The Tuckeys of Mandurah the Western Australian Historical
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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.