William Trewin: 'Rhoda Mountjoy is my niece. She has been staying with me on a visit for about three weeks

herself to their view. To a silent crowd she sang Cornish songs. And as she sang, these big men of Cornwall wept. They did not applaud; they hid their faces from each other and went quietly away when she had finished.'

The following day she gave an impromptu concert at the Masonic Hall, singing only Cornish songs. At the end she was given an illuminated address and a diamond tiara. She retired from singing at her peak, in 1903, and died in Dublin in July 1945.

Something about this concert the Honeycombe brothers must have written in their monthly letters to their wives in Melbourne - in which some part of their wages would usually be enclosed. But not one of all the letters they must have written has survived.

In 1897 Jack's wife, Jane, was living with their four surviving children in Darling St, Footscray - Lilla Florence had died of convulsions, aged five months, in 1891. Tom's wife, Catherine, and her three children, were in Fergie St, North Fitzroy; and Fanny, Dick's wife, was with their four children in Suffolk St, Footscray.

As Fanny's fourth child, Richard Thomas, was not born until 29 September 1896, we may, according to Aunt Lil, fix his father's departure for South Africa until after that date. And as Jack's fifth and last child was born in March 1892, and as they had all arrived regularly up to then, we may assume that there was no sixth child because he was elsewhere.

Perhaps the timing of the three brothers' alleged arrival in South Africa should be: Tom-1892; Jack-1894; and Dick-1896. We can be fairly sure that all three were in Johannesburg in 1897, and that all three may have heard Fanny Moody-Manners sing.

Why all three stayed as long as they did in South Africa (particularly Tom) we do not know. Presumably they were earning good money - as well as having a good time in their spare time. Some of that money was sent to their wives in Melbourne. But for several years not enough was made, apparently, to pay for their families to join them in South Africa. Or perhaps the wives were reluctant to make the sea-journey with their children. There is a possibility that Tom returned on a visit. But the likelihood is that the three brothers were apart from their families for five years at least, and in Tom's case as long as eight.

Ernie Lawless said of Jack: 'He sent some money home. But he used to like his beer. His wife and children waited and waited. She wrote letters. But it was six years before he sent for them, and enough money for the voyage.'

Whatever plans Jack and Tom and Dick had for a return to Australia or a reunion with their families were, however, altered perforce in 1899 by the Boer War.

There had always been dissension, hostilities or war in southern Africa, since the Dutch established a permanent settlement at Cape Town in 1652. Assisted emigration swelled their numbers until what was basically a refreshment and refuelling port of call for passing ships became a genuine

173

colony, peopled by the Dutch and German ancestors of the Afrikaners of today, and by French Huguenots, who from 1688 were given free passage to the Cape provided the cost was repaid and their stay lasted for at least five years. By 1740 there were some 4,000 so-called free burghers at the Cape and 1,500 Company servants and officials.

Paul Kruger, who became president of the Transvaal in 1883 was openly hostile towards the 'Uitianders' (outsiders or foreigners) who crowded into the Orange Free State and the Transvaal seeking to prosper and benefit from the increasing discoveries of diamonds and gold. He revised the franchise, so that the newcomers, though heavily taxed, would have few rights as citizens: they would be second-class. The blacks of course were third-class, if anything at all.

In opposition to those demanding 'Africa for the Afrikaners' there arose an Imperialist party, championed by Cecil Rhodes, who became prime minister of the Cape Colony in 1890. In the Transvaal the political screws tightened on the Uitianders, whose petitions for equal rights for all white men were ignored. A section of them, encouraged by Rhodes, resorted to arms, and a small force led by Dr Leander Starr Jameson, invaded the Transvaal from Rhodesia on New Year's Eve, 1895. Dr Jameson, a Scot, had treated both President Kruger and the chief of the Matabele, Lobengula, whose land he had recently conquered. This time he failed, he and his force being routed and captured within a few days near Krugersdorp. Rhodes resigned as premier a few months later, in 1896. Kruger entered into an agreement with the Orange Free State aimed at achieving a united South Africa under a Dutch Republican Flag.

At the same time Johannesburg was declared a municipality run by a Town Council of Afrikaners, and containing (in 1897) about 590 hotels and bars, and almost as many brothels - of which the Honeycombe wives in Melbourne would have been happily unaware.

How aware were the Honeycombe brothers of the gathering political storm? Probably not much - there were too many other distractions, in addition

174

The storm broke when in October 1899 the Boers invaded the British colony of Natal. Within weeks the boisterous life of Johannesburg died away; thousands fled south by train and wagon; the gold-mines closed, and unaccustomed silence reigned.

What happened to Dick and Tom and Jack?

