Chapter 12 : William Adie Robertson

Born 1858 - Died 1901

Although the family in Australia believes William Adie’s birth date to be 23 July 1858, Shetland records tell us he was born at Hellister, Shetland on 23 March 1858. He was the youngest child of Margaret Henderson and Arthur Robertson and he may have been named after a friend of his father. 1 William was eight when he travelled to Australia with his mother and brother, Robert, in 1866. William’s granddaughter, Beryl Oakes, has provided a photo of him taken about that time.

Comments I have read about Willie lead me to believe he was a much-loved younger brother.

William Adie Robertson >

Robert describes him as having “a high sense of justice and a strong sense of duty” and he “shrank honestly from leadership”. 2 William is recorded as one of the rescuers at the scene of the Loch Ard wreck in June 1878. One of the two survivors, Eva Carmichael, relates,

“In the darkness of the night a young man named William Robertson of Port Campbell and William Shields, under the superintendence of Mr Gibson, conveyed me up the steep lofty precipice. I cannot understand how they succeeded in bringing me to the top. It must have been a work of great difficulty and great danger.” 3 Beryl Oakes has a piece of the rope used in the rescue, which William kept as a memento.

Robert tells us the following story about Willie on the occasion of a visit to Beulah by the Rev Allan Webb, “The Yarriambeac was in flood and without a bridge to cross on. To keep the appointment at the Sunday services, William carried Mr Webb on his back through the flooded creek. Thus Mr Webb was kept dry to carry on the service.” Robert continues, “One of the horses William bred was his favoured hack. She would carry or follow him over anything he asked her to do, and on a pinch she would leave 80 or 90 miles behind her any day without a murmur if he wished her to do so, and after a good roll in the sand and a feed was ready to talk with her master about the next tramp on the work of the mission.”4

Willie was a farmer as well as an evangelist and several sources credit him with the donation of land for the Port Campbell Baptist Church, built adjacent to the cemetery at Port Campbell in

page 56

1885-86. ‘Victory,’ a hymn written by William in 1894 and sung to the tune of Annie Laurie, is included among the family writings. (See Appendix 5.)

In 1889 on 8 November, Willie married Jane MATHIESON (1858-1948) at Port Campbell. Jane was the ninth child of John Conely Mathieson and Catherine McMillan who had a farming property called ‘Woody Park’ at Princetown near Port Campbell. 5 An older sister, also called Jane, had died in 1856 at the age of two years. William Adie was first engaged to Jane’s older sister Kate (Catherine Isabella) and Jane was blamed for the break-up of Kate’s engagement. Her marriage to William caused a rift between her and the rest of her family. The marriage took place at the residence of Arthur Robertson in Port Campbell (whether Arthur senior or junior is not known) with Robert and Margaret Robertson as witnesses. Kate never married. 6 William and Jane had four daughters, Margaret (1890), Flora (1892), Ruby (1894) and Adie (1899). Also a son Willie (1896) who died soon after birth.

William Robertson Family, 1900
Left to right: Flora, Jane holding Adie, Margaret, William Adie and Ruby

Willie and his family moved to Beulah in 1892, and for nine years, William served as a home missionary for the Baptist Church, covering a large area in the district around Beulah, including Rainbow and Hopetoun. The story of his mission is recorded in The Romance of the Home Missions’ and the ‘Rainbow Jubilee Historical Outline’. 7 Both publications include a touching tribute to William written by the Rev N L Beurle in 1902. It is headed ‘Jonathan, a True Story of Home Mission Work’. Beurle was a young teacher when he first met William and he gives us this description:

... a man under forty, but with hair fast turning grey, and the look of one much older. ... His hat was lying beside him and the grizzled hair was matted in damp, disorderly masses round his hot brows. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, showing hairy and sun browned arms; his hands were broad and hard, evidently the hands of a worker. ... He had honest eyes; I never quite knew the colour of them, but they were grand fearless eyes, that never looked down in shame. His voice was kindly, with a good broad Scot’s accent.

