The GILLAM Pioneers
This is an addition to the Gillam family story. I've added it because I found these two mens' stories fascinating.
Thomas Meadows Gillam was born in 1804 and baptised at Shearsby, Leicestershire in 1804. His brother was William and he was born in 1805. They were the first 2 sons of Thomas Gillam (1747-1828) and his wife, Elizabeth Robinson. Thomas senior was the nephew of Catherine Gillam who married William Heard, and so the two boys were her great-nephews.
William Gillam and His Family
William was the first to leave and it was said that 'he took to the sea as his profession'.
William Gillam, born 1805
William traded from Sydney and Newcastle in NSW. Later he moved to India; in 1841, the Bengal Directory records that the "Braemar" arrived at Calcutta from Bombay, with Captain Gillam and Mrs. Gillam. In 1842 he captained the "Braemar", , his wife and child being listed as passengers, arriving at Bombay.
The Braemar wasa 3-masted sailing barque built in Burma in 1838 and had a short life as she was wrecked in 1844 when caught in a storm and slipped from Madras Roads. She was laid on her beam ends and righted only by cutting away her masts, the wreck of which carried away her rudder. The vessel became water-logged and nearly unmanageable, and was driven by noon to latitude 12*55; She was finally driven ashore and wrecked near False Point Divy. Either the Braemar was rebuilt, or another one was soon built in that name for Australian shipping records record that:
BRAEMAR, BARQUE OF CALCUTTA, JAMES TITHERINGTON, MASTER, BURTHEN 360 TONS,
FROM THE PORT OF SHANGHAI TO PORT JACKSON, NEW SOUTH WALES, 8TH FEBRUARY 1850
Surname Given name Station Age Of what Nation Status Comments
TITHERINGTON JAMES CREW SAILED SHANGHAI
14 NOVEMBER 1849& BATAVIA 7 DE VARIOUS
CREW LADING TEA
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-august-1843/10/east-india-shipping
The Braemar, Gillam, has put into Mausulipatam, totally dismasted, and stores and cargo destroyed and lost.
From The Calcutta Monthly Journal and General Register 1839. Page 50 [under shipping] :-
"Braemar, Gillam, for Mauritius".
Shipping Intelligence. California
PORT SAN FRANCISCO, FEB. 6, 1851. Arrived. Feb 3 — . Barque Braemar, (Br) Tisherington, Singapore.
A later, iron-hulled vessel called Braemar was built in 1885 in Glasgow
In 1843, William was a passenger on the "Edmonstone, travelling from Madras to Calcutta. Their second son was born at sea in 1843, possibly on this voyage. In 1844 he and his wife were passengers on the "Ranger", from Penang to Calcutta and In 1846 he captained the "Hindostan" and in 1847 he was captain of the "Ann", sailing from Madras to Calcutta with his wife and 3 children.
The steamship 'Hindostan'.This ship inaugurated the service from Suez to calcutta. 'Hindostan departing Southampton for the Indian Ocean in September 1842. From 1864 onwards the two-decker Hindostan was moored ahead of HMS Britannia and connected by an enclosed gangway, providing extra accommodation and classroom space. for naval cadets. William was her captain in 1846.
William had married his wife on January 9th, 1841 at Calcutta. She was Charlotte C Plum and she had sailed from London to Bombay on the "Maidstone" in November 1840. They married in January of the following year./
Charlotte Caroline was the daughter of Thomas Plum and his wife, Charlotte Pritchard, born in 1815 in Whitechapel. Whitechapel at this time was an insalubrious district and I wondered why Charlotte senior had found herself there as her brother had a farm of 306 acres in Chalfont St. Peters, Buckinghamshire. And also, how young Charlotte came to know William Gillam; it is likely then that he made voyages to London. Thomas died in 1846, leaving a will from which we see that he was anOfficer in the Service of the East and West India Dock Company, and living at 216, Whitechapel Road.
William and Charlotte had 3 sons. First was William Merritt Apier, born at Calcutta on November 1st 1841. Francis Andrew followed, being born at sea off Madras in 1843. Their 3rd son was Alexander Charles, born at Madras in 1846. As was usual, the Gillams sent their children to England to be educated. The 1851 census shows William and Francis at boarding school in Camberwell, London. Alexander was only 5, so he was sent to live with his grandmother, Charlotte Plum at Chalfont St Peters where, now widowed, she was housekeeper (though also a fundholder) to her brother Edward. They may have been sent 'home' when William and Charlotte left India for San Francisco.
This was the time of the Californian gold rush, when thousands flocked there to make their fortune. So many needed goods, so maybe William saw an opportunity. To meet the demands of the arrivals, ships bearing goods from around the world came to San Francisco. Ships' captains found that their crews deserted to go to the goldfields. The wharves and docks of San Francisco became a forest of masts, as hundreds of ships were abandoned. It may be then that William acquired his ship, the Joan of Arc.
