A medical family in the early European settlement in - The Hedleys at Tarravilleand Sale

In 1851 Dr George Hedley (1817-1879) commenced a medical practice at Tarraville, the previous doctor there having decided to try his hand at the then newly opened Bendigo gold fields 1. George Hedley, born in Camberwell, Surrey, was well qualified as a medical practitioner, holding two 1838 London qualifications - a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA) and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) – and a Doctorate in Medicine (MD) from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, 1846. He had worked as a surgeon in Bedford, England from 1838 until his departure for Port Phillip in 1849, in 1847 being elected one of the Physicians to the Bedford General Infirmary. George and Ann Hedley married in Bedford in 1842, and their eldest children were born there.

In 1851 the Hedleys’ address was “Green-hills, Gippsland” 2 at Tarraville, a few kilometres inland from , the then point of access to Gippsland. Today a ghost town, Tarraville was a lively settlement from the late 1840s to the 1860s. With a reliable water supply, Tarraville became the transshipment point for cattle, sheep and later gold from the Omeo goldfields 3 brought by inland convoys to go down the Tarra River to Port Albert. Diarist the Revd Login, arriving in 1853, recorded that: “There were no towns in Gippsland then, the nearest approach to such being the shipping ports of Port Albert, the Old Port, and “The Tarra”, mere clusters of houses round an hotel or two and a store. Riding on horseback or driving in bullock drays was the only way of progress through the dense forests and boggy tracks between the far-apart stations, or tramping it on foot.” 4 After 1864 ships began regularly using Lakes Entrance for access to Gippsland, bypassing Port Albert for most of the year. 5

Tarraville Historic Township – information board at Tarraville, (Photo: Helen Connell 2011)

Tarraville was the result of a Special Survey in 1841. The short-lived program of Port Phillip District Special Surveys, announced in August 1840 by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners of the British Government and rescinded August 1841, enabled the purchase of land anywhere 6 in the Port Phillip District of 5,120 acres (8 square miles) for 1 pound per acre, well below the value of land at the time. John Reeve’s special survey on the Tarra River was one of eight special surveys advertised in June 1841. 7 Essentially these were private land developments, ably assisted by a government unable to keep up the supply of allotments for the rising population.

George and Ann Hedley brought their four eldest children, all born in Bedford, England, with them to Australia: Agatha Mary; George Robert; Edward; and Emily Ann. Two further children were born in Tarraville: James King; and William Arthur. The youngest child, William Arthur, died on 8 March 1854, aged 7 months, and in that same year on June 26 Ann Elizabeth Hawes Hedley née Peck (1822-1854) died at Tarraville. Her death certificate indicates that she had suffered dysentery for four months, and an abcess of the lung for fourteen days. Perhaps baby William Arthur had had dysentery and she picked it up from him. She was just 32 years old; it seems reasonable to wonder whether her health had been compromised by tuberculosis, as suggested earlier – although dysentery was not uncommon, it was rarely fatal for adults.

Dr George Hedley (Source: Sale Historical Society)

On 8 th January 1856, Mary Briarly Robertson, sister-in-law of Ann’s brother Ffloyd, and one of the emigrant party who had been teaching school at Tarraville, became the second Mrs Hedley 8. The Argus announced the marriage at Prahran of George Dixon Hedley, M.D., J.P. of Tarraville, Gipps Land to Mary Briarly, eldest daughter of the artist, the late Charles John Robertson of Worton House, Isleworth, England . Mary and George Hedley’s son Charles was born at Tarraville in 1857.

Mary Hedley ran a modest private boarding school at Tarraville. Among her pupils were the three eldest Minter girls who had come out on the Brothers; also Helen Campbell of Glencoe run just south of Sale .9Mary may well have been encouraged to come to Australia to help with educating the Hedley and Minter children on the journey.

“From Home” attributed to N.B. Hedley, ca 1850. Watercolour. A view of the Tarra River at Tarraville. [Close inspection of the name suggests the painter as M.B. Hedley - Mary Briarly Hedley née Robertson. Unless the attribution on the mount was added later, the painting must date from after Jan 1856 when the Hedleys married,] (Source: State Library of )

During George Hedley’s years in Tarraville, his activities extended well beyond his medical practice, involving both public life and engaging in exploration and entrepreneurial activities 10 . It appears that the sparseness of population in Gippsland during the early years of European settlement did not provide a robust living for a doctor. With the announcement of the discovery of gold at Bathurst in NSW in 1851 he decided to try his hand at prospecting. Before his preparations were completed, however, richer goldfields had been discovered in Victoria (November 1851). George Hedley led a party of some six or seven young men from the Gippsland area (including Arthur King, see below) to prospect for gold at Mount Alexander (near Castlemaine), and then Ballarat. He met with some moderate success, but eventually returned to practicing medicine in Tarraville.

