Henry’s life in Worcestershire

Henry Shakespeare was born at Dudley, Worcester, England in September 1811, the son of Joseph and Ann Shakespeare of Netherton, Worcester.  Henry’s family is found at Dixons Green, Dudley in the 1841 census:

• Henry Shakespeare, 30, Commission Traveler;
• Anne Shakespeare, 30;
• Joseph Shakespeare,10 (he was born 25 January 1831 at Dudley); and
• George Shakespeare, 8 (he was born 15 September 1833 at Dudley and was baptised 27 October 1833 at St Thomas’ Dudley)

In 1846 George Shakespeare may have been living in Finsbury, London.

Henry and family immigrate to Australia

In approximately 1853 Henry, Ann, Joseph and George immigrated to Australia^[1].  The exact date, and the ship they traveled on is unknown at the moment but the motivation appears to have been the lure of the new goldfields in Victoria.  There were many gold rush centres but the Shakespeares appear to have chosen the High Country in NE Victoria and initially an area close to the town of Beechworth.

The earliest evidence of the Shakespeare’s life on the gold fields appear in the Beechworth Local Court on 25 September 1855, where Joseph, George, Henry and others applied for a number of gold claims at the “3 Mile”, an alluvial gold mining area in the district.  Other applications and dealings at “The Woolshed” gold district were heard throughout 1856 and into early 1857 in records that have survived and found to date.

On October 13 1856 both Henry and Joseph Shakespeare appeared in court charged with “not maintaining an efficient (water) race”.  The goldfields locally were alluvial, and relied on the transport and sharing of running water via water races constructed along the slopes.  If a miner’s water race did not operate efficiently, those downstream would be dis-advantaged.  The charges against Henry and Joseph were dismissed.

In 1857 Henry Shakespeare is noted in “The Ovens Directory” as operating a restaurant at “The Napoleon, below Sebastopol”; again these were settlements near Beechworth.  In the same year he and his sons appeared on the electoral roll for “The Woolshed” district (by virtue of holding a Miners Right) and Henry and Joseph signed a miner’s petition to Chief Secretary Sir Henry Barkley asking for clemency for several others who rioted against local Chinese on the gold diggings at Buckland.

Death of Ann Shakespeare and move to Gaffney’s Creek

On 31 May 1863 Ann Shakespeare died and was buried at Joss House Hill, Lower Buckland.  Before this however on 17 September 1862 Joseph Shakespeare married Amelia Smith at the Registrar’s office, in the capital city Melbourne.  Joseph’s address was given as Queensbury Street, Melbourne (as was Amelia’s), but his “usual address” was given as Gaffney’s Creek and his occupation a miner.

Gaffney’s Creek is a distinct gold field from the Beechworth district separated by some very rugged alpine terrain that is snowed in over winter.  Even today the area is still serviced by unsealed roads only.

It appears that the Shakespeares were working at Gaffney’s Creek from at least 1862.  Lloyd and Combes[2] report that the “Shakespeare brothers” had erected a 4 head crushing plant on the Homeward Bound Reef by September 1861, close to the start of the local rush.

It took capital to erect a stamp battery, so we assume that the Shakespeares had done reasonably well at The Woolshed.  In late 1863 the Shakespeares sold their Homeward Bound claims to a syndicate led by William Hogarth and moved on.  The Hogarth syndicate formed the Shakespeare Gold Mining Company in February 1865 but the Shakespeare brothers were not involved.

Looking down into Gaffney’s Creek

Alluvial workings were along the course of Gaffney’s Creek however reef gold was occurring up on the steep slopes of the surrounding hills.  In 1856 the Joseph and George Shakespeare were partners with others in the Eldorado Gold Mining Company, having commenced mining in 1864.  The Shakespeares held 1,400 of the 2,400 issued shares.  To quote from Lloyd and Combes (p58-60):

“A new 10 head crushing machine, driven by a 14 horsepower steam engine, was purchased from Robinson and Scott and installed by Thompson.  Steam was raised in a large boiler, 16 feet long and 5 feet 6 inches in diameter, and quartz was conveyed down to the mill by a double tramway.  In all, they spent some £4000 in setting up the plant, paid for by £2000 in cash and £2000 borrowed from the Bank of Victoria.

