My good friend Michael Ball and I have been wondering about when did Jim Kelly get to Forbes
to collect Kate's children after her death?
Michael had this entry in his work-in-progress Kelly timeline:
cut and paste
On 15th December 1898 Catherine Foster, the infant baby of Kate and William that was born on
7 September 1898 dies. The [timeline] author, Michael Ball, got a copy
of the Death Certificate and it states that Catherine [Kate] Foster nee Kelly was her mother, her father William Foster, a labourer, was the informant of the death and that baby Catherine died aged 3 months on 15 December 1898 and she died from Debilitas at Forbes. Debilitas
was a former medical term for weakened and enfeebled condition. The baby was being cared for by Kate's neighbour Susan Hurley from just before Kate disappeared so she probably kept looking after the child until she died. Jim may have thought that the baby was too feeble to
make the 400 mile trip in his wagon back to Greta with the other 3 children and that it was in better care with the neighbour. The other piece of information on the Death Certificate was that the Doctor, F. Calder, had last seen the baby on 6 December and that she had the
condition for 3 months, so she was probably sick from birth. However, Jim Kelly when he spoke to Brian Cookson, the Sydney Journalist in 1911 said "there was no one with her when she had her last baby, only the children. The husband was away.. they found her dead in a waterhole. the doctor said it was milk fever, and she had gone mad. the baby did not live..both were dead and buried when I got there.. though I hurried, Yes I hurried. Oh God." Well either Jim never got to Forbes till after 15th December which meant that if it only took 6 days to travel from Greta he received the telegram in early December or he did get there in October and chose to leave the baby with the neighbour or the NSW Births Deaths and Marriage records are wrong!!!!
end of cut and paste
Ok, me again:
If Kate was last seen on October 5 (1898) and her body was found on October 14, it
would seem likely that a telegram would be dispatched quickly to her family, right?
In B.W. Cookson's "Kelly Gang From Within" newspaper series Mrs. Kelly said:
"It was more than 10 years ago [note that Cookson did the interviews
in 1910, but were published in late 1911) that Jim one day found a
telegram waiting for him at the post-office with the news that Kate
had died....We had very little money, but Jim had his waggon team, so
he harnessed up his horses straight off and set out for Forbes. It was
400 miles away. He got there in six days, and was home again in
another seven..."
If the telegram was sent in a timely manner, then how long before it
was picked it up? If he hurried there as soon as he got word of Kate's
death and made it to Forbes in 6 days and Kate and baby Catherine were
both already buried it makes it sound like it had to have been in mid
December (after the 15th and the death of the baby) when he got there.
If Kate was found dead approximately two months earlier, then that
makes for quite a discrepancy in time, does it not?
Long ago I had read somewhere that Jim stayed a few weeks in Forbes in
a certain street (maybe Brown Street?) before returning....cannot find
that reference now..might have been some oral history off the rootsweb
site? Or did I just dream it? ;)
Maybe he got there in a rush, stayed a while, then rushed back after
that (as he had said it was drought and hard to find water and he had
only a little food for the trip, so one would not dawdle around on the
journey)?
As stated above in his timeline, Michael postulates that maybe the
baby was still alive when Jim arrived but that Jim took the other
children and left the possibly sick child that was unable to travel in
the care of the neighbour, Mrs. Hurley. That is one possibility that
would make for a more timely arrival after Kate's death. But why would
Jim emphatically say that the child had already died before he got
there? Then again, in Cookson Jim makes it sound like he himself was
there during the Fitzpatrick incident!
Speaking of discrepancy, Joseph Ashmead has a page or two on Jim going
to get the children..but, and there is always a but with him, he has
that Kate had 3 children, two girls and a boy and that the boy(!!!)
was just a baby when Kate died and that Jim brought the children back
home with him..Ashmead says: "Imagine the big burly fellow, holding
the little baby on a pillow on his knee, driving mile after mile..."
HELLO....the surviving son that Kate had was Frederick Foster who was
born in 1889!
Has anyone else wondered about all this?
WELCOME TO ELEVEN MILE CREEK. Thanks for visiting us. We hope to use this blog to bring news, views, nuggets and musings, some serious, some lighthearted, but all to do with all things associated with Ned Kelly.
One interesting sidelight to the saga of Jim's trip to Forbes is that the last male survivor of the poor impoverished Kellys was able to take two weeks off work and drive a wagon with six horses all that way, bringing back however many extra mouths there were to feed. The sceptic in me wonders about how someone with 'very little money' was able to come up with the cash to make such a journey on such short notice.