Apparently they had 3 more children in San Francisco: Clara Gillam b 1/12/1852 San Francisco d 1853/4, Charlotte Emily Gillam b 25/3/1856 San Francisco and Alfred Lorn Gillam d 1/7/1849 San Francisco d 22/6/1889 Sydney, NSW.
William traded with South America and it was there that his story ended. On one of his voyages he died in what some regard as 'a cesspool' Guayaquil, Ecuador in !858. His obituary reads:
Leicester Chronicle
Saturday 8th May 1858
Deaths
On the 13th March, of dysentery, at Guayaquil, South America, aged 50, Captain William Gillam, formerly of Calcutta, son of the late Thomas Gillam Esq. of Countesthorpe.
By 1901 he was a Peat & Soap Commission Agent an Company Director, with wife Edith and children Basil Merritt, Norman Merritt, Grace and Hope Francis.
In 1876, William was involved in a Bankruptsy case:
"1876 The Bankruptcy Act . In the County Court of Lancashire, holden at Manchester. In .the Matter of Proceedings for Liquidation by Arrangement or Composition with Creditors, instituted by William Merritt Apcar Gillam and William Waithman Long, of No. 16A, Jackson's-row, in the city of Manchester, Commission Merchants, carrying on business in copartnership together under the style or firm of William Gillam, Long, and Co. NOTICE is hereby given, that a First General Meeting of the separate creditors of the above-named William Waithman Long has been summoned to be held at the Clarence Hotel, Spring-gardens, Manchester, on the 16th day of May, 1876, at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon precisely.—Dated this 28th day of April, 1876. EARLE, SON, ORFORD, EARLE, and MILNE, 44, Brown-street, Manchester, Solicitors for the said William Waithman Long"
In 1900, William filed a patent in the United States which concerned peat:
"Be it known that I, WILLIAM MERRITT GILLAM, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at 5 Whittington avenue, Leadenhall street, London, England, have invented a certain new and Improved Process of Preparing Fuel, [-]" The Specification isquite complicated and shows that William had some scientific knowledge.
William carried on a long correspondence with his nephew Alfred Charles Reid, son of his sister Jane and her husband Peter, a Railway Contractor. Alfred was very interested in finding out the Gillam family history, and William did supply him with some names but seems more interested in getting Alfred to subscribe to his latest invention. Alfred resisted this by various excuses!
William Merritt died in 1910. His son Hope Merritt died a soldier of the Great War in 1919. He belonged to the London Regiment and served abroad as he earned the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Norman Merritt served in the Great War, saw action in Tanganyika and afterwards emigrated first South Africa, where he married a relative of the Bullers. He eventually went to Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi) where he set up the first Barclays Bank there (early 1920's); from there he went to Beira, Mozambique and eventually Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare Zimbabwe) all with Barclays Bank. He eventually returned to the UK in the late 70's where he died in Norfolk. Basil Merritt emigrated to Australia.
William Merritt's wife's family have an interesting history. She was Edith E. Buller, born 1855 in India. Her father was Frederick Pole Buller, and his father was Cornelius Buller, Governor of the Bank of England from 1780-1849, who married Felizarda Guelmina Burmazer. Cornelius' sister was Anna Guelermina Buller and she married Sir Charles Pole, a merchant. His real surname was Van Notten and his family were Amsterdam merchants who can be traced back to a knight of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles married Millicent Pole and took her name. Their son, Sir Peter Pole was the 2nd Baronet and he had to mortgage his house in the Bank crash; His son, Sir Peter Van Notten-Pole married Lady Louise, the daughter of the Earl of Limerick.
Going back to Millicent Pole, she was daughter of Charles Pole of Holcroft, and grandaughter of Samuel Pole of Radbourne Hall (1651-1731) in Derbyshire. The Poles intermarried with the Chandos and other notable families who held the Manor of Radbourne since the Norman Conquest. Aside from noted connections to the Chandos family tree, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Darwin and members of the Wedgwood pottery family, the founder of the Radbourne dynasty was Sir John Chandos (1320-1369. He was Viscount of Saint Sauvers in the Cotentin, Constable of Aquitaine and Seneschal of Poitou. His close friend was the Black Prince. As if this wasn't enough, he masterminded 3 great battles of the Hundred Years War: Auray; Poitiers and Crecy.
