Several years ago I received a letter from Ian Hopley regarding some old correspondence he found amongst his late mother’s papers. They were written by his Great Grandfather William Webster, first from Victoria and then from Malcolm in the Murchison of Western Australia. The letters mention his daughter Delia, nicknamed Deanie, who was Ian’s Grandmother. These letters and the photograph below are published with his permission.
Above Photo: William Webster (on right) with his wife Charlotte (Lottie) and their four children, Neva, Anita, Delia, and Cecil Alphonse. The other man is a family friend who the little boy was named after. Taken in 1907 at Casillis VIC not long before William left home to look for work. Photo – Ian Hopley
William WEBSTER was the son of William WEBSTER and Mary nee DOUGLAS. He married Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Amelia nee GRAHAM from Tasmania on the 23rd August 1884 in Sydney NSW. They had the following children all born in Victoria:
Delia Lillian WEBSTER (1890-1965)
Elsie Anita ‘Nita’ WEBSTER born 1892
Cecil Alphonse WEBSTER Born 1895
Neva Muriel WEBSTER (1898-1964)
The first are two letters to his wife Charlotte ‘Lottie’ and then one to his daughter Anita ‘Nita’ or ‘Treasure’. The final one is from the secretary of the Malcolm Hospital
Letter from William to his wife Lottie written at Clonbinane (a gold mining area near Melbourne Vic)- 27 Aug 1907
Just received your very welcome letter my darling Lottie but you did not say if you received my last letter or not, the one I told you that I had been sick. My dearest I am sorry to hear of poor Deanie having such a bad leg poor little dear, she seems to have had terrible luck. Let us hope she is having all her troubles young. I don’t like the idea of there being no pain, I don’t want to see my Bonnie ‘The Dancer’. with a stiff leg.
I am pleased to hear that Treasure is right again, bless her, we would all miss Nita if she was laid up, she is the prop of the bunch. It is disheartening for you my dear girl with one sickness after the other but we will have a change soon I hope while you all enjoy veal and potatoes so well there is plenty of room for hope.
Oh, how I wish to see my boy and my Valentine and in fact all of you, not one more than the other, all are the same to me. But, I must wait till things are better, anyway, we must have sweets at Christmas time. I hope to be in steady work till then. I’m feeling quite well again and my appetite is very keen
Your loving husband Will xxx
My Dearest Lottie
I wrote last week telling you about having the grip, let me know if you received it. I sent £3 yesterday, it was all I could send on account of broken time. Living has been dearer all over the colony this winter than it has been for years. Things, in general, are not too flourishing, especially in mining circles, in fact, Victoria is just about done. Federation has not improved things so far, whatever it may do in the future. Winter is of course the worst season of the year for all classes. Let us hope things will change materially with the finer weather. They cannot be worse. I wish I could raise the money for us all to go to Sydney – Kiss my Bonnies for me
I will now conclude with my fondest love to you all and remain, my Dearest Lottie,
your affectionate husband Will Webster “ Good night my own’ xxx
Letter home from William Webster to his daughter Nita. undated from Western Australia
Sunday Evening
My own Treasure, it is with pleasure I write to you this letter to tell you how pleased I am to hear how well you are getting on at school and also that you are so good otherwise. Well, Nita, I suppose you wondered how your old dad was when he was travelling about looking for work, I could not get it sadly. My thoughts were with you always and every girl about your age I saw reminded me of you. I wondered often when I would see my own Nita again.
I am writing this in my own lonely little hut. I am not boarding now so will be able to write often. My hut is about the size of our front room. Wattle and daub and a good fireplace and all whitewashed. A big fire is burning bright and I have just finished tea and toast and cake and meat but I am not happy my Nita is so far away. Mr Quilliam and I usually go out hunting on Sundays but today he went alone as I was not very well. I got a lot of mushrooms though, I wish you were here to help me eat them. Good night and god bless Nita.
From your loving dad William Webster xxx
A Letter from Home – Photo SLWA
Letter from the Malcolm hospital to Mrs Webster
Malcolm District Hospital
Star Street, Malcolm, Western Australia
Mrs C Webster – Ballarat 24th Jan 1908
Dear Madam
In answer to your letter dated the 22nd inst asking for particulars of your late husband’s death. He was brought to the hospital a week previous to his death suffering from pleurisy and was coming on well, in fact, the day before his death he was sitting under the veranda in the best of spirits and would have been discharged in a few days time. On Saturday evening he went to bed and another patient was also in the ward. At about 5am in the morning he called out to the other patient and asked him to hold his hand. The matron on hearing him came in and found him collapsing and sent for the doctor. A quarter of an hour after this the doctor pronounced him dead from heart failure.
His friends were informed and they at once gathered a subscription and he was buried on the Monday at 12 o’clock. I also went to his camp with a JP and secured all papers which are now in the possession of the JP, Mr Brown of Mertondale. He had on his person the amount of 25 shillings and I am forwarding this to the ‘Curator of Vacant Estates’ as there was no will to be found.
I knew Mr Webster for some time and before he died he was talking hopefully of returning to work in a few days. He had a very nice funeral and was highly respected in the district. Mr. McDonald of Mertondale Blacksmiths on the Mertons Reward was his particular friend and attended to everything.
If there is anything you want to know further please let me know
With deepest sympathy, G Moody Secretary
It appears that money was sent by Charlotte to Thomas Coe to erect a headstone fotr William, which he says was done. There is no evidence of a headstone for William Webster remaining in the Malcolm cemetery, it is not known if one was erected. It is possible it may have been erected and has fallen into disrepair and disappeared during the intervening 100+ years.
William died on the 19th of January 1908 at the Malcolm Hospital from Heart failure. His death was registered as 5/1908 Mt Margaret. No family particulars were included on his death certificate.
These ‘Letters Home’ are very moving and show the personal side of a very common situation where the breadwinner of the family is forced to travel away from home to seek work. In some cases, this was an appealing decision for lots of reasons, but many like William would feel the sadness of being away from their loved ones, never to see them again. The Goldfields was to be a magnet to many men who, like William, were never to return home.
lie in graves a long way from home.
If you don’t include the deaths of children and stillbirths during the first 15 years of the Goldfields from about 1892 every death would be of someone who was born elsewhere. This is an awful lot of people dying from accident, disease, suicide and natural causes buried all over the vast Goldfields who lie in graves a long way from home.
Malcolm Hospital 1905 – Photo SLWA
Moya Sharp
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