Australia Day 2012 – Wealth for toil – Butcher

Recently I invited geneabloggers to join me in Australia Day blogging on the theme “Wealth for Toil” (from the Australian national anthem). The instructions I gave were:

To participate, choose someone who lived in Australia (preferably one of your ancestors) and tell us how they toiled. Your post should include:

1. What was their occupation? 
2. What information do you have about the individual’s work, or about the occupation in general?
3. The story of the person, focussing on their occupation; or
   The story of the occupation, using the person as an example.

Responses may be as long or short as you like, and as narrow or broad as you wish.

This post is my response to my own challenge. I selected an ancestor for whom I had recently found occupational information, and who I thought I might be able to dig up some more information and context in the time and with the resources I had available.

[I will post a list of all the challenge responses received to date shortly]

 

The first mention I have of my great-great-grandfather Daniel Miller Couper’s occupation is on his marriage certificate in January of 1879. By then 28 years old, he was a butcher. Whether he already had his own business by then or was working for another butcher, I don’t know. From that time his occupation is uniformly given as butcher in all the documents I have viewed – up until the time it changes to retired butcher!

Becoming a butcher

I have not dwelled on the physical skills needed to become a butcher – I am too squeamish for that and it is certainly not an occupation that would suit me! I had always assumed that Daniel Miller Couper must have gone through an apprenticeship. Perhaps he did as there was an apprenticeship system in place in Victoria, modelled after the English system. However, in researching for this post I’m not so sure.

The requirements for a slaughtering licence outside of Melbourne were quite straightforward - a slaughtering licence could be had for one pound if the local council was satisfied that the applicant was of “unexceptionable character and that the situation of such slaughter-house or place is not objectionable”¹. There was no requirement for any particular training. It seems probable that he learnt the trade from another local butcher, although not necessarily under a formal arrangement.

The first indication I have of Daniel owning a butchers store comes in the Sands Melbourne Directory of 1880. I have not done a thorough enough search to feel confident that this was when he opened shop. His butcher’s shop was on Broadwood Street, Oakleigh, and his slaughter yard not far away at Mulgrave.

Daniel himself had workers at his store. I know this not from employment records, but from when things went wrong.

In 1885, Daniel hired Joseph Jose for 25s per week on a verbal agreement at the Melbourne Meat Market. However, the employment didn’t last. Joseph left without giving the (allegedly) agreed one week of notice. On 6 March 1885 Joseph was arrested at Walhalla. For his part, Joseph said that he occasionally had to work late at night and, in fact, there was money owing to him. Neither party had evidence to support their claims and the case was dismissed.²

Later, in 1900, John J Keppel, a stout 28 year old butcher of fair complexion, was charged with embezzling 11s. 4d. of Daniel’s money³.

Legal requirements

Being a butcher involved a lot of red tape. Slaughterhouses had to give notice in writing at least 12 hours in advance of any animal to be slaughtered. They also had to keep a book with detailed records of the animals they slaughtered that specified the “color marks brands sex and apparent age of such cattle…” and a copy of these records had to be provided to the nearest court of petty sessions every month. The definition of cattle was broad – it included any “bull ox steer cow heifer calf ram ewe wether lamb goat kid or swine”⁴.

The purpose of all the red tape and detailed records was to prevent the theft of cattle, or of any other livestock worth stealing. Failure to comply could mean hefty fines.

Abattoirs also had special mention in the public health laws⁵. In the late 1800s it was well known that unsanitary conditions contributed to the spread of infectious diseases. Inspection of abattoirs and butchers premises was a public health measure.

The public health laws allowed members of the local council and their officers to inspect a butcher’s premises at any time. The local board could give 24 hours notice that any “manure dung soil filth offal coal ashes or other offensive or noxious matter whatsoever” they found was to be removed. Penalties for non-compliance could range from fines up to hard labour.

The fledgling town of Oakleigh struggled with problems of drainage and of livestock being kept within the town limits. On one occasion, as late as 1891, a flock of around 150 sheep belonging to Thomas Jones, a long-time Oakleigh butcher, was found straying on Oakleigh’s streets⁶. It might not have been so bad if a ram hadn’t started butting a woman!

