Bill Atkinson, undated, pre-war
Bill Atkinson, undated, pre-war |
The Atkinson Family History
Bill Atkinson
Written by H L (Bill) Atkinson c. 1995.
Scanned from a copy held by John King, 2001.
The Atkinson family history can be traced back to a John Atkinson who lived in the early part of the 19th century. His occupation and his wife's name are not known.
John had a son named William who married Mary Horsfield daughter of Isaac Horsfield on 25-12-1846.
William and Mary had a son named William Dobinson who was born on the 28-10-1849. The Dobinson may have been the surname of John's wife.
William Dobinson married Ellen Ainsley who was born on the 14th of December 1849 and the wedding took place in the Durham Cathedral in November 1872.
The Ainsley family were merchant printers, mustard manufacturers and stationers in Durham and had some connection with the clergy or lay preachers attached to the Cathedral and were perhaps considered an upper class family who did not approve of Ellen's marriage to William.
From what my mother had said William was not very reliable, a bit of a lad around town and worked as a clerk in an office, which may account for the Ainsley family's early objection to him. Certainly if he had some shadow cast over his character it did not reflect onto the four sons and two daughters who immigrated to Australia and whom I know and can recall. They were people of exceptional character with close family ties and highly respected by all who knew them.
I never heard the family talk much about their Father or Mother but my Mother once said that Ellen was a wonderful little woman who worked her fingers to the bone to provide for the family. There were suggestions that she did receive a great deal of help from the Ainsley family and at one time had some sort of small business or corner shop.
There is no record of her death but she was in very poor health and in an infirmary when my mother knew her.
William and Ellen had ten children between 1872 and 1894 - a girl named Elizabeth died at the age of two, the others all lived to old ages.
There is no doubt that Ellen had a major influence in the upbringing of the family. They were a typical middle class family, very close to each other and while not being very poor they were certainly brought up on a very low income.
They had received a sound education and grew up as good Anglicans, regular church goers and were prepared mainly for clerical or office work.
At the time when the family was growing up the main source of employment in and around the city of Newcastle was connected with the mining and export of coal and a large ship building industry. Work was not easy to obtain and wages were very low.
I believe there were several reasons why nearly the whole family up and left their homes to migrate. Six - Tom, Len, Syd, George, Nellie and Edith to Australia - and Charlie to Canada.
Firstly the long illness and death of their mother started a break up of the whole family and their general health was not good. My mother has said there was continual smog over the city caused by coal fired tug boats hauling coal barges up and down the River Tyne and almost all heating was from coal fires and gas.
There was a concern about the family health as I was told when my father decided to migrate passages were booked for himself, mother and my sister Dorothy but at the last minute this was changed to allow Uncle Len to accompany father. I was told this was done because of concern over Uncle Len's health which mother described as being a bit "chesty".
I think a third reason was that they believed there would be a more secure future for their families in Australia.
At the time they migrated the British Government was encouraging people to go to the colonies where opportunities were plentiful and the wide open spaces with clean fresh air appealed to them.
Whatever the reasons those who came to Western Australia rebuilt that united family spirit that had existed back home. They always referred to Newcastle as home.
One of the sad parts of the story is that none of them, except Len and Syd for a brief period during the war, were able to make a visit back to their homeland.
After arriving in Ajana they kept in close contact with each other and shared news from home, particularly letters from Louisa and Jack Armstrong and also letters from Charlie in Canada.
They all arrived in Ajana during the years 1910 to 1912 and eventually selected land within a few miles of each other.
Tom and Len landed in Fremantle in September 1910 and were offered work by a Mr Haughton who had taken up land at Ajana. They travelled with him (see Uncle Len's account) to Ajana.
They obtained their own block of two thousand acres and commenced farming as Atkinson Bros on the block they called Tynedale in early 1911. My mother, sister Dorothy and Aunty Edith (always called Edie) arrived on the farm in the second half of 1912.
They had travelled by train to Northampton and then by horse and cart to the farm. They had brought with them two large boxes and a large tin trunk. They were driven to Ajana by a local carrier named Sammy Lamsdale. On reaching the camp which had been built on Tynedale my mother said that she sat on one of the boxes and cried and cried.
The camp was a single room built with mostly bush timber and corrugated iron and lined with super bags with a wood stove for cooking. They also had a tent which Len used both on Tynedale and also when away working to earn something towards the family income which at the time would have consisted of a small allowance for clearing and fencing carried out on the property. This allowance or loan became a debt on the farm.
They had little knowledge about farming and neither did Nellie's husband Alan Rochester who together with Syd had commenced farming on their own block called Jesmond Vale after the Newcastle suburb where they had lived before migrating.
At this stage I believe they did gain a lot of farming knowledge from Uncle Charlie Cornell who had commenced farming his property called Summer Hill and later married Edith.
Uncle Charlie was a good stockman and did have some practical farming knowledge which was a great help to the family. Also Uncle Alan Rochester did much of the book work for them. As an accountant he often compiled returns to the Agricultural Bank and made the necessary applications for financial assistance.
There is no doubt that those early years were as harsh and as difficult as any endured by early pioneers in other districts and made harder by the lack of knowledge about farming.
Through all the hardships they maintained that close family relationship which had existed back home in Newcastle, always cheerful and never complaining.