It is said that Jack remained in or near Johannesburg and was employed as a guard protecting the mines. There is a photograph of him, taken about 1900, that shows him in a khaki uniform minus any insignia, sporting a splendid moustache and a rakish hat with a tilted brim. Was this his military outfit for guarding the mines? Or did he perform some other military role?

Of Tom's situation nothing is known, except that he must have been a sick man by now, as he would die of phthisis two years later.

Dick became a stretcher-bearer. But whether he volunteered or was commandeered, we do not know. And he was not thus employed until March 1900, by which time Kimberley and Ladysmith, besieged by the Boers, had been relieved, and all the major battles had been fought, with more British disasters than victories at first, although the Boers were heavily outnumbered.

The Boers' maximum strength was 75,000 men, mainly drawn from a white population of 300,000. Great Britian had a population of 30 million, superior resources, and eventually had as many as 250,000 men in arms. Nonetheless, their losses were greater: 5,774 killed and over 22,800 wounded -against about 12,000 wounded Boers and 4,000 killed. Disease was a great destroyer of men on both sides, more so than bullets, bayonets or bombs. But useful lessons were learned during the war about the fatal heroics of cavalry charges, and of thick, colourful uniforms. Camouflage, trench warfare, commando units and smokeless gunpowder made their debut - as well as concentration camps, in which the British 'concentrated' and detained Boer families and their dependents, and wherein over 25,000 died, mainly of disease.

Banjo Paterson was a spectator of the war, reporting back to the Sydney Morning Herald on what he, as a journalist, saw. Another Australian versifier there was Lt Harry 'Breaker1 Morant: an Englishman who had emigrated to Queensland, he was court-marshalled for shooting Boer prisoners and, with another officer, was executed in February 1902 by a firing squad.

Somehow Dick Honeycombe ended up in Natal, where Winston Churchill, while a war correspondent, had been captured when the Boers attacked an armoured train. Imprisoned in Pretoria, Churchill later escaped, hiding on a goods train. Natal witnessed several bloody battles and the four-month siege of Ladysmith, which was relieved on 28 February by General Sir Redvers Buller, whose bumbling, bullish tactics had already caused considerable losses among

his own troops, at Colenso and Spionkop. Buller was replaced as the British commander-in-chief by Field-marshal Lord Roberts, who, accompanied by General Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff, arrived in Cape Town in January 1900.

On 13 March Roberts led his army into the capital of the Orange Free State, Bioemfontein. Mafeking was relieved on 4 May, and Roberts entered Johannesburg at the end of that month and Pretoria early in June.

Byron Farwell, in The Great Boer War, describes what happened there.

'As in Johannesburg, it was business as usual in spite of the war... One could sit down to dinner at the "best table in town" for five shillings. Hot and dusty farmers could come to the baths in Vermeulen Street and have a warm tub, a shower, or a swim... Still, the wide streets were unpaved. In the centre of town was Church Square, dominated by the Raadzaal [Town Hall] and the Dutch Reformed Church where Kruger had often preached. On Church Street, the principal thoroughfare, was the modest house of President Kruger. It was here on 29 May that Kruger had said good-bye to his dying wife, leaving her to the care of their daughter, who lived next door, and to the British. Unlike the loyal inhabitants of Bioemfontein, the citizens of Pretoria did not flee. Indeed, there now seemed no place for them to go. The wives of Botha, Lucas Meyer, Jan Smuts, and other Boer leaders remained in the town. Among the first soldiers to enter Pretoria were Winston Churchill and his cousin, the young Duke of Marlborough, who early in the morning on 5 June raced ahead of the troops to free the imprisoned [British] officers. Churchill and Marlborough were directed to a barbed wire enclosure on the edge of town. The prisoners called it "the bird cage." Here more than 100 officers were housed in a long shed with a corrugated zinc roof, the interior decorated with pictures cut from illustrated British magazines of the Queen, Lord Roberts, and celebrated actresses... When Churchill and Marlborough rounded a corner and saw the "bird cage," Churchill took off his hat and gave a cheer which was echoed by the prisoners, who came tumbling out of their barracks into the enclosure. Marlborough found the commandant and demanded the surrender of the prison. The gate was opened, the guards were made prisoners, and Lieutenant Cecil Grimshaw of the Dublin Fusiliers produced a Union Jack he had made... Early in the afternoon Roberts made a triumphal entry with his army: 25,531 officers and men, 6,971 horses, 116 guns, and 76 machine guns. Lord Roberts and his staff sat their horses in Church Square to review the troops. The released British officers lined the streets... The troops were tired, grimy and footsore... In Church Square the Union Jack which had been made by Lady Roberts and flown over Bioemfontein and Johannesburg was raised by the Duke of Westminster, an officer on Roberts' staff. The Reverend Batts watched the ceremony with emotion: "I saw a big Australian mop his eyes at the moment and I felt a lump in my throat."'