OAKLEIGH POLICE COURT. (1891, December 5). Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902), p. 5. Retrieved January 26, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66169778

As the town grew, some slaughtering licences were not renewed. In January 1887 Charles Newport’s application to renew a slaughtering licence at Dandenong Road was refused, on the grounds that the area was becoming more populated. However, the application of one J T Clarke with premises directly across the road was going to be granted. The unfairness of this was noted and the decision deferred to the next meeting.

While Daniel had the occasional slap on the wrist from council e.g. for keeping pigs within the town limits or for leaving bad smelling fat and putrid bones lying around, he seems to have always had his licence renewed.

Technology and advancement

The latter half of the 1800s was a time with many changes affecting butchers’ ability to run a business. Through good management or good fortune, Daniel Couper seems to have navigated them all.

Viable systems of refrigeration had been invented, and as the technology was being adopted, the ability of a butcher to refrigerate his wares was a fact worthy of advertising⁷. Investing in a new technology is a risk, but in the case of Daniel Miller Couper the risk seems to have paid off as he eventually retired a wealthy man.

The spread of the rail network also brought both the risk of losing custom, and opportunities to sell to new markets.

I have only a few details of Daniel Miller Couper’s own business. I have located his butchers shop in Melbourne Directories but this tells me little. I hope to gain more information from newspaper advertisements. In Taking its Place: A history of Oakleigh by H.G.Gobbi mentions Daniel advertising his business – the source is not clear but probably in the Oakleigh and Ferntree Gully Times based on the surrounding source references. This publication is not (yet?) on the Trove Newspapers website and I have not been able to find examples of him advertising in other papers.

Finally

As it happens, Daniel Couper Miller did become a very wealthy man (although that was not why I chose him for this challenge). He was able to retire and lived for many years as a gentleman of independent means, leaving a sizable estate when he died in 1935.

 

---

[1] Victoria. “The Licensed Butchers and Abattoirs Statute 1864”. These provisions were retained in later replacement legislation.

[2] OAKLEIGH POLICE COURT. (1885, March 25). South Bourke and Mornington Journal (Richmond, Vic. : 1872 - 1920), p. 3 Edition: WEEKLY.. Retrieved January 21, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70389563

[3] Victoria Police. and Victoria. Police Dept. and Victoria Police Force.  Victoria police gazette  4 Jan 1900, p7.

[4]Victoria. “The Licensed Butchers and Abattoirs Statute 1864”. These provisions were retained in later replacement legislation.

[5] Including the Public Health Statute 1865 as well as earlier and subsequent legislation.

[6] OAKLEIGH POLICE COURT. (1891, December 5). Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902), p. 5. Retrieved January 26, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66169778

[7] Gobbi, H. G. & Oakleigh and District Historical Society.  2004  Taking its place : a history of Oakleigh marking its sesquicentenary, 1853-2003 / H.G. Gobbi  Oakleigh and District Historical Society, Oakleigh, Vic.

Bad smelling fat and putrid bones

My ancestor Daniel Miller Couper, a butcher, gives every impression of being a respectable citizen. Well, almost every impression.

I knew there was an 1887 newspaper article that discussed the offensive state of his butcher shop and slaughter yard as I had seen reference to it in a local history book. Sadly, the issue of the South Bourke and Mornington Journal I needed wasn’t available at the National Library of Australia.

The good news is that the State Library of Victoria has funded the addition of a number of Victorian titles to the Trove newspaper collection. Now I can access the newspapers I’ve been wanting, and they are a goldmine for me. Here is the text of the the article in question:

“Shire Council Meetings
Oakleigh Shire Council
Thursday, December 1, 1887
…
“Received. From J. Colville, Secretary, Central Board of Health, forwarding copies of the following reports by an Inspector of the Board relative to butchers' premises at Oakleigh:--"1 Report of John Taylor, relative to D. Couper, butcher, Broadwood street, Oakleigh. Visited this day (24th November); accumulation of manure; two pig-styes with boarded floors in an offensive State; coppers and boiling sheds in an offensive state; accumulation of bad smelling fat, putrid bones and and generally in an offensive State." Slaughter yard about quarter of a mile from the shop; quantity of manure with blood and offal exposed in an offensive state
…
“In reference to Couper's case some improvements had been made, and he had reasons to believe that in a very short time the premises would be in a proper sanitary condition.-- Mr. Leonard moved that the local inspector draw up a report on both matters and forward same to the Central Board.-Seconded by Mr. Lavidge and carried.”

