Wedding of Linda Victoria Fish and Gilbert Payne Mulcahy at Creswick 1921

Linda Mulcahy née Fish (1895 – 1970), the daughter of Alice Fish formerly Reher née Young (1859 – 1935) and Thomas Fish (1873 – 1949), was my husband’s first cousin twice removed.

On 8 June 1921 she married Gilbert Payne Mulcahy (1894 – 1979). Below is a copy of one of the wedding photographs, given to us by Lindsay and Mary George in 2011. (Lindsay, grandson of Elfleda Cecilia Anna George née Reher (1884-1970), is Greg’s 3rd cousin. Elfleda was the half-sister of Linda Fish.)

With the women, hair bobbed, wearing straight, short, drop-waist dresses, picture hats low on the foreheads of the bridesmaids, and the enormous bows of the flower girls, the photograph is easily dated to the 1920s.

The marriage was announced in The Argus of 13 July 1921:

MULCAHY—FISH.—On the 8th June, at Presbyterian Church, Creswick, by the Reverend K. C. Billinge, Gilbert Payne (late A.I.F.), youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Mulcahy, of Auburn, to Linda Victoria, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T Fish, of Creswick.

I have not been able to find a newspaper report of the wedding, and I cannot identify everyone in the bridal party.

The father of the bride, Thomas Fish, is on the left. It seems odd that Alice Fish, mother of the bride, was not included in the photo. Perhaps she was taking it?

Linda’s sister, Alice Pretoria Emma Fish (1900 – 1958) is standing beside her father. Alice married Ernest George Aldrich in 1922.

The groomsmen are not named, nor is the second bridesmaid. She was probably one of Linda’s half sisters: Gertrude, Elfleda, or Mary Reher.

The flowergirls are Gertrude Isabel George born 1915, daughter of Elfleda George née Reher, and Pearl Ramelli born 1913 who in 1936 married Elfleda’s son Norman George (1912 – 1968); Pearl is the mother of Lindsay George who gave us the copy of this photograph.

Hannah Fish aged 5 died in 1879

No title (1879, June 3). Avoca Mail (Vic. : 1863 – 1900; 1915 – 1918), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202422612

On Friday 30 May 1879 a five-year-old girl called Hannah Fish died at Lamplough, a small gold-mining town near Avoca in central Victoria.

Her death was sudden and unexpected, and a coronial inquest was held the next day.

Hannah was the child of an unmarried daughter of William Fish, a miner, who deposed that the thumb of her left hand had become inflamed a couple of weeks previously, that her grandmother had bathed and poulticed it, that within a few days she was retching, and that he had given her four teaspoons of fluid magnesia (magnesium hydroxide in suspension, a laxative and antacid) to settle her stomach. He did not call a doctor or take her to see one: ‘I did not have any medical attendance for her, but would have brought her to the doctor yesterday afternoon had she lived’.

An Avoca doctor called William Selwyn Morris stated that he had seen the body. He believed that the cause of death was ‘inflammation of the absorbent vessels’: her lymphatic system had been overwhelmed by the infection.

A paragraph in the Avoca Mail on the following Tuesday reporting the inquest added the information that there appeared to be severe ‘gathering’ (accumulation of pus) on one of Hannah’s fingers. This rapidly extended to the arm, then to the chest.

Morris offered the opinion that the wound may have been caused by a venomous insect and that he had no reason to believe that ‘violence or [deliberate] injury’ had caused Hannah’s death.

Deposition by William Fish, grandfather of Hannah Fish from Inquest into the death of Hannah Fish held on 31 May 1879 at Avoca. Page 1

page 2 of grandfather’s deposition

page 1 of the deposition by Dr Morris

page 2 of the deposition by Dr Morris

Fluid Magnesia or Magnesium Hydroxide was first patented in 1818. In 1879 it was advertised in many newspapers including the Avoca Mail.

Advertising (1879, May 20). Avoca Mail (Vic. : 1863 – 1900; 1915 – 1918), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202422481

 

Without knowing more about the circumstances it is impossible to say whether and to what extent Fish and his wife were responsible for the little girl’s death. Two teaspoons twice of a mild laxative seems a culpably inadequate treatment for a spreading suppurating wound, which would most certainly have produced a high fever and great agony. Even if she had been attended by a doctor, it was decades before antibiotic drugs were available and in common use, so the result may have been the same.

