The Folk from the Wind Wound Isle > The Child of Arthur Robertson Jnr and Margaret Rutherford
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Willimina Jemima Edith ROBERTSON (1875-1955) - MARRIED NAME WARD
Only child of Arthur Robertson Jnr and the youngest of Margaret Rutherford Cairn’s thirteen children, born 2 November 1875 at Skipton. Known as Mime or Mina. I have been given a number of different spellings for Willimina’s name; the one used here is the spelling she used when she signed her name as a witness on her father’s second marriage certificate.
Soon after Mime’s birth, Arthur and Margaret moved from Derrinallum, where Margaret had property, to Port Campbell. Mime must have grown up in the company of her Cairns half-siblings, the youngest of who were only a few years older than Mime. Sam and Kate Cairns are listed as attending the Port Campbell School in 1877.
Mime was friendly with her cousins Nan and Frances Robertson and there is a posed photo of them together in the possession of Margaret Haine.
Boer War training camp picnic Far left Chris Ward, far right Minnie Ward.
A touching tribute to Mime was written by Hilde Knorr.1 In this Knorr talks about life in Port Campbell when she stayed with Mime. She also relates about Mime and Chris Ward’s romance, as told to her by Mime:
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“They had grown up as neighbours almost, but it wasn’t until he was setting out for the Boer War that he had spoken of his love. ... There were several young men going away that day ... She was standing with a little group, waiting to say a last goodbye, when the boys rode up. ... Chris was riding a little behind the others and he was quiet. ‘I was always fond of him, but as I watched him riding up I thought: Dear God, if anything should happen to him, how shall I live? By the time he came to where I was, the others had surrounded his companions, and I was standing alone with my eyes on the ground, trying to cope with my unfamiliar feelings. He stopped beside me, and leaning down, put his hand gently under my chin, and turned my face up to his. I had to struggle to meet his grave young eyes. Just for a few seconds he looked at me, then he said ‘You will wait for me, won’t you Mime?’ I nodded, for I couldn’t speak. He let me go and joined the others. ... Still trembling I watched the horsemen as they turned the bend in the road, and were lost to us’."
Chris Ward On his return from the Boer War.
Chris Ward and Mime Robertson On their wedding day 1903.
Chris returned from South Africa two years later. He had risen to the rank of Lance Corporal and bore the scar of a wound in his right arm. Mime married Christopher WARD (1876-1918) in 1902.
They settled down as farmers at Port Campbell gradually clearing their land and running dairy cows and pigs. Their block, which is marked on the Lands Department map in the name of G Chiselett, was on the corner of Timboon and Currell’s Roads. It was called ‘Blackwood Bank’. Gus Ward believes his family acquired the land “by adverse possession [payment of back rates for twenty-eight years].”2
Chris’ parents were Peter Ward and Eliza Stagg and he was the eighth of their eleven children. This was a local family and the Ward name appears frequently in Fletcher’s history of the Heytesbury Shire. Wilbur Oswald Ward, the Baptist minister was Chris’s older brother. In 1906 Chris was captain of the Port Campbell Rocket Crew and in 1912 he purchased a milking machine, which was the first in the district.3
The following story, which comes from Gus Ward, gives us some idea about life in the Port Campbell area before the First World War. I have done some minor editing:
“Uncle Henry Cairns’ son-in-law, Sidney Petty, was an Englishman who came from Brighton, England. [He] just saw an ad for going to Australia. All he had ever done in Brighton was deliver flowers for a florist. He arrived in Melbourne somewhere around 1910 and saw a job at Peterborough and got on a train and came to the end of the world. It was just forest. My grandfather
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Christopher Ward happened to be at the Timboon railway station and saw this bewildered kid get off the train and knew he was from ‘the old country’ and asked him where he was going. He said ‘I’ve got to get to Peterborough,' so Chris took him and put him on a wagon going to Peterborough. The poor fellow, he had to get up at 4 o’clock and feed the horses at the Peterborough Hotel and cut chaff and he’d never done work in his life before. My grandfather said to him ‘if you ever get a day off come across to Port Campbell’ and he did and he finished up marrying one of Mime’s Cairns nieces and he lived in Australia for the rest of his life. He didn’t last too long on the farm, he went back to Melbourne and worked in the ES &A bank until he retired.”4
Frances, Isla, Mime and Arthur Ward, circa 1916
Mime and Chris had one child of their own, Arthur Christopher, born in 1905 and an adopted daughter Isla, born in 1904. Isla was the daughter of Chris’ sister Minnie Michel. Just when she came to live with Mime and Chris is uncertain and possibly it was an informal arrangement rather than a formal adoption.5
Later the family included Frances Isobel Ward, the daughter of Chris’ brother Walter and Isabel Thompson. Fanny was born in 1899. Her mother died in 1903 and Walter remarried in 1907. Fan came to live with Mime during World War I, to help with the household while Chris was away: “I stayed on with the family working on the farm with my cousins Isla and Arthur until I was married to Norman Magilton at the age of twenty-six.”6 Fanny is the grandmother of Matthew Magilton. Matthew has contributed information about the Ward and Magilton sections of the family.
