Latham Family

Complied by Brian Marshall 

 

My name is Brian Marshall. I was born in 1954. My mother was Valarie Joyce (nee Latham), who later married Terry Marshall. Her family had a connection to the City of Darebin between 1914 and 1980. In this story, I will mention the following key people:

1. Daphne May Corneille (1885-1971).
2. Charles Henry Webber (1870-1928) – second husband of Daphne
3. Clarence William Latham (1907-1988) – son of Daphne and her first husband, Claude Latham
4. Winifred Goodison (1908-1975) – wife of Clarence
5. Arthur Goodison (1879-1954), and wife Mary Elizabeth nee Kellock (1877-1928)
6. Valarie Joyce Latham (1930-2018) and Kenneth Maxwell Latham (1928-2023

Daphne May Corneille was born in Richmond, Melbourne in 1885. Daphne was always referred to as ‘May’, so this is how I will subsequently refer to her. Her grandparents were both Irish. Her grandfather Thomas Corneille arrived in Melbourne as a single 16 year old in 1846 with a ship load of Irish emigrants who had fled the Great Famine in Ireland, which commenced in 1845. May’s grandmother was Mary Hicks, who was a so called “Famine orphan girl” who arrived at the Port Phillip Colony, from Cork, in 1850 as a single 19 year old girl, on the ship Eliza Caroline. Mary was one of the thousands of young Irish women transported to various Australian colonies by the British government of the time. Much of the Irish population ended up in the notorious workhouses during the famine, in order to escape starvation. The British government saw the transportation of these young women a means of addressing a serious shortage of female domestic and farm labour in the colonies. Thomas and Mary had ten children together, including May’s father William Jacob Corneille, born in 1861. William married Elizabeth Clara Smith in 1883, who had emigrated with her parents from Chatham, Kent as a four year old in 1870. William and Elizabeth had four children together, including May in 1883, before William died from tuberculosis, age 30, in 1891.

In 1906, May began a relationship with a Claude Augustus Latham, resulting in her giving birth to a son, Clarence William Latham in March 1907. Claude married May in a “shotgun wedding” in December 1906, when Claude was 18 and May was 21 years of age. Claude then absconded, leaving Daphne alone with her baby. Claude’s father was William Henry Latham, a hide and skin seller, originally from Taunton, Somerset, who had absconded age 14 in Sydney, from the SS Devon in 1876, while a ship’s apprentice, then married Olivia Maude Appleton in Fitzroy in 1884. Olivia’s mother was Catherine Debney, a member of the Debney family who had founded one of Melbourne’s biggest and well known tanneries, “Buntingford”, in Flemington in the 1870’s.

In 1912, May entered into a defacto relationship with Charles Henry Webber. The couple began living at Carlisle Street, Preston and Charles was a motor mechanic. The couple had seven children – Edna (1912), Effie (1913), Queenie (1916), Bertram (1917), Blanche (1920), Charles (1922) and stillborn twins (1927). Interestingly, on their birth certificates, all of May’s children with Charles Webber were given the surname ‘Latham-Webber’ and their father was stated to be Claude Lathem, even though he was definitely not their father. During this period, they frequently moved addresses. The electoral rolls show:

• 1916 – 78 Raleigh Street, Northcote
• 1922 – 50 Edwardes Street, Reservoir
• 1925 – 78 Pine Street, Reservoir

May’s partner, Charles Webber, supported the family by changing occupation from a mechanic to a delivery driver for the ham and bacon producer, J.C. Hutton and Company, whose factory was located on the corner of High Street and Oakover Road, Preston. In July 1927, May gave birth to still born twins and in another blow her partner Charles Webber died suddenly in February 1928, age 58. After the death of Charles, May had seven children, ages between 6 and 16 still living at home with her. The oldest, Clarence, had left home in March 1920, age 13, to become an apprentice at Charles Nodrum Tannery, located at 60-68 High St Preston. At that stage, Clarence was boarding with a family at 223 Tyler Street, Preston and would catch the tram along Plenty Road to get to and from work. There was no supporting mother’s benefit in that era and Clarence’s income provided crucial support for the family after the death of Charles Webber. According to family members and supported by the evidence in the electoral rolls, May became an office cleaner of an evening straight after Charles’ death, with the older children minding the younger children at home after school. The days must have been long and exhausting for her between, domestic chores, children and work.

By 1936, May was living at 85 May St, Preston. All of her children, with the exception of Clarence, were still living with her in that year, ages 14 to 24. Her two oldest daughters, Edna and Effie, worked at machinists in a shoe manufacturing factory in Preston, near the tannery.

