Several years ago I received a letter from Ian Hopley regarding some old correspondence he found amongst his late mothers 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 to look for work.
The first letter is to his daughter Anita ‘Nita’ or ‘Treasure’. The next are two letters to his wife Charlotte ‘Lottie’ The final one is from the secretary of the Malcolm Hospital
Letter home from William Webster to his daughter Nita. undated
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
Letter from William to his wife Lottie written at Clonbinane (a gold mining area near Melbourne Vic)
27/8/1907
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 with a stiff leg. ‘The Dancer’.
I am please 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. Im feeling quite well again, my appetite is very keen
Your loving husband Will
My Dearest Lottie
I wrote last week telling you of 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 years 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’
Letter from the Malcolm hospital to Mrs Webster
Malcolm District Hospital
Star Street
Malcolm
Mrs C Webster – Ballarat 24th Jan 1908
Dear Madam
In answer to your letter dated the 22nd inst asking for particulars of your late husbands 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 the 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 this I am forwarding 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
There is no evidence of a headstone for William Webster in the Malcolm cemetery, it is not known if it was indeed erected as Thomas Coe said it would be. It is possible it may have been erected and has fallen into disrepair and disappeared during the intervening 100+ years.
These ‘Letters Home’ are very moving and show the personal side to 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. If you don’t include the deaths of children and still births 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
Moya Sharp
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I have reason to believe that the letter by Mr Webster to his daughter was written from his hut in the township of Clonbinane. Please contact me at richard@oldplaces.com.au and I can provide some further details.
have emailed you Richard.