Tales of the Wimbriatta

Wimbriatta cannot be found. At least, not with that name. 

An exploration of the life of its author, Frederic J. Davey, reveals clues but not confirmation. Davey was born in the Cornish town of Tuckingmill, an only son with seven sisters, in 1850. [1] After his 20th birthday, he migrated to Auckland in New Zealand on his own to seek work as an architect / draughtsman. The reclamation of Auckland Harbour was underway and offered employment.

New Zealand Herald, 8 March 1871, p.2

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18710308.2.10

Daily Southern Cross, 13 February 1871, p.1

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DSC18710213.2.2.3

While in Auckland, Davey met his future wife Robinah Hooper, a London-born immigrant who travelled to New Zealand with her family. Her older brother James became an actor and comedian. He appeared at the Theatre Royal, a short-lived theatre north of the Bombay Hills. It is likely that Frederic and Robinah met at the Theatre as six months after his arrival, he launched a play.

Described as a 'new local farce', the play was titled "Potagold's Peep, or Sammy Come Home". One of the jokes centred around the Queen Street sewer. A newspaper of the day referred to it as "The main sewer nuisance". The title of the play was also a puzzle, until I heard the name Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peeps)  mentioned in passing. He was an English diarist who wrote about the state of the London sewerage system in the 17th century. There is no doubt that Davey was a scholar, but he was also unwell. 

With work on the Harbour coming to an end and his health not improving, Davey, his wife, and son Albert migrated to Sydney in July 1877 on the Rotorua. He joined the Colonial Architect's office. 

Australian Town & Country Journal, 14 July 1877, p.31

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70607378

But the climate in Sydney was not dissimilar to the climate in Auckland, so after the birth of a daughter, the family moved north to the Tweed River. Davey resumed his architectural career, and was instrumental in designing public buildings in Tweed Heads including pubs and St Cuthbert's church. Another son and two daughters arrived between 1880 and 1888.

Despite this investment in the future, Davey paid a farewell visit to England in 1890 to see his mother Anna and his sisters. This journey may have helped to extend his life. Between 1900 and 1903, a series of articles appeared in the British journal Good Words. They were advertised as "Tales of the Australian bush", and noted in Davey's 1913 obituary as 'Tales of the Wimbriatta". [2]

It is not possible to search in text databases for the word Wimbriatta and find the articles; rather, a search of the author's name is required. So where is the Wimbriatta ? Almost every one of the nine articles detailing life on a river was accompanied by photographs, taken by one F. J. Davey. Some of the photographs include himself. 

The Last Pioneer, Good Words, Dec. 1903, pp.36-42
https://www.proquest.com/britishperiodicals/results/F0A7E4E58CC44A43PQ/

The Wimbriatta is Terranora. 

Davey's home at Terranora was known as Mighbyn, pronounced 'Mij-bin', and is most likely a reference to the local palm in the Bundjalung language. [3] Perhaps Wimbriatta will  eventually be located  in the same language. 

The nine articles in Good Words are:

Davey, F. J. (1900). A NEAR THING. Good Words, 41, 188-194.

Davey, F. J. (1900). "ORATOR" EXTON. Good Words, 41, 483-494.

Davey, F. J. (1900). THE CAVE. Good Words, 41, 738-747.

Davey, F. J. (1900). OUR LITTLE ALL. Good Words, 41, 846-852.

Davey, F. J. (1901). NO GREAT CATCH. Good Words, 42, 599-605.

Davey, F. J. (1902). A friend in need. Good Words, 43, 401-408.

Davey, F. J. (1902). A back seat. Good Words, 43, 577-585.

Davey, F. J. (1902). Coo-ee! Good Words, 43, 845-854.

Davey, F. J. (1903). The last pioneer. Good Words, 44, 36-42.



References

[1] English Birth Certificate #204, 11 September 1850, to Thomas Davey and Anna Heynes.

[2] British Periodicals, Good Words, December 1902, p.2; Advertisement. (1902). Good Words, 43, 2. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-periodicals/advertisement/docview/3445793/se-2

[3] Ian Fox, email communication, 2016. Other spellings were also used. 

Correcting the record

Recently I decided to cauterise my research into a spindly branch of the family tree. Despite emanating from a well-documented ancestor (i.e., a convict transported to Australia), the spindliness was due to his name. John Jones. It gave a sense of relief that here was one branch which had grown over a brick wall so high it was never to be scaled. 

As part of the decision to set aside the research, one last attempt was to be made to correct the metadata  distributed globally by British, American and Australian genealogical services. In particular, to excise the occurrence of the unsubstantiated addition of the name Michael.

