4.3 Thomas Hedley & Catherine Whitford of Australia
Chapter 4,3
 generation (iii)  Thomas Hedley 1830-1916
& Catherine Whitford 1835-1909 of Australia
The Australian Link

 Pedigree
 Descendancy
Thomas Hedley, born about 1830, the second of the 14 children of John Hedley and Margaret Grierson, left home in 1852, when he was about 22, and went to Australia where he worked in mining. Rick King of Perth email, Western Australia, a great great grandson, informs us that Thomas Hedley arrived in Port Phillip, Australia on April 4, 1853 via the USA aboard the sailing vessel Sacsusa.
Thomas married Catherine Whiteford in Wangaratta in January 1856. Catherine was born in Dublin, Ireland, and according to family oral history, arrived in the Colony onboard an "Irish Bride Ship." Thomas worked in the Goldfields all his life and became a respected mining engineer and inventor. Thomas and Catherine raised eleven children in and around Stanley and Heathcote in central Victoria. (from Rick King's Hedley Family Genealogy Pages)

In a letter from Yackandandah, Victoria, Australia, sent to his younger sister, Elizabeth Dickson in Morris, Manitoba, dated October 8th, 1913, Thomas Hedley writes,
". . . me and my wife lived happily together for 54 years.
She will be dead 4 years at Christmas. I miss her very much.
We had eleven of a family, 8 boys, 3 girls, two dead. My
oldest son is 54 years. I will be 83 on the 7th of April"
(Originals of letters dated Oct. 8th, 1913 and Jan. 6th, 1914 were held by Mrs.
Taylor of Morris, Manitoba, now deceased.)

Photograph of Thomas Hedley Photograph of Catherine Whitford
Photograph of six sons of Thomas and Catherine Hedley


Catherine (Whiteford) Hedley died in 1909 at age 74. Thomas died seven years later, in 1916 at age 85.
Their graves are in Yackandandah Cemetery.
Thomas and Catherine Hedley had eleven children: (iv).
1 - John Hedley (Jack) was born in Beechworth, Victoria, Australia in 1856. He died July 4, 1943
in Perth, WA, Australia at age 87.
John's father Thomas states in his letter to sister and brother, Elizabeth and George Nelson Hedley,
 written in 1914,
". . . John was the oldest. He is 57 and had a family of five
children. they are all grown up. Alice the oldest daughter,
is in New Zealand. She is getting 250 lbs a year in the
telephone and telegraph department. The others are all
doing well. Jack was a clever man but him and his wife
did not hit it very well lately. He went to the West some
15 years ago."
m1 Alice Walker, b. 1858 in Heathcote, Victoria; d. 1925 in Brighton, Victoria; 5 children:
        (1) Alice Cameron Hedley b. 1882 in Melbourne; d. 1924 at age 42 of T.B.
        (2) Fenton Eric Hedley (1883-1963)
        (3) Thomas Wilfred Hedley (1885-1961)
        (4) George Roland Hedley (1888-1956)
        (5) Pearl Clarabelle Hedley b. 1889 in Brighton, Victoria; d. 1960 in Los Angeles
            m. James Marshall
 m2 of John (Jack) Hedley was to Mary McKenzie in 1898. Mary was b. in New Zealand in 1868; d. in 1965
           in Perth, WA (7 children):

        (1) John McKenzie Hedley, 1900, m. Martha Robinson
        (2) Jean McKenzie Hedley, 1903, m. Louise Casas
        (3) Jessie McKenzie Hedley, 1904, m. William Wright
        (4) Kenneth McKenzie Hedley, 1906, m. Lorna Carvill
        (5) Donald McKenzie Hedley, 1909, m. Jean Fullerton, Perth, WA
        (6) Mary McKenzie Hedley, b. 1911, m. Alan James Coat
        (7) Bruce McKenzie Hedley, b. 1913, m. Phyllis Jefferies

Rick King of Australia, who graciously provided much of the Australian information, writes of his
family in June, 2000:
"I am descended from the oldest son, John (known as Jack)
who left his wife and five children in Victoria (Australia)
and sailed to the Western Australia goldfields of Kalgoorlie
and Boulder . . . It seems that Jack brought another wife to
WA (Western Australia) and sired another seven children here.
Two of the daugters are still alive. His last child is the same
age as his grandchildren such as my mother".