With a strong interest in rural life, George Hedley encouraged agricultural settlement in the rich farm lands of south Gippsland, organising and establishing Farmers’ Clubs in several localities and fostering an Agricultural Association to promote farming interests.

In 1854 the Hedleys had bought land in Loughnan Street, Tarraville. They also purchased five acres nearby where George grew the vegetables and grapes for which he won a number of prizes. In 1859 George exhibited watermelons, plums, apples, peaches and nectarines at the Horticultural Show, and won a prize for dark grapes. With Mr Rickard he introduced Cotswold and Leicester sheep in 1859. In 1860 he won prizes at the South Gipps Land Farmers’ Club for oaten hay, grapes, preserving melons, poultry, and ducks. In 1861 he won prizes for turnips, onions, poultry, and sheep at the Gipps Land Farmers’ Club. In 1863 he was making wine from his vineyard. 11

Christ Church, Tarraville. This timber Anglican Gothic revival church, consecrated 1856, now a category A building on the National Trust of Victoria register, is Gippsland’s oldest church. (Photo: Helen Connell 2011)

He took a leading part in establishing the first English Church and the first common schools in Gippsland on sites at Tarraville.

1855 saw George Hedley’s first involvement in local newspapers. For two or three years he edited the weekly Gippsland Guardian , then newly established in Port Albert. Many years later in 1872, after his move to Sale, George purchased the Gippsland Times , transferring ownership some 12 months later to his son, James King Hedley.

George Hedley’s entry to public office was his appointment as assistant Police Magistrate in 1859. He was apparently well regarded, gaining community respect and confidence with the readiness and justness of his decisions.

He took his seat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in January 1861 as the member for South Gippsland. “Here, his powers as a practiced and effective debater were quickly recognized; and his readiness of utterance, his terse, clear and vigorous style, his uniform self-possession and good temper, which apparently nothing could ruffle, made him a tower of strength in a house that included some of the very best speakers that … the colony has known.” 12 This was an era when land policy was at the centre of political controversy - enabling closer settlement for new immigrants and bona fide agriculturists versus the established pastoral interests of the squatters. George Hedley stayed only a short time in parliament, resigning in October 1862.

On his return to south Gippsland George resumed both his medical practice and his interests in exploration, boring for coal at nearby Welshpool, after finding indications of coal while searching with a colleague for building stone in the ranges north of Corner Inlet. His boring experiments were not commercially successful, however. Some time later he led a prospecting expedition to Omeo, convinced (correctly as subsequent experience showed) there were minerals in the mountains of north Gippsland. It was while George Hedley was part of this prospecting expedition to Omeo that he was recalled to Sale in January1864 by the sudden and unexpected death of his brother-in-law Dr Ffloyd Minter Peck (see below).

1864 marked the end of his explorations, and the resumption of his medical career. The Hedleys moved from Tarraville to Sale where from February 1864 George continued Ffloyd Minter Peck’s medical practice until his own death fifteen years later. Dr Hedley initially established consulting rooms in Raymond Street Sale 13 and lived nearby. In 1869 the Hedleys moved closer to family to live in Cunninghame Street, opposite Islay Cottage, the residence of Ffloyd Minter Peck’s widow, Menie, and family 14 .

During his years in Sale George Hedley became active in the establishment of the Gippsland Base Hospital. In 1864 he convened a public meeting from which the Sale and District Benevolent Society was formed as a first step in establishing a public hospital in Sale. Along with Dr Archibald Macdonald he was elected Honorary Medical Officer 15 . The hospital opened in 1866 in a wooden cottage in York Street with only six beds, until a permanent building (with “two turrets and a dome”) for the Gippsland hospital with sixteen beds was opened in August 1867.