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Thomas Meadows Gillam's Family
Thomas Meadows Gillam, born 1804
Thomas Meadows Gillam was the eldest son of Thomas Gillam, born 1804. He left Countesthorpe to join his brother William in New South Wales, Thomas Meadows Gillam, born 1804
He arrived at Sydney on January 20th 1829 aboard the "Mary" as a free migrant to be overseer on Major Rhodes property. On 10th August 1833 he arrived at Albany in Western Australia aboard the"Jane" from Hobart. As a Carpenter and shipwright, he was commissioned to build a ship for Symers at Albany. In1844 he held a slaughtering licence and bred cattle for provisioning ships calling at Albany. In 1852 he bought Albany town lots and in 1858 he built his house "Pyrmont" In 1864 he was the representative for the P & O. Line for the Southern Hemisphere and bought land at Porongorups where he then lived and farmed cattle.
Pyrmont House, Albany, WA
Thomas married Elizabeth Selina Jenkins who was born in 1824 at Lyme Regis and came to Australia with her parents in 1833. They had 10 children between 1842 and 1863:
When young John Dunn began to seek land elsewhere, it was with the knowledge that his brother William would continue with the Woodburn property, and that new land was needed to develop for himself and his younger brothers. At twenty years of age, John had already travelled away from home aboard a sealing vessel which operated along the south coast. On one occasion he took young George, six years his junior, with him. Their sister Eliza recalled that, when the ship was forced to take shelter in bad weather, they were marooned for several days in a safe bay, later known as Mary Ann Haven.18 It is possible that they explored inland during this time, noting the abundance of sandalwood in the area, for John commenced cutting sandalwood along the Phillips River in 1868, before he urged his father to take up the initial 2,500-hectare lease. He then spent three years clearing the land.[-]
July 1879:
A few months after John Moir's murder by Aborigines, the Dunn brothers themselves had trouble with the Aborigines who were resisting settlement and sporadically stealing property.
The Police Gazette, 19 September 1877, recorded a telegram received by Sub-Inspector Findlay, Albany, on 27 August, from Messrs Dunn Bros via the telegraph stationat Bremer Bay:
Shepherd and station robbed by wild natives; shepherd also cautioned by my native; life in danger; property stolen.
Many other crimes and violent incidents given.
The Dunn brothers, John, Robert, and Walter, were by now well established at Cocanarup but facing increased Aboriginal hostility. In 1874 George had moved to Mt Barker where he opened the first Cranbrook Hotel and, in 1891 married Selina Gillam. John Dunn became engaged to Henrietta Gillam, Selina's sister, but their wedding never took place. On 20 March 1880 John Dunn himself was killed!
It was about five o'clock that afternoon when an Aborigine cooeed to John to attract his attention. He was in the blacksmith's shop and Riley was on the scaffolding of the shearing shed, which was under construction.
John, in his shirt sleeves and without a firearm, went off with the Aborigine. As they left, Riley heard John say: 'You are the man I want'. John Dunn was never seen alive again.
Next day, when John still had not come back, he and Robert set out to find him. They followed tracks, lost them; found them again. It was two days before they came upon John's body and signs of a scuffle. The body had a spear wound in the neck and bruising on the arms as though they had been held. There was a great deal of blood about a metre from the body. They brought him home in a cart and buried him by the river, carving a simple wooden cross for the grave The only consistent observation was that John Dunn was probably an innocent man killed in revengefor an act committed by one of his brothers.
Dartaban was arrested on 25 August 1881 and also charged with murder.
The following year, escorted by Walter and Robert, John Dunn's mother, his sister Eliza and Henrietta Gillam came overland by wagon and buggy to Cocanarup, the first white women to come to the district. They wanted to see John's grave and the land for which he had sacrificed his life.Henrietta Gillam never married.
Terrible stories abound, but cannot be verified, of the vengeance exacted by John's brothers on the Nyungars. One story is that a number of Aborigines were killed and buried in a mass grave near John's grave, the site being marked by a circle of posts. The rest of the Nyungars in the vicinity were chased eastward, the Dunns poisoning the waterholes on the way back,to prevent them from returning. A circle of posts does exist and Gordon Thomas, subsequent owner of Cocanarup, once investigated a small area of ground within the circle. He found nothing but was warned by the local police not to disturb a possible grave site.
