The Hedleys at Tarravilleand Sale
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A medical family in the early European settlement in Gippsland - 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 Port Albert, 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Surveys, announced in August 1840 by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners of the British Government and rescinded August 1841, enabled the purchase of land anywhere 6 in the Port Phillip District of 5,120 acres (8 square miles) for 1 pound per acre, well below the value of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 Victoria) 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.