As Health Officer, George Hedley was responsible for publishing the first Health Report for Sale in 1866. In this he identified as the major health challenge for the town an unusually high death rate for a rural area. Solutions for diphtheria, typhoid and other infectious diseases were sought; drains, stagnant water and suspect areas became the focus of attention. 16

The Gippsland Base Hospital, ca 1865. [The hospital was opened in 1867] (Source: The Biggest Family Album of Australia, Museum Victoria. Photo copied from Fiona Tomlinson, 1988)

Continuing his public involvement, George Hedley supported the Railway League [the to Sale railway line opened in 1879, extended later further east] and opening up the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes. In 1876 his public image was of a different order, however. He appeared before Judge Nolan in a long running insolvency case. He owed 526 pounds, although he had a greater amount (of bad debts) owing to him. Newspaper reports indicate that he kept missing appearances in court because he felt that tending his patients was more important. Failing to provide the required financial documents he was found in contempt of court. In June 1877 he resumed his consultation practice after a severe illness.

George Hedley appears to have had a restless interest in and engagement with many aspects of the new Gippsland settlement: agriculture, newspapers, prospecting, public affairs, public service. One can infer strong family ties through his move to Sale to take on Ffloyd Peck’s practice following Ffloyd’s unexpected death – and support for the bereaved young family by moving to live nearby in Cunninghame St. One gains the image of a well educated and sociable man with broad interests and an effective public presence. His gifts were less in making money, and more in his practice as a medical professional: “… those who knew him most intimately, … readily … conceded that he appeared at his best in the sick room. His thorough knowledge of his profession, his suave, courteous, and gentlemanly manners, his well known contempt for anything bordering upon quackery, won for him the esteem and regard of his patients, among whom were all classes of society.”17

An “Old Gippslander”, reminiscing in 1931, wrote: “Dr Hedley had, I think, the largest practice, and many came long distances to obtain a final opinion from him. Having on one occasion met with a gun accident, I rode some twenty five miles to obtain his service. The Doctor’s pet cockatoo was, while he lived, almost as well known as the Doctor himself. Strangers calling after dark would be startled by an invisible speaker informing all and sundry that someone wanted the Doctor, or by telling them he was “Dr Hedley’s bird, and who are you?” He spent a good deal of his time away from home, and ended up by joining a flock of wild cockatoos in a raid upon a farmer’s cornfield. When the owner appeared with his gun, cocky fearing nothing, remained, and so was shot.”18

George Hedley died 17 March 1879 at his home in Cunninghame Street, Sale. After her husband’s death, Mary Hedley née Robertson ran(or possibly continued to run) a small private school in Cunninghame St– presumably from her house. At some point during the 1880s she let the house and moved to share Urania Cottage in nearby Dundas Street, Sale with her sister-in-law Ada Peck née Minter. Mary Hedley died there in 1890. None of the Hedley children remained in Sale.

In Tarraville in 1865, the Hedleys’ elder and only surviving daughter, Agatha Mary(1844-1922), married Alexander Smith (1838-1918) of Lindenow near Bairnsdale in north Gippsland. Alexander, born in Norwood, Surrey in 1838, was a younger son of John Davison Smith who in the 1840s purchased the licence for the Lindenow pastoral run on the flats of the Mitchell River. In 1852 John Davison Smith had 105 horses, 700 cattle and 6,620 sheep on the 46,000 acres of Crown land comprising the then Lindenow run 19 . Smith’s sons John Digby and Alexander were closely identified with Lindenow in their adult lives. Over this period, as seen elsewhere in Gippsland, the end of the large pastoral leases and the sale of Crown land introduced closer settlement, cropping and dairying to the area. For forty years Alexander and Agatha lived at Lindenow - ultimately at the Alex Lea estate. Their major interests were in herefords and thoroughbreds.

Around 1915 Agatha and Alexander moved to Western Australia to be near their only surviving child, Edward Alexander Smith. Alexander died in 1918 at Bankside, Waroona south of Perth; Agatha died four years later at the nearby home of their son, in Pinjarra.

Left: Agatha Mary Hedley, 1864; Right: Agatha Mary Smith née Hedley n.d. (Source: Tim Kendall)

Of the life of Emily Ann Hedley (1849-) nothing is known beyond her presumed arrival in Tarraville. She was just two months old at the time of embarkation on the ship Brothers, and no records have been found beyond her birth. As she is not listed among the surviving offspring at the time of her mother’s death in 1854, it seems probable that Emily died during early childhood.