The blame for poor Hannah’s untimely death, if we can speak of blame, must be divided somehow between an indifferent universe, a cruel and incompetent God and, perhaps, her callous and careless family.

If William Fish did not do enough to save his dying granddaughter, it is satisfying to learn that in 1893, fourteen years later, a miner called William Fish from Lamplough was fossicking for gold in an old working, and

“… while below in a stooping position the earth above him
gave way and forced his head towards his feet, breaking his back and several of his ribs.”

It took him a day to die.

Hannah Fish (1874 – 1879) was the daughter of Hannah Fish (1856-1891) and was the niece of Alfred Fish (1860-1932), who later married Rachel Young (1865-1918) and also the niece of Alfred’s brother Thomas Fish (1872-1949) who married Rachel’s sister Alice Young (1859-1935).

References

• Inquest from Public Record Office Victoria: VPRS 24/ P0  unit 399,  item 1879/202 Female
• Glossary of 19C medical terms at http://www.thornber.net/medicine/html/medgloss.html
• DISTRESSING FATAL ACCIDENT. (1893, April 14). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13904967

 

Fishing for the right word

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt image is of a small boy with a fish. I invited my husband Greg to write an entry for my online research journal.

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week features a small boy and a large fish. The identity of the boy is unknown (and, come to think of it, the precise identity of the fish is also unknown) but the photograph was seemingly taken at the Bon Echo Inn, in the Bon Echo Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. The photograph forms part of the Flickr Commons Stream of the Cloyne & District Historical Society.

 

In Australian country towns you used to know your place. We were Upper Lower Middle Class (somewhere, perhaps, on George Orwell‘s mocking scale), which meant for one thing that although Dad worked as a labourer on the railways—transhipping goods from five-foot-three inch gauge Victorian trains to four-foot-eight-and-a-half NSW trains and vice versa—his wages reached Mum on Friday night untaxed by the six-o’clock swill at Ryan’s Hotel. It helped to be Protestant too. We looked down on the Irish Catholic kids next door, whose father, a plasterer’s labourer, weaved from side to side on his way home along Macauley Street.

That made them Lower Lower Middle class, the necessary foundation of our superior status. But when their old man got a skinful of Victoria Bitter and sang Roll out the barrel‘ with his mates in their backyard, they got indulged by their parents, at least at the maudlin sentimental stage of the booze-up, while we could only peer through the paling fence in jealous disapproval.

This principle also applied to the way we spoke. Rough kids had a richer and freer vocabulary, but we knew how to employ the second-person plural personal pronoun correctly and that to use the wrong form marked you as an ignoramus, destined for an early exit from schooling followed by a dismal apprenticeship in panel-beating or something of the sort.

One day my brother and I, fishing in the river, began talking to a boy—we were about 10 or 12 years old—whose smart rod and reel but shabby clothes and worn shoes marked him as the usual product of poverty: combined parental indulgence and neglect. When he got a bite and missed he damned the uncooperative fish as a ‘bloody black Assyrian bastard’.

We were profoundly shocked and delighted. Here was a phrase crying out for use and re-use. It had alliteration, rhythm, a racial slur, and two powerful swearwords fore and aft. The ‘Assyrian‘ bit was a puzzle, but it seemed to imply contempt for foreigners, a good thing, and it sounded Biblical too, so as a bonus it was probably also sacrilegious.

I am grateful to that Lower Lower boy for introducing me to his splendid incantation. Over the years I have found it very useful for opening screw-top jars and starting small petrol engines.

L is for Never Surrender Lodge No. 187 I. O. G. T. Lamplough

The International Order of Good Templars is a temperance organisation, founded in the United States in 1851.

IOGT (International Organisation of Good Templars) Certificate of Membership from 1868. Published by Lyman T. Moore, Lawton, Michigan. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1868, by Lyman T. Moore in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Western District of Michigan. Image from Wikipedia. (Click to enlarge)  Vignette (top): The parable of the Good Samaritan. Vignettes (clockwise from bottom): First drink – social. Second drink at a bar. Drinking & gambling. Goes home drunk to young wife. Pawns his clothes. Poverty & delirium. Recovery – signs the pledge. Prosperity & happy home. Certificate of Membership: This is to Certify, that — is a worthy Member in good standing of — Lodge N° — held at — State of —. In Witness Whereof, we have hereunto affixed the Seal of our Lodge this — day of — A.D. 18 —. Secretary. W.C.