page 57

Willie’s niece, Barbara McCue, lived with the Beulah Robertsons from about 1892 to 1901, and her brother Jack joined her there in 1899. Jack’s daughter, Marjorie Mathieson, tells us Uncle Will was responsible for encouraging her father to study after Jack McCue left home, and Jack is mentioned in the The Romance of the Home Missions as one of the men who assisted William on his preaching circuit. 8 Marjorie writes, “Aunt Jane was well known to us as children. Dad lived with them at Beulah. [Her] daughter Margaret was Mum’s bridesmaid, later lived, with her family, at Canterbury, Melbourne.” 9

At Beulah, William was fondly known as 'the Bishop’. The family’s house was built or perhaps just renovated and extended, with the assistance of labour, gifts and donations from William’s parishioners. It was known as 'Ex Dono’ (I am told this means 'out of gifts’). 10 A letter dated 4 February 1895, from Willie to Mr Walrond, secretary of the Home Mission, reports the completion of the house and lists expenses including - contractors price £50, varnish 5 shillings, carting loam 9 shillings, wall paper 6 shillings, and extra coat of paint £1/15/-. Willie comments, “...the Beulah manse will now be a little more worthy of the name now than it was before, and we find the increased accommodation a great blessing,...the extra coat of Paint is just what was needed and makes the House look splendit.” 11

Jane and William’s first child was born at Port Campbell. The other children were born at Beulah. William James, born in 1896, lived for only two weeks. He was buried in the cemetery at Beulah and after William’s death the baby was disinterred and placed in his father’s grave. William’s health deteriorated over a period of years and he died at Beulah on 17 September, 1901 and he is buried there. He was forty-three years old. William died of tuberculosis, as did two of his daughters twenty years later.

After William’s death Jane ran the farm at Beulah.

The farm provided the town’s milk supply. Jane was a physically strong woman, about 5ft 10in in height, with a ‘poker down her back’. She had worked on her parent’s dairy farm before her marriage and when she left home her father is supposed to have said that he ‘lost the best man I ever had’. There are two photos of Jane in working clothes taken between 1910 and 1920 - long skirt and a hat firmly anchored by a scarf tied under her chin. In one photo she sits on her horse sidesaddle - which is the way she always rode.

In 1920 and 1922 Jane lost her daughters Ruby and Flora to TB. In 1926 she left the farm at Beulah and went to live in Armadale, a Melbourne suburb. When her two remaining daughters Margaret and Adie married, it was arranged that Jane would live six months at a time with each of them. After staying with Adie for a time Jane visited her unmarried sisters Kate, Margaret and Flora, in Sale. While she was there she became ill, so Margaret took her home to Dimboola and she lived with the Horman family for the rest of her life.

Granddaughter Beryl remembers Jane with great affection as ‘a second mother’. She used to read the Bible to Beryl and discuss what they had read.

Beryl describes her as the “the truest Christian I ever came across”. 12

Jane led an active life, attending church regularly.

She helped Margaret in the house and loved working in the garden. Twelve months before she died Jane fell and broke her hip and became bedridden. She died in 1948. Her body was cremated and her ashes placed in William Adie’s grave at Beulah.

page 58

McCue-Robertson Family Group, circa 1890
Left to right: Jane (Mathieson) Robertson holding daughter Margaret, Aggie McCue, Michael McCue

1 See Chapter 4 detailing the life of William Adie’s older brother John Robertson

2 R. Robertson, The Port Campbell Revival’, p.25

3 M. McKenzie, ‘Shipwrecks ... and More Shipwrecks’, p.43, also D.E. Charlwood, The Wreck of the Loch Ard’ p.63

4 R. Robertson, The Port Campbell Revival’, p.25

5 See notes on the inter-relationship of the Mathieson and McCue families in Appendix 2

6 Information supplied by M Mathieson in November 1998, from Ainger Vincent (Vin) Mathieson’s history of the Mathieson family.

7 F.J. Wilkin, The Romance of the Home Missions’. The golden ‘Jubilee Historical Outline of the Rainbow District Baptist Churches’ was published in 1945, and is partly based on Wilkin’s book. See also F.J. Wilkin, ‘Baptists in Victoria - our first century'

8 F.J. Wilkin, The Romance of the Home Missions’, Chapter III

9 Letter from M. Mathieson, 1998

10 Interview with Maurine Port, March 2000

11 Copy of letter from W.A. Robertson to Mr Walrond supplied by M. Magilton

12 Interview with Beryl Horman, April 2000

Garry Gillard | New: 19 March, 2019 | Now: 5 September, 2022