I have now written and submitted my last essay for my last unit in the diploma of Family History, all done and dusted, and I miss it! Well lucky I have a lot of family I can continue to write about! So here is the last Essay I wrote on my 2 x great grandfather Albert Emerson.
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The genealogy website Myheritage has introduced a new feature where they colourise your old photographsand also enhance them. I gave this a go and the colour turned out great. Here are some of the photos I put through the app. *Note not all these photographs belong to me. I have had some sent through to me via ancestry.com.au from Jan Gladwin and Rossbald2 The sad story of two brothers committing suicide with in weeks of each other appeared in the newspaper The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1950) Saturday 1 July 1933.
Digging around trove, you really can find a treasure-chest full of information. These newspaper articles I found were about my Great grandfathers brother William Edgar Bisdee and found in Truth (Perth, WA : 1903 - 1931) Sat 6 Sep 1913 . A sad situation, the lady that this story is about happens to be a relative of his niece's family. Just found a school admissions record for my great grandfather at Sturt St Primary school, it has listed his John Dodds a detective clerk as his father, but I am thinking this might be because the date is just one month before his father Robert William Dodds died and from records, I know he was in hospital at least two months before he died in December 1893. So I am thinking John took in John William and Richard Middleton to help ease the burden for Isabella.
Another unit completed for my diploma. This unit was Families at war and we had to research and write about a family member that had served either as a solider, nurse or some other form in World War 1 so I wrote about my two times great Uncle, my Great grandmother Lily's brother Augustus Hahnel.
Augustus Hahnel On the 4th of August 1914, Britain and her Empire had declared war on Germany. [1] This news was what the Australian citizens had been waiting eagerly to hear. Volunteers had rushed to enlist with the expectation that the war would be over and won by Christmas that year.[2] Of her population, which then was estimated to be near five million people,[3] 416,809 Australians had enlisted to serve. 412,953 of these people enlisted were in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and of these, 32,231 were Western Australians[4] Blackboy Hill was Western Australia’s largest military training camp. The training camp was in the Swan region of Perth but has become a dedicated memorial site since 1959. During its operation throughout WW1, Blackboy Hill saw as many as 32,000 troops pass through during the years of 1914-1918.[5] It was here, where my 2nd great uncle Augustus Bernhardt Hahnel had enlisted on the 3rd of August 1915. He was 19,[6] though, his Attestation paper had listed his age as 21 years at the date of his signing.[7] Augustus was one of nine children and his father was Charles Bernhardt Hahnel, a German immigrant who had left his homeland in 1886 to seek a new life and fortune. Not long after his arrival, Charles had met his wife Hannah and they were soon married. Charles was working on the mines in Timor, Victoria. This is where Augustus had been born. He was just a baby when the family picked up and moved across the country to try their luck in the new Queen Margaret Gold Mine in Bulong, Western Australia in 1897[8] Augustus had seemed to be a little on the rebellious side as a youth. In a newspaper article in the Kalgoorlie Minor dated in 1906, he had been charged with the theft of a Pony and sulky at aged 10[9] and had been sent off to reform school for twelve months.[10] Another article had stated his father Charles, had been fined under the ‘Education Act’ for Augustus’ truancy from school.[11] It is with speculation that maybe “Gus” joined the AIF for an adventure, or maybe he was encouraged to smarten up his direction for a new path in life. Whatever his reasons were, he was now enlisted and ready for training. Augustus had started serving his country in the 11th Reinf’s 11th Battalion and boarded the ship at Freemantle on the H.M.A.T A38 Ulysses on the 2nd of November and arrived in Port Tewfik, Egypt on the 26th of November 1915.