Hillier Murray Clifford
| Type of person | Individual |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 1894 |
| Place of birth | Gawler |
| Date of death | 1988 |
| Place of death | Gawler |
Murray Clifford Hillier
13-7-1894 to 17-1-1988
A few memories of my life. I was born in the home (so I was told) no maternity hospitals in those days (1894). The attending midwife was named Rice who was either a Wingate or married a Wingate.
One of my earliest memories when I must have been very young was when Mr Franklin died, he was an old hermit living in a small mud hut on the present Riverside cricket ground. My father used to get his supplies and found him dead when he took his goods over, a policeman came to enquire into his death and as kids in those days were scare op cops is why (I suppose) it stuck in my mind.
Another early memory is the building of the old footbridge, I have a vivid memory of my father taking me up on the bridge before it was finished and of kids scared I guess I was about 4 or 5 years old. This bridge was built for kids on the south side of the river to be able to get to school when the river was running strongly when the river was low all those living on the west of where the Evanston Gardens school is used to cross on a fallen tree on my Grandfather’s property.
The Winkles, our lot, and later Goldneys and later again your mother and uncle Reg used the bridge always. Quite a number in those days walked into Gawler Primary School. In my school days ever body walked to school in fact it was about my last year at school when there was a bike ridden to school. Two boys from Willaston rode them, they were two tough nuts who were sent to our school (Buchsfelde then) to be tamed by Mr Alexander and believe me he soon had them eating out of his hand.
Besides our day school at Buchfelde we all went to Sunday school at the then Lutheran Church the Sunday school was undenomanational (hope that how is spelt). The Sunday school was started by the Roediger families the Rev Julius (Conrads grandfather) and the Herman Roediger who lived where Uncle Bray.
When I was about 14 I was Librarian of the Sunday School, all the scholars could get a book a week. Titles I remember were Little Women, Ben Hur, Seven Little Australians and lots of others of that type.
What would have been people’s thoughts of the present sexy rubbish in some books I’d hate to think, but my Ma would have fainted at some of the stuff printed nowadays. I must say here what a wonderful dear soul your Grandmother Hillier was, the way she worked for we kids and fed us well on very little money. She knew little but work whilst we were young but she never lost her faith in God or complained.
I can remember a typical week with her would be Monday washing day carrying the water which was heated on the fire in a boiler then scrubbing the clothes on a washing board rinsing and hanging out on a line about a chain away from the kitchen, and what a wash it was. Seven altogether of us with Lord knows how many long petticoats night dresses etc, then Tuesday ironing with a darn old box iron heated with coals I think she spent half the time outside waving it in the wind to create a draught. Wednesday mending day, Thursday and Friday house cleaning (also Friday buttermaking) no vacuum cleaners and two or three floors not covered had to be scrubbed a large expanse of dirt yard (where the back garden was later) to be swept, oh and every day cows to milked the milk set in pans in the cellar and afterwards (about two days I think) the cream skimed off and churned into butter mad into pounds and Saturday morning sold in Gawler. Sometimes for about 6 pence a pound.
Fridges and even ice chests were of course unknown and in summer Mother and Dad would be up in the tender hours trying to get the butter firm enough to pound up whilst it was still cool. I remember a cooler out in the gum trees in front of the house (where the orange trees were in your day) this cooler was a bit like a cage with hessian sides with a stand on top Dad would carry well water (cold) up a ladder and fill the tank and the water would run slowly down the sides and thus cool it.
Up till I was about five Father drew all the water from the well with a windlass for the stock and grew vegetables and started a fruit garden. Later of course we had windmills 4 of them in fact at one time I forgot, Sat work for Mum would be baking huge quantities of cakes pies etc meat too also till about 1906 bread baking no cooking allowed on Sunday or any singing or whistling of any secular song either.
Sunday night Dad would often harness up the old grey horse Tim in the buggy and in to Tod Street. What a choir they had in those days and the Sunday school anniversaries with full orchestra and several hundred kids on the platform was really something, a threepenny piece was the general offering in those days.
