Introduction
“ The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”.
I recall that often quoted line from L.P. Hartley’s novel ‘The Go Between’, which I studied at The Geelong College in 1973.
It must have made an impression on my teenage mind, but I had not given it any more thought until October 2004, when I was passed the mantle of ‘family historian’ from my aunt, Audrey Ware (nee Bracher).
Among the boxes of carefully chronicled facts, figures, theories and memorabilia dating from the early 1800s were hundreds of letters. The tightly handwritten pages were penned by my Great-Great Grandmother, Sarah Louisa Bracher, and my Great-Great Aunt, Sarah Fanny Bracher. They wrote to each other between 1864 and 1911, when Sarah Louisa died in Bendigo.
The recent history of the letters is a colourful story in itself. The marriage of Great-Great Aunt, Sarah Fanny Bracher, to Great-Great Uncle, Robert Disney Jones, was childless, but Sarah Fanny took a particular interest in her nephews and nieces. One of her favourites was my Great Uncle Lionel. As their executor, he became recipient of the cache of letters upon her death in 1936. They remained guarded in Lionel’s hands until his death in 1987, as he believed that they were too personal for the eyes of the wider family.
Fortunately, Lionel had been persuaded to send a box of them to a distant relative living in Perth, Margaret Wilson. She was researching the history of the maternal side of the family - the Halls of Shackerston Manor and later of Mandurah, Western Australia. Margaret photocopied the letters and, unbeknown to Uncle Lionel, forwarded copies of them to the eager eyes of Audrey and Ted Ware.
Margaret was able to access only some of the collection because after Lionel’s death, the remainder were ‘frozen’ by his wife Kitty, in respect for Lionel’s wishes. After Kitty’s death, just a portion of the amazing collection were rescued from the backyard incinerator. These remaining letters are what has enabled me to add some ‘flesh’ to those family ‘bones’ that was carefully reconstructed over 60 years by Audrey and Ted Ware, augmented by Audrey’s cousin, Keith Bracher, in Sydney.
It took a year of reading the remaining letters for me to be able to transform the characters of the early Bracher family in Australia into real, red-blooded people. The past was suddenly no longer a ‘foreign country’. The letters provided a fascinating and intimate glimpse into our family life over a forty year period. It made me realise that, despite huge advances in technology and the growth of a global economy, the minutia of family life remains unchanged through generations: celebrations, disappointments, resentment, jealousy, love and achievement.
I can understand why Great Uncle Lionel felt that they were too personal for general consumption and I admit to using them with some degree of guilt, given his staunch position. However, now that we are four generations removed from the writers, the actual content of the letters is relatively unimportant. What is important is the sense of belonging and inclusion that they should provide all members of the Bracher family. These are not just names on a timeline, or grim-faced people in a faded photograph, but they are the people whose genes, personalities and achievements have made us what we are today.
While this work is titled ‘The Bracher Family in Australia’, it needs to be acknowledged that it is the history of only one line of Brachers in this country. Western Europe, England and America are full of people bearing the surname. Despite it being an unusual surname in Australia, there have been other branches of Brachers known to us, particularly in Bendigo, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. They appear to have no recent connection to our line, so it can be assumed that they are descended from other intrepid migrants.
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This is the story of the family in more recent times, based on known facts. As in most families, there are anecdotal snippets that until verified cannot be included. One of the most enduring is the long-held family story that the line is descended from William Shakespeare, though the marriage of Shakespeare's daughter to Doctor Hall, and hence into the Bracher family via the Hall family inter-marriage. Perhaps future genealogical advancements may be able to prove or disprove this theory.
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What is solidly established, however, is that the Bracher family's genetic inheritance comprises 61% English, Welsh and Northwestern European, 24% Irish and Scottish, 6% Portugese (Iberian Peninsula), 5% French, 3% Swedish and 1% Norwegian (Ancestry.com DNA analysis of 99 year old Marjorie Taylor (nee Bracher) September 2018)
I dedicate this family narrative to my late aunt and uncle, Audrey and Dr. Edwin (Ted) Ware. Audrey began the research in 1943, despite having a young family and supporting Ted in his dental practice. I am sure she would be astonished to know the hours and money she and Ted devoted to the task over 60 years. Unearthing and verifying each piece of family history can take hundreds of hours.
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As a boy, I can recall Audrey and Ted’s trips to England to rummage around Wiltshire graveyards and to follow-up tenuous ‘leads’. The postcards they sent to us reported on small but significant pieces, which slowly added to the family ‘jigsaw’. In latter years they worked alongside Keith Bracher in Sydney and Margaret Wilson in Perth, to reveal the wider story of the Hall and Bracher families, since arriving in the Swan River Colony in 1829 and 1838 respectively.
The Halls made a major contribution to the development of Western Australia. From the opening-up of the far north-west of Australia to our own family bushranger in the Karri forests of W.A’s south-west corner, the Hall family history reads like a ‘Boys Own’ compendium. The Bracher family history in this country includes a stint in the island paradise of Mauritius, inventing gold mining equipment in Kalgoorlie, cricketing at a state level, and producing one of Australia’s renowned visual artists.
Latter day material has been uncovered by Ian Bracher of Sydney (the late Keith Bracher’s son) and Ian Berryman of Perth (Margaret Wilson’s nephew). The patience and attention to detail of both those people is far greater than mine, and for that I am most grateful
Thanks to Great, Great Aunt Sarah Fanny’s letters, few Australian families are able to claim such a heritage as we can. Perhaps this makes the lives of the current generation seem rather tame, but we are not to know how future generations will view and judge our lives.
Timothy Bracher
July 2017