In 1875 the Order established a branch, the ‘Never Surrender’ Lodge in the small mining settlement of Lamplough, in central Victoria. My husband’s 3rd great grandfather, George Young (1826-1890), and George’s son John (1856-1928), both gold miners, became officers of the Lodge. George’s daughter Alice (1859 – 1935) , aged 17, was also a member, holding the office of Worthy Treasurer. George was Worthy Financial Secretary and John was Worthy Marshall.

FRIDAY EVENING. FEBRUARY 5, 1875. (1875, February 5). Avoca Mail (Vic. : 1863 – 1900; 1915 – 1918), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202697423

No title (1875, November 12). Avoca Mail (Vic. : 1863 – 1900; 1915 – 1918), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202698128

LAMPLOUGH. (1876, January 14). Avoca Mail (Vic. : 1863 – 1900; 1915 – 1918), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204038187

In 1876 the Avoca Mail reported that at a concert put on by the Lodge, Mr Young—presumably either George or his son John—‘did good [unreadable]’. From the context it appears that his performance was either a song or two or perhaps a few jokes. It is a little frustrating not to be able to read the badly scanned text.

The International Order of Good Templars still exists, but I have found no more newspaper mentions of the Lamplough Lodge after this one in 1876; I don’t know when it dissolved.

Initials

IOGT = Independent Order of Good Templars
GWCT = Grand Worthy Chief Templar
WCT = Worthy Chief Templar
PWCT = Past Worthy Chief Templar
WVT = Worthy Vice Templar
WS = Worthy Secretary
WC = Worthy Chaplain
WIG = Worthy Inside Guard
WOG = Worthy Outside Guard
WAS = Worthy Assistant Secretary
WT = Worthy Treasurer
WFS = Worthy Financial Secretary
WDM = Worthy Deputy Marshall
WRHS = Worthy Right Hand Supporter
WLHS = Worthy Left Hand Supporter

Further reading

• IOGT International: historyhttp://iogt.org/about-iogt/the-iogt-way/who-we-are/the-history/
• Turnbull, William W The Good Templars : a history of the rise and progress of the Independent Order of Good Templars. 1901 retrieved from https://archive.org/details/goodtemplars00turn
• Echoes from the Bush. (1873, August 5). Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 – 1912), , p. 3 (SECOND EDITION). Retrieved June 8, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197668264 

Fire at Creswick

Alice Young (1859-1935) was the third of the 13 children of George and Caroline Young. Alice was born at White Hills in the district of Maryborough, Victoria. (White Hills is now known as Havelock, 10 kilometres north of Maryborough. In the 1850s and 60s it was a mining centre and at one time had a population of 6,000.)

In Avoca in 1880 Alice married a miner named John Carl Henry Reher (1837–1891), and between 1881 and 1886 they had four children, all born in Talbot

In 1884 Reher was injured in a mining accident; a winch failed and he fell down a shaft.  The accident left him an invalid. He died in 1891, seven years later.

In 1893 in Talbot Alice re-married, to her brother-in-law Thomas Fish (1872–1941), younger brother of Alfred, husband of her sister Rachel.

Alice and Thomas had three children. Two were born in Talbot, in 1895 and 1898; the third was born in Creswick in 1900.
Among some Young family photographs, which Noel Tunks kindly passed to me, there is one (undated) of Aunty Alice Fish standing on the steps of her house in Raglan Street, Creswick.

The photograph is of Alice’s second house. The first burnt down in 1910.

 

I think the house is at Raglan Street, Creswick and it seems to be still standing.

In 1910 there was a fire at the house of Thomas Fish in Raglan Street, Creswick.  The fire, possibly caused by hot coals falling out of a fireplace, destroyed the house and everything in it, including a new piano. Alice and her children escaped through a window, just in time. Mr Fish was away from home. A fireman was injured when a chimney collapsed.