When I look back and think of the struggle our parents had to keep us all fed and clothed I feel as though I was never thankful enough for what they did, of course they grew a lot food such as butter, eggs, pork, bacon, poultry, fruit (raw, stewed, preserved or jam) I remember huge dishes of stewed quinces with custard or a sort of blancmange top, huge bowls of lettuce salad, home grown apples for pies or stewed with custard, you ate plenty and liked it and never asked for anything else, wouldn’t get it if you did. We had lots of vines too and dried our own currants, also lots of dried apricots, we had peach and fig also a lot of plums and pears mulberries and almonds too and when I was about 8 plenty of oranges and lemons. I remember about the first year I left school Dad sold 500 bush cased of arranges they were around 5/- for common oranges and about 8/- to 10/- for mandarins and navels.
Hay I remember 25/- a ton delivered in Gawler wheat ranged from 3/- to 5/- a bush. Father used to sow the wheat by hand out of a thing called a seedlip it fitted across the waist and was carried by a strap around the neck it held nearly a bushel of grain. It was a mighty thing when he got a seed drill, it would have been about 1902 or 1903 I think, then of course super came in (imported from England at first Laws super it was called).
My Father was an original member of the Gawler River Agric Bureau and was always willing to try anything new for the betterment of his farming and I think this had much to do with helping to give a much better life to us all. He was made a life member of the Bureau. In my young days we had no soursobs at all, and the land used to grow wonderful clover, barley grass geranium etc, but the soursobs seems to run all the clover out and the more you cultivated the land the more soursobs grew. I have heard my Father say that when he was a boy there was a house on every half section (40 acres) along the river but this was not enough land to make a living then and many sold out to larger farmers, my grandfathers farm once had seven or eight homes on it. My grandfather Hillier came to this Gawler district in about 1853 or 54 and settled on Sec 115 Hund Munno Para. Later he lived on Sec 5 where he died in 1902. He attended Todd Street all the time he lived up here. He served as a Councillor, as did my Father when the Council Munno Para West met at Penfield.
I also served for six years on the Council and with the help of Mr Reg Rudall (then a minister in the Playford Gov.) I was able to get a very substantial Gov grant for what was then Angle Vale Rd it is now Hillier Rd.
And with the help of Noel Johnson and the District Engineer Jack Koerner we got another grant to bitumenise the road out as far as the corner of what is now Hillier Road and Clifford Road. Clifford Road was named for my second name.
Other public positions I have held: Perhaps the main one would be the Gawler Show Society of which I have been a member for over 50 years I served first as a sheep steward with Mr Wake, Mr. P. C. Dawkins father in law. My brother and father in law and Mr. Walter Haydon Senr were on the cattle committee. Beet said you don’t want to stay with that old so and so come in with us on the cattle which I did in about 1924 or 1925 and have been on that cattle committee ever since, and was conveyer for a number of years and with a lot of help from Darb Cullen and M. Richter was able to erect the cattle shed at the show ground, I was President in 1966 and 67 and was made a life member in 1968.
I was President of the Gawler Blocks Progress Assoc. A Chairman of both Loos and Gawler Blocks School Committees. With Grandpa Higgins and John Winzor I helped start the Riverside Cricket Club it was I think about 1926 or 27 when an English team was out here, everybody talking cricket and we organised a match between the dairymen south of the Gawler River against those on the North side.
I forget who won but we had a good time and decided to continue playing on dirt pitches and later concrete with matting, as you know they played on our paddock for years and later made me a life member of the Riverside Cricket Club.
I was also responsible for starting the Gawler River Branch of the Sth Aust Dairymans Assoc. And was delegate to the State committee meetings in Adelaide where I met some jolly nice fellows including Percy Manuel who was the main organiser of Amscol and I had some of their first shares and still have them. I played a bit of tennis with the Loos Club as did your Mother and Grandpa Higgins. The Buchsfelde (Loos) Tennis Club was started by Mr. Alexander who taught me all my school life, he was some family connection of Uncle Herb Dunn who was then living (batching) where Mrs Brus now lives, well Mr Alexander got Herb and Clem Dawkins interested, also Wally Roediger and Uncle Beet.
