Donald,

We continue the two part series on Zilpha. Zilpha was from the Small side, descended from Big Bill’s daughter Elizabeth (being Elizabeth’s grand daughter).

Enjoy

Introduction

Ray Jerrems, Our Genealogist, Historian

In the previous article I described a number of aspects of French Island, setting the scene for Zilpha’s life on the Island. In this article I have some updates and I describe her life on the island, her subsequent marriage to a war veteran and their later life in Melbourne.

Origin of her name
The name “Zilpha” is an ancient Hebrew name which also occurs in the Bible. It was moderately popular in the 1700s and 1800s but has lost popularity, demonstrated by the fact that I can find our Zilpha by merely googling “Zilpha, Australia”, without a surname!

Update about chicory production

In the previous article about Zilpha I referred to production of chicory on the island. Here is a photo of a former kiln, which has been converted to a house. It was owned by the Australian singer Kylie Minogue.

Life as a grazier on the island

It is interesting to assess the life of a grazier on the island.

The 1924 photo of an improvised horse drawn cart (using the chassis of a light truck) demonstrates that in Zilpha’s time on the island the inhabitants had to “make do” with the materials available.

Initially I wondered how much the island was in fact capable of supporting grazing, bearing in mind that a large farm is needed to provide a full-time income. A 1910 parish map showed holdings of various sizes up to at least 140 acres, still leaving the question of how much the holdings were actually developed. The advertisement for the ruined house pictured in the earlier article answered this by specifying that:

HISTORIC LAND HOLDING

Fantastic opportunity to purchase 120 prime acres featuring 3 fenced paddocks, 4 dams, ample shedding, cattle and sheep yards….

Although life would have been quite leisurely on the island, there would have been complications for graziers regardless of whether they were men or women. If Zilpha had raised beef cattle she would have had to own a horse and at least one cattle dog for mustering, and the cattle would have had to have been mustered for branding and for driving to a barge at the Tankerton Jetty to be taken to market. If she had sheep she would have had to own sheep dogs and bring in shearers periodically, providing them with a shearing shed and a shearing machine to drive the shears. Particularly for beef cattle she would have had to employ an assistant.

It is probable that in the early days the lands were leased from the Victorian Government under long term leases, the particular significance being that Zilpha may not have had to pay for freehold land.

Soils on the Island

The soils on the island would have been comparitively poor, which would not have bothered the bandicoot in the photo. However for cattle the cleared lands would have had to be planted out with imported grasses because cattle need better quality grasses than sheep, which are tough and also do not need as many watering facilities. This leads me to conclude that it is very likely that Zilpha ran sheep and the occasional bandicoot on the property.

Some of the heavy tasks such as scrub chipping, tree felling for firewood or fencing, and erection and repair of fencing, would ideally have been carried out by a male labourer.

An additional very significant complication for Zilpha would have been that many of the labourers would have left the island to serve in the First World War. Moreover, the situation would not have returned to normal after the war because one sixth of the men died overseas and half of the survivors were wounded or gassed.

Zilpha’s source of finance
An interesting question arises regarding the source of finance and income for Zilpha and also her sisters. This could have been quite a predicament in a family having a sequence of seven girls interspersed by one boy, all born in a space of eleven years.

Up to the First World War the employment opportunities for women were quite limited. Popular areas of employment were housekeeping (as in the case of Catherine Jerrems), teaching (including home tutoring), and nursing and house help such as cooks and maids.

Where a single woman owned a house (most commonly applying to widows) boarders would supply much needed income. Conversely, boarding was a comparitively cheap option for single women who were employed or had private sources of income.

“Home duties”

The main source of information in Australia are the Federal Electoral Rolls, which began in 1903. However these Rolls only have a brief description of occupation. For instance, in the Electoral Rolls by far the most common description for married women, or for single women not having specific employment, was the very generic term “home duties”. This meant that their main occupation was looking after the house they lived in, which in those days was very labour intensive.

In the 1909 Electoral Roll Zilpha’s spinster sister Gertrude gave her occupation as “Independent means”, implying that she had her own source of income. Zilpha and her sister Jessie gave their occupations as “Grazier”, with a similar implication. However the four other sisters gave their occupations as “Home duties”.

This all leads me to conclude that when the seven girls were younger they were probably provided with a source of income by their parents.

Zilpha marries

Zilpha married Hugh Stanes Bayford (1879-1947) in 1923, when she was 47. Hugh had been born in Melbourne. He is shown as living with his parents in South Yarra (an inner suburb of Melbourne) in the 1903 Electoral Roll (where his occupation is unreadable), followed by entries in the 1909 and 1919 Rolls where he is described as a farmer living on the island.

