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The Family of HENRY JOHN SYMONS 1834 - 1911, by Neil Symons Abridged Version Editors note: Neil's original idea was to attempt to outline the early Devonshire origins of Henry John Symons. However, Neil extended it to include a fascinating outline of his pioneering activities in Ballarat and their direct consequences. This is an abridged version of Neil's 63 page story and 22 page supplement.

The Village of Rockbeare, which is six miles E.N.E. of Exeter and five miles west of Ottery St. Mary, had an area of 2309 acres in 1850. Its slowly declining population comprised some 513 souls. And its common of about 200 acres, was enclosed in 1849. There were then several other estates in the village and many scattered farms. The chief crops being wheat and oats, with considerable pasturage. Most of the inhabitants were engaged in rural occupations but the 1850 directory recorded a shopkeeper, a bricklayer, a tailor, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, brick and tile makers, a bricklayer and builder, a carpenter and a baker - but no butcher. Henry John's Uncle John is included in the list of farmers. The Parish Church of Saint Mary was described in 1850 as an antique fabric. The current register of Births, Marriages and Burials was begun in 1645, in the days of Oliver Cromwell, and it was not long before the names "Symons" began to appear in it. There were Symons baptisms in 1646, 1647, 1649 and 1656. The first marriage which can be clearly defined as being in our line of descent, that of John and Mary, produced at least eight children, Rebecca the eldest being born in 1672 but the second son, Ralph, baptised in April 1685, was our forebear. He was the first in a sequence of Ralphs which was only broken in 1773, when Ralph, eldest son of Ralph, died at the age of 15 but, alas, too late for his father to replace him with another Ralph, for his father had already died. In that generation the line of descent was taken over by John, who was to become Henry John's grandfather, and the name "Ralph" was to disappear from the annals of the family until it was included in the names of one of my cousins, Edward, third son of my Uncle William in far off Australia. John Symons, Henry John's grandather, was a butcher living at Westcott, which was a small property near Westcott House to the south of the manor of Rockbeare House and a couple of miles south of Rockbeare village proper. He was born in January 1779 the third son of Ralph Symons, Butcher, and his wife, Rebecca Sanders. Rebecca died when he was only 14. He married Ann Harris at Topsham in May 1800, although the question of age arose beforehand. Ann was confident that she was 21 years old but John was far from certain about his age and no doubt the vicar advised him to obtain his father's consent to the union. On the day before the wedding he made the long journey to Rockbeare, armed with a form of consent which had been prepared perhaps in the vicar's copperplate handwriting and old Ralph grasped his quill and duly signed it. John died in February 1817, leaving his widow to bring up their brood of six - the eldest was 10 years old at that time and Ann must be seen as having been of heroic stature to meet the challenge. John in 1817 seems to have been a tenant of Westcott farm and the farming activities would probably have needed the assistance of a couple of labourers. Ann may have been able to carry on this arrangement with the encouragement and advice of her relatives. In later years her eldest son John could well have taken her place in the management of the property, before he moved on to a larger farm, known as Tanners, which he and his descendants were to occupy for over a century. It seems likely that the sons were put to learning the family trade as soon as possible, given that working life began at an early age in those days, as the two eldest - John and William Harris - both went on to become butchers. However, there could have been little in the way of prosperity in the butchery trade at the time. The average rural resident would have considered himself as being fortunate to be able to buy butcher's meat at any time. However, it could be that Ann and her family were not quite as badly placed as the bare statistics might indicate. Most butchers in rural areas combined their butchering businesses with farming activities, which seems understandable given the relatively limited supply of potential customers and their even more limited degree of buying power. John junior had been born in 1811. He did not waste much time before marrying, for his first recorded offspring, William, was born in September 1833, suggesting that he must have married no later than late 1832 at the age of 21. His wife, Elizabeth Pratt, was of about the same age. She was a daughter of William Pratt and his wife Sarah, second daughter of John and Elizabeth Symons of Marsh Green. John and Elizabeth had over forty years of married life and nine children to show for them. John was 22 when his eldest, William, was born and as young William grew towards manhood it must have been apparent to him that he could have a long wait before being able to step into his father's shoes, assisting his decision to immigrate to Australia. John's next son, also John, was seven years younger than William and he acquired a wife with family ties which were unlikely to encourage him to follow William into a new life in the antipodes. Ann's second son, William Harris, was nearly three years younger than John and it must have been apparent that Westcott would not be able to provide a living for him as well as his elder brother. Like John he had somehow or other acquired sufficient proficiency in the trade to describe himself as a butcher at Whimple when he married Ann Horrell Loosmore in July 1833, some months before his 20th birthday. This would not have been feasible if he had been apprenticed according to traditional practices as his obligations would have continued until he had attained the age of 21 - unless his master released him earlier. However, apprenticeship was no longer compulsory at that time even in the big cities and both boys may have learned their trade as improvers rather than under formal indentures. Meanwhile, John and Elizabeth had decided to move to a larger property, no doubt in an attempt to improve prospects of adequately providing for their growing family. At the time of birth of the first five children their place of residence was simply recorded as Rockbeare and his occupation as butcher but at some time between 1842 and 1845 he re-established himself at the property known as Tanners Farm, comprising some 176 acres. At the time of the 1851 census he was employing 6 labourers. John died in 1873 and young John took over the farm. He is recorded in the 1881 census as the head of the house and was then unmarried. The area of Tanners had declined to 142 acres. His young brother, George Henry, was still in residence and he seems to have taken over as