The Albany train, whlch arrived about 11 a.m. yesterday, may have brought many interesting people to Perth, but the man who stepped to the platform into the limelight was Mr. Johu P. Gillam of Cranbrook. Selected by the 'Western Mail' from many applicants as the man, resident within a radius of 300 miles of the capital, and who had never seen Perth, for a free trip to the Royal Show, Mr. Gillam emerged from the central railway station, and gazed for the first time upon the metropolis— to all appearances unmoved. But an intelligent interest lurked behind the calm of his 67 years, and during a brief journey around the city streets he said: "I thought I knew something about Perth from reading the newspapers, but I had no idea it was anything like this. It just shows how you can get wrong impressions." When Mr. Gillam stepped off tiie train he expected to be a stranger practically in a strange land. To his surprise, his first experience was a hand-grasp from an old Cranbrook acquaintance, and on looking around he found a bodyguard of old friends congregated about him, with others hurrying from all parts of the platform. "You know," he said, "the nearer I got to Perth the more nervous I became. I felt like something escaped from Wirth's circus, with a label on my back, and I got shaky. I'm not a toff -I suppose you. have noticed that-but I think I am going to enjoy my few days in Perth, although I suppose in a couple or three days I will be hungering for the smell of the mallee again." Mr. Gillam. who is the father of four teen 'gropers' in the far south-west, was born in Albany on February 17, I860. He has never been out of the. State, and before his arrival in Perth yesterday, Albany and Katanning were the biggest towns he had seen. "I am a pure-bred groper" he said, "of Leicestershire stock."
Obituary for John Pretious Gillam, son of Thomas Meadows Gillam, 21st March, 1946:
OBITUARY
Late Mr. J. P. Gillam. The death occurred on Friday March 1, at the Mt. Barker District Hospital, of an old and respected resident of the Cranbrook district in the person of Mr. John Pretious Gillam at the age of 80 years. The deceased gentleman, the fifth son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Meadows Gillam, of Albany, was born in Albany. Febru ary 17, 1860. Soon after, the family shifted to "Bolganup," Porongorups, and were engaged in cattle raising for many years. Ruins of the old home at Bolganup remain to this day. At the age of 21, John Gillam came to Tenterden (then known as "Round Swamp"), where he met and married Florence Toovey, the fifth daughter of the late Lomas Toovey, and opened the "Travellers' Rest" Inn. Round Swamp was in those days a staging camp for the Perth-Albany mail coaches. He conducted the inn until after the Great Southern railway was constructed through to Albany; and in 1907 came to Cranbrook where he resided until his death. His wife predeceased him in 1932. Members of the family of eight sons and five daughters reside in the district. In World War I. three sons enlisted. Syd and Hugh, members of the First 10th Light Horse, were both killed at Gallipoli in 1915; and Jack (44th Batt.) was decorated for gallantry in France. In WWar2.
Four sons volunteered for service with the A.I.F., two of whom returned from the Middle East. Fourteen grandsons enlist ed in World War II, four of whom made the supreme sacrifice. A happy recollection of the deceased gentleman was a kangaroo hunting trip in company with the ?" late King George V. (then Duke of York) and his brother. The Princes were on a tour and put into Albany and expressed the -desire to hunt kangaroos. Mr. John Hassell, of Kendenup, organised a hunt, inviting Mr. Gillam to join them. On another occasion, when supplies were urgently required on the goldfields, Mr. Gillam, ac companied by Mr. G. K. Brown, also of Cranbrook, and two other companions, made the trip trough to Coolgardie from Broomehill, through practically unknown country via the then little known Holland track. On another occasion he spent a week in Perth as a guest of the "Western Mail" and was loud in his praise of the at attention and hospitality of his hosts. The late Mr. Gillam was interred in the Tenterden Cemetery on Sunday, March 3.
Thomas Meadows Gillam was born in 1804 and baptised at Shearsby, Leicestershire in 1804. His brother was William and he was born in 1805. They were the first 2 sons of Thomas Gillam (1747-1828) and his wife, Elizabeth Robinson. Thomas senior was the nephew of Catherine Gillam who married William Heard, and so the two boys were her great-nephews.
William Gillam and His Family
William was the first to leave and it was said that 'he took to the sea as his profession'.
William Gillam, born 1805
William traded from Sydney and Newcastle in NSW. Later he moved to India; in 1841, the Bengal Directory records that the "Braemar" arrived at Calcutta from Bombay, with Captain Gillam and Mrs. Gillam. In 1842 he captained the "Braemar", , his wife and child being listed as passengers, arriving at Bombay.
The Braemar wasa 3-masted sailing barque built in Burma in 1838 and had a short life as she was wrecked in 1844 when caught in a storm and slipped from Madras Roads. She was laid on her beam ends and righted only by cutting away her masts, the wreck of which carried away her rudder. The vessel became water-logged and nearly unmanageable, and was driven by noon to latitude 12*55; She was finally driven ashore and wrecked near False Point Divy. Either the Braemar was rebuilt, or another one was soon built in that name for Australian shipping records record that:
BRAEMAR, BARQUE OF CALCUTTA, JAMES TITHERINGTON, MASTER, BURTHEN 360 TONS,
FROM THE PORT OF SHANGHAI TO PORT JACKSON, NEW SOUTH WALES, 8TH FEBRUARY 1850
Surname Given name Station Age Of what Nation Status Comments
TITHERINGTON JAMES CREW SAILED SHANGHAI
14 NOVEMBER 1849& BATAVIA 7 DE VARIOUS
CREW LADING TEA
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-august-1843/10/east-india-shipping
The Braemar, Gillam, has put into Mausulipatam, totally dismasted, and stores and cargo destroyed and lost.