[12][13] By early March 1916, Private Augustus had been transferred to the 51st Battalion which had been formed in Egypt and was a mix of Gallipoli veterans from the 11th Battalion and new recruits sent in from Australia. The Majority of this Battalion was largely made up of Western Australian men. Augustus and his newly formed company had moved on to the Western Front in France by mid-June 1916, on to a major battle, a first for this new Battalion. “It fought in its first major battle at Mouquet Farm in August and September and suffered casualties equivalent to a third of its strength in both of the attacks (14 August and 3 September) it launched.” Throughout the remainder of the year, the troop had alternated from their frontline duty and the training camps. [14] Throughout his time serving in the AIF, Augustus had just one admittance into the hospital and the condition was listed as venereal. This was late in the year of 1915 in Abbassia, Cairo. There is no other recording of Augustus being wounded or another admittance into hospital during the remainder of his time overseas. Working his way through the ranks from Private, Augustus had earned the rank of Lance Corporal (L/Cpl.) by November 1916 and Lance Sergeant (L/Sgt.) by January 1918. By the end of that same year, Augustus had achieved the rank of Sergeant. I am presuming the fact that Augustus being Australian-born but of German descent (His father was German-born and was naturalised in Australia in 1904[15]) had no contention and bearing a German-sounding name had no real issue with his comrade. Back home in Australia, the tension between the Australian people and the estimated 100,000 Germans living in Australia was very high and for the most part very hostile. Part of a paragraph explaining what life was like for German Australians had stated “In 1915, Germans and Austrians who were old enough to join the army were put into German Concentration Camps across the continent. In New South Wales the three main internment camps were at Trial Bay Gaol, Berrima Gaol and Holsworthy Army Barracks”[16] The Australian Government had spread “a fear campaign epitomised by propaganda such as “Enemy within the Gates”. All Germans and German South Australians had to register and report weekly to their local police station.”[17] I have no knowledge or records to see if this had any effect on the family that had remained in Australia at this time. Augustus had one older brother who was of age to join the AIF, but there are no records to indicate if he had. He had three younger brothers who were not old enough to join the services during World War 1, but they were old enough to serve in World War 2 and his youngest brother Charles had.[18] There have been no records located to see if his father Charles had been interned in the internment camp on Rottnest Island Western Australia. There have been no records, letters or stories passed through the family to decipher whether Augustus had been affected by his German ancestry while he was away at war or if it had any mental effect that may have remained with him on his return home. February 28th, 1919 Augustus Hahnel #3372 had finally boarded the ship S.S Anchises and was heading home after four and a half long years serving overseas away from his home and family. Augustus was one of 758 soldiers and officers returning to Australia on this passenger ship and they arrived and landed in Albany, Western Australia on the 7th of April 1919.[19].[20] Augustus’ Service record shows that he was awarded three medals for his commitment to AIF during the war. He had received the British War Medal, the 1914/15 Star Medal as well as the Victory medal.[21] Augustus was almost 24 years of age when he returned home. He had met his wife Gladys in Kalgoorlie and the two married in 1922 and settled down in Kalgoorlie. The Hahnel’s moved to Perth between 1931 and 1934.[22] Unfortunately, they only shared a short part of their life together as Gladys passed away in 1942.[23] Augustus lived a long life, He had married again, but he did not have any children. Augustus lived till the age of 83 when he passed away on the 27th of October 1979.[24] SO here is the final essay for my last course with convicts at uni. I wrote about my 3 x and 2 x great grandfathers journey on board the convict ship The Minden.