 

FIRE AT CRESWICK. (1910, June 30). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 – 1924), , p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article216368354

FIRES. (1910, June 30). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954), , p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article184305719

FIREMAN’S ESCAPE. (1910, June 30). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), , p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10868167

The Fish family were still living at Raglan Street at the time of Alice’s death in 1935.

Family Notices (1935, December 28). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), , p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11868634

Alice was my husband’s great great aunt.

Related posts

• U is for Union Mine disaster

Y is for Ypres

William Alfred Fish (1890 – 1917), known as Bill, was the oldest of eight children of Alfred Fish and Rachel Fish née Young. He was my husband’s first cousin twice removed.

Bill was born in Sale, Victoria, and educated at Sarsfield and Kalimna State Schools, Victoria.

On 24 February 1916 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force.  His younger brother Leslie Charles Fish (1895 – 1988) had already enlisted, on 14 January 1916.

At the time of his enlistment Bill was a line repairer also described as a postal mechanic. He was 5 feet 6 3/4 inches tall, had brown eyes and brown hair.

William Fish was assigned to the 29th Battalion 7th reinforcements.  Leslie was assigned to the 108th Battery of the 23rd field Artillery Brigade.

W.A.Fish 3229 on left. L.C.Fish 22126 on right (brothers) retrieved from FindAGrave and reproduced with permission from a cousin who uploaded the picture.

Leslie sailed from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A7 Medic on 20 May 1916. He returned to Australia on 5 May 1919.

On 4 July 1916 Bill Fish sailed with his unit on HMAT A35 Berrima. Bill Fish and his unit disembarked at Devonport, Plymouth, on 22 August 1916. They trained at Larkhill, near Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain, until leaving for France in November.

Leslie Fish was also training at Larkhill, from July to December 1916. The photograph of the two brothers might have been taken while they were training in England.

In December 1916 Bill was hospitalised with mumps. He rejoined his unit on 6 January 1917.

In April 1917 Bill was punished for disobeying orders by eating his emergency rations. His punishment was 2 days Field Punishment number 2 and paying for replacement rations.

On 9 October 1917 Bill Fish was killed in action at Broodseinde, just under ten kilometers east of Ypres.

War Diary of the 29th Battalion: AWM4/Class 23/Sub class 46/AWM4 23/46/27 – October 1917 page 2

The file of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau contains several descriptions of Bill’s death.

Initially Fish was buried where he was killed, at Molenaarlens Hoek Broodseinde Ridge. After the war his body was exhumed and reinterred in the Oxford Road Cemetery. Oxford Road Cemetery is four kilometers north-east of Ypres. His grave is inscribed “Ever remembered”, the phrase suggested by his father.

In 1918 a pension of 40 shillings per fortnight was granted to his mother Rachel.

Additional sources

• National Archives of Australia: B2455, Fish William Alfred : SERN 3229 : POB Sale VIC : POE Melbourne VIC : NOK F Fish Alfred 

• NAA: B2455, Fish Leslie Charles : SERN 22126 : POB Sarsfield VIC : POE Melbourne VIC : NOK F Fish Alfred

Related post

• G is for Gallipoli – the death of Walter Fish, uncle of Bill and Leslie

G is for Gallipoli

Walter Fish (1878 – 1915) was the youngest of thirteen children of William Fish (1831 – 1893) and Emma née  Crompton (1833 – 1910). Two of Walter’s brothers were married to my husband’s great grand aunts. Thomas Fish (1872 – 1949) married Alice Young (1859 – 1935). Alfred Fish (1860 – 1932)  married Alice’s sister Rachel Young (1865 – 1918).

Walter Fish was born in Avoca, Victoria, in 1878. In 1905, at the age of 27, he married Isabel Daly in Perth, Western Australia. (1289/1905) Isabel Whiley Daly had been born in Avoca in 1883. After the war she remarried, to George David Bowen, and she died in 1964 in Maryborough, Victoria. Walter and Isabel had no children.

In 1908 Walter and Isabel were recorded on the Australian Electoral rolls as living at Avoca. Walter’s occupation was miner. In 1914 the couple were living at Cobden, Victoria, 4 kilometers south of Camperdown and 60 kilometers east of Warrnambool.