Mr. Alexander used to come to our place a lot, both Dad and Mother thought he was just it, he used to kid to them plenty and get fed on cherry jam and cream and poultry and God knows what else. He always had a good crop full anyway, he somehow kidded them into letting my three sisters join the tennis club, which must have been the biggest breakthrough since Magna Carta. They of course had to be home in time to milk the cows, I’ve heard Ethel say they’d start undressing while crossing the bridge, their tennis dresses in those days were nearly touching the ground. Later of course Ethel married Herb Dunn and Myrtle married Clem Dawkins. Mother used to make a lot of cherry jam and of course apricot, plum, quince, fig, grape & mulberry & lashings of preserves. Every year in cherry time Dad would buy two cases of cherries in the East End Market, five shillings a case, big kero cases which held 50 lb of fruit. Mum & the girls would be in cherries up to their elbows preserving, making jam & stewing them of course a lot disappeared in other ways.
Much to my disgust I had to clean knives, forks & spoons Sat afternoons when the girls were at tennis. Knives forks & spoons in those day were not shiny like they are now, they had to have a powder put on them (Colmans Knife power) and polished with a cloth. I reckon it took more driving to get me started than it would if they’d done the job themselves. By the time I was about 8 I think the worst of my parents hard times were over.
They had the girls home and kept a lot of cows, cream ceperators were in by then and we sold the cream to the butter factory instead of making butter. Also a lot more hens, which were looked after better & were better bred layers, and even if the eggs and butter were cheap it was always something coming in. Father also upgraded his stock pigs, cows, horsed with well bred stuff another result of belonging to the Agricultural Bureau later & was chairman for a year. The girls all learnt dressmaking at the school of Mines (the former of Adult Education) they walked into Gawler to the lessons not right around the road but thru Winckels place around the river. Amey learnt millinery as well, and used to make dresses & hats for different people for a few bob for herself. Ethel used to teach sewing at the Loos school and Myrtle was a monitor there for a while. My first job on leaving school (at 12 ½ years) was helping clean wheat. My job was to pull the wheat from the front of the machine with a dish and throw chaff back from the other end it was a rotten job with thousands of sand flies tormenting you when it was hot. Thank the Lord by next harvest Father had bought a new Bagshaw Winnower with elevators. The farmer earned his money in those days to take a crop off he would first strip it and throw it up into big heaps in the paddock the clean it with a winnower. Bag it, sew the bags and cart it sometimes straight to the mill. Sometimes to the barn & hold it in the hope of a better price. Now of course you take what the Wheat Board gives you.
In about 1912 the sisters & Uncle Beet were gone & I took over the dairy on half shares & that was how I made a crust for a good many years. A few years later my brother & I rented the farm Beet had the land north of the river I had the rest, used to do a bit of share farming as well. Bought Allen’s (Sec 879 Hund Mudla Wirra) in 1925. By that time I had a stud Freisan herd & wanted more land to run the young and dry stock on, hence bought Allen’s.
Here let me say a good word for the old cows, (although we used to curse them Sat. afternoons & Sundays) and though you had constant work you always had a few pounds a week coming in, this was proved in the great depression (late 20’s to middle 30’s) many farmers who despised cows, (and looked with pity on cow cockies) were existing on overdrafts & drought relief, some couldn’t sell a ton of hay without the banks permission.
Well thank the Lord & cows & fowls your mother & I never had a penny overdraft or any Government relief either. Here let me pay tribute to your wonderful mother who could manage like very few others could. Murray Parham too was a mighty good bloke who came to us in 1926 for four days & stayed 14 ½ years.
We had some pretty good Freisan cattle some direct descendants of stock imported from Holland & another line from New Zealand by Frank Butterfield. Also bought a bull calf from Australian’s first 10 gallon cow (24 hours) Rosemary 6th. Showed Freisan’s at Gawler for a few years & took quite a lot of prizes. We sold quite a lot of stud stock over the state and a lot to Mr Burgess a milkman at Broken Hill.
After Murray Parham went into the Army in 1940 or 41 we eased out of cows a lot & went in for sheep as you no doubt remember. As you may guess I knew little about sheep but with my two expert advisers and good friends Hubert Mortimer & Alf Mewett I got along very well. You will well remember when I sold the horsed and bought a tractor. We then turned the stables into several fowl houses and kept about 700 layers which paid very well.