head of the household at some time before the 1891 census. Young John had married in the meantime, and had moved to Lower Southwood. George Henry died in 1893 and his widow, Amelia, took over the property and remained in charge of it for many years. Norman George, son of George Henry and Amelia, remained as head of the household until his death in 1953. Thus the Symons family were tenants of the farm for about 110 years. It is not known whether Norman George's widow, Winifred Emily who died in 1973, remained at Tanners after her husband's death. Ann Horrell Loosmore, wife of William Harris, was a daughter of James Loosmore of Crab Hayes, near Broadclist, whose wife Elizabeth Bowden had also been a Loosmore by birth. James was described as a gentleman, a title which was somewhat superior to that of yeoman and certainly superior to the common occupational titles of farmer or butcher. At first sight, one might assume that the Loosmores would expect young William Harris to make his advances at the tradesman's entrance but appearances may at times be deceptive. Ann's father had died in 1826 leaving his widow with six children to care for. James, the eldest, was then 15 and no doubt had an eye fixed on the family estates. Ann Horrell aged 14 was the next child, with 4 younger siblings. After about three years of widowhood, Ann's mother married William Veysey. Ann would have been approaching the age of 17 and possibly not very enthusiastic to accept the acquisition of a new father. Nothing is known of her movements before she married William Harris Symons at the venerable Church of St. Mary Major in Exeter on 25th July 1833. The young couple's first born duly arrived within ten months and they called him Henry John. He was born on 22nd May 1834 and Baptised at Whimple on May 30th. Two years later the young couple had a second son, John born in April 1836 and, alas, buried in May 1837. Ann by then was a widow for William Harris had died in September 1836. He was buried at the Rockbeare Church on 18th September 1836 and the register describes his place of abode as Rockbeare village. It would seem that at some stage prior to his death, and presumably because of an illness, he had been obliged to move his family from Whimple to Rockbeare, perhaps into the care of his mother, Ann. She meanwhile would scarcely have given up mourning the loss of William Harris' twin sister, Elizabeth Harris, who had died on 3rd August 1835. Ann Horrell was indeed left in a parlous plight and she must have been grateful for the presence of her mother-in-law, already skilled in surmounting the problems of young widows. Ann remarried to John Jarvis Tripe at the Church of Heavitree Exeter on 23rd May 1838, one day after Henry John's fourth birthday. John Jarvis would have been no stranger to Rockbeare where his father, Richard, was a baker but at this time he seems to be well established at Brook Farm Sidbury and it is to that farm that he took his new bride, complete with her son Henry John who became a companion for John Jarvis's son James who was of much the same age. John Jarvis's first marriage had also produced a daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1832 and died in 1934! His new marriage was a fruitful one. Over the next few years Henry John acquired three new half-sisters and two half-brothers. John Jarvis described himself as a yeoman, which may indicate that he was the owner of the freehold known as Brook Farm and that any members of the Loosemore family who may have been inclined to decry Ann's descent into trade in marrying a butcher would now be able to view with approval her step back up the social ladder. No doubt there were some who took pleasure in noting the appropriateness of a butcher's widow selecting someone named Tripe. The cousins, William and Henry John were of much the same age - William was about 8 months older - but they could have had little opportunity to grow up together. On the day after his fourth birthday Henry John was on his way to Sidbury, which was a significant distance from Rockbeare as the horse and trap go. It is very likely that William matured with his heart set on migrating to Australia. One can readily imagine him contemplating future possibilities in Devonshire and counting the cost of establishing himself independently of his father before the time came to step into his shoes by inheritance. The golden prospects of life in Australia had been widely publicised throughout Great Britain by the 1850's and William might well have discovered that if he had been a pauper the Parish would have offered to help him on his way. As it was, he must have found that he could obtain an assisted passage as a farm labourer seeking employment in Australia on payment of a fee of two pounds. It would have been necessary for him to establish his suitability as a migrant and to bind himself to compensate the authorities for the wastage of the costs of his passage if he failed to remain in the Colony for four years. This would involve the payment of three pounds for every year or part of a year by which he failed to discharge this obligation. And yet, although obliged to stay in the Colony for four years, he would not be obliged to help relieve the shortage of labour which had been the ostensible reason for the Assisted Passage Scheme. It would be up to him to decide what to do on arrival but as he had no doubt heard reports of the discovery of gold in New South Wales and in what was to become the Ballarat goldfields by the time of his embarkation, he would have realised that on arrival his services would be likely to be able to be offered on a sellers' market. In addition to his contribution to the cost of the voyage, he would have been advised that he needed to provide some spending money for use on arrival and to take with him an appropriate quantity of clothing. For males, Her Majesty's Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners decreed that a sufficient stock of clothing comprised six shirts, six pairs of stockings, two ditto shoes, two complete suits of exterior clothing, "with sheets, towels and soap". It was pointed out that as the emigrants had always to pass through very hot and very cold weather during their voyage lasting about four months, they should be prepared for weather of both types, three serge shirts were strongly recommended. The quantity of baggage was limited to twenty cubic feet and mattresses and feather beds would not be taken. As an assisted migrant William would have had no say about the ship in which he was to sail or about the course which it was to take. He would have been given the alternative of boarding it in London or in Plymouth and it would be up to him to get himself to the place of embarkation at his own expense, unless he could persuade the Parish to help him, as it did on occasion in the case of sufficiently impoverished applicants. William could not have done better, if he had had a free choice of the ship in which he wished to travel. He was allocated a passage on the