The first crushing in June 1865 gave the magnificent result of 448 ounces from 16 tons, and the next 170 tons gave 447 ounces, enabling the company to pay off the bank and avoid the necessity of selling the reserve shares.  Production for 1866 was 1470 tons for 2071 ounces of gold, taken from two tunnels, and the mining was being conducted on a grand scale.

When the reporter from Dickers Mining Record visited the mine in June 1866, there were 35 men employed, with miners paid £3/10/- a week and three carpenters on £4/10/-.  The payroll of £127 a week required gold production be sustained at a high level, but unfortunately the rich deposit was worked out by mid-1867, and further gold could not be found.”

The brothers were also involved with the Granite Mountain Gold Mining Company that mined the nearby Wallaby Reef.  Lloyd and Combes judge that the Shakespeares were one of the few groups to have made a profit on the Gaffney’s Creek workings, which had seen their best by 1868.  Never the less the Shakespeare brothers may have persisted at Gaffney’s Creek, being recorded in various colonial Directories as mine managers at Gaffney’s Creek up until 1872, although other evidence points to their involvement on the gold fields being limited from about 1869 which would tie in to the decline in payability of the area.

Henry Shakespeare dies in Melbourne

Little is known about Henry Shakespeare’s activities after his wife died.  One would have to wonder if Henry’s age and the loss of his wife caused him to move to the city in the 1860s as there is no sign of him at Gaffney’s Creek.  A colonial Directory notes a Henry Shakespeare as being a brewer at Windsor (?Melbourne) in 1872 and this ties in with Henry being described as a brewer on his son George’s marriage certificate in 1870.

Henry Shakespeare died on 18 January 1880, having been living at 55 Chapel Street, Prahran (an inner city suburb of Melbourne) and he was again described as a brewer; the informant on the death certificate was his son George.  Henry was buried at nearby St Kilda cemetery and today at least the grave is un-marked.

Joseph Shakespeare’s family

Joseph and Amelia Shakespeare had only one child, Amy Maria Shakespeare, who was born at Gaffney’s Creek in 1864.  It’s assumed Joseph and his family left the Victorian gold fields in the early 1870s as in 1874 Joseph appears on the electoral roll in Stanthorpe, Queensland and from 1878 they were in the Charters Towers gold mining district.  On 25 January 1883 Joseph was appointed a Government Inspector of Mines and in the 1880s and 1890s served in a number of capacities such as Examiner of Engine Drivers and on the Mines Board of Inspectors.  Amelia died 17 June 1891, one assumes at Charters Towers and Joseph died 1 February 1901 at the Townsville Hospital and is buried at Townsville.

Amy Shakespeare’s movements are uncertain.  In 1917 an Amy Shakespeare appears on the electoral roll in Woollahra, a suburb of Sydney, close to William Shakespeare (see below).  There is no proof that this is Joseph’s daughter, but it’s possible.  Amy was described as a dressmaker and disappears off the electoral rolls of the area in 1943 when she would have been 79.  She may have died at this time (but there is no record in the available indexes), or moved away (one would think marriage unlikely at her age).

George Shakespeare’s family at Warrnambool

Steam Packet Hotel, Warrnambool

George Shakespeare married Julia Belinda Cook (aged 16) “at the residence of the bridegroom, Jetty, Warrnambool” on 25 May 1870.  Warrnambool is a port town on the SE coast of Victoria.

Julia was born at St Gluvias, Penryn, Cornwall on 3 June 1853, the daughter of Edward Cook and Louisa nee Ellery.  Family legend has it that Julia’s parents both died in a flu epidemic in Cornwall and this may explain why she emigrated from Cornwall aged 14 in 1868 on the “White Star”, accompanied by her grand mother Louisa Oats who had previously married James Ellery.  On Julia’s marriage certificate it states “(Julia’s) guardian….was Mrs Louisa Oats, her grandmother and sole support from infancy and appointed by her parents”. 