1871 had, for the Hedleys, been a tragic year whose impact can only be imagined. Edward Hedley (1848-1871), one of the children who emigrated on the Brothers, died from burns at the age of 23 in southern Gippsland following the explosion of a lamp he was lighting in a hotel. The Argus (Tuesday 19 Sept 1871) reported the incident in some detail: “The death of Mr E. Hedley, at Stockyard Creek [a goldfield discovered in 1870; today the township is known as Foster in southern Gippsland], from accidental injuries was recently reported. The following extract from the Walhalla Chronicle shows to what a singular accident the deceased gentleman owed his death: - “A sad event, which has caused a very painful sensation, occurred on the morning of the 9 th inst. At Baldry’s Hotel Mr. Edward Hedley, who had been residing there a few days, in attempting to blow out the light in a kerosene lamp, caused it to explode, and the oil falling on his whiskers, hands and clothes, the unfortunate gentleman was almost immediately enveloped in flame. He called immediately for assistance, but unfortunately the doors of the room were locked (owing to the other parts of the house being filled with lodgers, Mr Hedley had had a bed made up for him in the billiard-room) and for some moments defied the efforts of those outside to burst them open. His form could be seen through the crevices rushing round the room vainly endeavouring to stifle the fire with an opossum rug he had round him, and although perhaps little more than a minute elapsed from the time of the alarm when ingress was obtained, he was found on the floor, it was supposed nearly suffocated. The fire was quickly extinguished, but not till he had been so terribly burnt that fatal results were anticipated from the first. He was put to bed at once, and every assistance was promptly rendered. Mr. Tate, the nearest doctor, immediately attended, and Mr Travers, an intimate friend of Mr Hedley, at once despatched a special messenger overland to Port Albert to telegraph the sad intelligence to his family. On Sunday, Dr Eccles from Port Albert arrived, but all efforts to save life were useless, and Mr. Hedley breathed his last between 11 and 12 o’clock on Monday. He was perfectly conscious most of the time and did not suffer such agony as might have been expected from such a dreadful occurrence.”

Left: Edward Hedleyn.d. (Source: Sale Historical Society); Right: George Robert Hedley n.d. (Source: Tim Kendall).

The three surviving sons of George Dixon Hedley each followed different paths, reflecting, in a new generation, some of the diverse aspects of their father’s interests and career. The eldest, George Robert Hedley (b. 1847) moved to Western Australia where, in 1891, he was listed as exploring the Boodarie Creek, Port Hedland area. In 1907, then identified with the pastoral lease Ashburton Downs, George applied for a mining lease along with two others 20 . How successful their prospecting venture was is unknown. In 1916 George Robert Hedley was on the WA electoral roll of Dampier (which included the towns of Northam and Toodyay); in 1925 that of Swan (Swan River valley east of Perth).

James King Hedley (1852-1922) , born in Tarraville appears to have followed his father’s literary and cultural interests, as well as his restlessness. Noted in his youth for being “a born athlete, a good boxer, a splendid horseman and trick rider, a good actor and altogether a very popular young man” 21 , King, as he was familiarly known, had many avenues open to him.

King Hedley at Sale, Gippsland. 1870s (Source: Sale Historical Society)

In 1870 he became a constable with the New South Wales mounted police force as a “rough rider” (responsible for selecting and breaking in horses for the mounted police), stationed at West Maitland. In 1872 he resigned, returning to Sale (in the wake of his brother Edward’s tragic death) where he was associated with his father’s brief ownership/ editorship of the Gippsland Times. His father purchased the newspaper in July 1872, transferring the ownership to King a year later. The venture did not prove a commercial success for the Hedleys, and the paper was resold in 1874. King then moved back to West Maitland where he joined the staff of the MaitlandMercury as a journalist, while also active in athletics, music and drama. In 1876 he became a travelling agent for the Australian Mutual Provident Society, before settling in Brisbane in 1877 where he worked for a couple of years as Secretary to the Queensland Turf Club, while continuing his theatre interests.

After his father’s death in March 1879 King moved overseas. By December 1879 he was an actor with the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco. In May 1880 he married Lizzie McMartin 22 in Eureka, Nevada where he was listed in the US census as working at a refinery, aged 28. Eureka was then at its peak production as a mining boom town.

King next appeared in New York City where, on 6 June 1884, he married Eleanor Rodgers who – under the stage name of Eleanor Moretti – went on to have a long and prominent career on the American stage 23 . King was listed as an actor in the 1886 New York City directory, and appeared at the Madison-square Theatre. He was well connected with the theatre there: his mother-in-law, as Katherine Rogers, had had a long career on the New York stage, as also two of Eleanor’s sisters 24 . In April 1885 Eleanor and King had a son, Reginald, who died just ten days old. King continued his acting career, touring Cuba in 1894. King and Eleanor separated and divorced some time before 1901. Eleanor married for a second time in 1913.