DOMINION, which set sail from Plymouth on June 28th, 1852. Her voyage had begun from Gravesend a few days earlier. Altogether 257 passengers completed the journey to Portland. Amazingly there was not a single occasion when the hatches had to be closed because of rough weather and she arrived at Portland Bay on October 9th after a voyage from Plymouth of 103 days. The passengers had to contain their impatience for a further two nights before they were allowed ashore. When finally the flag on the main masthead indicated that the passengers were open for offers of employment, small boats pushed off from the shore and soon the decks were crowded with prospective employers. Most immigrants were engaged at wages which were equal to or higher than usual and this was said to have made them a little choosy. One single man was said to have refused thirty five pounds a year with rations. We don't know whether it was William but he certainly was one of those who elected to set out on shore "on his own account". So also was Number 232 on the Passenger list, one Thomas Tuttle with whom William had struck up a friendship. This may suggest that they had been assigned neighbouring berths on the ship. In any event their friendship continued. William's movements after he disembarked are unknown but it is clear that he and Thomas Tuttle made their way to Ballarat. Tuttle had been a bricklayer by occupation and he would have found no difficulty in obtaining worth while employment in the burgeoning township. William is thought to have been engaged in carrying activities before setting himself up as a dairy-farmer somewhere west of the settlement. It seems not unlikely that while thus engaged he would have become aware of the activities of one Joshua Ware who had set himself up as a butcher at "the swamp" near what was to become the corner of Wendouree Parade and Macarthur Street. William had come from a butchering family and could have seen Ware's activities as being possibly of some interest to his cousin Henry John. There is a tradition in one branch of our family which has it that Henry John's decision to migrate to Australia was at least influenced by William's example. At the time of the 1851 census, Henry John was at Clist St George with the Page family, described as a nephew aged 16, farm servant, born at Whimple, and could well have been gaining valuable experience which he was able to put to good use in his future business in Ballarat. Certainly the two cousins came together in Ballarat and it seems unlikely that this would have been purely by chance. It is even conceivable that William met Henry John in Melbourne and transported him to Ballarat. It is known that he performed this service in August 1858 when Thomas Tuttle's sister arrived in the CYCLONE. The consequences of this friendly gesture were to be lasting. Three years later William Symons and Ellen Tuttle were married and their union lasted until Ellen's death in 1900. William died at Lake Rowan on 31st October 1903. Henry John did not follow William's example as an assisted migrant. He may not have been encouraged by the terms of the formal Application which he would have been required to sign. They included an acknowledgment "that the privilege of a Passage, if granted, will be allowed me in the faith that I really belong to the working class, am of good character and that I go to the colony intending to work there for wages." Subsequent events seem to indicate that, although he would have been well aware that wages in the Colony were likely to be much higher than those at home, he would not willingly contemplate the prospect of being a wage earner in the land of limitless opportunity. As a fare-paying passenger, Henry John had the advantage of being able to select the ship in which he wished to travel. This was a matter which had received considerable publicity over the years - as for example in Sidney's Emigrants Journal in 1848, where intending travellers were counselled as follows: First - beware of runners; second - beware of dishonest passenger agents; third - chose a ship with good height between decks; fourth - choose a ship with high bulwarks; fifth - choose a ship with proper water closets; sixth - choose a ship with conveniences for cooking; seventh - see that the ship is properly loaded; eighth - see that the Captain and Mates have a good character. Henry John avoided several of these pitfalls by selecting the East Indiaman type merchant vessel NORTHUMBERLAND. On this particular voyage she seems to have carried only 23 passengers and one must assume that her owners found themselves able to fill the ship with a profitable payload in the form of cargo without having to rely on Government subsidised passengers in large numbers. By the time Henry John set sail, this broad round-bowed "tea wagon", capable of about ten knots in fair conditions, was being replaced in public esteem and in the record books by the American inspired clippers which were capable of up to twice the speed. The discovery of gold had led to a vast increase in the rate of migration and those involved in the rush to be rich were no doubt prepared to accept the discomforts of the clippers as a price worth paying for a speedier voyage. We will never know whether it was the lure of gold which attracted Henry John. Perhaps he had seen a reproduction of the drawing by S.T.Gill entitled "A Butcher's Shambles" dated 1852 and drawn at Adelaide Gully, Forest Creek. This would have made it clear to him that the establishment of a butchery on the diggings would not involve much in the way of capital expenditure for buildings and plant! Whatever his motive, Henry John set sail on 1st May 1857 as a third class passenger, one of eleven. One of the advantages of paying his own way would have been the ability to avoid the inconvenience and discomforts endured by assisted emigrants as they waited in overcrowded depots until their ships were ready to receive them. Henry John would have had a ticket which quoted a firm date of departure and which acknowledged his right to compensation in the form of subsistence money at the rate of one shilling per day if the ship did not sail on the appointed day. (Compensation was not payable, however, if bed and board were available on the ship.) Thus he would have been able to plan his departure in an orderly way. The journey to London need not have been particularly arduous, at least between Exeter and London, and can visualise him arriving at Paddington with his baggage, in good time to take a growler to the Blackwall rail before proceeding by train to the docks all on the same day. Having studied his ticket before departure, he would have felt confident that the ship would carry sufficient provisions to cater for the needs of her passengers for at least 140 days and that, in addition to any provisions which he carried himself (a subject on which he would have received a great deal of advice) he would be provided with specific weekly quantities of comestimables comprising Water 21 quarts, Biscuits 