Source: Shire Council Meetings. (1887, December 7). South Bourke and Mornington Journal (Richmond, Vic. : 1872 - 1920), p. 3 Edition: WEEKLY.. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70029994

This sort of thing wasn’t so unusual. Other butchers were also pulled up for similar offences.

There is a lot more about the state of hygiene in the area in general, and I have some ideas brewing about research I want to do (so frustrated that I am at present an “internet-only” genie) and maybe even papers I want to write (not sure if that will ever happen)… but for now I am trying to be systematic about digging out all the relevant newspaper articles and putting together a timeline.

New treasure on Trove – Oakleigh Leader

This evening an item came up in my Google reader which made me exclaim a delighted “Oh!”.

One of the many great features of the Trove site is all the RSS feeds. As all of my immigrant ancestors settled in Victoria, I have signed up to the RSS feed for newly added titles from that State. It has been fantastic seeing more and more newspaper names relating to regional areas appearing.

This one in particular made me sit up and take notice because my COUPER branch had a long history in the Oakleigh area, being some of the earliest pioneers and also sitting on council. They also have the sad distinction of the known first burial in Oakleigh Cemetery – Christina Couper was buried there on 11 December 1860, aged just 7.

Naturally I jumped right in. A search on COUPER gave me 69 hits. Many of them were advertising for “Dr Couper-Johnson”, and not likely to be of interest to me. When I eliminated those I still had 22 results. Sadly, 21 of those results are still undergoing quality control so I can’t see them!

The one result I can see is notes from an Oakleigh Shire Council meeting, where my butcher ancestor’s request to renew his slaughtering licence was considered, but postponed. I will have to do a manual search for meeting notes for the next month to see what happened. I know that he continued as a butcher for many more years, so presumably he got the licence but there must have been a reason for consideration of the request to be postponed.

OAKLEIGH SHIRE COUNCIL. (1888, December 22). Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902), p. 7. Retrieved August 4, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66176226

I must remember to search on Cowper and other variations as well.

Moving on there were tantalising glimpses of promising articles which were in the results but not yet viewable. Like this one:

What sad event?! What was his role in it?

There were also several mentions of a D.Couper in Court of Petty Sessions reports. I will just have to wait and see what they contain.

Something to look forward to!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Obituary, Arthur Milne Lee

I am lucky enough to have access to a real family history treasure chest. Over coming weeks I plan on sharing its contents with you as I rediscover what's inside.

I was recently asked if the "treasure chest" pictured above is the actual container that holds the documents I'm describing. Yes, it is. The dimensions of the box are near enough to 25cm x 15cm x 10cm. There is a keyhole on the front, but no key. It's lucky the box wasn't locked when we got it!

The next item I find in my treasure chest is an obituary, from an unknown newspaper. The date is not printed on the item, but it bears the handwritten notation "2/8/56".

The subject of the obituary is Arthur Milne Lee, my great grandfather. Like most of the items in this treasure chest, I noted the family details when I first saw it all those years ago, but did little more than that. This document has quite a bit to follow up on. I have evidence that at least two other Lee family members worked for Arnall & Jackson - a firm of printers and stationers. That is definitely a company I would like to find out more about. There is no mention in the clipping of Arthur's involvement with the Freemasons.

Obituary
ARTHUR MILNE LEE
A resident of Oakleigh for over 70 years, Arthur Milne Lee passed away peacefully at his home, 12 Rugby road, on Thursday, July 19.
Mr Lee was survived by his wife, Jessie, daughter Edna (Mrs F. Orr), sons Leslie, Fred and Jack, and eight grandchildren. He was predeceased by a daughter, Phyllis (Mrs R. Davenport).
Mr Lee was born in Colac and came to live with his parents in Oakleigh 74 years ago. Edu­cated at Oakleigh State School, he was presented with the Mayor's prize for the dux of the school in 1891. (The late Cr. J. Davey was Mayor at the time).
As a youth he played cricket for Oakleigh and won the tro­phies for the best batting and best bowling averages in the one season.
Early in his career Mr Lee worked in Oakleigh with Mr Lucas and Mr T. G. Newton. In 1901 he joined the well-known printing, publishing and station­ery firm of Arnall & Jackson, of Melbourne. As a traveller, his connections were mainly with municipal authorities. He was probably more widely known among Victorian Town Clerks and Shire Secretaries than any other commercial personality. He was still employed by the firm at the time of his death.
Following a service at 12 Rugby road by Rev. Ball, of the South Yarra Church of Christ, the large funeral cortege left for Springvale Crematorium on Friday, July 20.