In the late 1920's they were getting close to an easier life with more comforts when the Great Depression of the 1930's destroyed most of their expectations.
I think however they had achieved what they had set out to do and that was to establish something their children could build on and for that we should be grateful.
George and his wife Ida who was Swiss and had a delightful accent, together with their young family went to Zamia near Mundaring where George was employed as an orchardist working for McCallum-Smith, the then owner of the Sunday Times and quite a large land holder. They visited Ajana at least on one occasion and Robert the only son stayed at Tynedale many times in the early 1920s when he had annual leave from his work in the railway office in Perth. I can recall Robert being very sunburnt during hay carting season. Uncle George also sent cases of fruit during the season which was shared out among the families of Ajana.
During our one family visit to Perth about 1920 we stayed with them in the small cottage not far from the very large McCallum-Smith house.
 Plaque unveiled in 1995 at Bill Atkinson's birthplace [More photos] |
The first camp on Tynedale which was my birth place was later rebuilt near the sheep yards and was used as a shearing shed.
Super had at one time been stored in the camp and a small heap of wet hard super marked the spot for many years.
The first house was built during the years while Len was in the army and overseas. It was a typical settlers cottage of jarrah weather boards and corrugated iron. It had two rooms 12 feet by 12 feet lined with hessian and a full length 6 feet verandah back and front.
The back verandah was enclosed as a kitchen at one end and the other end was a small room 6 feet by 6 feet which became known as Len's room. Later a small room was attached to one end and became known as the teachers room and was built around 1920. The first occupant was my first teacher Helen McLean who later became Mrs Harry Cooke.
The bedroom contained a double bed and a single bed on which Phyllis and I slept end to end. Dorothy had a bed in the dining room and during the summer the beds were moved onto the front verandah.
A large bush shed was built near the house and was used as a wash house and general storage place. Later my bed was placed in it because I insisted on having my pet dog sleep on my bed.
Most of the early clearing was done by axe. Some was also done by an old Swede named Gus Klint who camped in the shearing shed and I often spent time with him. He would give me a mug of black tea and a piece of damper and tell tales of his life, mostly spent at sea. Some clearing was also done by a man known as Mad Raven. He had a bullock team and roller which was used on lighter patches of timber. Fence posts were cut from the suitable timber and the rest was stacked and burnt. Trees and scrub were used to build bush fences which were constantly broken up by kangaroos but did serve to keep sheep off the crops. The first permanent fencing was done along the boundary of the block. The first sheep came from Mt View station which had previously stocked most of the Ajana area. I suspect that at least some of the early sheep were simply ones left behind when this land was opened up for settlement.
The early shearing was done by Bill Sutherland, a blade and later a machine shearer who farmed close to Tynedale, in partnership with the Ainsworth family who were among the first settlers in the area. The first shearing plant was a two stand portable which was shared by the Sutherland, Rochester and Atkinson families.
The early machinery on Tynedale was a four furrow mould-board plow, a 5 feet stripper, a winnower to clean the grain, an eleven disc seed and super drill, a hay binder and four working horses to pull the machinery. The first chaff-cutter was driven by a one horse turntable. The horse walked around in a circle and the drive was transformed to the cutter by a series of gears and shafts.
The first milk came from two goats, later replaced by a milk cow. The milk was scalded, the cream removed to make butter and the milk then kept in a cool safe which was made with netting covered with hessian over which water was allowed to drip. These coolers were most effective if correctly built. Turkeys and poultry were reared for eggs and meat. A few pigs were also kept to help the meat supply. Wheat was hand gristed for porridge and biscuit making.
Kangaroos, wild turkeys and later rabbits were plentiful and provided many meals. Bush honey was quite easy to get and one of the early delights was a slice of home made bread and honey, with scalded cream.
Water for house use was stored in two one thousand gallon tanks which seldom lasted through a summer. Water suitable for drinking was carted by horse and dray from a 30 feet deep well which my mother says she had to be lowered down by a windlass to scoop water into a bucket which father would wind to the surface.
A large galvanised tub served as a bath on family bath night, which at times was only once a week. The tub was placed in front of the kitchen fire and starting with the children, we all had a hot bath, sometimes having to use the same water. Later good water was obtained from a well a few hundred yards to the east of the house. This was equipped with a windmill and a store tank built by Harry Cooke. In summer time this tank was used to swim and cool off in and was very popular.
In the mid 1920s the first tractor was purchased. This was a Fordson which could not do much more work than a four or five horse team. At this time the plant consisted of a Deering harvester, later a six foot Sunshine, a ten disc Sundercut plow, a 15 run disc drill, one tyne and one disc cultivator, a hay binder and about 1928 a second hand 2 ton Holt crawler tractor and scrub roller were added.
Towards the end of this period the prospects of a reasonable income from the farm seemed possible, but the great depression started to bite in 1929 and by the early 1930s all hope of survival disappeared and marked the end of an era as far as Tynedale was concerned.
Dalwallinu, Dec 1973. Bill (holding Roger's son Julian)
Bill (holding fourth son Alan) on tractor, Dalwallinu farm, late 1950s.
Photo: From a magazine cover, The Countryman,
23 February 1956. [The Countryman article]. Alan Atkinson collection.