In 1895 King returned to Australia, initially to Sydney, appearing at the Lyceum Theatre. Over the next five years, as an actor and manager with various productions, he toured extensively within Australia – Melbourne, country Victoria, Perth, country Western Australia, Brisbane, country Queensland, country New South Wales. In Victoria and in Western Australia he toured with King Hedley’s Orchestra and Concert Company to great popular acclaim. It seems that on occasion his horsemanship and acting became entwined:

“Mr Hedley’s superb horsemanship has served him equally well upon the stage and in the field, and as he nonchalantly says “with much greater physical risk upon the former than in the latter.” For instance, quite recently in Sydney and Newcastle, where he was appearing under the Messrs. MacMahon’s management as the hero in “The Prairie King” and “At Duty’s Call” he had two narrow escapes from a serious, if not fatal accident. In the first play two horses broke their legs under him before the final sensation, wherein he saves himself by clinging to the rails of the bridge, while his mount plunges through the broken structure into the river below. In the second case (“Duty’s Call”) his military charger charged right over the footlights into the orchestra, precipitating himself and rider right in among the instruments. Fortunately, as the terrified musicians had judiciously beat a hasty retreat, nothing was damaged save the piano, the drums, the big fiddle and King Hedley’s leg.” 25

In 1900 King moved to London where he sought to establish himself in the London theatre as both actor and entrepreneur. In 1903 he leased Wyndham’s Theatre, to which Forbes-Robertson transferred his performance of “The light that failed”. The 1901 UK census lists King as a financial agent, boarding in Woburn Place, Bloomsbury. He continued to mix acting with other employment.

In 1902, at the age of 50, he married Mary Harris Edmonds, a wealthy widow, at Christchurch, Streatham Hill. They spent their honeymoon travelling on the Continent, and soon after embarked on eighteen months of travel around the world. In August 1903 they sailed from Southampton to New York; and in March 1904 from San Francisco to Sydney. During their visit to Brisbane, King acted as a representative of the United States Voting Machine Company, giving some particulars relating to the cost of elections in the United States where the machine was used to reduce costs. The Hedleys spent time on the social circuit in Melbourne, before departing Sydney for London in February 1905. In 1909 the Hedleys were living at 19 Telford Ave, Wandsworth; in 1911 at 2 The Grove, Sunnycroft, Horley, Surrey where the census records King as an actor. King died in 1922 at Monthey, Switzerland and is buried at Montreux.

Charles Dixon Hedley (1857-1899) followed his father into the medical profession. He studied at Grenville College (a private school in Ballarat), becoming First Honorman, then the University of Melbourne from which he graduated with Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 1883 26 . He spent time travelling before settling at Brushgrove on the Clarence River in northern New South Wales, in response to the search by the local community medical association for a doctor 27 .

In 1886 Charles married Jane Creer of nearby Grafton. The couple moved further south to Hamilton, Newcastle where he established a successful practice. Widespread strikes in 1888 and subsequent impoverishment of the surrounding coal mining districts encouraged the Hedleys to return north. In 1889 Charles established a medical practice in Grafton, and over the next decade he became Government Medical Officer and Visiting Surgeon to the Gaol and Aborigines’ Home, as well as Senior Medical Officer to the Hospital.

Like his father, Charles had a considerable range of interests and talents, involving himself in public movements and advocating the development of the mineral resources of the district. He is reported to have been an effective public speaker at political meetings, an accomplished raconteur, and enthusiastic athlete and sportsman – participating in riding, swimming and shooting. For many years he was a starter at the Clarence River Jockey Club, inventing an electrical starting gate for the horses 28 .

The Hedleys had two sons. Charles died in 1899 at the age of 41 in Grafton, having become very ill with dropsy (oedema) over the last year of his life. His widow remarried, moving with their two sons to Manly, on the northern shore of Sydney harbour.

1 Dr Arbuckle, who had been the first to open a medical practice in Tarraville in 1846, decided in 1851 to try his hand (briefly) at the Bendigo gold fields. In 1852 he moved to Sale. 2 Maritime Museum Port Albert – Guide to People 1841-1901 .

