William Skate’s wood mill
William Skate’s wood mill
The Skate family had a long connection with Rushworth, dating back to the gold rush years. Perhaps the best-known members of the family were John Skate and his wife Anne (nОe Clayton) who set up and ran the Excelsior Coffee Palace. The building, now a private residence, is still standing in Murchison Road. Back in the day it provided meals and accommodation (but no alcohol) for travellers to Rushworth.
The Skates had nine children, the second of whom was William John Clayton Skate, who was born at Carlsruhe, near Kyneton. When the family moved north to Runnymede then Colbinabbin, they were engaged in farming before settling in Rushworth to pursue other business interests. William was the builder of the coffee palace. One of the other family businesses was a wood mill at the station.1
Site at the railway station
The mill was sited at the Rushworth Railway Station, run by John and William Skate. William was the nominal ratepayer for the site from 1897 until at least 1904.2 In those days, it was the occupier who paid the council rates, rather than the owner of the property.
The enterprise employed forty people1, which would have included those at the mill itself as well as men out in the forest, cutting and transporting timber to the mill.
Marriage and children
In 1888, William married Harriet Melgaard. They were to have terrible luck, in that their first child died as an infant. Their second survived, but Harriet died from complications when she delivered her third child in late 1892. That child subsequently died a few months later.
William was probably bereft as he threw himself into the construction of the coffee palace in 1893. Soon afterwards, he would gain some solace from his second marriage in 1895, this time to Georgina Muller. The pair produced ten children over the next twelve years, nearly all born in Rushworth. During this period, William was busy developing and running his firewood milling business at the station.
Accident
To complicate matters for the family, William had a serious accident in 1901. He was driving a traction engine down near Kyneton and had almost reached that town when he stopped to make some adjustments to his machine. He must not have engaged the brake while he did so, and the traction engine moved unexpectedly and ran over his leg, crushing the lower right leg and foot. He survived, but the leg had to be amputated near the knee.
Clearly, the injury did not mean that he was unable to continue fathering children or working in the business. In December 1902, he was called as a witness in a civil court case between Dhurringile Estate Co Pty Ltd and Thomas Harriman. William was engaged as the carter of timber to the Rushworth mill and was using his traction engine to do so.3
Move to Barham
After their ninth child was born in Rushworth in 1906, William and Georgina packed up their large family and moved to a farm 25km north of Barham. Soon after they moved there, their tenth child was born at Moulamein in February 1907. Tragically, William’s life ended a few months later when he committed suicide, ‘while in a state of temporary insanity.’4
Georgina married again, in 1908, and perhaps unsurprisingly, had three more children with her second husband, George Mapleback. It is hard to get your head around, but George already had four children from his first marriage. His first wife and fifth child had died in 1906. So, George and Georgina were responsible for a huge tribe of children and stepchildren.
The eldest son from George’s first marriage, also George, was later killed in the first world war. In 1917, trees were planted along the fence line between the Rushworth school and the cemetery in commemoration of men who had already died or been killed while on service. One of them was planted for George Jr. His father also enlisted and served overseas. This was perhaps a surprising decision considering the size of the family that he was leaving behind. He was away for over two years while Georgina somehow managed the family. As well as her stepson George Jr, her brother John was also killed on the Western Front.
References: 1 Bons, Tracy, Rushworth Businesses & Their Owners, Vol 11 (Tracey Bons, 2021) pp 27-9; 2 Cerchi, Samantha, summary from Waranga Shire rate books 1891-1904; 3 Shepparton Advertiser 9.12.1902; 4 Coronial Inquest at Deniliquin 2.7.1907
Forest nature note
We usually think of orchids in the forest in springtime, but the Southern Autumn Greenhood (Pterostylis ampliata) flowers at this time of year. Given that it has been such a dry year so far, you would expect that they would be hard to find at the moment. The flowers are predominantly green and white striped, with a brownish tinge.