2 - Margaret Anne (Maggie) Hedley was born in 1858 in Australia. She died at age 7 of
      scarlet fever.

3 - Thomas Andrew Hedley was born in 1859 in Stanley, Victoria. He died in 1944 at age 85 in
      Ballina, NSW.

Thomas's father writes of his son,
"He lives with me. He was manager of a mine 8 or 10 years
ago when he got caught in a flood and got a chill and has
never really recovered yet."

4 - James Albert Hedley. Of this son Thomas Hedley says in his 1914 letter,
"He is a grand little fellow for lighting the world. He was in
the Clondike, he spent 2 or 3 years in South Africa. He is now
in North Queensland, always in mining."
James Albert was a participant in the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898,
when he would have been 37 years old. His name appears in the careful
records kept by the  North West Mounted Police.
 Klondike Pioneers 
of Australia, Vol. 9 - NWMP records at Lake Bennett:
people who entered the Yukon via boats
  notes

                 "May 20, 1898; Hedley, J.A.; Australia; boat 407."

5 - Selina (Victoria?) Hedley born in 1863 in Stanley, Victoria, Australia. She died at age 76 in
     1939 in Ballina, NSW.

Thomas writes in his 1914 letter,
"Victoria is with me. She is 50. She has been always at home with us, a good girl."

6 - Alexander Hedley, born in Australia in 1865 in Stanley, Victoria; d. 1933 in Townsville,
     Queensland,  Australia; m. Jane Elizabeth Kinchington (1870-1936) in 1909. Two children:
        (1) Alexander Thomas Adrian Hedley (1913-1973)
        (2) Jean Alexandra Hedley, b. 1915; m. Archie McHardie

7 - Robert (Bob) Ralph Hedley, born in Stanley, Victoria, Australia in 1867; d. in 1908 in
      Broken Hill, Australia; m. Sarah Beattie Molyneux in 1900 (1881-1905). Two children:
        (1) Anne Hedley b. 1901
        (2) Edgar Thomas Hedley (1904-1983)

8 - William (Will) Whitford Hedley, born in Stanley, Victoria Australia in 1869; d. in South Africa;
     m.  Madelaine Annette Ruthoen Campbell in 1910. Five children:
        (1) Albert Campbell Hedley b. 1907
        (2) Whiteford Hedley
        (3) Norman Hedley b. 1910; d. 1982 in Melbourne; m. Marnie (-?-)
        (4) Victoria Hedley m. George Sharp
        (5) Kathleen Hedley

9 - George Nicholas Hedley, born in Australia in 1871 in Anderson's Creek, Victoria; d. 1936 of
      gallstone attack in Sandringham, Victoria; m. Kathleen Otway Whitley (1872-1959). 3 children:
      (1) Alexander (Alec) Francis Gerard Hedley b. 1898; m. Jean Cameron
      (2) Annie Catherine Lieila Hedly b. 1900
      (3) Robert Thomas Hedley b. 1909 in Golden Square, Victoria

10 - Anthony (Tony) Humble Hedley, born in Heathcote, Victoria, Australia in 1875;
       d. 1958 in Ballarat, Victoria; m. Eleanor Isabella Searle (Nell) in 1909 (b. 1889;
       d. 1972 in Port Fairy, Victoria)

11 - Catherine Anne Hedley, born in Heathcote, Victoria in 1877; Two children:
      (1) Franklin Walter Hedley (1910-1998)
      (2) Harold Thomas Hedley, b. 1911 in Melbourne; d. 1988 in Dandenong, Victoria
      m. Willam Mangan; Catherine d. in Balina, NSW, Australia.
page last updated  September 8,  2004
return to main index page