I will now focus on May’s son, Clarence, my maternal grandfather. As previously mentioned, Clarence left home in 1920 and by 1928 he was a fully trained leather dresser, which was a highly skilled occupation. The dresser can be involved in any and all stages of transforming raw animal hides into finished leather. Around this time, he met Winifred Goodison, and the couple were wed at the Congregational Church in Northcote in August 1927. After marriage, the couple moved in to a newly constructed weatherboard and tile house at 4 Storey Road, Reservoir. While tannery workers’ wages in general were quite low, once someone became a highly skilled worker like Clarence they were reasonably good.

Winifred’s parents were Arthur Goodson and Mary Elizabeth nee Kellock. Winifred was born in 1908 at Stockport, Cheshire, England. Stockport, near Manchester, was the centre of hat manufacturing in England and Arthur was a hatter’s machinist – someone who maintains hat making machinery. Stockport, like Manchester in general, was also a great centre of the textile production industry and on Mary’s side of the family, the members had worked on the factory floor, in cotton mills, for many generations. As is well known these days, the mills were filthy, dangerous places to work. Whole families, including small children, often worked at the mills. Stockport also had a reputation as being highly polluted. Coal smoke from the boilers driving the industrial machinery hung in the valley of the river Mersey, where Stockport was located.

In 1902, Arthur and Mary’s other daughter, Jessie, died from tuberculosis age 16 and in 1908, Arthur’s brother William died in an industrial accident. In 1923, the couple, aged in their early 40’s, made the decision to emigrate to Melbourne Australia, bringing 14 year old Winfred with them. It is tempting to think that the idea of leaving dirty, dangerous Stockport behind, was a significant driver of what caused them to emigrate. They travelled on the ship “Omar”.

Arthur must have done well in his job as a hatter’s machinist, as within two years of arriving they were living in a newly constructed house on the block of land that is now 207 Edwardes Street, Reservoir but has since been demolished. The house was directly opposite the southern retaining wall of Edwardes Park Lake. Arthur then opened a small hat manufacturing business at 815 High Street, Preston. However his wife Mary died in 1928, age 51, from cirrhosis of the liver. Arthur himself would pass away in 1954.

On a brighter note, Arthur and Mary’s newly married daughter, Winifred, and her husband Clarence had a son, Kenneth Maxwell Latham, followed by a daughter, Valarie Joyce Latham, in 1930. Somehow the family managed to come through the Great Economic Depression, the worst years of which were 1929-1933. The family prospered in the years immediately after it. From the mid 1930’s, the increasing availability of mass produced, low cost motor cars enabled the family to take part in the phenomenon of working class tourism. Among the favourite destinations for the family to go camping or sightseeing were Nicholson River, Flowerdale, Donna Buang and Lorne.

Clarence and Winifred’s children, Kenneth and Valarie, attended Preston Primary School in Tyler Street and then attended Westgarth Central School in Northcote for a further two years, to receive the Education Department of Victoria’s Merit Certificate.

During the Second World War, Clarence was an Air Raid Warden. In 1941, the Charles Nodrum Tannery, where he had been working, was taken over by the Standard Leather Company and the original timber buildings demolished and replaced by a substantial two storey brick factory. The building is still standing but is no longer a tannery.

Valarie Latham had two children, Brian Kenneth in 1954 and Lynette Marie in 1956. Valarie moved to Perth in 1960 and married Adrian ‘Terry’ Marshall. In alternate years after that, my family would drive across the Eyre Highway from Perth to Reservoir to stay with Clarence and Winifred in Reservoir. As the years moved into the 1950’s and 1960’s, caravanning became a favourite past time of Clarence and Winifred. Rosebud, Dromana and Phillip Island were popular destinations. As a young child I recall walking with my grandmother a little further along Storey Road, to where Danella Park Dairy was located, and buying milk there. I also remember there was an old fashioned grocers directly opposite 4 Storey Road. The grocer would weigh out and sell items like biscuits that were held in metal tins – there were far fewer pre-packaged groceries then. The building is still standing but is now a café. In addition, I would go with my grandfather to visit the Standard Leather Tannery, which he eventually became the manager of. I have a strong memory of the stench of the factory, full as it was of hides, skins and tanning chemicals. Like all the other tanneries in Preston it finally closed, firstly because it could not compete with lower cost Asian leather producers and secondly because it was no longer thought appropriate to have a noxious industry in a residential area.

Winifred Latham passed away at Reservoir in 1975, followed by Clarence in 1988. Both were cremated and their ashes are memorialised at Fawkner Memorial Park. Clarence’s mother, May Corneille, had previously passed away in 1971. Thus ended my family’s connection to the City of Darebin that had begun in 1913. The family home at 4 Storey Road Reservoir is still standing and has been renovated by subsequent owners.