This romance was scarcely a case of “boy meets girl” because they were in their forties when they married. However there is the romantic aspect that they were presumably neighbours on the island and eventually tied the knot and settled down together. There was probably another aspect which had thrown them together, arising from his previous service in the First World War.

Hugh’s war service

Hugh enlisted in February 1916 describing himself as a farmer. His next of kin is shown as his mother Sarah, his father having died previously. He was a strapping 5ft 11 ¾ inches (about 1.8 metres) and 160 pounds (72 kgs), very big for those days.

Earmarked as a reinforcement for the 59th Battalion, after training he arrived in France in December 1916.

In March 1917 the Battalion participated in the Allied advance that followed the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line. Hugh was wounded in the wrist and underwent treatment for two months.

Hugh is wounded for a second time

Later in the year, the AIF’s focus of operations switched north to the Ypres sector in Belgium. The 59th’s major battle there was at Polygon Wood (described in my article about Percy Hope in the journal of March this year) starting on 26 September. Five days later Hugh was wounded in a shoulder, the face and an eye, being sidelined for four months for treatment.

The 59th Battalion was part of the 15th Brigade which, with the 13th Brigade, served with great distinction in the Battle of Villers Brettoneaux in April 1918. However at this stage Hugh was being treated for “exzema foot”, which I would say was the medical term for the painful condition of “trench foot”. We now know it as tinea, which was exacerbated by wet socks and boots when the conditions were wet in the trenches. In those days it had not been identified as a fungal infection which is now simply treated with powder. Hugh was out of action for almost three months of treatment.

Tinea was difficult to eradicate completely, my grandfather had recurring bouts of it for the rest of his life.

Hugh is wounded a third time

When the Allies launched their own final offensive around Amiens on 8 August 1918 the 59th Battalion was amongst the units in action. However Hugh’s bad luck continued because on the first day he received wounds to the left forearm, right shoulder and an eye and after three months was repatriated back to Australia.

This repatriation indicates that his wounds were quite serious.

Life back in Australia

Hugh received a war pension for his injuries, and returned to the island with its idyllic landscape, including beaches. However, as happened to many soldiers who had been wounded or gassed, it is probable that due to his previous wounds (primarily to his arms and shoulders) his days of strenuous farming were numbered.

After Hugh and Zilpha married in 1923 (curiously they were married in Sydney) the couple presumably pooled their resources and bought a house in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, when he gained employment as a clerk. This would have been a very suitable occupation for Hugh, and as a returned serviceman he may have been given priority.

Settling down in Hawthorn

Their house at 67 The Boulevarde Hawthorn (a comparatively inner working-class suburb of Melbourne) was strategically placed, being only a street from an electric tram route which terminated in the Melbourne CBD. This would have given Hugh a nine km journey which would have only taken about 25 minutes. It is therefore very likely that Hugh worked in the city.

En route to the city the tram would have travelled through the Jerrems stronghold of Richmond.

Hugh would have travelled on a W class tram, a family of electric trams built by the Metropolitan Tramways Board between 1923 and 1956. The trams all had entry doors at the end and (rather curiously) three in the middle.

Meanwhile Zilpha gave her occupation as “Home duties”, indicating that she did not have any paid employment.

The couple remain living in Hawthorn

The 1931 to 1954 Electoral Rolls show the couple still living at the same address. Zilpha’s older sister Edith (who had also lived on the island) also lived with the couple until her death in 1945. This would have helped the household income during the Great Depression.

This sedentary life would no doubt have been a blow for the strongly built Hugh who, although he had grown up in an inner suburb of Melbourne, had spent later years working in the outdoors on the Island. Similarly, Zilpha, who had also spent her early years living in inner Melbourne, would no doubt have missed the rural life on the island.

Hugh and Zilpha die

Hugh died in 1947 aged about 68, the probate application describing him as “late of 67 The Boulevard Hawthorn in the State of Victoria Motor Garage Proprietor deceased”. Probate was granted to Milton Melville Bayford and Alwin Livingston Bayford (possibly his nephews).

It seems that he may have bought the motor garage soon after he retired.

After Hugh’s death Zilpha continued to live in the Hawthorn house, however a younger spinster sister (Marion Winifred Small 1883 -1967) joined her there.

Zilpha outlived Hugh by 14 years, dying in 1961 at Parkville, an inner suburb of Melbourne.

Editors Note: The house currently at 67 The Boulevard Hawthorn is pictured above.