3½ lbs., Beef 1½ lb., pork 1 lb. (Second class passengers would receive 1½ lb.) Preserved meat ½ lb., flour 3 lbs., peas one Pint, Rice ½ lb., Butter 4 Ozs., Suet 4 ozs., Raisins 6 ozs., Tea 2 ozs., Sugar 1 lb., Preserved milk ½ pint, Pickles 1 Gill, Vinegar ½ Pint, Salt 2 ozs., Mustard ¼oz and Pepper ½ oz. NORTHUMBERLAND arrived in Melbourne on 27th August, 119 days out from London. Some of the time could have been taken up in a call at Plymouth for water, in preference to the dubious supplies available in London. It would be pleasant to be able to record that William was waiting to come aboard on arrival in Melbourne but the chances of this having happened are remote. He may have been expecting Henry John's arrival and may have known the name of the ship but almost certainly he would have had to rely on shipping reports in the Ballarat Star to confirm its arrival. Assistant Government Surveyor William S. Urquhart defined the site for Ballarat in late 1851, reserving an area of 1062 acres on a grassy plateau keeping well to the west of the Yarrowee River and the area already despoiled by the diggers. The authorities started selling land in their new town in August 1852, but it was not until March 1854 that Allotments 1, 2 and 3 were put up for sale, together with other land in the vicinity. Allotment 1 and allotment 28 were purchased by Thomas Brown the Younger of St. Enoch's. Allotment 28 lay immediately to the south of Allotment 1 and was separated from it by Gnarr creek, also known as Swamp creek, which had its source in the swamp. Brown made a shrewd purchase. He paid one hundred and thirty one pounds twelve shillings and sixpence for allotment one, which contained six acres and two roods and two hundred and fifty pounds eight shillings for allotment 28, which contained five acres one rood and thirty-one perches. Brown proceeded to subdivide his holding by creating two private streets - Lake Street leading from Macarthur Street along the eastern boundary of Allotment one and Exeter Street leading easterly from Wendouree Parade on a line which allowed room for residential blocks to be created between its southern boundary and the southern extremity of Allotment 28. The plan resulted in 28 individual lots being available for sale. Lots 10, 11, 12 and 15 were conveyed to Joshua Ware for a total of two hundred pounds on 1st December 1856. Henry John Symons would have been interested in the four lots owned by Joshua Ware. It seems not unlikely that when Joshua Ware purchased Lot 15, he would have liked additional adjacent land but had to settle for three lots to the South of lots 13 and 14. Ware would have been looking for additional holding capacity for stock destined for slaughter in his business and it seems likely that the actual butchery was set up on Lot 15. It has been conjectured that the selection of land near the swamp for the establishment of the business would have been made in the expectation that miners coming to the swamp for water would find it convenient to buy their meat at this location. No doubt the miners were a useful source of custom because water supplies at the flat were limited and polluted and, even though the swamp was over a mile away, it would be attractive to many of them. The Symons entry in The Cyclopaedia of Victoria, circa 1901, stated that he "made his way to Ballarat, where he found employment with Mr Joshua Ware, who at the time carried on a butchery business on the site of the present premises. In those days a bark hut constituted the establishment, and in two years time Mr Symons had become proprietor of the business, which he has carried on ever since." But it would not be correct to envisage the Ballarat of the time as being exclusively a mining community. When Urquhart received his original instructions to lay out the site of the town in 1851 the population was about 2000, mainly if not exclusively diggers and those who served their immediate needs. The figure had doubled in 1852 and had grown to 20,000 in 1853. Such a dramatic rate of growth could not be expected to continue but in 1857 the official Census put the figure at 26,200, excluding the Chinese! At that time the miners represented 43% of the workforce but by 1861 this percentage had dropped to 29 and it had declined further to 27% by 1871. Even in 1857, Ballarat had developed into a vigorous and diversified community, in which over one half of the working population was not directly engaged in the hunt for gold. The demands of a rapidly increasing population had generated an industrial and commercial infrastructure which seems to have established a state of relative self-sufficiency. Thus there were flour mills, breweries, foundries, brickworks, timber mills and even a gas works and the demand for provisions had encouraged rural industries over a fairly wide radius around the town. For example, there had been widespread settlement of rural areas to the north and the west. All the land in the Mount Rowan area, where H.J. was to become a fairly dominant influence, had been subdivided and sold by the Crown and Ballarat had become the focal point for the sale of sheep and cattle ranking only second to Melbourne. In fact for a time Ballarat outranked Melbourne as a market for the sale of sheep. Thus the site of Ware's butchery had become much more central to the potential market which it was destined to serve. It was not far from the Creswick Road and even closer to the main track towards Learmonth and the lush areas out beyond the newly established common and to the more remote riches of the Clunes district. Such was the demand for meat that it became profitable for graziers over a very wide radius to send their livestock to Ballarat for sale. No doubt his original premises would have been rudimentary. Weston Bate, in his "Lucky City" describes Bath's butchery at the Flat. "The butchery is a tent open to the elements and the flies. Outside it is a rail on which eleven carcases, presumably of sheep, are hanging without protection from the sun or the weather." Ware would very likely have erected something a little more permanent and its roof could very well have been made of bark. Hygiene would not have been a dominant consideration. After all Louis Pasteur was then only forming tentative conclusions about bacteria and the lack of sanitation was generally looked on as one of those unpleasant states of affairs which accompanied the spread of civilisation. In fact, it is very likely that Henry John observed nothing in Ballarat on his arrival which compared unfavourably with the generally unsanitary conditions which then applied in Exeter. On 27th February 1862, Henry John Symons purchased Lot 15 for the sum of One hundred and fifty pounds and on 21st January 1863 he purchased the remaining lots 10, 11 and 12 for the sum of One hundred and ninety pounds. Unless Henry John had brought some capital with him - perhaps from his mother - he seems to have done pretty well, for his mind could not have been occupied exclusively with the problems