The reason Warrnambool was their destination was undoubtedly because another of Louisa’s daughters, Elizabeth Grace Ellery had already settled there.  Elizabeth emigrated on the “Clara” in 1854 and married Charles Everett in Warrnambool in 1856.  By the late 1860s Charles Everett was running the Steam Packet Hotel near the town jetty.

Louisa Oats died at Warrnambool 24 February 1872 and is buried there with a number of her grandchildren (children of her daughter Elizabeth Everett).

George and Julia began a family in Warrnambool, as follows:

John                             16 August 1871

Louisa Belinda              10 September 1873

William                         19 January 1875

Viola Olivia                   22 November 1876

Hermione                      17 September 1878

In spite of being described on his 1870 marriage certificate as a butcher of Warrnambool, Bailliere’s Victorian Directory places George Shakespeare at Gaffney’s Creek until 1872 and he doesn’t appear in the Warrnambool town rates book until 1873 when-abouts he took over the Steam Packet Hotel.  In 1879 the rate books describe him as a clerk, so perhaps the hotel business wasn’t successful.

George Shakespeare dies and Julia re-marries

In 1880 when his father died George was noted as living in Melbourne and in 1884 a record gives his address as 222 Young Street, Fitzroy (in Melbourne).  George himself died at the Homeopathic Hospital, South Melbourne on 29 March 1887 and was buried with his father in the un-marked grave at St Kilda cemetery.  One must fear for the state of George’s marriage at the time of his death, as many details of George’s family are marked as “unknown” on his death certificate.  Furthermore, his widow Julia married George Ravenscroft on 7 April 1887 just one week after George’s death!  A more charitable interpretation might be that with a young family to support, Julia married a family friend who might have become close during George’s illness.  Indeed, her new husband was George Ravenscroft, who like George Shakespeare was born in Dudley, Worcester.  The family moved to Tasmania, where George died 10 May 1891 and Julia then moved to New South Wales where she died at Wollongong on 17 September 1928 and is buried in the Wollongong general cemetery.

Children of George and Julia Shakespeare

John Shakespeare is largely a mystery.  No trace of him after his birth has been found, although he must have died prior to 1928, as his mother’s death certificate says that her male children pre-deceased her.

Louisa Belinda Shakespeare or ‘Louie’ as she became known was married to Alexander Reid in Hobart, Tasmania 8 September 1891.  One would assume that she had moved to Tasmania with her mother and step-father.

Alexander Reid was born in Dunfriesshire, Scotland 24 December 1864, the son of Alexander and Janet Reid.  Alexander senior was a silk mercer in Edinburgh, but spent the years 1863 and 1872 farming near the village of Holywood in Dumfries.  He later moved back to Edinburgh.  Alexander, with older brothers James and Benjamin traveled to Hobart in 1884 on the “Loch Vennichar” to Melbourne then on the “Waihora” to Hobart, where they were in possession of Land warrants.

It’s said that Alexander was a meek husband, dominated by the strong willed Louisa and one story has Alexander in a pub, sipping a drink and saying “if I have a few more of these maybe I’ll be master in my own house for just a wee while”.

Alexander died apparently suddenly on 24 January 1905 at the Zeehan Hospital and was buried at the local cemetery.  Louisa and Alexander had 2 children:

Louisa Janet ‘Jenny’ Reid was born in 22 August 1892 in Dunedin, New Zealand.  What the Reids were doing there is not known, and they were back in Tasmania by 1895.  It is interesting to note however that Alexander’s brother Benjamin settled in Dunedin in about 1897.  Jenny married William James ‘Bill’ Lodge 17 August 1927 in Sydney, NSW and they lived in the Sydney suburb of Mascot where Jenny was a piano teacher, Bill a store packer and may have also have been a bookies assistant.  They had no children and Jenny died 16 December 1964, in Sydney.