I have seen terrific advances in land values over the years for instance I remember Father buying Sec 115 for £9-10-0 an acre in about 1906. You will remember me selling the same in about 1958 or 59 for £320 ($640) an acre. The Caravan Park Pt 54 Father bought at £4-10 an acre ($9) and you sold it at $470.
In about 1906 they bought for Uncle Beeton 70 acres with 2 houses, one 8 room 3 cellars, a big fruit garden, stone barn raised with board floor, stone stables, 8 horses, buggyshed, chaff house, pig sties, large implement shed, wagon and cart shed. All stone wood and iron cow shed, windmill, large tank and various other small buildings for £800 ($1600) I can remember when a couple could retire comfortably on £3000 4 or 5 hundred for a home, the balance at interest would bring in £2-10 or so ($5) which was well above labourers wages.
In my younger days there was a terrific amount of good white sand in the river. We first started carting from home in about 1910 for the princely sum of 2/9 a ton then gave it away after 1917 till about 1921 when Frank Hillier was out of work while waiting to get on a farm from the Repat. So I started carting again to give him a job 5/3 a ton then.
When Frank got his farm I had a chap named Schubert driving for me. Used to cart about 90 tons a week on trucks, then with three big floods in 1923 most of the sand disappeared and Schubert had to go, but I got him a job with Roedigers, later he went farming in the mallee.
Still on the subject of sand, two of the large buildings I carted for were the T & G Building which was I think the highest building in Adelaide at that time. Goldsborough Morts big wool store in Port Adelaide, also helped with some of Colonel Light Gardens Housing Estate which was a forerunner of the Housing Trust. Of course Gawler sand was used mostly for plastering not much for building of walls, red sand and quarry sand was good enough for that.
I mentioned the 1923 floods, there have been 4 in my lifetime. 3 in 1923 and one in 1917 which I think was the highest of the lot. I know we had a haystack of about 40 tons on the flat. It was 4 feet of water all around it. We got about 20 tons out of it fit to sell. It left great lakes of water around the base of the hill with lots of ducks, swans and every other kind of water bird. As I was pretty keen with the shot gun, I had a good time with the ducks. The three floods in 23 were a pretty poor introduction to living on the Gawler River for your Mother. Our road was under water for months. We had to travel through the neighbours, around the river to get to Gawler in the buggy, and use a draft horse to cart the milk through the paddock. The first time I tried the road in the sulky the water came in around my feet, funnily enough the water never came in the house, it is much higher ground near the river than further back.
There were many times when we were up most of the night watching when the river was rising. It was always seemed to be at night when it was in flood. One episode I remember was being in icy cold dirty flood water nearly up to the waist in the tender hours of the morning, lifting hens off perches, only to find in the morning that the water only got to within an inch or so of the perches so all that for nix.
Well I must tell you of two events of the year when I was a kid they were in the Sunday School Anniversary and tea meeting in September, and the Sunday School picnic in about March. They would be considered pretty tame by young folk nowadays but we thought they were pretty good. We had singing practice for weeks before the Anniversary under Mr Walter Roediger which meant an excuse for a night a week out and a chance to meet your mother (that was before I was allowed down to the house). On the Monday evening there was a mighty spread in the vestry, young folk ate first, their elders after. The young ones would go out in the road and play drop hankerchief two’s and threes, fill up the gap and red rover pass over and also try to get lost for a while, (fancy kids playing these games nowadays) after the older folk had eaten and cleared away there would be a concert and presentation of prizes, which were always books and varied in size according to the number of marks obtained through the year. Marks were given for attendance, scripture reading, catechism questions and reciting hymn verses. So now you know why I know the words of so many old time hymns.
The annual Sunday School picnic was held at various places sometimes in a patch of scrub where the trotting track is now and later in Roedigers Scrub up Whitelaw Road, and later occasionally to the beach. These picnics in the scrub were very popular. People from all around would attend. I would say over 200 kids included. We would have a sports committee to arrange sports, on one occasion we had horseback events not racing mostly tilting on horseback. This was very popular we thought till the next Sunday school meeting when old Mr Jim Bray a narrow minded old Cornishman said he was shocked “fine thing you, fine thing”, horse racing at a Sunday school picnic. Look well, in the paper if there was an accident. So that was that.