involved in taking over the business. On 2nd April 1861 he was married! He may have been aware of the old adage which had it that all a bridegroom needed was courage and the first week's rent but I suspect that his prospective brother-in-law, Frederick Browne, would have had to be satisfied that Henry John would be a good provider before he reported to his parents in far away Poplar that they could properly consent to the marriage of their daughter, twenty year old Mary Ann Browne to this young butcher from Devon. Her father's consent was duly given. The bride was 20 and the groom 28, according to the Marriage Register. The environment of the butcher’s shop would not necessarily have been entirely strange to Mary Ann. She had grown up close to a butcher’s shop in Poplar, the premises of Charles Watkins at 167 High Street, but the differences would have been much greater than the similarities. Poplar in those days was at the peak of its activities as a throbbing, thriving centre of service to the shipping industry and Charles would have had to have his supplies brought in. Henry John, on the other hand, would have done his own slaughtering on the premises and of course he had the advantage of a holding paddock not far away. Living behind the shop would have had its discomforts. My cousin Violet says that it was Mary Ann’s job to look after the shop while her husband had his dinner - and no doubt on other occasions too - and that the children of the district knew when was a good time to beg for scraps for their pets. Even in those days Henry John had acquired a reputation for sternness. Mary Ann soon had other interests to claim her attention. On 7th January 1862, clearly without wasting any time in the process of dynasty creation, she presented Henry John with his first born son, whom they named Henry William. Henry John was not exclusively occupied with the responsibilities of parenthood. On 21st January 1863 he completed the purchase of the balance of the land. There is no indication that he had to raise a loan to do it. Thus in less than two years he had been able to marry, found a family and save three hundred and forty pounds, as well as provide the working capital for his business. Lots 16 & 17 must have been an attractive target at which to aim, for Henry John succeeded in buying them in November 1864, for the cost of three hundred pounds. Privately he would have admitted that it was worth every penny, for it gave him a frontage of one hundred and sixty five feet to Macarthur Street and frontages to Wendouree Parade and Lake street of one hundred and thirty-two feet six inches on either side. The fact that it adjoined the property which he already owned gave it added value. Mary Ann presented Henry John with eleven children, the last being in 1882. Two had died in infancy but there would have been up to nine children living at home. Henry John relieved the accommodation problem by erecting the substantial weatherboard house at the corner of Wendouree Parade which became the family home for the rest of his life. This house was occupied by the diminishing residue of the family - those who remained unmarried - until 1922, when it was divided into two parts and transported to a site in the Creswick Road facing the Old Cemetery. As well as providing a home for the family, the house had an important use in the business. A commodious cellar had been created when the house was built. This had facilities for hanging a large quantity of meat and was intended to be used in extremely hot weather. Prior to 1890 all meat in stock was hung on rils in the shop and an impression of coolness was given by a fish pond in the middle of the shop, bedecked with ferns and a small fountain. In very hot weather the meat stocks were removed to the cellar. “This presented difficulties as, with a change of wind or weather conditions the meat might have to be shifted from shop to cellar at any time of the day or night." The shop had a frontage to Macarthur Street and was no doubt of state-of-the-art design. Behind the shop proper there was a building which housed the equipment necessary for the manufacture of the smallgoods which helped to make the Symons name famous in the district. The corner site provided comfortable space for the house and the shop with a carriage-way between them, which led to a yard which had been created out of Lot 16 and to the South of this, presumably in Lot 15, a two storeyed stable building was built running at right angles to Wendouree Parade and with appropriate entrances from a central courtyard, on the West side of which, backing on to Wendouree Parade, was a cart shed, with space for about seven carts side by side, backed in with shafts facing the courtyard. As time went on Henry John also succeeded in purchasing all the land between Macarthur Street and Devon Street, which provided him with reasonably adequate accommodation for the horses which were required for the growing business. And as time went on the Swamp became Lake Wendouree and Wendouree Parade became the fashinable promenade. The 1870’s had seen considerable progress in the cleaning up of Ballarat’s unsanitary condition and considerable pressure on the noxious industries to reposition themselves beyond the city boundaries. Henry John had seen the inevitability of the removal of the slaughtering activities and the wisdom of taking action before being forced to do so. It seemed sensible to buy as many acres as he could afford in a convenient situation as close to the town as possible, which could accommodate a slaughterhouse and associated facilities and provide useful pasture in addition. One possibility was the acquisition of land set aside by the Crown for use under the Goldfields Residence and Cultivation Licence procedure which had been developed to provide accommodation for miners and their families. Henry John might seem to have been an unlikely candidate for this facility but the Parish plan shows that in 1873 he was the grantee of Licences for several allotments totalling in all about fifty acres in a subdivision on the Western side of Forest Street, Mount Rowan a little to the South of Olliers Road. This holding extended from Forest Street to Gillies Street, except for two lots which apparently were not released until 1909 when, according to the Plan, they were granted to H.W.Symons (my father.) He also acquired allotments 19 and 24 comprising some 114 acres on the other side of Forest Street, on which he built a house and stockyards and a slaughterhouse. Later he was to extend his holdings in the Mount Rowan area until he had, altogether, over 1000 acres of first class arable land. William Symons remained in the Ballarat area for some years. On 5th August 1861, perhaps encouraged by Henry John’s example in April, he married his friend Thomas Tuttle’s sister Ellen. Like Henry John and Mary Ann he avoided a church wedding. In what must have been a relatively rare ceremony at the time, they were married at the Ballarat Registry Office. Both were described as being of the Church of England, he was a farmer and she was a servant. They had two children, John who was born in June 1862 and George who was born on 26th December 1863. William and family left the Ballarat district in 1878 and settled at Lake Rowan, in the Goulburn valley, after making a successful application for a Grant of Land. His branch of the Symons family has retained ownership of the property down to this day. Henry John would have had difficulty in believing that one of its uses over 100 years later would be the farming of ostriches. 