Key Dates

 

1897 Early            

Sarah Fanny and Robert Disney Jones move from Golden Square to Portarlington

1897                           

George Henry Bracher returns from the W.A. goldfields and opens a saddlery shop in Golden Square

1899                           

George Henry Bracher moves to Melbourne for work, leaving his family in Golden Square

1900 July 13           

George Henry Bracher is declared insolvent

 

George had been thinking of leaving the West for some time. Two bouts of Typhoid probably contributed to his decision. He told his mother that he had put away 500 pounds and that, for the sake of the children, he thought they would return to Footscray, Melbourne. Before he left Bendigo he commissioned a family portrait, which remains one of the family’s most treasured images in the collection.

 

By 1895 Sarah Fanny had retired from teaching and, by August 1896, Robert Disney Jones was writing to his wife in Golden Square about his impressions of his new school and pupils in Portarlington, on the northern side of the Bellarine Peninsula. He wrote about having to build up the enrolments and his strategy to retain pupils, as the Roman Catholics had recently opened-up down the road and were obviously providing competition for the young hearts and minds of the district  Portarlington became the couple’s permanent home sometime during the late 1890s and they often wrote of the sea climate. Sarah Louisa and Sarah Fanny moved to join Robert in Portalington after they were able to sell their house in Golden Square. We have written evidence in 1902 of them all living at 'Montrose', Harding Street, Portarlington.

 

We don’t know exactly when George returned from the goldfields, but by November that year George Henry was back home and this letter to his sister, Sarah Fanny, details how he was eking out an existence through piece meal work for other saddlers. Other information indicates that he was also supplementing income with rabbit trapping.

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”I was very busy last week and this week will be nearly as good. , so if things will only continue like that I will soon get my head above water again.  Robert told me of your latest property specs’ and I think you have acted very wisely in investing in Footscray as things must surely be at their bottom now and any movement must be upwards I wish me ins. Had fallen in at 40 as I fear at 45 things will be double present prices at least and rents much higher than they are now…Ask ma to send me any W.A. papers that she gets as I have only had one since I left. Well now, re finances. My bill of 33 pounds comes due on the 7th of December and so far I have not been able to put anything aside for it and I want you to let me know next week how far you can assist me with it. I shall have a few pounds to collect after the First of the month and I could sell some harnesses and saddles at auction but as they might go for less than the material cost I don’t like the prospect of throwing away weeks of hard work as I shall have to replace them in the shop again. When I get over this bill I will not be required to give any more as I shall then have sufficient on my books to collect on every month. I am not getting any further into debt now as I have been paying for things as we get them for some time so if things continue as at present I shall gradually be able to square off a few little back accounts. I have wiped 4 pounds, 15 shillings off G. Frec & C. Taylors a/c and 30 shillings off Dr James and several other smaller debts that were only a few shillings each, but it has been a great struggle for one pair of hands I am quite prepared for it to take me quite 12 months to pull round but I don’t mind that so long as I can see there is a possibility of success in the end. I had a very short note from the bank when the bill of sale was going through threatening to lodge a caveat against it unless 2 pounds arrears of rent on the Flat place was not in their hands by Monday. I only got their letter on the Saturday morning so I wrote an explanatory note that satisfied them so I have heard no more about, but I saw Jones the solicitor a few days after and told him, but as he had heard nothing of any caveat he said it must have passed through without challenge. When I was in the office in Footscray I used to put them through for other people for 10/- but he charged me 2 pounds, 2 shillings . However it is cheap at the money considering the security I feel now as there is no fear of finding myself and kids in the street at a minutes notice…We had a sensational bolt yesterday. One of Prince and Perry’s horses bolted from High Street and came as far as our own shop on the road and then took to the footpath from our place up to Weir and Browns….George has just returned from his shorthand and opened his letter with the sad news of Aunt Theodosia’s death. How sad for poor ma in her old age. I’m sure the dear old dear will feel it dreadfully…We are all quite well bar Ella who has the German Measles. Lionel had them a few weeks ago but they are not so severe as the other measles.” (November 1897)

 

It didn’t take George Henry very long to get back into his own shop, this time in the heart of Golden Square, as detailed in this extract from his son Harry’s memoirs, written 70 years later

 

“…As a young man, my father had been trained in the trade of saddle and harness making and now he decided the best thing was to go into business. He rented a shop and dwelling in the shopping centre of the town, as Golden Square had no saddle or harness maker…soon his business prospered and we began to live more comfortably…One interesting feature of my father’s business is that probably 75% of his work was paid for by the barter system, that means that the farmers and Chinese market gardeners, instead of paying cash, supplied us with butter, bacon, milk, fruit, vegetables etc to the value of the harness and saddles made for them. This was really an excellent way of life and much appreciated by my mother in particular as our family food supply was well catered for