People living around Buchsfelde in my young days were Roediger families, the Brays, Reinke’s (where John Roediger lives but down on the river) Preiss (Stan’s father), Alert Mortimer, Ratcliff, Dreisner, George Mortimer, 3 families of Kreigs along the river below wingates ford, Atyeo’s, Johnson (keith Johnsons father) in what is Keith Kreigs place and was known as the Osterich farm. I forget the name of the people of the Osterich venture but it was a financial flop. Heaths lived where Ralph Hatcher lives. Hazel Nottles grandparents and Kings, Mrs Ollie Lodges father was one of them Bert King. There was a Day family on a place between Keith Kriegs and what is now Aunger’s but was then Dave Humphries (Neva’s father). The Window family Cyril and Thelma and the rest lived where the trotting track is now.
Another thing I just can remember is a camp of Aboriginies on the river bank below where the Turners lived (Joyce Turner) it seems that the blacks used to gather from all over the State on Queen Victoria’s birthday and were presented with a blanket each. I remember being plenty scared when we went around the river to see them. I remember some of the old girls smoking dirty clay pipes. I remember one night not long afterwards being awakened by what was I suppose a cat fight out on the road. I wakened my brother and asked what the row was and he said a mob of blackfellows out there having a corroboree that was the end of sleep for me for most of that night.
Another familiar sight in my young days were the swaggies, men who carried their belongings rolled up in a swag and a black billycan for tea. They called at homes along the road and asked for food and tea and sugar, some of course were looking for work, but some were only bludgers and lived on handouts. No pensions or unemployment payments then. Likewise no baby bonus or any child endowment either.
Another part of life 70 years or so ago were the Indian and Syrian hawkers some would carry enormous packs and others had horses and vans. The van men had good selections of clothes and knick knacks, the packmen mostly haberdashery.
The Indians only stayed till they made enough money to retire to India but the Syrians, Jews etc think went on to bigger things for instance the Hambours and the Jacobs and I guess plenty of others.
One Indian I well remember we called John, his real name was like Prahan Singh. We kids called him pray and sing. He travelled a large district and would get around twice a year. He took a trip back to India to see his wife and family, then came back to his round again. He finally sold out and left for good, but we heard the poor old chap died on the voyage home. I remember him camping on our front veranda on one occasion just outside my bedroom and at sunrise he was facing east and praying like mad in his own lingo of course.
Christmas then as now was quite an occasion (minus the many gifts) mine was generally a 6d trumpet which would have its guts blown out before night, (much to everyone’s delight) excepting mine of course. Grandpa Fletcher and Aunt Mary would come up for a good feast always a goose and sometimes a suckling pig as well, plus a pudding as big as a washing tub. If the weather was very hot Mum would be driven up the wall endeavouring to keep everything right, with nothing cooler than the cellar.
When Taylor Bros started making ice we would get a block occasionally that of course was thought to be the ultimate in keeping food. Sometimes Grandpa Fletcher would stop for a few days, this of course meant a Bible reading and prayers at the breakfast table. He was one of the old time preachers. He would promise poor sinners hell and brimstone. He’d just about scare the pants off me (us) and we’d be good for at least an hour afterwards. He was a great walker and used to walk from his home which was in the W.R.E. area of Penfield. Zoar, Burton and Carclew to preach so Mother told us. I know when he was around 90 mark he would walk into Adelaide from Rose Street, Prospect.
It would seem strange to kids now if they had to do without things that were not known in my young days. I saw my first car such as it was (a single cylinder job) at the Gawler Show it was quite an attraction (about 1901) I remember once a car going past the school and all the kids jumped up to have a look, for which we were well told off. I think I was about 16 when I had my first ride in a car. There were very few telephones out in the country before 1920. We had our first one in 1924 (dec) which was Gawler 235 a number we had for about 40 years.
