I was recently contact by Geoff Edwards, who was planning a trip to Kalgoorlie to look into his family history. His relative, Adam Glover Brown, was a member of a Masonic Lodge. Geoff was fortunate to be able to attend a talk by Doug Daws on the history of Freemasonry at the Eastern Goldfields Historical Soc. Doug was able to find the following information.
Adam Glover Brown – Ancestry.com
Geoff Edwards, indicated he would like some help in researching the Masonic history of his great grandfather, Bro. Adam Glover BROWN who had lived at Kanowna from the turn of the last century. I undertook to assist and my initial research has already revealed that Bro. Glover was indeed a member of Lodge Golden Feather – easy really because that was the only lodge meeting there.
Unfortunately, there are not many (any?) of the early records available for Lodge Golden Feather but using the old Installation programmes I found that Bro. A.G. Brown was invested as the WSW of the lodge at the Installation meeting in June 1912. This would normally mean he would have advanced to the office of RWM in June 1913, but he didn’t.
Instead Bro. Joseph Thomas RUTTLE was re-Installed for another term. This signified that something unusual had happened for it was a quite uncommon event for anyone to take two consecutive terms in those days when there were such large numbers of members all anxious to ‘get to the top’.
And unusual it certainly was, for a search of ‘Trove’ – the digitised newspaper record – revealed that Bro. Brown’s wife, Florence Mary Brown, had given birth to their first child, Mary Florence, in September 1903. Eight days after the birth Mrs. Brown had become insane and was committed to the Fremantle Asylum. She was released in October 1904 and returned to join her husband at Kanowna. A second child was born in July 1905, John Donald and the unfortunate woman again lost her reason and by September was back in the asylum where she remained permanently until her death in 1916-17.
Adam and Florence ‘Flora’ (nee McLEAN) had married in Kalgoorlie in 1902 just the year prior to their first child being born. Florence was 20 yrs old.
Clearly, Bro. Brown honoured his duties as the husband and faithfully paid all of the fees required of him, earning praise from the judge who granted him a decree nisi (a divorce) at the court hearing in September 1912. The newspaper record states that Bro. Brown was by that time employed at Northam so he could regularly visit his wife at the Asylum.
I was able to add the following details to this tragic family story:
What a sad and interesting story. Post Natal Depression (as Im sure was the case for poor Flora), was just not recognised in those days. In all my researching I have never come across it as named anything but insanity or mania. One point though! I had always thought that you couldn’t divorce anyone who was committed to an asylum, but after reading the newspaper article it appears I was wrong. Adam was to marry again but not until 1913 in Perth to Francis Elaine BELL shortly after his divorce was granted.
Frances Elaine Brown nee Bell – Ancestry.com
What became of the children, Mary Florence b 1903 & John Donald b 1905 (both born in Kalgoorlie)? They went on to have long lives and families of their own. Adam was to have a further two children to Francis, Gordon Glover and Margaret Elizabeth Elaine who also live long lives. I hope that Adam and Frances made a family together with all four children.
The following unusual verse was added to the end of the newspaper article on the divorce.
Five with their woes,
waiting at the door,
Brown’s knot was quickly loosed,
Then there were four.
Im not certain, but I think the ‘Five’ referred to Adam, Florence, Francis and the first two children. ‘Then there were Four’, I think means just Adam and Francis and the children.
I looked at the date of the divorce which was Sept 1912 and the birth of the first child to Florence in Mar 1913 which shows she was pregnant at the time of the divorce. What do you think?
Geoff tells me that Frances was employed to look after the family as a housekeeper and then romance bloomed and they married, which I am sure was the best thing for all concerned. The only sadness is for poor Flora, locked in the Fremantle Asylum for the rest of her life for something that could be treated today. She died in the Asylum (which by then had been re named the ‘Old Womens Home) in 1917, only four years after the divorce. She was only 35 yrs old and had been incarcerated for nearly 14yrs, she is buried in the Fremantle Cemetery.
Kalgoorlie Miner 19 June 1953, Pg 1
Another Pioneer Passes On
MR. A. G BROWN IN VICTORIA
The death occurred last. Tuesday at Bon Beach, Victoria. of Adam Glover Brown, an early day resident of the goldfields. He was aged 81 years. The late Mr. Brown came to the goldfields when dryblowing was popular, but after trying his hand at this for a short time he went back to his trade as a plumber. He worked on the Australia gold mine, and also helped with the construction of several of Kalgoorlie’s good-class buildings of that period.
Shortly after the commencement of the goldfields water scheme Mr. Brown took a job on the pipe track as a boss caulker. After the job was completed he joined the local office staff, being made officer in charge of the Kanowna water district. In 1912 he was promoted to the rank of inspector in the Northam district. He was made officer in charge of Leonora in 1915 and excepting for two and a half years overseas during World War I, was in the employ of the Water Supply Department until his retirement in 1940 after 37 years of service.
Moya Sharp
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