In July 1917 Chris rejoined the army and went off to fight in World War I. In his recruitment papers Chris is described as five foot ten and a half inches tall, 168 pounds in weight and as having blue eyes and fair hair. His occupation is recorded as dairy farmer. Chris was appointed to the 4th Light Horse Regiment and served in Middle East. He was made a temporary Lance Corporal in May 1918, but reverted to Trooper the following month when he was taken off duty and hospitalised with dysentery. He did not rejoin his regiment until 7 September. On 30 September 1918, Chris was ‘killed in action'.7
The circumstances of Chris’ death are uncertain. There are two very different versions within the family and as I have not been able to substantiate either of these from the records, I include both. Chris’ army record gives no explanation other than: “The only information to hand is to the effect that he was killed in action about 2 miles north of Sasa and 300 yards on [the] west side of the main road to Damascus”.8 His burial place is unknown but presumed by the army to be beside the road near where he was killed. There is a memorial panel for Trooper C N Ward in the Jerusalem War Memorial Cemetery.
Gus Ward writes about his grandfather: “He, being a Lance Corporal in the Cavalry, had to gallop in front of his platoon to take the surrender of a German division. As he lead the charge, a German bent down, picked up a rifle, which had been laid on the ground, and shot him, the leader, in the back as he went past. ... This is authentic, told to my father by returned soldiers who were with him”.9
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The other version, which comes from John McCue and Lottie Dickins, is that Chris was shot by his own sentry. If in fact Chris was killed by ‘friendly fire’ - which is not as uncommon in war as we may like to believe - the army would not have told the family, and in consideration of the feelings of the bereaved it is possible Chris’ army mates might have also presented a more acceptable version.
Whatever the circumstances of Chris Ward’s death so close to the end of hostilities, the sad reality for his family was that he did not return home. The army records reveal that Mime made efforts to discover her husband burial place right up until 1923. Margaret Haine believes Mime was asked to forgo her army pension because she had been left quite well off. Mime wrote back to the appropriate department saying she would forgo her pension if they could give her back her husband.10
Chris left his property in the ratio of five parts to Mime, one part to Isla and four parts to Arthur. Mime and her half brother, Bill Cairns, were appointed executors.10 11 With Bill’s help, Mime carried on running the farm until Arthur was old enough to take over. Bill Cairns married twice but it seems he was ‘unattached’ at the time he was helping Mime.12
Mime continued living and farming at Port Campbell. She is named as one of the leading landowners of the district, in an article published in the ‘Cobden Times’ in June 1922. Arthur McCue’s name is included in the same list.13 Hilde Knorr, in the piece I quoted from earlier, gives us a picture of Mime as a gentle God loving and hospitable woman. She describes “a quality of blessed homeliness” about the room into which she was shown, “the snowy marcella quilt and frilled pillowcases, the old marble washstand with basin and jug filled with clear rain-water under the white, white towels, the tiny trailer roses on the wall-paper, and the framed text over the bed.”14
Mime was one of the participants at the Jubilee of the Port Campbell Baptist church in 1935. The programme tells us she had played the organ and led the singing at the church for thirty years until ill health prevented her from continuing. Mime died in 1955 and is buried in the Port Campbell cemetery.
Early photograph of Port Campbell
The building on the foreshore at the left was the blacksmith shop of George Cairns, Mime’s half brother.
1 Hilde Knorr nee Dent, published under the heading From the Uttermost Coasts’, in The Messenger', a Catholic Church newsletter, 1 July 1957
2 Judith Ward, 21 October 2002
3 J. Fletcher, ‘The Infiltrators’, p.264 and p.268.
4 Taped interview with Gus Ward, April 2000
5 For more information about Isla Ward’s background see Part IV
6 Taken from notes written by Frances Ward Magilton about her life, in the possession of Matthew Magilton
7 A copy of Chris Ward’s army record is in the possession of the author
8 Letter to Mime dated 27 June 1921, there is no heading on the letter but it is signed by the officer-in-charge of Base Records
9 Letter from Gus Ward, 5.11.1999
10 Interview with Margaret Haine, April 2000
11 The probate certificate is included in the Army records
12 Interview with Gus Ward, April 2000
13 J. Fletcher, 'The Infiltrators’, p.221
14 Hilde Knorr writing in The Messenger'