Australia's first Victoria Cross was won in July 1900 by an officer serving with the Medical Corps. Although the Boer War had nothing to do with the Australian colonies, they loyally and enthusiastically sent 1,200 men, with horses and equipment, to fight for and with Britain against the rebel Boers. Among them

176

was Lt Neville Howse, an Englishman, who had settled in New South Wales in 1889 and practised as a GP. At Vredefort in the Orange Free State he picked up a wounded soldier under heavy fire and carried him to safety. He was awarded the VC in 1901. Although English by birth he was serving with a Corps from New South Wales and was a citizen of the newly federated Australia. In later life he became Mayor of Orange in NSW and was knighted after the first World War. He died in England.

We know that Dick became a stretcher bearer for the British forces as his discharge certificate from the Corps was passed on to his grandson and preserved. After one year and 133 days of service he was discharged on 1 August 1901 at Peitermaritzburg, the certificate being signed by a Major LD Hay. Dick's character is described as 'Good'. More interestingly, a physical description is included. It says his age was 44 (which he would not in fact be true until September); that he was 5'3VS; that his complexion was dark, his eyes were blue, and his hair was 'grey shot black'. His trade is given as stonecutter, and his intended place of residence was Australia.

Although the war dragged on for two years, until May 1902, largely owing to the unremitting guerilla warfare carried on by the Boers, Dick Honeycombe was now bent on going home. And he returned to Melbourne, to his wife and four young children, in 1902 - probably after the war came to an end.

Tom was dead by then. It is possible that because of his illness, he never took any part in the Boer War. He may indeed have returned to Australia before the war began. For he died of phthisis, aged 41, at 69 Lee St, North Carlton, on 3 March 1901. His occupation was that of stonecutter, and the registrar was informed of the death by Tom's eldest son, George, who was now 19 and still living at home, as were the other two children, Elizabeth Mary, just 18, and Tom junior, now aged 12.

How Tom's widow, Catherine, coped with his death financially we can only surmise. But no doubt she, as well as her two eldest children, had jobs, and lived as frugally as she had done all her married life. Her son, George, must have been employed already as a clerk, which was his occupation when he married at the age of 33. And when the family moved to the adjacent suburb of Fitzroy after his father's death, George's future position as Town Clerk of Fitzroy was assured.

Back in South Africa, Jack Honeycombe, the youngest of the three Honeycombe brothers, had remained in or near Johannesburg during the closing stages of the Boer War.

Lord Kitchener was now in charge, Lord Roberts having returned to England at the end of 1900 after a successful campaign. In dealing with the hit-and-run attacks of the Boer commando units led by General De Wet, (Kruger

177

Yet Dick was a stretcher-bearer in Natal for a year and a half. In Natal, and far from Johannesburg. And although 'British' and 'Australian' could have been deemed the same in South Africa at that time, it is unlikely that Margaret Wighton would fill in the death notice form (as it seems from the handwriting she did) and write 'British' if she knew Philip's father came from Australia.

I think we can exonerate Dick, Tom and Jack from any (known) misdemeanours in South Africa, and that Philip's father was Fred. Or possibly a Hanecom.

The birth certificates of Philip, Violet and Richard Honeycomb might tell us otherwise. However, until we see them we can't be sure.

One other mystery that I encountered in Johannesburg in 1982 was not resolved until later that year.

I had learned that Jack's wife, Jane, died in April 1918. Ernie Lawless, her grandson, who was then six years old, recalled years later: 'She had this kidney complaint, or something. I can remember going into the bedroom and they had a district nurse there, or whatever it would be in those days. And she said: "No, you musn't allow children in." I can still remember the door opening and me peeping around the door. My mother and Auntie Rosie were in the room. But the nurse chased all of us out. She said: "She's dying. Let her die in peace.'"

Jane Honeycombe died in her home in Princes St, in the Mayfair suburb of Johannesburg. She was nearly 56 when she died; Jack was 56!4 Her will reveals that she owned two properties in Mayfair, Johannesburg, and left her husband and her four children, all of whom were married by then, about £175 each.

This sum probably enabled Jack to return to Australia in 1919. Perhaps he initially meant to stay there for six months or so. But he remained in Melbourne for the rest of a very long life, and never saw his children or grandchildren again - apart from his eldest daughter Olive, and his grandson, Ernie Lawless. They ventured to Melbourne in 1922, accompanied by Olive's husband, Jim Lawless, a former English soldier and a Londoner, who worked on the South African railways after the Boer War, as a conductor and then checker of freight.