In November 1914 Walter Fish enlisted at Camperdown, Victoria. (NAA: B2455, Fish Walter : SERN 2227 : POB Avoca VIC : POE Melbourne VIC : NOK W Fish Isabella)

Walter was 5′ 6″ tall, with fair hair and blue eyes. His medical examination recorded no distinctive marks.  On 5 January 1915 he was taken on strength with the 6th Battalion , 2nd reinforcements as  Private number 2227.

On 2 February 1915 Walter embarked at Melbourne on HMAT A 46 “Clan Macgillivray”. His file contains little information about his activities up to the point of his death, at the age of thirty-seven, on 13 July 1915. He was killed in action and is buried in Shrapnel Valley. His epitaph on his grave (II.B.32.) is

Dear Is The Memory
He Left Behind. Of A Life
So Loving, True & Kind

 (“Anzac Epitaphs Gallipoli E-F-G.” Epitaphs of Gallipoli. B. Dolan and J. Meyers, 11 Jan. 2014.  <http://www.anzacs.org/epitaphs/epitaphsefg.html>. The epitaph was contributed by his wife http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/622274/FISH,%20WALTER. )

Also died on the same day and buried at Shrapnel Valley

• GEORGE, JOHN Private 197, 6th Bn died of wounds
• O’MALLEY, JEREMIAH THOMAS Private 2279, 6th Bn
• SULLIVAN, JAMES PETER Private 1584, 3rd Bn
• McDOUGALL, ALFRED KITSON Lance Corporal 126, 7th Bn
• McCULLOUGH, CHARLES Private 1863, 6th Bn died of wounds
• SOHIER, NORMAN HENRY Private 1826, 4th Bn
• FELL, JOHN Private 2226, 6th Bn died of wounds
• SHANAHAN, JAMES Private 2298, 6th Bn killed in action

(from the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission http://www.cwgc.org)

1915 photograph of graves of Australian soldiers at Shrapnel Gully Cemetery, Gallipoli. The tall wooden cross on the right marks the grave of  Sgt Bulmer who was killed in action on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 16 July 1915 and is buried in Shrapnel Valley Cemetery at grave I. B. 16. Australian War Memorial Image P01337.005

The war diary for the 6th battalion for the period is not available. There is no obvious battle that the 6th Battalion were involved in in July 1915. It would seem that Walter Fish was killed in an isolated incident on 13 July.

Remembrance Day

The grave of Trooper Philip Champion de Crespigny of the 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade of Bendigo VIC, who was killed in action on 14 July 1918. This is the original grave which has been incorporated into Jerusalem War Cemetery. Photographed by Oswald Hillam (Ossie) Coulson Australian War Memorial photograph B03314

We seldom pause to remember the men and women, including our relatives, who died in the First and Second World Wars.

This short list includes only our closest relatives.

World War 1

• William Stanley Plowright 1893 – 1917
  • died 26 March 1917at Lagnicourt, France and is remembered at Villers Bretonneux Memorial
• (and we remember also his mate Johnna Bell 1893-1918)

• Philip Champion_de_Crespigny 1879 – 1918
  • died 14 July 1918 at Musallabah Hill, Jordan Valley, Palestine and is buried at Jerusalem War cemetery

• Milo Massey Cudmore 1888 – 1916
  • died 27 March 1916 at St Eloi, France and remembered on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial

• Leslie Leister 1894 – 1916
  • died 20 July 1916 at Fromelles, France

• Vyvyan Westbury Hughes 1888 – 1916
  • died of illness on  28 April 1916 in Colombo, Sri Lanka

• John Percy Young 1896 – 1918
  • died 9 November 1918 in England from the effects of a mustard gas attack in France and buried Brookwood Cemetery

• Selwyn Goldstein  1873 – 1917
  • died 8 June 1917 at Loos, Belgium and buried Poperinghe New Military Cemetery

• Walter Fish 1878 – 1915
  • died 13 July 1915 at Gallipoli and buried Shrapnel Valley Cemetery

• William Alfred Fish  1890 – 1917
  • died 9 October 1917 at  Passchendaele, near the town of Ypres in West Flanders and buried Oxford Road Cemetery

World War 2

• Frank Robert Sewell 1905 – 1943
  • died 22 February 1943 in Queensland of illness and wounds having served in New Guinea

• James Morphett Henderson 1915 – 1942
  • died 11 June 1942 in Off West Africa killed in a flying battle