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JOHN BEAGLEHOLE was born Nov 13, 1831
at Helston, Cornwall, England
to William BEAGLEHOLE (1800-1833)
and his wife Elizabeth nee TRESIDDER (1800-1874).
He was christened Nov 20th, 1831 Helston, Cornwall, England
(childhood details not known).
In August 1853 John (22), William Henry (19) Beaglehole,
and others including John Boot and their brother-in-law Edward Millstead,
left for the Victorian Gold fields on board the ship CHARLOTTE JANE.
It seems their adventure in Victoria was successful.
Following their return to South Australia, John's brother
William Beaglehole (aged 21) married Margaret Johns (19)
on November 1st, 1855 at the Wesleyan Church in North Adelaide.
Margaret's parents were Edward Johns and Margaret (nee Ellis).
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On May 27, 1857 John (25) married Emily Michell (20) at North Adelaide's Wesleyan Chapel.
The Marriage Register records her father as being Francis Michell.
John and Emily's children:
John (1858), William (1860), Selina (1862), Emily (1866),
Annie (1868), Elizabeth (1870) and William (1872)
By 1862 the Beaglehole brothers had moved from Gilberton to the Kadina/Moonta area district,
to be near their mother Elizabeth (nee Tresidder) who died on June 8th,1874.
John's wife Emily died in Moonta three days earlier, on June 5th, 1874 (aged 37).
1871 SA Directory: John Beaglehole listed as a builder at Moonta.
His brother William Henry Beaglehole was listed as a publican at Royal Hotel, Moonta.
John married Emily's older sister Selina Michell on August 14th, 1879, at the residence of Mrs Gray of the Moonta Mines.
We recently discovered that John Beaglehole
was a member of the Yorke Peninsular Roads Board
during its last year 1887.
Members of the Board during its last year 1887 were:
Thomas Davies, JP - Chairman
Frederick William Gurner, JP (d.1905 aged 71)
David Bews, MP (d.1891 aged 55)
Henry Lamshed, JP
John Beaglehole,
Nicholas Dunstan Bennett, Secretary (d.1915 aged 80)
Thomas Jones, Superintending Surveyor |
The Roads Board on Yorke Peninsular,
established on 1 July 1875,
was responsible for the constuction and maintenance
of roads from Kadina down through the peninsular.
The board, with its office at Moonta, was officially
entitled "Local Board of Main Roads, Peninsular District"
but commonly referred to as the Peninsular Road Board.
Source: "Salt Winds Across Barley Plains" by Beryl Neumann
Page 56 (ISBN 0 959179 0 6, published June, 1983)
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OBITUARY - MR JOHN BEAGLEHOLE (1831-1910)
John Beaglehole died on January 29th 1910 - Extract from paper of the day, in South Australia.
The links which join the present with the beginning of things in Moonta Methodism have been recently reduced severely. In swift succession have passed to their eternal rest and reward. Henry Adams, a grand old man of the Moonta Mines; Richard Lawry, a most devoted and loyal worker in the Moonta Church; and now John Beaglehole is added to the "great majority". He passed away quietly at his home in Ryan St on Saturday January 29th. and his body was laid in the Moonta Cemetery on the following Monday.
John Beaglehole came from West Cornwall. He was the son of a Methodist local preacher, and was born in the year of 1831. When a child of two years of age he was left fatherless, and came under the special care of his grandparents. In the year of 1849 at the age of 18 years he left Cornwall and went with his [mother and] brother to South Australia and at once proceeded to the Burra Burra Copper Mine.
Mr. Beaglehole's stay in the Burra, like that of many others, was cut short by the Victorian gold rush. He was at this time closely associated with John Boot, a man well known in Methodism of those early days both in South Australia and Victoria. Mr. Beaglehole was at that time twenty years of age, and the value to him of such a companionship in the formation of his Christian character cannot be estimated. With John Boot he went to the Victorian diggings, but after a brief stay returned to South Australia and settled in North Adelaide. He at once joined the Archer St church, of which he remained an active member and Sunday school worker for about ten years. It was while there that he was married by the Rev. Spencer Williams to Miss Emily Michell.
Mr Beaglehole came to the Peninsula in the year 1860, first residing at Wallaroo Mines, and later in Kadina. He was in Kadina when the Wesleyan church was first opened by the Reverend John Watsford. Not until the year 1866 did he take up his residence in Moonta; but for forty-four years he lived and labored there, trusted and honored, until his departure hence to be with Christ.
Mr. Beaglehole was by profession a builder and contractor, and had the honor of erecting the first engine house on the mines. Subsequently he began business, and so continued till the end of his life. His business life was marked throughout by strict uprightness, conscientious exactness, and generosity. No word of suspicion ever challenged his honesty, nor did a breath of dishonor tarnish his reputation. This is the unvarying testimony. His religious life took definite and dedicated form at the Burra soon after he arrived there. The warmth and enthusiasm, the simple faith and love which characterized the fellowship of the early Methodist meetings in the Burra where mighty factors in the formation of some of the finest characters in Australian Methodism, and John Beaglehole was one.
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"It was on a Saturday evening in his own room that God revealed Himself to him". Such is the simple record which lies latent the history of a new life. The beginning of a holy life is beyond human skill to trace, but its definite point of decision can be marked in mostly all lives. It was so with John Beaglehole - he knew himself a saved man. He lived among his own family, loved, honored, and revered for his exemplary life and his abiding affection for his children and his brother and sister who survive him.
Of the sixty years during which Mr. Beaglehole was a member of the Methodist Church, forty-four years were intimately associated with Moonta Methodism. He was an ideal worshipper, and one of the first to start the Wesleyan Church in Moonta. Together with eight others he began the Wesleyan Church Sunday School, at first in Ryan St, soon to be followed by a church building in Roberts St., the site of the present noble structure.
The first gathering was unique: there were nine teachers and two scholars. One of the scholars was Mr.John Beaglehole, now in Moonta, and Mrs. Buzza is the only surving teacher in the township.
Mr. Beaglehole served the Church in all its offices, particularly as a Sunday School superintendent and teacher, trust treasurer, and class leader. For twenty-five years he met his members weekly, until increasing weakness made it impossible. The class which had been formed by Mr. London he took charge of from Mr. Rossiter.
" There are still some few remaining Who remind us of the past."
Of the original members there are in Moonta three honored Christian matrons: Mrs. Roach, Mrs.Martin, and Mrs.Gray. These he visited as a faithful undershepard with great regularity until he could visit no longer. As his feebleness increased upon him one great desire possessed each member to meet again on Earth in one more fellowship meeting, but it was denied. The meeting must be in Heaven.
Mr. Beaglehole was a man of singular meekness of spirit and gentleness of manner, deeply sympathetic, an unfailing friend, upright in business, and faithful to his fellow men and to his God.
Refer Cornish Mining index
Victorian Government Gazette
Unclaimed letter at Avoca Post Office in period 1854-1864 #14
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