1879 would be the year in which Henry John went Home, to see his mother and, no doubt, to demonstrate to all and sundry the outward and visible signs of his success in the Colony. It could be a good time to go. There were as yet no signs of any more children on the way, who would make it difficult for him to leave Mary Ann and she, of course, would readily understand that it was her bounden duty to remain at home and care for her children. He could also rely on her to keep a good eye on the business. His mother was by then probably living at Myrtle Cottage, Leigh Road, Chulmleigh and possibly finding John Jarvis Tripe a bit of a handful at 86 years of age. She still had Jane Loosemore at home to give her support. Henry John, in his reverie, may have enjoyed in anticipation the prospect of taking his mother some token of his association with Ballarat. A gold brooch made from Ballarat gold would be appropriate. He certainly carried out his resolve to give one to his mother. It is still in her family. We do not know whether Henry John found his trip a broadening experience or whether he brought back with him any ideas which may have been of use in the business. He would have had a good opportunity to compare and contrast the farming practices of his step-brother, James Tripe farming 320 acres at the Parsonage farm, Chulmleigh, on which he employed three men. If he had time to visit his cousins at Rockbeare, he would have found his cousin John in charge at Tanners, now slightly reduced to about 142 acres. No doubt there would have been long and learned discussions about the merits of the various types of harvesting equipment which were then coming on to the scene both in England and in Australia and it would be interesting to know whether Henry John decided that the Ballarat products compared well with those at “Home”. Mechanical threshing was one of the developments which could have been discussed. Over the years many different types of hand or horse operated machines had been invented but by the time of Henry John’s visit steam was being put to use. Henry John would have believed that his land was better suited to the practice of harvesting with a reaper and binder, stooking the sheaves and building haystacks when the sheaves had dried out sufficiently than to the use of header-harvesters and the like. Not so very long after his return to Ballarat, the Ballarat Courier was able to report that Mr H.J.Symons of Wendouree Pde. at his farm, Mt. Rowan, had threshed “this season 100 bushels of oates per acre. The farm is a model of scientific farming, manuring and good drainage.” His estate at Mount Rowan was used to fatten cattle and sheep for the shop and to breed and pasture horses for use in the business. It was also used for cropping - principally oats. There was a ready market for any hay grown which was surplus to the needs of the business. The horses bred at the farm were of the spirited Arab type and Norman says that the best and the fastest were reserved for the use of Henry John as buggy horses for his frequent trips to the farm. “On picnic race days at Burrumbeet, Dowling Forest or Lal Lal, he was always keen for competition with other drivers - his wife at his side in her long black dress and a gossamer tied over her hat.” On weekends and holidays, the delivery horses were taken to the horse paddock in Wendouree Parade for a rest but periodically they were exchanged with others from the farm for a longer spell. Horses being sent to the farm were simply turned loose to make their own way to Mount Rowan, which was home to them. They would trot round the margin of Lake Wendouree to Forest Street and on to the farm, about three miles away. Replacements were less willing! They had to be led in by farm hands. A dramatic event is well entrenched in the folklore of several branches of the family. As Norman describes it “One Saturday night, a car broke down the horsepaddock fence and early next morning the horses escaped and made for the farm. The Forest Street railway gates were always closed at dusk but unfortunately a pedestrian gate was left open and allowed the horses to get on the line just as the Adelaide express was approaching. Four horses were killed and several others were injured.” In 1890 a dramatic change was made in Macarthur Street. The decorative fountain was removed from the shop and two cool rooms were erected. These were built of brick, with cavity walls in which wood shavings were used for insulation. Above the ceiling of these rooms was an iron tank about three feet deep, designed to be filled with a brine solution, which was cooled by means of coils of pipes through which compressed ammonia was forced. Power was supplied by a single-cylinder “Tangie” mine engine and boiler. The brick chimney can now be seen at Sovereign Hill. Henry John returned home again in 1892. This time he would be heading for Torquay rather than Chulmleigh. His step-father had been dead for several years and his mother now lived with her daughter, Elizabeth Dendle. His half-sister Jane Loosemore Tripe who had lived at home with her parents probably for more years than she would have preferred, had at last felt free to marry when her father died. He was 90 when he died and could very well have been more than a handful for his wife, without Jane’s assistance. And of all people, Jane had married John Symons of Tanners Farm, brother of William Symons now establishing a dynasty of his own at Lake Rowan here in Australia! Jane would have been 38 when she married and she and John lost no time in producing a brace of offspring - John Loosemore Symons in 1885 and Lewis Tripe Symons in 1888. They were now established at Lower Southwood and he would be able to visit them there fairly conveniently from Torquay. He would have a lot to tell his mother but she would have more questions than he could imagine. His eldest son, Henry William, now generally referred to as Harry, had just turned thirty and was still unmarried. Henry John doubted if there was a woman in the colony who would be good enough for him. The business could safely be left in Harry’s care with Mary Ann looking over his shoulder. She, of course, could not expect to come with him. After all, there was the family to care for. Little Percy was not yet 10 and Val barely 17 months older. Arthur, now almost 15, would need a motherly eye kept on him. And then there was Fanny. She was not yet 17 and was the beautiful apple of his eye. If there was no woman good