The Minden Between the years of 1850 and 1868, there were 9,720 convicts sentenced to transportation between forty-three ships sent from the United Kingdom to Fremantle Harbour, Western Australia.[1] The Minden was one of these ships. The Minden was a 916-ton ship constructed in 1848. There was a total of 302 convicts, 115 passengers (including the pensioner guards, their wives and children) and the crew of Captain Robert Dawson Crawford on board.[2] Convicts had started to board the Minden on the 16th of July 1851 and set sail on the 21st of July from Plymouth England.[3] On this voyage was a father and son duo, James and Edgar Bisdee. They were tried and convicted on the 28th of March 1848 in the Wells courts of quarter sessions, where they were both charged with grand larceny for the theft of 17 fowls in total (from two separate persons) and 1 sheep.[4] From the time of their conviction (excluding what little time they spent in Wilton Gaol[5]) until they set sail on the Minden, they were imprisoned on the prison hulk, the decommissioned HMS York in Portsmouth harbour.[6] The voyage across the sea was documented officially by the ship’s surgeon John Rowland Gibson.[7] Doctor Gibson’s Surgeon Superintendent’s journal has been preserved and is kept on record in the Public Record Office (PRO) in London.[8] Though neither of my two ancestors were recorded as visiting the surgeon while on board the ship, there were 55 entries entered in the daily sick book with a few returning patients, most with the complaint of diarrhea. There were four recorded deaths, a three-month-old child with infantile colic and another young toddler with what has been written as Scropula (there was no search that came up for this term, there is however a term of Scrofula, a lymph node infection. This could be a transcription error), a male convict with what the doctor has listed as Febris (a search for this term had brought up results including typhoid) and lastly a seaman with dysenteria. The doctor noted that overall the ship was in good health. [9] The Minden’s voyage took just 85 days from Plymouth United Kingdom until it docked in Fremantle. One passage documented in the doctor’s journal after the anchor was deployed, states “To preserve and secure good health, a rigid adherence to cleanliness in the prison Barracks and crews Berth was practised with attention to dryness, ventilation and occasional fumigation by the swinging stoves. The families were encouraged as much as possible on the upper deck, weather permitting, and within the tropics the bath filled with salt water was in use morning and evening by the Parents and children, the latter improving wonderfully from its effects.”[10] Dr. John Gibson had exceptional awareness of the benefits of keeping the bedding clean and dry and the prisoners busy by alternating with half of the convicts above deck working in the fresh air and the other half below being guided in education. After supper, the prisoners were allowed on deck for diversions to keep them entertained with dancing, singing and boxing. Lime juice was mixed with wine and the surgeon was there to make sure that each person took their daily dose to help combat diseases.[11] Of his mentioned occupations in the journal by Doctor John Gibson, James and Edgar would have participated in making cut garments and shoemaking when it was their turn to spend time on the upper decks. A document that has chronicled the behaviour of the convicts on the voyage over has penned that both James and Edgar Bisdee were “Very good, son & father most exemplary & deserving of note”.[12] Figure 1: Cropped image of a document for James and Edgar Bisdee Australian Convict Transportation Registers James and Edgar arrived in Fremantle ready to be put to work and in good health, this was because of the standard set by the ship’s surgeon. In previous years and many other exported convicts, this was not the case. Many convicts would have already been in declining health before their long journey across the seas with no thought for their wellbeing. Many would have spent months or years in prisons previously and with the overcrowding of prisons, in prison hulks (such as both the Bisdee men spending two years in the HMS York).[13] Wet conditions, poor sanitation and hard conditions set an impoverished scene on board the convict ships. In the earlier days of transportation, convicts were usually kept below decks and only allowed above for some fresh air and exercise before being taken back down below deck in the dark and gloomy barely ventilated overcrowded quarters.[14] Hygiene was not a big strong point, usually a bucket for water and a bucket for waste. Illness would have spread between the convicts rapidly with dysentery and cholera being the main spread illness, not to mention any rodents onboard spreading diseases. Poor diet was also an issue with the likes of scurvy and malnutrition being present in most convicts who were fed small portions of salted meat and flour. [15] Realising that looking after the health of the convicts with additional provisions such as higher quality hygiene practices was beneficial in that they would be ready to work as soon as they arrived, and they would be increasingly motivated with improved productivity. [ Robert ‘Robin’ McAllister
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AuthorMy name is Davina and I have been researching my family history since 2011. I started with almost nothing but ended up with a wealth of information and I needed an outlet to show and display all the information I have found. Archives
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