ReplyDeleteBut it was a very noble thing to do, no two ways about that. Adopting children, especially when you did not have any of your own and were, presumably, quite set in your ways, was no small proposition then. I think the paperwork involved would destroy the all but the most intrepid souls these days.
Good old Ashmead ... never misses a chance to be sentimental. And I would have thought to hold a baby on a pillow on your knee - even a nine year old one - could be a little tricky and a lot dangerous when driving a team of six horses.
Brian, where did you see about him hitching up six horses? Ellen said something about a waggon team..that is at least two horses. How big was this waggon? It is not exactly a Cobb & Co. coach! :)
ReplyDeleteIn Ashmead it says that a State Member saw Jim coming down the street with a hooded buggy and a pair [of horses] and he told him he was on his way to pick up Kate's children.
He did mention about not having much food for the trip. I wonder where he slept? Did he camp out? Surely he did not have money for a hotel if he had little money for food? Did he have friends along the way who sheltered him? Guess we will never know the depth of deprivation he suffered.
I am not sure what work he was doing in 1898 but in 1910 at the time of Cookson's interview he was a drover. Is that seasonal? Or daily? It said that his work took him from home for many weeks at a time.
I suppose family ties were very strong for him. You do what you have to do! I agree about how the adoption paperwork would be a nightmare these days! Red tape can strangle you! I remember watching an episode of the Highlander tv series and Duncan McLeod was having to pay someone for sophisticated forgeries of IDs, he said that in the old days (hundreds of years before in his immortal timeline) he could just go over the next mountain and easily assume a new identity! Those were the days!
Ouch, Sharon got me, but in dealings with her I never hesitate to admit that I am wrong. I misread 'horses' and 'six days' and got them mixed up somehow. Well, days and horses are much alike, aren't they? No? Oh well, good try ....
ReplyDeleteWhere did the State member see Jim? Forbes, or closer to home? It would be very easy to find out who that was and see if this provides anything of interest.
When I was in ninth grade, early in the year, my history teacher (incidentally, Mike Evans of National Party fame if anyone reading this is from Queensland) made us keep a scrapbook of news cuttings and I distinctly remember an item from the Brisbane Sunday Sun from circa February 1969 headed 'Honeymoon in the Kelly coach: 'A fine man' recalled'. I had forgotten about it until now, but will try and find it when I am next in Brisbane. Something else to hunt for.
Brian, no worries, you have caught me a few times on things, too! Better to be corrected by a friend than a foe, is it not? :)
ReplyDeleteRegarding the State Member who saw Jim on the way to Forbes, Ashmead has this:
"One of our respected State Members spent the greater part of his boyhood on the old creek within two miles of the Kellys, and of course knew them well. Many years ago he settled in the Murray District. He said he was in Wadonga [Wodonga] one day, and he saw a man driving a hooded buggy and pair up the street. The man drew in to the curb and sprang out of the trap and when he looked up he said “Why, it is my old friend, Harry” and Harry said “My old friend Jim.” They both expressed the pleasure at meeting. It seemed like old times over again, but Jim’s face was sad, and his eyes downcast."
I looked in the members of Victorian Parliament list for anyone named Harry during that era and there were four of them. One not born until 1898, so he is off the list. There was one born in 1875 and another born in 1877. They had yet to serve in Parliament by 1898, but seeing as how Ashmead wrote this manuscript circa 1922, maybe that is not problematic. The fourth on the list was born in 1862 (so he would have been a contemporary of Jim's, seeing as how he was born in 1859). He did spend some time being educated in England and had served in Parliament between 1889 and 1894. So it could be any of the latter three depending on if they lived at any point in childhood near the Kellys. If one goes looking for "Henry" (some folks named Henry are nicknamed Harry, aren't they?) then there are far more choices and the name Henry could be first, middle or last! Then again, it could just be a figment of Ashmead's imagination? Sort of like literary license? I will leave it to someone else to sort this mystery out. :)
That article has an intriguing title! Here's hoping you can find it and share!
Hmm, I take back what I said about the State Member being easy to find. The 1862-born member seems the likeliest, though, assuming that the pair were rough contemporaries. I am fairly certain that no one entered the Victorian Parliament at 21 or 23 in those days, and it is rare enough now. The youngest ever member of the Federal (or any other Australian) Parliament, Wyatt Roy, has just taken his seat at 20. Lawrence Springborg in the Queensland Parliament took his seat at 21, but I think he was a little older than another 21 year old, way back.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the name of the 1862 born parliamentarian, Sharon? I might be able to do some digging here.
Here is the info I was able to glean as to the possible person Jim encountered on the trip..
ReplyDeleteArmytage, Harry (19 June 1862 - 27 May 1933)
House - MLA
Electorate - Grant
Start - April 1889
End - September 1894