Henry Gaylard
| Town/City | Melbourne |
|---|---|
| First name | Henry |
| Last name | Gaylard |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 14-3-1887 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | c1909 |
| Submitted by | Jacqueline St. Clair |
Story
HENRY JUBILEE GAYLARD
BORN 14-3-1887 at Stoke-Sub-Hamdon, Somerset, England.
DIED 4-12-1974 at Manangatang, northern Mallee, Victoria, Australia.
Henry (known as Harry) left school at an early age (approx 12), and began working in the quarries of Ham Hill (Stoke), Somerset.
He also worked as a stone mason in Bath for a short time, but had to give it up because of dust in the lungs. Later he began work as a gardener for W.D. and H. O. Wills, the cigarette makers.
At around the age of 21, C1909, he left England for Australia with 30 shillings in his pocket. He came out on the steamer ship,”Rangatira”. He spent 3-4 days in Melbourne and then managed to find a job with a farmer in Boort in N-W Victoria. While at this farm he met Rosetta (Rose) Lees, who had also migrated from England around 1913 with her parents and siblings, and had found a job as a house maid on the same farm.
They later married and settled on a farm of their own in the harsh Mallee country of northern Victoria at Cocamba, near Manangatang.
They had 6 children; 2 died as babies and one at aged 7 years. The three surviving children were Alice, Freda and Duncan.
When Harry and Rose purchased the farm, it had already been cleared but it still needed tidying up. Mallee stumps would regularly appear, having been left behind when it was originally cleared. Although this may have been seen as a nuisance, Harry didn’t see it that way as in fact it was valuable and much needed wood for fuel.
From the time they started work on the farm until the mid 1940’s Harry only ever used horses to work the farm. It was only when his son started to help with the running of the farm that modern machinery was introduced.
Their farm produced wheat and sheep. Over the years the local area has seen many droughts, mouse plagues, rabbit plagues, locust plagues, heatwaves, heavy dust storms, and even a cyclone in 1934 which just missed the township and created havoc on some of the surrounding farms. It was a testing lifestyle.