enough for Harry, certainly there was no man likely to be good enough for Fanny when the time came - which was not yet. (It did not occur to him that she might be University material when she left school at 15 to busy herself with maidenly accomplishments, such as painting and needlework.) He would be able to tell his mother proudly that Fanny had been Dux of the Girls School at Ballarat College in 1890. She was indeed a daughter to be proud of, even though he said it himself but alas she was his only daughter. Little Mary Ann had died in 1876, aged 10, and Priscilla was only 7 months old when she died in 1873. Amongst the boys there was a mixed bag. Next after Harry came Alfred. Henry John would find it difficult to report favourably about him, because he had left the nest and the wise parental guidance which was his entitlement. It may well be that he was not even sure where Alfred was. A report on William might also involve some difficulty. He had had the effrontery to run away from home at 15 and now, at 23, he was a mountain horseman, one of the famous riders in the rugged North East well known to readers of the Bulletin through the writing of men like Banjo Patterson. (The Man from Snowy River had not yet been written. It appeared in 1895.) Walter came next after William and had settled well into the business. He was already full of ideas about how it could be expanded but the really good thing was that he and Harry seemed to get on well together despite the disparity in their ages. Walter was just on 22, eight years Harry’s junior, and 7 years older than Arthur, who, by the way, was already showing aptitude for involvement in the new fangled steam engine and other engineering equipment now used in the business. On 1st October 1893 the Corporation styled the President, Councillors and Ratepayers of the Shire of Ballarat formally executed an Agreement with Henry John Symons of Wendouree whereby Henry John Symons agreed to permit the shire to cut a drain through Allotments 14 and 15 in the Parish of Ballarat for the purpose of improving drainage of land to the North and West by means of the Burrumbeet Creek. This document would have been executed at the first meeting of the Council for the Municipal year beginning on that day and this meeting would have been the first meeting attended by a new Councillor, Henry William Symons who on that day began a term of office which was to continue for 21 years. It must have brought Henry John up with a bit of a jolt to learn that his son had been invited to stand for election and, perhaps more particularly, that he had been elected unopposed. He could not have known that this would be the first of seven unopposed successive three year terms. To be eligible for election Harry would have had to be on the roll of ratepayers. Possibly he relied on his ownership of. the Goldfields Residence and Cultivation Licence which I have already referred to. His father, of course, was a substantial ratepayer in the Shire but, as he was still technically a sole trader, his holding would not confer any entitlement on Harry although no doubt by then he was to all intents and purposes a joint occupier. Harry was Shire President in 1898-99 and then again in 1904-5 and 1910-11. His mother died just after the completion of his first Presidential term of office and his father died during his third term. Before her death Mary Ann had suffered at least two bereavements. Her son Alfred died on 9th August 1894, it is thought in Queensland at the age of 34. And then on 25th December 1898 her brother, Frederick Vincent Browne died at Yendon at the age of 59 and was buried at the Ballarat Old Cemetery. Mary Ann was 59 when she died and she had been far from well for a long time, which is not surprising when one considers the stresses of twelve pregnancies and the management of a household which must have been far from easy to control. It seems reasonable to imagine that Fanny was called on to bear much of the brunt of the family dislocation caused by her mother's illness and death and to suspect that she must have had cause to contemplate her own likely future in these melancholy circumstances. There they were, the old man and five of his sons all at home and no doubt reluctant to take any part in what they would have seen as woman's work. By then she was 25 and, despite her talents, untrained for any other means of earning a living. She could reasonably contemplate the possibility of the boys marrying and leaving home as time went on. Walter was already showing signs of doing so, when he could afford it, following the example of William who came home for long enough to woo and win Violet Flack from Ballan, daughter of Fanny Breese that was, Mary Ann's old friend. William and Violet were married on 11th September 1901 and went off to Gippsland to run the Cobungra Hotel. This was a venture which did not last long. When Fanny Flack went to visit her daughter and saw the conditions under which they were working and living she lost no time in commanding their return to Ballan. Meantime their first born had arrived, at Omeo on 9th April 1903. According to our cousin Violet, when Henry John heard that Violet was expecting he sent word to Violet that if the baby was a boy he should not be called George, as there had never been a satisfactory George Symons. There seems little evidence in the Symons family tree which would support this contention and it seems more likely that the old man was anxious that the child should not be named after old George Flack, for whom he did not have a high regard. He can not have been happy when the baby arrived and was duly Christened George. Meanwhile Fanny had become the second Symons child to commit matrimony, with Walter marrying Mary Ballantyne soon after. Fanny married to Charles Capp on January 26th, 1902 and the old man was far from pleased about it. Not only was he losing a housekeeper but he was gaining a son-in-law of whom he declined to approve. Family lore had it that the old man, as a wedding present, gave them a one-way ticket to South Africa and two hundred pounds. This may not seem to have been a particularly munificent dowry but, in current terms, the cash component would have been the equivalent of considerably more than the basic wage for a year and thus worth several thousand dollars. The one-way ticket is suggestive of banishment but I for one would not be disposed to put this interpretation on what could well have been a very acceptable arrangement. After all, if they intended to make their future home in South Africa there would have been little point in giving them a return ticket. By 1907 even the old man had reached the conclusion that it was time to make a change in the structure of the business. After all by then Harry was 45, Walter 38, Arthur 30, Val 26 and young Percy 25. They were all entitled, in a way, to feel that they should have a stake in the business. And so, towards the end of the year Henry John instructed his solicitors to prepare a partnership agreement. In