From The Calcutta Monthly Journal and General Register 1839. Page 50 [under shipping] :-
"Braemar, Gillam, for Mauritius".
Shipping Intelligence. California
PORT SAN FRANCISCO, FEB. 6, 1851. Arrived. Feb 3 — . Barque Braemar, (Br) Tisherington, Singapore.
A later, iron-hulled vessel called Braemar was built in 1885 in Glasgow
In 1843, William was a passenger on the "Edmonstone, travelling from Madras to Calcutta. Their second son was born at sea in 1843, possibly on this voyage. In 1844 he and his wife were passengers on the "Ranger", from Penang to Calcutta and In 1846 he captained the "Hindostan" and in 1847 he was captain of the "Ann", sailing from Madras to Calcutta with his wife and 3 children.
The steamship 'Hindostan'.This ship inaugurated the service from Suez to calcutta. 'Hindostan departing Southampton for the Indian Ocean in September 1842. From 1864 onwards the two-decker Hindostan was moored ahead of HMS Britannia and connected by an enclosed gangway, providing extra accommodation and classroom space. for naval cadets. William was her captain in 1846.
William had married his wife on January 9th, 1841 at Calcutta. She was Charlotte C Plum and she had sailed from London to Bombay on the "Maidstone" in November 1840. They married in January of the following year./
Charlotte Caroline was the daughter of Thomas Plum and his wife, Charlotte Pritchard, born in 1815 in Whitechapel. Whitechapel at this time was an insalubrious district and I wondered why Charlotte senior had found herself there as her brother had a farm of 306 acres in Chalfont St. Peters, Buckinghamshire. And also, how young Charlotte came to know William Gillam; it is likely then that he made voyages to London. Thomas died in 1846, leaving a will from which we see that he was anOfficer in the Service of the East and West India Dock Company, and living at 216, Whitechapel Road.
William and Charlotte had 3 sons. First was William Merritt Apier, born at Calcutta on November 1st 1841. Francis Andrew followed, being born at sea off Madras in 1843. Their 3rd son was Alexander Charles, born at Madras in 1846. As was usual, the Gillams sent their children to England to be educated. The 1851 census shows William and Francis at boarding school in Camberwell, London. Alexander was only 5, so he was sent to live with his grandmother, Charlotte Plum at Chalfont St Peters where, now widowed, she was housekeeper (though also a fundholder) to her brother Edward. They may have been sent 'home' when William and Charlotte left India for San Francisco.
This was the time of the Californian gold rush, when thousands flocked there to make their fortune. So many needed goods, so maybe William saw an opportunity. To meet the demands of the arrivals, ships bearing goods from around the world came to San Francisco. Ships' captains found that their crews deserted to go to the goldfields. The wharves and docks of San Francisco became a forest of masts, as hundreds of ships were abandoned. It may be then that William acquired his ship, the Joan of Arc.
Apparently they had 3 more children in San Francisco: Clara Gillam b 1/12/1852 San Francisco d 1853/4, Charlotte Emily Gillam b 25/3/1856 San Francisco and Alfred Lorn Gillam d 1/7/1849 San Francisco d 22/6/1889 Sydney, NSW.
William traded with South America and it was there that his story ended. On one of his voyages he died in what some regard as 'a cesspool' Guayaquil, Ecuador in !858. His obituary reads:
Leicester Chronicle
Saturday 8th May 1858
Deaths
On the 13th March, of dysentery, at Guayaquil, South America, aged 50, Captain William Gillam, formerly of Calcutta, son of the late Thomas Gillam Esq. of Countesthorpe.
- Their son Francis (Frank) was a pupil at Miss Chaplin's school in Camberwell, along with his brother William. He became a banker and spent some years in India where his 4 children were born and retired to live in Kensington, London. One of his sons ran a hotel in Lorenco Marques, Mozambique.
- Their son Alexander Charles lived with his grandmother Charlotte, first in Camberwell then on great-uncle Edward's farm where he was an apprentice farmer.
- Their eldest son was William Merritt Apier Gillam who was born at Calcutta, Bengal in 1841. [I think Apier should be Apcar. There was a prominent Armenian family in Calcutta at the time, dealing in commerce Apcar & Co acted as general business agents and insurance brokers and controlled the Apcar Line. The Apcar Line ran a fleet of vessels from Kolkata carrying Chinese coolies and cargo, largely to and from Singapore, Hong Kong and Amoy (Xiamen), with connections to Japan. Pirates were active, and well into the twentieth century, the ships had to be armed and sandbagged against attacks.], He was at school with his brother Francis at Camberwell in 1851. He is missing in the census until 1881 when he is a visiting a Royal Naval Commander's wife and niece. He ha probably abroad as he was a merchant with A. Akyab b, Burmah.
