A Wild Colonial Boy

James Walter, the second son of Walter and Mary Adams, was born in Maryborough in 1860. He was a lad of 11 years when the family moved to the Woongarra Scrub. He grew up with the development of the family’s fortunes in the district but, because of age, would have played a minor role in the early days of establishment and expansion; however he assisted in clearing the Sommerville land.

Until 1890, and possibly through to 1900, he was associated with the operation and management of Sommerville Plantation. In 1890 he had a major falling-out with his father. Walter wrote to Nellie, his youngest daughter, from the Parliamentary Library on 7th November 1890, “as to James not going down to the house I believe it is because I told him a few wholesome (sic) truths for which I shall not beg his pardon.” Reconciliation only occurred in a matter of days before Walter left

Cfor medical treatment in Sydney in 1892. The treatment was unsuccessful. This reconciliation was marked by James replacing John Henry Bertheau as co-executor and trustee, with Denis Hogan, of Walter’s Will.

In 1887 James married Catherine Beatrice (Kate) MacKinlay. They had two sons and three daughters, Walter Patrick Victor, Ruby Mary Elizabeth, Florence Beatrice, Vivienne Josephine and Ernest Oswin. Walter and Ruby died as infants.

It is unclear how the couple came together. Kate’s parents, Patrick and Eliza, were married at Forbes, New South Wales, in 1863. After residing for several years at Bathurst, the family moved to Brisbane. The Postal Directory of 1868 listed, “MacKinlay Bros., Grocers” as trading in Edward Street. Patrick also had grocery delivery runs in George, Boundary and Bartley Streets from 1883 to 1886, in 1887 and in 1888 respectively. From 1892-1895, he was a produce dealer at 58 Wharf Street and, from 1903 to 1907, a commission agent at 28 Symes Street, Fortitude Valley. The family resided at Mary Street in 1868, Elizabeth Street in 1876 and 1877, Ann Street from 1883 to 1886 (at Seagrave’s Boarding House from 1885 to 1886), Bradley Street in 1888 and also at Wharf Street and Symes Street addresses. There appear to be no links with Bundaberg yet the couple were married there and not in Brisbane.

Perhaps the Adams and MacKinlay families came together when Walter attended Parliament through Walter and Mary shopping at the George Street store, through attending church activities, or through residing near one another.

Perhaps both families stayed at Seagrave’s. Letters from Walter in Brisbane were all written on Parliamentary Library note paper and no residence is given.

Around the turn of the century James’s world appeared to disintegrate. Registered as a “Planter” at the time of his father’s death, by 1903 he was working as a labourer for a grazier, Richard Spry, at Noveltie Farm near Miriamvale. In 1910 he became a teamster, in 1917, after the sale of the hotel, a dealer and, in 1921, again a labourer.

Contact with Kate and his children appears to have ceased about 1900 and subsequent records, which include some gaps, indicate that he then sought the company of his eldest sister, Matilda Jane, and her family.

Kate, or (Sissy) as she was known to the MacKinlays, and the children lived with, and probably were supported by, her parents until 1906 or 1907 at which time Kate and her son Ernest Oswin left Queensland for Western Australia. There she joined her younger sisters, Mary Josephine Warmsley and Elizabeth Gertrude Woods. Josephine and Gertrude probably had moved to the West around 1902.

In 1908 Kate married James Richard Forrester at the small seaside town of Greenough near Geraldton. There were no children from the marriage.

Florence married Hugh Webb Higgins in 1916. They had three sons and two daughters, Hugh Joseph MacKinlay, Isabella Mary Josephine, John Francis, Oswald Ernest and Cecilia Catherine.

James Walter and Catherine Beatrice (Kate) Adams

developed skills in his subsequent trade of mechanic. The couple had a daughter, Laurel May, and a son, Douglas Hugh William.

Isabella Mary Josephine married Francis Miley in 1939 and they had three sons, Francis John, Michael James and John David.

John Francis and Ellen May Mulcahy, who he married in 1961, have a daughter, Jacqueline, and a son, Geoffrey John. John Francis also served in the AMF, as did Oswald Ernest. Both brothers were plumbers.

Cecilia Catherine married Colin Mervyn Garrigan around 1950 and they had two daughters, Catherine Mary and Maree Ellen.

Descendants of Florrie and Hugh have surnames of Dinwoodie, Graving, Hamilton, Higgins, Kirkman, Pope, Quinn, Roberts and Thuell.

Vivienne lived with Patrick and Eliza Mackinlay and her unmarried uncle and aunt, William Henry and Florence Cecilia (Totty) MacKinlay, until 1925, when she joined her mother and brother at Fremantle. After only six months in the West she died of acute nephritis. A cousin described her as very pretty with ‘masses of golden brown hair tumbling in thick curls to her waist’.

Hugh Joseph MacKinlay married Edna May Paxton in 1938. He enlisted in the AMF and, on discharge in 1946, was a Corporal in an Advanced Workshop where he probably Kate died at East Fremantle in 1939 after an extended period of ill-health, a condition which induced Totty to travel from Brisbane in 1930 to care for her.

Ernest Oswin “Ossie” worked for the Shell oil company at Fremantle. He was considered somewhat of a loner and never married. He lived at North Fremantle where he died in 1977.

In his later years, Uncle Jim returned to Bundaberg. He lived at the Yellow Waterholes, on the road to the Freshwater-Elliott River crossing, his only constant companion a mare called Gladys who knew the way home from the local watering hole (normally the Melbourne Hotel at the corner of George and Targo Streets) when Jim did not.