 

“ My father was an expert in chambering horse collars (this means creating hollows in them so that the  pressure was taken from the sores that developed on the horse’s shoulder). The work mainly came from a saddler named White, who lived at Long Gully, a township about halfway between Bendigo and Eaglehawk. As the crow flies, it would be quite 2 ½ to 3 miles across the sand hills from Golden Square and after the work was completed I had a permanent job delivering the repaired collars. It was a heavy task for a skinny 12 year old, especially during the height of a Bendigo heatwave as there were 2 or 3 collars in each consignment.” (Memoirs of H.H.G. Bracher, 1969)

 

George Henry ran into a spot of financial trouble in his business towards the end of the decade. During September 1899 he had goods seized for failure to pay back rent on the shop he was leasing:

 

“ I William Bradshaw of Golden Square Bendigo do hereby authorise you Bailey Ward of Bull Street Bendigo to distrain the Goods and Chattels in the shop and premises of George Henry Bracher situate at High Street Golden Square Bendigo for the sum of nineteen pounds ten shillings being amount of rent due to me for same…and to proceed thereon for the recovery of the said rent as the law directs.” William Bradshaw, Landlord.”

 

The rear of the document lists a range of saddlery goods seized to the value of 20 pounds and three shillings. A couple of weeks later George Henry received a letter from a Bendigo solicitor informing him that “The gross proceeds of the sale amount to 11 pounds, 13 shillings, leaving balance due on rent to September 28 of 11 pounds, 15 shillings. Be good enough to arrange for the balance at once.”

 

With the return of general prosperity to Victoria, George Henry decided to try business in Melbourne. He established Kate and the children in a private home in High Street, Bendigo for about 18 months, at a rental of 8/- per week. They then spent a few months in a house in King Street. George had little hope of building the business because of the large and increasing mortgage held over him by the Colonial Bank of Australia in Footscray:

 

“ Dear Sir, as the Municipal rates are coming due I must again ask you to make all effort to at once send me something by way of reduction of your overdraft which now amounts to 479 pounds, seventeen shillings. The greatest patience has been shown and indulgence extended in order to allow you to get a fresh start but I consider it high time that you showed your consideration thereof by making regular payments even though they may only be comparatively small and unless this be done

I will reluctantly be compelled to advise head office taking such steps as to compel you to do something by way of making provision for your increasing instead of decreasing liability. Do not force me to extremes but send a ready response to this application”. (May 1900)

 

George Henry, then operating from 449 Lonsdale Street, was declared insolvent in the court of the Central District on July 13th, 1900. The Argus notice listed the cause of his insolvency as a depreciation in the value of land, two severe illnesses, and losses through an “inability to earn sufficient at his trade”. His liabilities were £532/15/4; his assets £275; leaving a deficiency of £267/15/4. A meeting of his creditors was held at the William Street Law Courts on July 27th. Notwithstanding his impecunious situation, the following year – 1901 - the indomitable George Henry was elected President of the Saddlers Employees Society.

 

The eldest Bracher son, George Reginald Alberto, had embarked on a career in clerical administration. The 18 year old wrote a delightful letter to his Aunt Sarah Fanny in 1898, boasting of his accomplishment as a typist:

 

“ I am sure when you looked at the envelope before opening this letter you had no idea who it came from. I am writing this with the “Blickensderfer” typewriter which I have at home practicing prior to Mr Leggo making me his corresponding clerk, and I thought it would be a novel idea to write you a note with it. Grandma thinks it is the most wonderful machine she has ever seen, and I am of course the most wonderful boy imaginable.”

 

Younger brother Harry described George working in a Bendigo merchant’s office as “quite the young man about town”. A few letters from George Reginald to his aunt provides a glimpse into his early working life:

 

“…now that we are living up here in King Street I hardly have any time for letter writing or anything else at home. As soon as I have tea I have to go over to the Sq and do my books which takes up nearly two hours, and then I go to the club and have a look at the papers and by the time I get home again it is ten o’clock…

 

“…ask Grandma to excuse my not writing her a note as it is such hard work to think of anything of interest to her when one is copped up with books, pens and ink all day, but tell her that her eldest grandson wishes that her life may be spared for many years more and give her my best love and accept same for yourself and uncle.” (November 1899)