It would be also in the 1920’s that wireless stared getting around first sorts of crystal models, my brother had one. We had our first in the late 1920’s quite big one with a wet 6 volt battery and three other dry batteries and great big horn for a speaker. It was pretty good for those times you could get overseas stations of a night, it cost \45 or $90 and was built by A.O. Dawkins (Mrs L Ey’s brother).
I suppose the thing that revolutionised farming more than anything else was the tractor. The early models with steel tyres with big grips were rough to ride on but soon they were fitted with rubbers, and the faithful old horse’s days were numbered. Although some of the old horse lovers stuck to them for quite a few years but eventually everyone seemed to realise they had to keep up with progress. One of the great advantages of tractors was being able to get your work done quickly when conditions were just right. Also no early morning horse feeding or night feeding or chaff cutting or being up half the night with sick horses, and if they died digging a mighty great hole to bury them in. That was of course before the days of the old and dead stock collectors.
I remember going to help Uncle Beet bury a cow which died with dry bible (A sort of indigestion caused through lack of green fodder) anyhow he had bought a ½ gallon of beer to give her but when he went to drench her with it she was dead. He said thank goodness she died before I gave her the beer, now we can drink it while we’re digging the hole to bury her. Which shows there is always a silver lining to the dark cloud.
The first people to own Sec 52 Munno Para & Sec 49 Mudla Wirra my Father’s first farm were named Lock, who I think later went to upper Yorke Peninsular. A story my dad used to tell is that those two sections were up for sale by some form in Adelaide and the Roediger Bros. Rev Julius and Herman wanted them badly, but they both wanted section 49 and were arguing about who was to have it, before their argument was settled Grandfather George Hillier heard about it and slipped down and bought them both. There is probably a proverb to fit that but can’t think of it. I don’t know for sure when Grandfather bought the place but I think Father and Mother married on March 17th 1881 or 1880 so it was well before that, there were 163 acres in the two sections; the price about £10 per acre.
Another thing that interested we kids were the big mobs of station cattle that used to cross the river at our ford 5 or 6 hundred sometimes. And wild wretches they were if you went near them on foot. They’d go mad and if you went our near the road when they were passing, the drovers would curse you very soundly. There also used to be mobs of horses occasionally and when Angas’s (Collingrove) sent their annual draft of ponies they would sometimes paddock them overnight in one of Dad’s paddocks, there would always be a Bradshaw boy with them.
Also Sid Kidman used to have an annual sale of station horses at Kapunda, from memory I think over 1,000 to 2,000 nearly all unbroken from stations all over north of S.A. and from N.S.W. and Queensland. Buyers would be farmers all over S.A. the tramways trust and quite a few of the best would go to India as remount for the Indian Army. Well what I wanted to say was that a lot of these horses also used to pass our old home by road on the way to Adelaide and Port Adelaide.
But the coming of tractors electrification of the trams, mechanisation of the Army and the popularity of the motor put paid to these sales and I believe the breeders on the stations were allowed to run wild, many were killed for pet food and many just shot. Now in the 1970’s horses are becoming quite popular again.
I have just thought of a bit of an achievement I pulled off for some of the dairymen in the 1945 drought. The Federal Government decided to pay a bounty of 2 ½ d a gallon on wholesale milk to help the cow cockies through summer months of the drought, this applied only to dairymen supplying wholesalers such as Amscol, S.A.F.U. Harrison Bros etc. This meant that people like ourselves who were supplying retailers in the country towns did not get the bounty. Well I thought I am going to do something about this if possible, the Federal M.H.R. for our district was a Mr Smith who lived at Walkerville a Labour man about as bright as Cec Creedon, he came to Gawler just at this time to a function in the Institute and I asked our State local Member Les Duncan also Labour to give me an intro to Mr Smith he did this and I told Smithie a tale about what a tough time we were having with the drought and also we had to keep up regular supply every day which meant buying cows frequently at no matter what the price etc, I must have told a pretty good tale because he said he felt sure the Government would do something for us and would I put everything in writing so he could take it to the Federal Minister concerned. Which I did, and it wasn’t long before I got word to say everyone supplying retailers throughout the state would get 2 ½ d a gallon bounty, which was pretty good.
Some recollections of the life of Murray Clifford Hillier. He wrote this in the late 1970s
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