Five Generations at The Vale

Lithgow Mercury, 23 June 1933, Page 26

David Leake was born in the Coal Mining region of Brownhills, Staffordshire, England, on Christmas Day, 1856; the second son of coal miner, John Leake (32) and Mary (31) (nee Wright). 

In the 1871 Census of England, David and his siblings were living with their mother in Wolverhampton Road, Ogley Hay, Staffordhire. By then, his father and older brother had emigrated to the USA. By the end of 1871, Mary and the rest of the family joined John at Pompey Smash, Vale Summit in Maryland.

Tragically his father was killed in a coal mine in 1874. Within a year of his father’s death, nineteen year old David left the family and returned to England, possibly back to his home county of Staffordhire. It is more than likely that he had already formed a romantic connection with Mary Ann Bampton, who lived with her family in Foxes Row, Ogley Hay. (1971 England Census).

 At the age of 21, under the Assisted Migrant Scheme he sailed to Sydney Australia, arriving on “La Hogue” on 15 November 1877.  David was a coal miner, and I think he initially took up employment in that industry at Greta near Cesnock.

Three years later, Mary Ann joined David in Australia and they married on 15 January 1880 at the Wesleyan Parsonage, Prince Street in Sydney.  Their marriage certificate noted that the 21year old Mary Ann had “just arrived from England”. This photo of my Great Grandmother, must have been taken upon her marriage to David, because I notice that she is wearing a shiny new wedding ring. 

The following year Mary Ann gave birth to their first son, Edwin, in ‘Hartley Vale’ near Lithgow.  My grandfather, Arthur arrived in 1883 followed by two more children, a son John who died at the age of 1 and finally in 1893, their only daughter, Emma, who was named after Mary Ann’s mother.  

The home that David built for Mary Ann between Ramsay and Saywell Streets in the Vale of Clwydd, Lithgow, was a small weatherboard construction, with a large coal burning oven in the kitchen where the family spent most of their time; two bedrooms and a formal dining/reception room.  The laundry, with its coal fired copper was in a separate lime washed brick building, next to which was the outside privy.   A creek ran along the side boundary of the yard and water was originally drawn from a well sunk into the front yard.

The couple must have felt nostalgic for their English landscape for they planted a poplar tree and several Hawthorne trees along the front picket fence as well as several Oak trees on the side. There are several photographs in the family album of David and Mary Ann enjoying a cup of tea while sitting beside a linen covered table, under one of the Hawthorne trees. 

By that time, Mary Ann had lost her right arm. I was told as a young girl that a bottle of home made root beer (ginger beer?) exploded and cut her arm. The wound became gangrenous and her arm was amputated.  The thought of undergoing that kind of surgery back then makes my blood run cold. 

Mary Ann died during the Spanish Influenza epidemic on 23 September 1918. Her obituary, published in the Lithgow Mercury reported:

At some time after the death of his mother, Arthur Leake and his family moved into the family home with David. I recall my mother, Edna and Aunt Della reminiscing about their childhood memories:

“Remember when one of us would be asked to leave the kitchen table and go outside if we had shown any form of bad manners. Grandfather used to sit on a wooden chair beside kitchen door and he would give the recalcitrant a gentle kick as they departed.”

When I was young, I often stayed with my grandfather, Arthur Leake at the original family home.  

Although three more rooms had been added by then, we still spent most of our time sitting in the old original kitchen, still warmed by the coal oven that Mary Ann had used. I remember being bathed in front of the oven fire in an old metal tub filled with hot water poured from the huge black cast iron kettle that seemed to be permanently bubbling away on the oven.  Another great memory is being allowed to sit on the old rocking chair in front of the fire, while toasting bread on an old fork fashioned from fencing wire. 

Grandfather still used the old laundry.  It was such a lovely warm place to shelter from the frosty snowy winter days that were common in the Vale.  It was not such a great place to be in the height of the summer heat though. I am sure that washing day was a physically hard and long process for Mary Ann.  The fire would have to be lit under the copper and the water fetched by the bucket full from the well in the front yard. The clothes then would need to be scrubbed on an old washboard, before being plunged into the copper. Mary Ann would next have to lift the heavy wet washing out of the copper, using a wooden prop stick, and feed them through a hand operated mangle into the old stone sink of rinsing water next to the copper then back through the mangle again before hanging them out on the line strung between two poles and raised by a long wooden prop. I am very glad to have all the modern machinery in my laundry.

I can remember clearly the night that Grandfather passed away. My mother and I were sharing a bed in the room across the hall from his bedroom. Late that night, my Uncle Ted knocked on the door and said “He’s gone.” Although I was nearly 9 by then, I really did not grasp what he meant. The family did not include children in ‘adult’ issues of life and death, we were to be seen, not heard and never included. Grandfather just ‘disappeared’ from my life.

The Vale of Clywdd holds a special place in my heart. I have so many happy memories of times spent there staying with my Grandfather and later, after his death, my Aunt Della, who added another extension to the house.

I loved playing with the local children, particularly Norma Tearle from across the road, and Norma Cowling, who lived up in Evan’s Gully. We were free to roam the Vale; climb up the adjacent mountain to ‘First and Second’ Toppies; catch tadpoles in a pond fed by a perpetual spring that ran under a triangular shaped rock below First Toppies; swim in the creek that flowed down through the paddocks to the play ground, shops and pub at the end of Saywell Street; go exploring up into Evans Gully to the cool fern lined Horseshoe Falls; and gather with the local ‘gang’ of kids under the street light at the front of Grandfather’s home in the early summer evenings to play until called home for dinner. I will never forget the fun of bonfire night, when the kids were finally able to set light to the pile of branches they had been collecting in preparation for celebrating Empire night, and later the Queen’s birthday. Norma Tearle’s older brother frightened us once, when he climbed up the mountain to the first ridge of rocks in the pitch dark, and then shone a torch through red cellophane, illuminating his face to appear like some fearsome red faced zombie.

Often my Cousin Janelle (Cliff’s daughter”) joined me, particularly during the Christmas Holidays. Aunt Della set up a lovely old brass double bed in the garage, with a Christmas tree. Janelle and I would wake up on Christmas morning to a box of beautiful fresh fruit, including cherries and apricots, as well as our one special present from Santa.

Janelle and her sister Judith were with me one winter holiday when we woke to the thrill of a crisp snowy morning. It was our first experience of snow and I don’t think any of us have forgotten that special day.

Finally, my children, David, Deborah, Antony and Jennifer Gardiner were the fifth generation to visit the old Leake home in the Vale.