If you have a connection with this family, then please get in touch with me via comments or use the email address on the "About me" page. I would love to hear from you.

First known burial in Oakleigh General Cemetery

I just found out that a plaque has been placed, commemorating the first known burial in Oakleigh General Cemetery. The person named, Christina Couper, was seven years old when she died in 1860, and happens to be my great-grand-aunt. Here's the media release. The release also mentions a booklet about the cemetery.

I've previously posted some pictures of the memorial park, on a Tombstone Tuesday post for Christina's nephew who was tragically killed when his horse bolted.


So, there are a few more to-do items for me. Get a photo of the plaque, and get a copy of that booklet!


I found the post when I was testing out search terms to set up a few more Google alerts. Looks like that search worked!

Tombstone Tuesday - Leslie Miller COUPER

I wrote a few days ago about the tragic death of young Leslie Miller COUPER. Here is his final resting place in Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park, Victoria, Australia.



And here is the headstone which I assume once stood at the head of the grave (as headstones do!) but at the time of the photo (April 1998) it lay across the plot.


The headstone reads:

Sacred

to the memory of
our dearly beloved son
LESLIE M COUPER
accidentally killed 2nd March 1897
aged 9 years
also
DANIEL COUPER
Loved husband of
Mary Couper
died 12 March 1935
aged 85 years
also MARY
His beloved wife
died 31st Aug 1938
aged 82 years
Our loved mother

Oakleigh is now a suburb of Melbourne, about 15 km from the CBD. The "Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park" operated as a cemetery from 1859 to 1959. The cemetery was opened as a park in 1988. I was most fortunate that this headstone was still present when I took the photo in 1998 as I understand many were removed when the area was made into a park. So far as I know it's still there, but I haven't been back to check.

Under the white structure on the right of the top photo are bricks inscribed with the names of those known to be buried there. That information is also in the cemetery database. A search on COUPER yields 14 entries, some of whom don't bear the name COUPER. They were people, mostly people connected to the family, whose burial Daniel COUPER authorised.

I must remember to write a post sometime about the diagram I created (using Genbox) that shows Daniel's relationship to each of those people.

Still staying focused - a good result!

I would have skipped World Vital Records' recent offer of a few days of free access, had it not been for the Victorian Government and Police Gazettes. I've been meaning to have a look at them some time. They were tempting... so very tempting... I signed up.

After some playing around to get a feel for the site I decided to focus on a few individuals from my COUPER branch. This family came from Scotland and settled in Oakleigh, Victoria in the mid 1850s. I've got good basic information on them, and a bit more.

I found Robert COUPER in several directories as a cooper, which fits with what I know. Only... one year there was a Robert COUPER in Oakleigh with the word "beerhouse" instead. How odd, I thought, and wondered if it was the same person. It took me a few days before the (now obvious) thought came to me that beer would have been stored in barrels. Coopers make barrels. "Beerhouse" might not be so inconsistent after all. That little revelation was enough to make me think that my time was not totally wasted.

There was another possible lead for the family. I found a reference to a Robert COUPER in the Victorian Goverment Gazette (1858). He had been awarded a government contract for the supply of timber for the maintenance of the plank road from Geelong to Ballarat. Could this be my Robert COUPER? A cooper must have a source of timber, mustn't he? I will have to see if the Public Record Office of Victoria has the tender documents and contract in their archives. Some day. I've put it on my to-do list.

I came away feeling glad I'd taken up the offer. I was able to focus on the families I was interested in and now have some leads to follow when I am ready to do some real work on them.

As for the site itself, I probably will take a paid subscription with them some day, when I'm ready. I found the search interface so-so but the databases on offer had potential. I was going to write a post about the search interface but I think it would be more constructive to send my remarks to the website's feedback form. Unless I run short of blog topics, or there is overwhelming reader interest (=any) on the subject, that is!