3 Gold was discovered in Livingstone Creek at Omeo in 1852, but because of the isolation of these goldfields, they were developed slowly. Omeo’s isolation gave it notoriety as a lawless community. James Brown, the town’s first magistrate – better known as author Rolfe Boldrewood [ Robbery Under Arms ]– based his novel Nevermore on Omeo’s rough early days. 4 Leslie, JW and Cowie, HC (eds) (1977) The Wind Still Blows … Early Gippsland Diaries 2 nd edn. Sale. Private pubn. p.19. 5 Boats of the Sale Steamboat Company began using the lakes systematically around 1864, using the natural entrance – recourse to Port Albert was made when the entrance was silted up (between 3-6 months a year). In 1889 a permanent artificial entrance to the lakes was opened. (www.traralgonhistory.asn.au ) 6 Some restrictions were in place: to restrict the sale of valuable land, Governor Gipps introduced regulations in March 1841 requiring the land to be more than 5 miles from a surveyed township, and to restrict water frontage to one mile per four square miles of area. NSW Government Gazette No. 18, p.321. The regulations were rescinded in August 1841. 7 John Reeve (1804-1875), born in Leicester, arrived in Sydney in 1841. In partnership with the explorer, politician, landed proprietor and judge, William Charles Wentworth, his daughter Fanny C Wentworth and several other Sydney-based co-owners, Reeve travelled to Port Albert in April 1841 to select land for the Special Survey, to become known as Reeve’s Survey, on the east of the Tarra River. 8 A third sister, Frances Robertson, b ca 1820, also emigrated to Sale, although when she arrived is not known. In 1881 Frances, then of Morwell Cottage, Sale, married Thomas Nash Spong, a Kent born attorney practicing in Sale. They married at Holy Trinity, Williamstown. Thomas Nash Spong practiced in Port Albert in the early 1860s, moving to Grant in the Crooked River gold fields of northern Gippsland by 1866 before moving to Sale in 1873. 9 ”Mrs [Rosa] Phillips, in her youthful days, received part of her education with her sisters [Ella and Ada] … and other young ladies of those early days, under Mrs Hedley, wife of Dr G.D. Hedley” ( Gippsland Times 20 Aug 1936.) Obituary – Miss Helen Grace Campbell, Gippsland Times Mon 14 Jan 1935. 10 Obituary “The Late Dr. Hedley” op.cit . 11 Maritime Museum Port Albert – Guide to People 1841-1901 . 12 Obituary “The Late Dr. Hedley” op.cit . 13 This office was at “Mr Liston’s”, the chemist, where his usual attendance was from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 14 The Hedleys moved into cottages 2 and 3 on Lot 20 of Section 27 of Sale Township. This block of land, which was owned in 1868 by James Peck, was subdivided in 1869 and 4 cottages built, all owned by John King. Another of the cottages was occupied by James Peck. Source: Information from Ann Synan, correspondence July 2013. 15 Ann Andrew and Ann Edwards (1992) Two Turrets and a Dome – a history of the Gippsland Base Hospital 1860s to 1980s. Sale. Gippsland Base Hospital 16 Flora Johns (1992) The Peck Plaques – An insight into the lives of Gippsland’s first settlers through the medical practices of early Gippsland doctors and nurses . Sale. Flora Johns. p.33. 17 Obituary “The Late Dr. Hedley” op.cit. 18 In the days of long ago (by an Old Gippslander) Gippsland Times . March 12, 1931. 19 http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1853-54NoC4.pdf 20 Northwest Telegraph Nov 21,1891 extract “Wedge, Truin and Hedley exploring Boodarie Creek – Port Hedland area”. Reported in NorthernTimes (Carnarvon), 22 nd Oct 1907 George Robert Hedley of Ashburton Downs, applicant for Mining Lease No. 75, along with Cuthbert Greene and Richard Jermyn, “ground to be known as Stockyard Central, containing 5 acres”. 21 “In the days of long ago” (by an Old Gippslander) No.3. Gippsland Times March 12, 1931 22 On 26 May 1883 Elizabeth Headley (sic) married M.A. Donthett, Secretary of the Eureka Consolidated Mining Company in Eureka. So, it appears King and Lizzie’s marriage was of short duration. In the 1900 census, Lizzie Douthett (sic) aged 39 is listed as widowed, and living in San Francisco with her widowed mother, Catherine McMartin and two brothers. 23 This was despite an erroneous notice in the Gippsland Times indicating that she had died in New York in January 1888. 24 Eleanor’s parents had moved from England: James Rodgers of Birmingham, and his wife Catharine Rand. The stage names of Eleanor’s sisters were Miss Violet Rand and Miss Katherine (Katie) Florence. 25 Bendigo Advertiser Sat 9 April 1898. 26 “The Late Dr Hedley” Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton) Tues 24 Jan 1899 . 27 “Obituary – Mr J.F. Small” Daily Examiner (Grafton) Wed 13 July 1927. 28 Maitland Mercury , Sat 28 Jan, 1899.