By 1901 he was a Peat & Soap Commission Agent an Company Director, with wife Edith and children Basil Merritt, Norman Merritt, Grace and Hope Francis.
In 1876, William was involved in a Bankruptsy case:
"1876 The Bankruptcy Act . In the County Court of Lancashire, holden at Manchester. In .the Matter of Proceedings for Liquidation by Arrangement or Composition with Creditors, instituted by William Merritt Apcar Gillam and William Waithman Long, of No. 16A, Jackson's-row, in the city of Manchester, Commission Merchants, carrying on business in copartnership together under the style or firm of William Gillam, Long, and Co. NOTICE is hereby given, that a First General Meeting of the separate creditors of the above-named William Waithman Long has been summoned to be held at the Clarence Hotel, Spring-gardens, Manchester, on the 16th day of May, 1876, at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon precisely.—Dated this 28th day of April, 1876. EARLE, SON, ORFORD, EARLE, and MILNE, 44, Brown-street, Manchester, Solicitors for the said William Waithman Long"
In 1900, William filed a patent in the United States which concerned peat:
"Be it known that I, WILLIAM MERRITT GILLAM, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at 5 Whittington avenue, Leadenhall street, London, England, have invented a certain new and Improved Process of Preparing Fuel, [-]" The Specification isquite complicated and shows that William had some scientific knowledge.
William carried on a long correspondence with his nephew Alfred Charles Reid, son of his sister Jane and her husband Peter, a Railway Contractor. Alfred was very interested in finding out the Gillam family history, and William did supply him with some names but seems more interested in getting Alfred to subscribe to his latest invention. Alfred resisted this by various excuses!
William Merritt died in 1910. His son Hope Merritt died a soldier of the Great War in 1919. He belonged to the London Regiment and served abroad as he earned the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Norman Merritt served in the Great War, saw action in Tanganyika and afterwards emigrated first South Africa, where he married a relative of the Bullers. He eventually went to Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi) where he set up the first Barclays Bank there (early 1920's); from there he went to Beira, Mozambique and eventually Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare Zimbabwe) all with Barclays Bank. He eventually returned to the UK in the late 70's where he died in Norfolk. Basil Merritt emigrated to Australia.
William Merritt's wife's family have an interesting history. She was Edith E. Buller, born 1855 in India. Her father was Frederick Pole Buller, and his father was Cornelius Buller, Governor of the Bank of England from 1780-1849, who married Felizarda Guelmina Burmazer. Cornelius' sister was Anna Guelermina Buller and she married Sir Charles Pole, a merchant. His real surname was Van Notten and his family were Amsterdam merchants who can be traced back to a knight of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles married Millicent Pole and took her name. Their son, Sir Peter Pole was the 2nd Baronet and he had to mortgage his house in the Bank crash; His son, Sir Peter Van Notten-Pole married Lady Louise, the daughter of the Earl of Limerick.
Going back to Millicent Pole, she was daughter of Charles Pole of Holcroft, and grandaughter of Samuel Pole of Radbourne Hall (1651-1731) in Derbyshire. The Poles intermarried with the Chandos and other notable families who held the Manor of Radbourne since the Norman Conquest. Aside from noted connections to the Chandos family tree, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Darwin and members of the Wedgwood pottery family, the founder of the Radbourne dynasty was Sir John Chandos (1320-1369. He was Viscount of Saint Sauvers in the Cotentin, Constable of Aquitaine and Seneschal of Poitou. His close friend was the Black Prince. As if this wasn't enough, he masterminded 3 great battles of the Hundred Years War: Auray; Poitiers and Crecy.
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Thomas Meadows Gillam's Family
Thomas Meadows Gillam was the eldest son of Thomas Gillam, born 1804. He left Countesthorpe to join his brother William in New South Wales, Thomas Meadows Gillam, born 1804
He arrived at Sydney on January 20th 1829 aboard the "Mary" as a free migrant to be overseer on Major Rhodes property. On 10th August 1833 he arrived at Albany in Western Australia aboard the"Jane" from Hobart. As a Carpenter and shipwright, he was commissioned to build a ship for Symers at Albany. In1844 he held a slaughtering licence and bred cattle for provisioning ships calling at Albany. In 1852 he bought Albany town lots and in 1858 he built his house "Pyrmont" In 1864 he was the representative for the P & O. Line for the Southern Hemisphere and bought land at Porongorups where he then lived and farmed cattle.