One of the matters that must have inspired Olive's return was her father's remarriage, in May 1921. Even 60 years later there was something scandalous about it. For I was told by Jack's South African descendants that after he returned to Melbourne he married 'a very young girl'. There was also a suggestion that Jack had even married his brother's widow, or his wife's sister. Something like that.

182

She had married a John Honeycombe - but which one? She was also a Honeycombe, a daughter of the Dick who had gone to South Africa. Had she really married another Honeycombe? A cousin? Which one? When did she get married? Answer-in 1921.

I leafed through the Australian family trees I had drawn. Which John?

I stared at her. There could only be one, and she was his second wife.

She had married her Uncle Jack! Jack, at the age of 60, had married his brother's daughter; she was his niece.

183

Lilian Honeycombe's marriage to her uncle, John Honeycombs, was still a long way off in September 1897, when Richard and Elizabeth Honeycombe (now 68 and 75) celebrated their 50 years of marriage in Footscray.

Lil, the third and youngest daughter of Dick and Fanny Honeycombe, was then a mere three years old, and but one of the eleven grandchildren of Dirty Dick and his Scottish wife.

We presume there was a celebration in 76 Albert Street, or even at some local hotel. Fifty years was a long time in anyone's life, let alone as a wedded pair. Perhaps something was made of the coincidence of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. But as three of Dirty Dick's sons were in South Africa, and as the fourth and eldest, George, had no fondness for his father and lived in the far off and more salubrious suburb of South Yarra, perhaps any celebration excluded the three daughters-in-law, who also had young children, and was confined to the unmarried eldest daughter, Elizabeth Jane, soon to be 49, and the two youngest married daughters, Harriet (Mrs Joseph Steel) and Louisa (Mrs William Allen). Richard's second oldest daughter, Mary Ann (Mrs Charles Regelsen), lived in Benalla, and may have found the demands of her family and the journey to Footscray too much for her.

But Jane and Lawrence Mountjoy may have travelled to Melbourne from their affluent home in Geelong. For Jane, now 71, may have felt closer to her brother since their father's death at Wharparilla the previous year. It is also possible that Dirty Dick's youngest brother, John, came to Melbourne from Queensland about this time, finally abandoning his mentally unstable Irish wife and their six children in Charters Towers.

However, Richard's brothers and sisters, and his children, were never very close. His grand-daughter, Lil, said years later: 'None of us got together much. Not like they do now... We had a funny grandma and grandpa. They never wanted to see their grandchildren. Very peculiar. The whole family didn't want to meet up somehow. Everybody seemed so distant - you weren't good enough for some of them.

If there was a family gathering, which could also have included Dirty Dick's younger married sisters, Elizabeth (Mrs Charles Franklin) and Martha (Mrs Charles Chapman), it would have been the last involving this many of the Honeycombes, and especially those who had sailed to Australia in the early 1850's. The infirmities of age, distance and death would separate them the more in ten years' time, when the ageing Footscray couple's diamond wedding anniversary would safely come and go.

Footscray still smelt in 1897, as the tanneries, fertiliser factories, ropeworks and abattoirs continued to be the mainstay of local industries. Engineering works and foundries were on the increase, and in 1897 an explosion in an ammunition factory, where machinery and working practices were both deficient, resulted in the deaths of three girls. The top girls in this factory were earning 18 shillings for a 53 hour week, the lowest eight shillings (between one or two pennies an hour). The Factories and Shops Act of 1896 had reduced the weekly working hours of female shop assistants and boys younger than 16 to 52, and the half-holiday, on a Wednesday, had become compulsory. But it was not until 1909 that the half day was moved to Saturday, and became fixed as such.

By 1899 Victoria's economy had fully recovered from the depression, and employment figures were the same as those of 1893. Footscray was on the way to becoming the most highly industrialised part of Melbourne and would remain so up to the First World War. Labourers, however, were earning little more than seven shillings for an eight-hour day, and a labourer's family, of five persons, was spending on average about £1.12.6 a week on groceries, food and rent. Rates, lighting, heating, fares, clothes, household purchases, etc were extra.

Another and universal cause for celebration was the birth of Australia as a nation on 1 January 1901. The necessary Act and attendant legislation had been passed by the British Parliament in July 1900 and given Queen Victoria's official assent. But the proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia and the union of the six colonies was delayed until September, to allow Western Australia to fall in line.

At the end of December 1900, Edmund Barton became Australia's first Prime Minister, heading a ministry that included Sir John Forrest, Sir Philip Fysh, Sir William Lyne and Alfred Deakin, and governing a population of 3.8 million whites. Half a million of them, arriving by ferry, tram and train, packing into Sydney on New Year's Day for a varied programme of ceremonies, speeches, processions and feasts. Flags and banners flew and fireworks exploded; buildings were outlined in electric light, which illuminated the new nation's slogan - 'One People, One Destiny'.