of Western Australia, Minutes, Votes and Proceed­ 60. South Western Advertiser, 22 July 1911. ings and Paper Presented, Second Session, Sixth Parliament, 61. Ibid, 2 September 1911. 1906 vol. 2 Paper A8, "Report of the Joint Select Commit­ 62. Ibid, 26 May 1922. tee ~ppoint~d to inquire into the Fishing Industry", pp. 95-8. 63. Ibid, 7 March 1930. 42. Ibid, Second Session, Eleventh Parliament, 1922-3, yol.. 2, Paper A7, "Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative 64. Mandurah Progress Association, Letterbook, 1906-8, 8 Decem­ Council appointed to inquire into the Fishing Industry and ber 1906, f. 6. the operations of the Fremantle Fish Markets," pp. 38-40. 65. South Western Advertiser, 8 June 1934. 43. Southern Times 14 October 1893: Two boats had recently 66. Interview with Sir Ross McLarty by author at Pinjarra, 22 come to the f~ctory with 1500 fish each, which had to be May 1960. thrown away. 67. Obituary, South Western Advertiser, 10 March 1951. 44. Inquirer, 7 March 1888. Earlier biographical details, Ibid, 11 May 1934. 45. Ibid, 16 September 1885, (Advt.). Labels for th:e tins are in 68. Ibid, 25 November 1911. the possession of members of the Tuckey family. 69. Z. W. Pease, The Catalpa Expedition, (1897), gives a complete 46. The medals are in the possession of Mr O. H. Tuckey of Man­ description of the episode. durah. A Medal of Merit from the 1881 Exhibition was lost by Charles Tuckey while riding between Mandurah and 70. The prayer book inscribed with dates of birth, marriage and Guildford that year. It was recovered .in.the bush ~t Brent­ death of members of the now extinct Howell family is in wood seventy-six years later, when bUlldl!1g operations were the possession of Mrs. M. Cotton of Mandurah. commencing and was returned by the fmder to Mr. R. L. 71. Obituary, West Australian, 7 February 1948; Pelican, 25 Feb­ Tuckey of Mandurah (South Western Advertiser, 6 February uary 1948. 1958). 72. Victor H. Wager, Plaster Casting for the Student Sculptor, 47. C. Tuckey to Mrs. John Tuckey, 28 November 1898, Letter­ (Tiranti, London, 1938). book, f. 63. 73. Biography, Western Mail, 26 June 1941, p. 7; Leading Person- 48. C. Tuckey to Messrs. Gilbertson and Co., Swansea, Wales, alities of Western Australia, (1950), p. 228. 3 July 1894, Letterbook, f. 34. 74. West Australian, 24 November 1945. 49. Ibid, 2 November 1897, ff. 100-3. 75. Weekend Mail, 25 January 1958. 50. Western Mail, 22 October 1897, p. 13. The address of welcome to the Governor appears in C. Tuckey's Letterbook, f. 8. 76. A. A. Landor, The Medical School of South Australia, 1885­ 1935 (typescript, held in the South Australian Archives); 51. Parliament of Western Australia, op. cit., Third Session, Th~rd Australian Encyclopaedia (1958), vol. 5, p. 124; F. Johns, Parliament, 1898, vol. 1, Paper 5, "Report on the Manne An Australian Biographical Dictionary (1934), p. 183. Fisheries on the south and south west coasts of the Colony 77. Countryman, 18 June 1959, p. 25; Walkabout, July 1958, pp. 50 The Western Australian Historical Society 51

32-5. A microfilm copy of Alfred Heath's diary is in the Battye Library. Where was Abram Leeman's Island? 78. Biography of Miss Meyers, Countryman, 5 May 1955. By JAMES H. TURNER 79. Biography of J. A. Hicks: J. G. Wilso~ (ed.),. Westerrl; Aust­ ralia's Centenary, (1929), p. 327a. Biographies of hIS sons The wreck of the Vergulde Draeck or Gilt Dragon on the Harry and Percy: Leading Personalities, pp. 81 and 94. The 28th of April, 1656, ranks as one of Australia's major historical business records of the firm J. A. Hicks and Co. Pty. Ltd. have been deposited in the Battye Library (MN14). mysteries inasmuch as the site of the wreck has never been determined. 80. Biography of Edward McLarty: J. S. Battye, Cyclopedia of Western Australia, (1912), vol. 1., p. 330. In the three hundred and odd years which have elapsed since 81. Biography of George Dempster: Ibid, vol 2., p. 585. The Demp­ then much has been written by many authors, naturally mostly ster family history is recorded in Muresk College Magaz~ne, in Dutch, but some in the English language and some even in September 1928, pp. 6-13. French. 82. Obituary, Richard Gallop, West Australian, 23 JU!1e 1898. A When I became actively interested, in 1953, the first thing full description of James Gallop's garden at Dalkeith appears that struck me was that few of the writers had any regard for Ibid, 12 February 1886. accuracy. For them, one and all, it was just a good story. And The author is indebted to the Librarian of the J. S. Battye moreover they were not satisfied to tell the story and leave Library of West Australian History (Miss Molli~ Lukis), who fi~st it at that; each felt that he must needs write it differently encouraged this project, and to members and friends of the famil.y from all the rest. The result has been many garbled and em­ for their personal assistance, and also to Mr. W. C. Smart for hIS Mandurah and Pinjarrah: History of Thomas Peel and the Peel bellished narratives. Estate, 1829-1865, (1956). On the other hand Western Australian investigators have been obsessed by the lure of treasure - the recovery of the 78,600 guilders carried in the ship-and have not been interested in historical research. So between the armchair academicians on the one side and the pick and shovel men on the other, nothing has yet been achieved in solving any of the many problems posed by the wreck of the Gilt Dragon and the disappearance of the 68 survivors. As those unhappy people landed on these shores almost certainly within one hundred miles of our present capital city. Perth, this may seem surprising. The science of archaeology has little or no scope in Australia. We have no buried cities such as are found in every other continent, we have no lost civilisations to investigate nor ancient writings to decipher, but at least we have the wreck of the Gilt Dragon. After fifteen expeditions made in the hope of linking up research with possible discoveries in the field, I can say that quite a number of baffling questions present themselves and have yet to be solved. In this study we are going to concentrate on discussing the enigma of WHICH WAS ABRAM LEEMAN'S ISLAND? As far as I am aware this is the first attempt that has been made to canvas the possibilities. Abram Leeman van Santwits (of Sandwich in England?) was the Upper Steersman of the rescue ship Waeckende Boey and the officer in charge of the search-parties sent ashore from the ship during her cruise along the coast of the Southland during the latter part of February and the month of March 1658. His job was to look for the survivors from the Gilt Dragon. He and