Pyrmont House, Albany, WA
Thomas married Elizabeth Selina Jenkins who was born in 1824 at Lyme Regis and came to Australia with her parents in 1833. They had 10 children between 1842 and 1863:
- Asenath Amelia, born 1842.She married John Reid Muir of Fifeshire, a pastoralist. When she was widowed, Asenath went with their children to South Australia, leaving their station in the hands of a manager.
- William Jenkins Gillam was born in 1844. He was an Albany storekeeper and merchant. In 1871 he had an Auctioneers licence. 1873 - 1884 saw him part owner of the whaler "Islander", and he was an Agent and correspondent for Adelaide "Advertiser". In 1887 he went to Newcastle NSW where he died in 1908. One of his sons emigrated to Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, another to Belgium.
- Alfred Meadows Gillam was born in 1846. He Established a transport business in Katanning and pioneered the transporting of provisions to Mt Malcolm and Eastern Goldfields by turn of century, using wagons and camel trains before the railway was built. He married Margaret Dunn.
- Mary Louise Gillam was born in 1848 and married Henry James Townsend. Her sister, Emma Katura was born in 1851.
When young John Dunn began to seek land elsewhere, it was with the knowledge that his brother William would continue with the Woodburn property, and that new land was needed to develop for himself and his younger brothers. At twenty years of age, John had already travelled away from home aboard a sealing vessel which operated along the south coast. On one occasion he took young George, six years his junior, with him. Their sister Eliza recalled that, when the ship was forced to take shelter in bad weather, they were marooned for several days in a safe bay, later known as Mary Ann Haven.18 It is possible that they explored inland during this time, noting the abundance of sandalwood in the area, for John commenced cutting sandalwood along the Phillips River in 1868, before he urged his father to take up the initial 2,500-hectare lease. He then spent three years clearing the land.[-]
July 1879:
A few months after John Moir's murder by Aborigines, the Dunn brothers themselves had trouble with the Aborigines who were resisting settlement and sporadically stealing property.
The Police Gazette, 19 September 1877, recorded a telegram received by Sub-Inspector Findlay, Albany, on 27 August, from Messrs Dunn Bros via the telegraph stationat Bremer Bay:
Shepherd and station robbed by wild natives; shepherd also cautioned by my native; life in danger; property stolen.
Many other crimes and violent incidents given.
The Dunn brothers, John, Robert, and Walter, were by now well established at Cocanarup but facing increased Aboriginal hostility. In 1874 George had moved to Mt Barker where he opened the first Cranbrook Hotel and, in 1891 married Selina Gillam. John Dunn became engaged to Henrietta Gillam, Selina's sister, but their wedding never took place. On 20 March 1880 John Dunn himself was killed!
It was about five o'clock that afternoon when an Aborigine cooeed to John to attract his attention. He was in the blacksmith's shop and Riley was on the scaffolding of the shearing shed, which was under construction.
John, in his shirt sleeves and without a firearm, went off with the Aborigine. As they left, Riley heard John say: 'You are the man I want'. John Dunn was never seen alive again.
Next day, when John still had not come back, he and Robert set out to find him. They followed tracks, lost them; found them again. It was two days before they came upon John's body and signs of a scuffle. The body had a spear wound in the neck and bruising on the arms as though they had been held. There was a great deal of blood about a metre from the body. They brought him home in a cart and buried him by the river, carving a simple wooden cross for the grave The only consistent observation was that John Dunn was probably an innocent man killed in revengefor an act committed by one of his brothers.
Dartaban was arrested on 25 August 1881 and also charged with murder.
The following year, escorted by Walter and Robert, John Dunn's mother, his sister Eliza and Henrietta Gillam came overland by wagon and buggy to Cocanarup, the first white women to come to the district. They wanted to see John's grave and the land for which he had sacrificed his life.Henrietta Gillam never married.
Terrible stories abound, but cannot be verified, of the vengeance exacted by John's brothers on the Nyungars. One story is that a number of Aborigines were killed and buried in a mass grave near John's grave, the site being marked by a circle of posts. The rest of the Nyungars in the vicinity were chased eastward, the Dunns poisoning the waterholes on the way back,to prevent them from returning. A circle of posts does exist and Gordon Thomas, subsequent owner of Cocanarup, once investigated a small area of ground within the circle. He found nothing but was warned by the local police not to disturb a possible grave site.
- Arthur Balson Gillam, born 1855: In 1875 he left Albany to join his widowed sister Aseneth (Muir) in SA. For 9 years he was with shipping agents Gooch and Hayman. 1887 , then went To Newcastle, NSW to become a junior partner in brother (William) and George Earps shipping firm. In 1901 he returned to Laverton WA as a business manager for his brother-in-law (Dungee and Westward Store) He was appointed acting magistrate. He died and buried at Lancefield Mine.