Minnie Hermione ‘Mione’ Reid was born 13 January 1895 in Hobart.  After the death of her father, Mione grew up with her mother and step-father in Hobart where she married Ronald Harry Ward 2 October 1919.  Mione became a schoolteacher and later ran the grocers shop attached to Ron’s bakery in the main street of Bellerive.  They had one child, Harry born 8 December 1924, died 3 December 1993.  Ron died 19 November 1954 and is buried at Cambridge; Mione died 30 July 1989 and is buried with Ron at Cambridge, outside Hobart.

Widowed with 2 young children in a rugged mining town, Louisa found a new husband without too much delay and on 25 September 1905 she married Clarence Wark ‘Clarrie’ Williams (born 13 February 1874 at Port Pirie, South Australia), in Zeehan and they had 2 daughters, Ethel born about 1907 and Winifred Blanche, born 25 July 1909 at Zeehan.

The Williams family, including of course Jenny and Mione Reid moved to New Town in Hobart.  Clarrie died at the Royal Hobart Hospital on 1 April 1945.  Louisa was confined to a wheel chair for the last 10 years of her life, suffering rheumatoid arthritis.  She died at her home 3 Oldham Avenue, New Town on 17 October 1947.  Louisa has 2 further daughters with Clarrie:

Ethel Williams born in 1907 married John Keith ‘Jack’ Davies 8 April 1939 in Hobart and they built a house in Watkins Avenue, West Hobart.  Ethel and Jack adopted Graeme, who was born in 1943, as a baby.  Jack died in a car accident about 1978 and Ethel died at her home in 1986.

Blanche Williams born in 1909 married Robert Montgomerie 16 December 1939 in Hobart.  Both Blanche and Robert were keen golfers and also played badminton.  Blanche had a very good contralto voice and was a concert performer, as well as a prominent croquet player in Tasmania.  She and Robert had two children, Heather born 1 October 1940 and Robert born 29 March 1943.

 Louisa Reid/Williams nee Shakespeare with her daughters (l to r) Ethel, Mione, Jenny and Blanche

William Shakespeare appears to have moved to Sydney at a young age for on 6 August 1900 he married Elizabeth Jackson in Surrey Hills, Sydney.  William and Elizabeth lived successively in Redfern, Randwick then Waverley, suburbs in inner and eastern Sydney.  William’s probable cousin Amy Shakespeare lived nearby until about 1943 when she either died or moved away.  William and Elizabeth had 2 children:

Mona Shakespeare was born about January 1902 and died in March the same year and is buried at Rookwood cemetery.

William James Shakespeare was born in 1906 at Redfern, Sydney.  He became an engineer and lived in the Waverley area of Sydney.  He joined the merchant navy in 1940 and last served on the Kurumba in 1945.  No trace has been found of William after that.

William senior died 25 May 1928 and is buried at Rookwood cemetery; Elizabeth died 29 October 1943 and was cremated at the Northern Suburbs crematorium.

On 13 April 1910 Viola married Andrew Dowell, who was born at Sandsting in the Shetland Islands, Scotland 5 June 1865 and became a seaman.  Viola and Andrew had three children:

John Shakespeare ‘Jack’ Dowell, born 1911 at Canterbury, Sydney; he married Kathleen ‘Kate’ Shannon or Robertson 17 November 1931 in Sydney.  They had a daughter Betty who was born in 1916.

Louisa Mary Anetta ‘Netta’ Dowell was born March 1914 in Randwick, Sydney.  She married Maurice Henry ‘Morrie’ Phillips in 1939 in Sydney.  They had 4 children – Don (1939), Ross (1942), Bruce (1950) and Helen (1954).  After Morrie died, Netta married Robert Montgomerie, the widower of Blanche Williams on 30 December 1986.  Netta died in 2003.

Betty Shakespeare Dowell born 1916 in Randwick married Francis David Gear.  Like his father-in-law, Francis Gear was a seaman and native of the Shetland Islands.  They had 2 children, Wendy and David.  Betty subsequently married Thomas Anderson and their only child was named Robert.