When first investigating John Jones and his family, the occasional occurrence of his name as Michael John Jones or even John Michael Jones in other people's anecdotes or self-documented research did not trouble me much. The trial, hulk and transportation records; his marriage and death certificates and gravestone all clearly labelled my great-great-great-grandfather as John Jones.

And then, a few years ago while delving into the 1840s history of a small town in New South Wales, I found this gem:

PIONEER HISTORY (1925, July 22). 
Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), p. 7.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article93528050

The story teller was William Exton, brother to John Jones' wife Harriet Lancaster Exton. Although published long after the death of Jones in 1866, it gave an explanation for the introduction of the name Michael, albeit a curious one. Without studying the Bundjalung language of that time, or similar, it could be true. 

There was an earlier reference to Micky Jones in Trove:

Seventy-Five Years on the Richmond. (1922, September 2). 
Casino and Kyogle Courier and North Coast Advertiser (NSW : 1904 - 1932), p. 3.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234043933

One ( the only? ) official record in Australia of the name was an appearance on the death certificate of Jones' wife Harriet, where it was endorsed by her daughter Eleanor Atkin, and her obituary:

PERSONAL. (1915, August 20). 
Daily Examiner (Grafton, NSW : 1915 - 1954), p. 4.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194802986

Were family members merely endorsing a family legend ? But why Micky << >> Michael and not some other nickname ? The elapsed time between the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and 1915 is long enough to forget it. Until, as part of the process of verification, I found a record I'd never seen before:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C14607109

Was this the source of the name Micky ? The young men mentioned in this crime were both transported, separately, under their "aliases" of John Jones and William Robinson. There is no mention of an alias, which sometimes did appear in Government records. The other details seem to match all Australian documentation. [1]

Did John Jones try to reinvent himself on arrival ? It continued to happen in the 20th century, but was usually legitimised by a naturalisation process. 

Or were the petitions manufactured ? Certainly there was a young man named Michael Ralph who committed crimes in London, in the following year. 

Does one record outweigh the many ? Family historians who use the global genealogical services without triangulating original sources of information won't care. For a pedantic practitioner however, it's not good enough. Perhaps that's a gene not shared.

Footnote

[1] John Jones' transportable offence, described in the Convict Indent as Assisting in rescue of a prisoner, seems quite unusual. Not the same as the original indictment, Stealing from a dwelling house 112 yards of worsted cloth. The dwelling house was a storehouse for a materials trader. This crime seems to have been instigated by the other young man, and the event could be interpreted different ways. Perhaps this was why Jones' Certificate of Freedom was issued after seven years from the original 10 of "incarceration" imposed ? 

A swoop of Seagulls

Although their colours were described in the first issue of the relaunched school magazine The Seagull in 1962, the rugby league socks were not. 

Socks in TRHS school colours worn for the last time in 1975.
A new black and green colour scheme was introduced in the following year. 

The Seagull was launched in 1957 by the Tweed Heads Intermediate High School. The cover echoes the design work of the Art Teacher, Gordon Drummond Story (sometimes Storey), for the school badge. 

Image used as the front cover of the Seagull from 1957 until 1965.
It was then replaced by various renditions of a seagull and student art until 2015.

The design was explained in the November 1962 issue as "the Seagull with wings outspread against a sky-blue background above the white-capped waves rolling shorewards. A Fish portrayed the valley's most important and profitable industry, which today still plays a big part in the lives of the community."  

A few years later, to cope with a growing community, a new site at South Tweed Heads was chosen for a larger secondary school. The newly renamed Tweed River High School was opened in October 1961, but The Seagull was not published in that year. Rather, a commemorative programme was published.[1] The magazine resumed the following year. 

It is possible to read all published issues of Seagull in Trove. Searching for the name of someone who attended either High School, or just using the word seagull with a year in the Magazines and Newsletters tab, makes a good starting point. 

Despite best efforts to effect a virtual representation of the whole series, there is a strange separation of digitised Seagulls, wrought by a traditional interpretation of what constitutes a collection. Issues held by the National Library are viewable at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3140364009 and issues loaned to the Library are viewable at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3283749708. It is necessary to peruse both to see all covers. Nevertheless, their co-location exemplifies the power of Trove to provide a single point of access to a physically separated set of issues. 

The 'Browse this collection' button on the resting page for each subset shows the delightful range of covers as the magazine was taken over by the School's artists. 

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Tweed River High School's Library, the Tweed Regional Museum, and the Tweed Heads Historical Society for providing the "missing" copies of The Seagull to be digitised and included in Trove in perpetuity. 

Footnote

[1] the 1961 programme in full (click on each image to read the details)

Copy of the programme for the opening of the Tweed River High School provided by
Denise Garrick, President, Tweed Heads Historical Society