- Edward Thomas Gillam was born in 1859. One of his sons, Charles, died at the Battle of the Somme in Picardy, France.
- John Pretious Gillam was born in 1860. He was Licensee of the "Travellers Rest Inn" at Tenterden, which had been established by his father-in-law as a staging post for the mail run - Albany to Perth. 1907 - To Cranbrook - fencing and clearing contractor. From the Albany newspaper:
The Albany train, whlch arrived about 11 a.m. yesterday, may have brought many interesting people to Perth, but the man who stepped to the platform into the limelight was Mr. Johu P. Gillam of Cranbrook. Selected by the 'Western Mail' from many applicants as the man, resident within a radius of 300 miles of the capital, and who had never seen Perth, for a free trip to the Royal Show, Mr. Gillam emerged from the central railway station, and gazed for the first time upon the metropolis— to all appearances unmoved. But an intelligent interest lurked behind the calm of his 67 years, and during a brief journey around the city streets he said: "I thought I knew something about Perth from reading the newspapers, but I had no idea it was anything like this. It just shows how you can get wrong impressions." When Mr. Gillam stepped off tiie train he expected to be a stranger practically in a strange land. To his surprise, his first experience was a hand-grasp from an old Cranbrook acquaintance, and on looking around he found a bodyguard of old friends congregated about him, with others hurrying from all parts of the platform. "You know," he said, "the nearer I got to Perth the more nervous I became. I felt like something escaped from Wirth's circus, with a label on my back, and I got shaky. I'm not a toff -I suppose you. have noticed that-but I think I am going to enjoy my few days in Perth, although I suppose in a couple or three days I will be hungering for the smell of the mallee again." Mr. Gillam. who is the father of four teen 'gropers' in the far south-west, was born in Albany on February 17, I860. He has never been out of the. State, and before his arrival in Perth yesterday, Albany and Katanning were the biggest towns he had seen. "I am a pure-bred groper" he said, "of Leicestershire stock."
Obituary for John Pretious Gillam, son of Thomas Meadows Gillam, 21st March, 1946:
OBITUARY
Late Mr. J. P. Gillam. The death occurred on Friday March 1, at the Mt. Barker District Hospital, of an old and respected resident of the Cranbrook district in the person of Mr. John Pretious Gillam at the age of 80 years. The deceased gentleman, the fifth son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Meadows Gillam, of Albany, was born in Albany. Febru ary 17, 1860. Soon after, the family shifted to "Bolganup," Porongorups, and were engaged in cattle raising for many years. Ruins of the old home at Bolganup remain to this day. At the age of 21, John Gillam came to Tenterden (then known as "Round Swamp"), where he met and married Florence Toovey, the fifth daughter of the late Lomas Toovey, and opened the "Travellers' Rest" Inn. Round Swamp was in those days a staging camp for the Perth-Albany mail coaches. He conducted the inn until after the Great Southern railway was constructed through to Albany; and in 1907 came to Cranbrook where he resided until his death. His wife predeceased him in 1932. Members of the family of eight sons and five daughters reside in the district. In World War I. three sons enlisted. Syd and Hugh, members of the First 10th Light Horse, were both killed at Gallipoli in 1915; and Jack (44th Batt.) was decorated for gallantry in France. In WWar2.
Four sons volunteered for service with the A.I.F., two of whom returned from the Middle East. Fourteen grandsons enlist ed in World War II, four of whom made the supreme sacrifice. A happy recollection of the deceased gentleman was a kangaroo hunting trip in company with the ?" late King George V. (then Duke of York) and his brother. The Princes were on a tour and put into Albany and expressed the -desire to hunt kangaroos. Mr. John Hassell, of Kendenup, organised a hunt, inviting Mr. Gillam to join them. On another occasion, when supplies were urgently required on the goldfields, Mr. Gillam, ac companied by Mr. G. K. Brown, also of Cranbrook, and two other companions, made the trip trough to Coolgardie from Broomehill, through practically unknown country via the then little known Holland track. On another occasion he spent a week in Perth as a guest of the "Western Mail" and was loud in his praise of the at attention and hospitality of his hosts. The late Mr. Gillam was interred in the Tenterden Cemetery on Sunday, March 3.
- Selina Elizabeth Gillam was born in 1863 and married George Dunn.
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ReplyDeleteI can add some more to this story if you are interested. My mother was a Gillam descendent and was quite the historian.
ReplyDeleteHello! I have a lot about the Australian families, need to know about the very early origins in England if you can help? I'm adding my email address if you'd like to contact me: s.shenton833@btinternet.com
DeleteCheers!