doing this he was very likely entitled to see himself as a leader of thought. In family businesses it was by no means uncommon for the founding father to hang on to ownership and control until death took them away. Particularly in rural areas this was a state of mind which was still well entrenched in the nineteen-forties when I practised the law and it was only the impact of war time taxation and the prospect of death duties which led to the acceptance of the virtues of income splitting and estate planning. There was no particular need for income splitting as a means of reducing taxation in 1907 and techniques of duty avoidance were rarely used. Under the new arrangement he would keep a quarter share himself, Harry would also have a quarter and the remaining half would be divided equally between the other four boys. Thus Harry would have twice as much as any of them. He would recognise Walter's special needs. The "boys" who were living at home would each be entitled to draw in cash each week the sum of one pound ten shillings for personal expenses. For a partner who resided elsewhere the weekly amount would be Two pounds. Presumably these drawings would have to be brought into account when the annual profit was struck and divided. The partnership would be entitled to use his land but he had no intention of giving the other partners a share in it at that time. There is also an indication of a reluctance to yield up control in the provision that all cheques on the partnership bank account had to be signed by Henry John and countersigned by any one of the other partners. By 1911 the business had become a substantial one, even though it continued to be operated from one central site. Devon Street had been created and Lake Street extended to meet it and Arthur had been able to buy himself a building block in Devon Street more or less opposite the end of Lake Street and to build himself a very nice home on it. Perhaps the partnership agreement had given him the financial muscle to arrange for this to be done. Molly, his eldest, was born in August 1910. Valentine may well have beaten him to the altar as Harold, his elder son, was born in September 1909. So it was just as well that the business was a substantial one, with all those extra mouths to feed. But the company in the old home in Wendouree Parade was progressively reducing in the process and in April 1911 Harry had done the unthinkable. He also had committed matrimony and moved to a cottage in Lake Street at the ripe age of 49! The old man and Percy were left to rattle round in the old house, though not for long because Henry John died on 3rd November 1911. The cause of his death was pernicious anaemia, suffered for 10 months. In 1911 there was no known cure and, in fact, no effective palliative for this dread disease. It is a piquant thought that the first effective treatment would have been conveniently at hand, if it had only been known at the time, but it was not until 1926 that the effectiveness of copious quantities of raw liver was discovered. Henry John's death was duly recorded on the memorial tablet which still graces the walls of the Old Colonists Club in Lydiard Street. This records the passing of all the pioneer members of the Association. The family also donated the cost of a stone pulpit as a memorial to their parents in St. Peter's Church in Sturt Street. I think it would be fair to say that it was as a farmer that he achieved major success. The prosperity of the butchery must have been very largely due to the trading flexibility which the farm enabled him to enjoy. Whereas the average butcher would have had to rely on the week to week vagaries of the market for the cost and quality of his supplies, the firm of H.J.Symons could afford to buy ahead, fatten its own purchases, travel the countryside and buy appropriate quantities direct from the property of the producers and insulate itself from the pressures of market fluctuations, unless the state of the market indicated that it was a good time to buy at auction. Thus the next generation inherited a well established, well run business and they must soon have demonstrated that they would be able to carry it on successfully. They were virtually living in each others' pockets and it would be amazing if there were not occasions when "cabin fever" set in. After a time Harry bought the delicensed shell of the Wheat Sheaf Hotel at the corner of Wendouree Parade and Exeter Street, demolished it and built himself a house there. Arthur built himself a new house in part of the "shop paddock" on Wendouree Parade, Percy built himself a new house at the corner of Wendouree Parade and Gnarr Street and, a little later on, Val built himself a new house at the Macarthur Street corner, on the site of the old family home. Walter was the odd man out in this exercise. He moved from Baird Street to a house in Windermere Street South, a move which must have caused him much more travelling time than his brothers had to expend. They were all substantial houses, as befitted successful men of business. They remained successful men of business throughout the war years and the booms and busts which followed them and the business was still very much unchanged in its modus operandi and stature when Harry and Walter retired in 1935. Harry was then 73 and Walter 65. The remaining brothers formed a company to take over the business and the corporate structure of H.J.Symons Pty Ltd no doubt proved handy as successively the places of deceased brothers were taken by their widows and the working members of the family came to include two grandsons, Arthur John, son of Arthur, and Norman Valentine, younger son of Valentine. They became the sole shareholders after the last of the widows died in 1970 but by then it had been decided to wind up the business and dispose of the assets. I am indebted to Norman for this report on subsequent events. "With such a diversity of assets, it was decided to auction the farm section and an auction was held at Craig's Hotel, Ballarat, on 4 December 1969 at 2.30 p.m. However, despite great interest no bids reached the reserve price, so it was agreed that a division of all assets of the company with the exception of 120 acres (Forest Street oto Creswick Road) be arrived at by mutual agreement. It was agreed that Arthur John should receive Alfredton, Monteith's, Ferguson's and Connelly's, with Norman Valentine to receive the shop property, Fisher's, the home paddocks and all improvements thereon. The 120 acres in Creswick Road south of the Ring Road was to be taken over by a syndicate of both families, subdivided and sold. "Although Arthur John died in 1982 the farm properties still remain in the possession of the two families but the shop and adjoining property was demolished by Norman Valentine in 1977 and replaced by six home units, the last of which was sold in 1978, thus ending 121 years of Symons ownership of the original area." And this should also be the point at which our story should end.

Last update: 10th January 2003